GONZALEZ: Right now, where are you at with understanding the protests versus anything else that’s going on? For me, it’s a really confusing time. How are you looking at the events of the past week or two weeks?
MONTEIRO: Rioting and looting has always been part of any nonviolent movement, any uprising, any social change. Even back in the day when civil rights was doing nonviolent movements, there was violence in the movement. Buses were getting burned. Churches were getting bombed. People were sitting at a lunch counter getting their head kicked in, right? So you can’t separate the two. I expect rioting and looting at this point as a black man who’s been black his whole life, that’s lived in this country his whole life. You know, since the colonial days, looting and rioting has always been a part of it. When you have two sides of a conflict and one side is not willing to use nonviolent methods to resolve the conflict, violence is going to happen.
GONZALEZ: What would you say to people that think that the violence or the looting takes away from the “peaceful” protests that are happening? Or the ones that are happening during the day versus the violence and looting?
MONTEIRO: It doesn’t take away. It’s almost like people are using the looting and rioting as an excuse not to face the real issue, right? It’s, “Oh, my goodness! Black people are dying, but they shouldn’t be out here rioting and looting.” No, we should be out here, rioting and looting because black people are getting killed! Right? So, change the priority of it. And here’s the other thing. What really hurt me about what happened in the last couple of days: As a nonviolence trainer, I’ve trained police forces in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Selma, Ireland. Out of all these police forces, Providence police force is way ahead of the game. The relationship that Providence has with this community, it hurt me because as bad as having a police system, in a police state. I am the first one to say that I’m anti-police-system, right? I think we need to find a better way of having some type of police force. But I am kind of upset because we don’t have some of these issues that these other cities have. I’ve seen these issues that other cities have. I’ve seen issues where a community and the police are totally separate. We don’t want nothing to do with you. You don’t have nothing to do with us. We don’t have that issue here in Providence. And that comes with because we have good leadership in the police force. We have good leadership in the community. And the work has been done before. So we’ve developed the relationships with the police force. So when I see these people out here, looting and rioting, I get it. But that’s not us. That’s not what we’re dealing with. It’s not us. We don’t have those types of issues. Very fortunately, we don’t. Do we have officers that are not doing the job correctly? Of course we do. That’s in anything, right? Do we have officers that maybe cross the line that have done some things that they shouldn’t have? Yes.
GONZALEZ: So before you said, you know, this sort of unrest of rioting and looting is going to happen when both sides are not following non violence —
MONTEIRO: One side. If one side does not want to acknowledge the method of non violence to solve this issue, we could do a better way. If one side refuses. This is what’s gonna happen.
GONZALEZ: How would you describe the refusal of non violence today?
MONTEIRO: We have somebody in the White House that’s, you know, telling police, “You can do whatever you want.“ right? And how is that gonna resolve anything? And then you’re going to get people with all this power with all this military to say, “Hey, if you see them looting, shoot them.” That’s bananas to me.
GONZALEZ: What are you seeing for the next couple of days and how these protests play out on a local level?
MONTEIRO: What’s great about it is that you see a lot of young people that are really stepping up, right? They’re like, “Hey, listen, this is my world that I’m living in. So I got to say something.” I honestly think the looting and the rioting is over. I wanted to say that I think we had a little five minutes, fifteen minutes, got it out of our system, hopefully. So for the next week or two or whatever, it’ll be protests, it’ll be meetings. It’ll be direct action that doesn’t include violence, that doesn’t include looting and rioting. I think we got that out of our system.
GONZALEZ: You said before direct action? That’s something that you hope comes in the next couple of days? What sort of direct action are you looking to see?
MONTEIRO: Things that are in my head personally is the hiring process of police. Again, it’s hard for me to say it because again, we don’t deal with what other cities deal with but if we want to maintain that track record and even improve even more, I think there should be a lot more hiring of people in the community. Having a record should not disqualify you from being a police officer because we hire police officers with clean records and come to find out they commit the worst crime sometimes on the police. But now you have somebody that’s been through it, that’s dealt with it, that’s come out in front of it, that’s showed some type of class for this person, showed some type of integrity display. Like alright man, let’s give it a shot. We’re gonna hire you and maybe you will be good for the police. The community knows who you are. You’re an individual you know what it’s like to suffer, you know what it’s like to do something wrong. And that voice coming from somebody like that, I think it’s gonna be a lot louder than somebody that doesn’t work in this community, that doesn’t live in this community that’s going to come here and tell me how to act. But again, the protest itself was a direct action: now what? We’re gonna march. We’re gonna go to Kennedy Plaza. We’re gonna go to the statehouse. What are we marching for? What is the next step? I need something in my hand to bring to you and say, “Here. This is what we need to happen.”
This is something serious. We’ve been here before. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be here again. But this is something that took over the world. The world took notice of what just happened to Mr. George Floyd. We’ve had our Trayvon Martins. We’ve had our other things, but that stayed local, in the United States. This is something that it’s affected the world. So, we need to take this opportunity. We need to use this momentum. While the fire is smoking hot, let’s do something with it. Right? If you can’t figure out what to do after this, I’m afraid of what’s it gonna take for people who listen, I’m very afraid of what it’s gonna take for people to listen if we can’t listen to this.
GONZALEZ: Well, what are you feeling right now as you tell me these things? Is it excitement? Is it just intensity? Like what is the emotion?
MONTEIRO: It’s a little bit of everything. Its anger, it’s frustration, it’s energy. It’s positive energy. It’s negative energy. It’s yelling and screaming is kicking in. It’s being proud of how we’re sticking in there. It’s an accumulation of all types of feelings. And that’s okay. People are supposed to be angry. You’re supposed to be upset. You’re supposed to be frustrated. Supposed to be worried. You’re supposed to be scared. Because what just happened is scary. It’s scary. So I feel all types of things. But the most thing I do feel is non violent. It’s funny. To me, the more violence I see, the more non violent — I’m like The Hulk. The angrier you get, the stronger I get. So the more violence I see, this is even more of a reason to understand non violence. This is even more of a reason to be nonviolent, use nonviolent strategies. It’s not a reason to be even more violent than they are. It’s a reason to be more nonviolent.
GONZALEZ: Is there anything else that you want to add about right now and thoughts to the future?
MONTEIRO: I was there last Saturday when we were down Kennedy Plaza when they had the first time, and there were a lot of white people down there. So when they come back home, you know, there’s white people asking me in conversation: “What can I do? What can I do?” And I think, as a white person, especially for all the white people that was down at Kennedy Plaza, you need to take that same energy back to your neighborhood, to your community, your family, your friends, your job. Don’t just [put up your fist and say] “Hey, I’m here on Saturday. I support you” and then go back to your community and your friends and family and continue your life. No. Take that same energy, have those same conversations, challenge people. Direct action. Be an agitator. Agitation is good. Force people to have these conversations. Make people uncomfortable. That might have just been one day for you to come support us. For us, it’s every day. And so we need people like you to keep having this conversation. Spread that message. Talk about it. Be very aggressive with this message of nonviolence and change. And that’s what a lot of white people could do is: talk to those people that don’t feel the same way they do.
