WEBVTT

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So in 1998, in
Jasper, Texas, there

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was a man by the name of James
Byrd Jr. He was going home

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after a birthday party.

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He was very drunk.

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Can people in the back hear me?

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Yeah.

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Excellent.

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He was drunk, and so
he was staggering home.

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Next to him pulls
up a pickup truck.

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James Byrd Jr. was a Black man.

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Next to him pulls
up a pickup truck

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filled with three white men.

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How many people here
are from the South?

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Or have family from the South?

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So you all probably know that
us Northern and Westerners

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tend to look at the South as
being a place where the Ku Klux

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Klan is just driving the
street, just with a noose

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out their window like a
lasso and just catching

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like stray Negroes, right?

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But what's interesting
is, because--

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and this is something a
lot of Southerners tell me,

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and I've seen evidence
of it myself--

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because racism is such
a part of the fabric,

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there's actually a really
interesting sort of negotiation

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around the space of race.

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To the extent that
my wife, when walking

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through a neighborhood,
a predominantly

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white neighborhood,
about 4 o'clock one day,

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an old woman on a porch
looked at her and said,

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honey, don't you
think it's about time

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you started going home?

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And my wife said, yes, ma'am.

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I think you're right.

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So that becomes a really
interesting thing.

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So anyway, James
Byrd Jr's walking.

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It's late.

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And this pickup truck
pulls up next to him.

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In the pickup truck
are three men.

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Two of them, James
Byrd Jr. knew.

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One, he didn't.

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Two of those men had met
the third man in prison

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where they were part of
a white supremacy gang.

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They invited James Byrd
Jr. to get into the pickup

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truck for a ride home.

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The two men who
knew him invited him

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to do that with the
intention to take him home.

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The actual intention
was to take him home

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until the third man
looked at them and said,

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that's some ho-ass shit,
giving a ride to a nigger.

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Now what red-blooded hetero
man in America, what patriot,

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is willing to be called ho-ass?

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Ho-ass?

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Ho was a term for women, excuse
me, and I am a fucking man.

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I am a man.

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And I am such the
man that I will

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refuse the idea of
taking the nigger home,

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because that's ho-ass.

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And who would want to be ho-ass?

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Instead, I will show
this nigger what

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a man, a heterosexual
white male,

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can do to a nigger in America
right now patriotically.

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And what they did was they
decided to try to lynch him.

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And their first
attempts to lynch him

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failed, because he was
desperate for his life.

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So he kind of fought back.

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And they figured,
OK, well, we're

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too drunk to make a rope anyway.

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So I got a better idea.

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Let's chain him to the
back of the pickup truck

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and drag him down the road.

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Now many of us heard about this.

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I did some research on
it, because my assumption,

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of course, was that-- let's
imagine this lectern is

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the back of the pickup truck.

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My assumption was that
he was chained like this.

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Right?

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But he wasn't.

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He was actually
chained like this.

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So you might want to
stand up, because I

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can't get any higher than this.

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I can try like this.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Yeah, so he's chained like this.

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They took him down
a stretch of road

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called Huff Creek Road near a
clump of woods called The Big

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Thicket.

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And The Big Thicket--

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this stretch of road is
about six miles long,

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and they dragged him behind
the pickup truck by a chain.

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At one point they testified that
he came loose from the chain.

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And so in true Warner
Brothers cartoon style,

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they backed the car up over
him-- bump, bump, bump.

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Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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Ha, ha.

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Bump, bump, bump,
vroom, vroom, OK.

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Now rechained him and dragged
him along the stretch of road.

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The evening ended when,
while doing fishtails with

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the truck-- which is to make
the back end of a vehicle kind

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of spread out--

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his body was swung
into a culvert,

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a pipe set into the side of
the road to drain the water,

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cutting him from here to here
and effectively decapitating

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him.

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People all knew he got
beheaded, but he actually

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lost an arm as well.

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That stretch of
forest, Big Thicket,

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there's a little rumor
about it that when

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the season is right
for hunting bucks,

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you can go to Big
Thicket, close your eyes,

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pull out a shotgun
full of buckshot,

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shoot right into the woods,
and get yourself a buck.

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"Big Thicket, Pastoral."

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"To Big Thicket a
KRAK is a buckshot.

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To Big Thicket, KRAK
is a stick broke.

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KRAK Headlights,
staggering home.

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The road kills buck.

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KRAK

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To Big Thicket we go.

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We go to sticks, to stick bucks.

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Hot drink, drink heads,
light, staggering the road.

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Long the trees, long the creek,

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KRAK, stick broke.

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Light kills.

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We go, we go to Big
Thicket to home on a kill.

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Buckshot, KRAK
Staggered by drink.

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Head light to Big Thicket, buck
on each pick-up, staggering.

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What you looking at?

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The pick-up headlights, long
the road, KRAK Buck broke.

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KRAK the white
stick, Big Thicket,

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long the trees, long the
creek, drink, staggered.

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What you doing here?

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Buck, drink, [INAUDIBLE], broke.

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White kill the buck
staggering home.

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KRAK.

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The trees pick up.

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We go, we go, we
gone to Big Thicket.

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What you doing here?

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Buck, stick to home.

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KRAK, stick broke.

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Huffhuffgogo.

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White light, breaks the
trees, break for home.

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Long the road home.

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White homing on we huffhuffgogo.

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Buckshot.

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KRAK, KRAK, KRAK, KRAK.

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We go, we go, we
gone to Big Thicket.

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To long the Huff Creek,
the rushes in the drink.

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Hothead whites.

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What you think you are?

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Boot, buck, huff,
KRAK, huff, KRAK.

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Is fists, boots, bone.

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KRAK.

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A stick broke.

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Buck, stick in the rushes.

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Buck back in the rushes.

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Put them back on.

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Put them back on.

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Buck head in the rushes.

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What you think?

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In the rushes.

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Put them back on.

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Put them back on.

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To Big Thicket we
go, to Huff Creek.

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Head, hot, we go to,
head, staggering.

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Long the trees.

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We stagger.

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Creek, head, the rushes.

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KRAK.

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A stick broke.

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The creek breaks.

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The hot light to
Big Thicket, we go,

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we go, we gone to white Huff
to buckshot to long road.

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We go, we go, we
gone to Big Thicket,

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to Huff Creek Road,
of drunk pick-ups.

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Rope the staggering buck.

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Hot drunk, head lights, rushes,
Huff Creek Road, pick-up,

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rushes.

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Drunk, it's screeching brakes.

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Huff Creek road by truck
and screeching, lights.

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What you, what you, what
you, what you, what you.

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To Big Thicket we
go, we go, gone.

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KRAK is a buck shot.

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KRAK is fists, boots, bone.

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KRAK.

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The road kills.

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KRAK.

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It broke.

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Stick, long the
staggering creek.

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We go, we go on."

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[APPLAUSE]

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