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[Music] Just kill them, he says. My name is Britney Paige and this is the Page Perspective. I have seen some particularly abhorrent and nauseating things over the course of what is now more than a decade covering politics, but this one stopped me in my tracks. Not because I haven't heard such vitriol spewed, but because it was uttered with absolute seriousness on the most watched cable television news channel without any concern or backtracking or even a hint that it was inappropriate, that a person who hosts a I guess what I would call an entertainment propaganda news program felt comfortable uttering this on television. tells us that we are in a very bad place and there isn't any way to sugarcoat this. And this comment that we're going to get to shortly and that I will be discussing the implications of happened just before Charlie Kirk was murdered. An action that I've condemned repeatedly across platforms, including in my recent Substack where I wrote about the meaning of political violence. I have long championed an end to the gun violence epidemic in this country that took Charlie Kirk's life. On the same day that Charlie Kirk was killed, a school shooting occurred in Colorado. It was the 47th school shooting in the United States this year. 24 of those shootings have been on college campuses and 23 have been on K through2 school grounds. I think it's important to note though that this comment came before Kirk's death because in the aftermath of his death, violent rhetoric has amped up with many right-wing personalities calling for a war to avenge Kirk's death, blaming the left for how they speak about those on the right for Kirk's murder, even before we knew who the suspect was. But this violent rhetoric, you're going to hear from Brian Kilme, not only is it so normalized that his hosts move on smoothly without acknowledging what he said, it was said before they were even in emotional overdrive after Kirk's death. This is just how they talk. This is just how they think. In this clip, the three hosts are talking about the recent tragic murder of Ukrainian refugee Arena Zerutka, who was on her way home from work when she was stabbed by a man with a lengthy criminal record, D. Carlos Brown. He'd spent years in prison for prior convictions, armed robbery, felony lararseny, and breaking an entering. and he had a history of mental health issues and was homeless at the time of this attack on Arena. Now, on any other network, you might expect a discussion surrounding the failures of the system to keep a violent person out of society, but instead what we get are generalizations and a plea from Brian Kilme to simply kill them all. We don't have to. We feel so compassionate cuz you see the mental health crisis is happening. But it's not our job. We shouldn't have to live in fear while they figure out what's going on right there. Put them in a mental institution. Put them in a jail and you guys figure it out. But people having to duck and dive on the trains and the buses walking through the street. This is one case, but this is happening all across the country. And it's not a money issue. They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs. A lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you and or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now. Or uh involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill them. Just kill them. This is political violence. And again, the context for this clip is the tragic murder of Arena Zerutka. But when you listen to how that clip starts, Lawrence Jones is talking about forcefully treating those experiencing homelessness or those experiencing mental health issues, painting with broad strokes about people he sees on the streets as though everyone who is homeless or struggling with mental illness is at imminent risk of being violent toward those around them. So, we start to see we start to feel the moving of the goalposts where we aren't just talking about people who commit crimes. Not that that would make these comments any more appropriate, by the way, but the goalposts move to anyone who is homeless or mentally ill. That seems scary and who could potentially commit crimes. And all that does is create an environment where there is a heightened risk of violence against those suffering in the streets. Remember the story of the ex San Francisco fire commissioner who was accused of going around and spraying unhoused people with bear spray. Now in San Francisco, there are reports of people using the overdose reversal medication, Nlloxxone or Narcan, on people who are not uh experiencing an overdose, but actually just high in the streets as a way to terrorize them, giving them that medication that then sends them into withdrawal. According to the San Francisco Standard, quote, "In recent months, six homeless people told the standard they have been awoken by a stranger misusing or threatening to misuse the medicine while instructing them to move. This is the kind of violence this rhetoric can lead to. Instead of using their platform for good, the hosts fail to inform their audience of the realities here." Reading from the American Psychological Association, quote, "While perpetuating violence is relatively uncommon among those with serious mental illness, when it does occur, in many cases, it is intertwined with other issues such as co-occurring substance use, adverse childhood experiences, and environmental factors. And that certainly appears to be the case here for D. Carlos Brown. But these hosts and conservatives generally aren't concerned with systemic factors. They place the blame on the individual. And where do we get with that kind of thinking? We get Brian Kilme swooping in to say just kill them. Just kill them. This is dangerous because it's dehumanization. Period. Where would the lines end? Which which mental illnesses count as mental illnesses that Brian Kilme would deem someone worthy of death? Millions of people in this country have depression, anxiety, substance use disorders. Some people with substance use disorders also commit crimes like drunk driving. They deserve death, involuntary lethal injection, or do their lives have inherent value? Because of a lack of resources, jails have become a de facto mental hospital. Places where those with mental health conditions languish and often get worse, surrounded by conditions that are not healthy, not designed to heal, not designed for rehabilitation. Shouldn't our goals be rehabilitation where possible, even for those accused of committing crimes? And this is where the real issue comes in for me. I mean, there are those of us who recognize the many factors at play in this conversation, and then there are others like Brian who see this as black and white. They are criminals. They should be removed from society. They should be punished. Who is the they? How do we define the they? Who is in charge of defining the they? As we see when we have an administration like the Trump administration and a complicit Supreme Court, the circle of people who are caught up in the system considered a problem worth removing or who aren't considered as having equal rights, that circle starts to get larger and larger. And we've seen this divide in punishment versus rehabilitation in recent years, particularly in California, where Governor Gavin Newsome has announced a plan to focus on rehabilitation for the general population in California prisons with a test model starting in San Quinton. If you're recognized for good behavior, you get to participate in classes designed to reduce recidivism, that is reduce the possibility of someone committing more crimes upon release from prison. things like therapy, learning to code, learning sign language. You have the opportunity to learn skills that you can then take with you outside of prison. Conservatives responded to this in predictable fashion. And let's call this what it is. It's a political stunt. He could have done the state of the state and save some taxpayer money, but instead he's decided to go out on his failure tour. San Quinton is infamous. You know, he thinks it's going to get more press. The governor does not have a track record of doing rehabilitation. They automatically give good conduct credits to inmates without rehabilitation. So, is this actual rehabilitation or is it fake rehabilitation? The better question, I think, do conservatives even believe rehabilitation is possible? Are they interested in it? Do they want to invest in it? We need a starting point in this conversation. And if they aren't even interested in rehabilitation, they don't think it's possible. We aren't starting in the best place for changing minds here because D Carlos Brown didn't come out of prison rehabilitated. In fact, according to the CNN reporting, his family said he came out changed for the worse. Quote, D. Carlos Brown had spent more than 5 years in prison for robbery with a dangerous weapon. And when he got out in 2020, his sister said she felt she was dealing with a different person. He didn't seem like himself. Tracy Brown said her brother struggled to have simple conversations and couldn't hold down a job. He would sometimes become aggressive. A world in which we only emphasize punishment and laugh off rehabilitation is a world where violence begets violence. We don't know that things could have been different for Arena. Should D. Carlos had been in a prison rehabilitation program that emphasized treatment for his mental illness or if he had been in a forensic psychiatric hospital like the one that I work in each week where he could have received treatment from people who believe that rehabilitation is possible. But it seems like an investment worth trying. No. And and here's what those conservatives were poo pooing from Gavin Newsome. It's about addressing the reality that 95% of prisoners in the California system are going to be released back into the community. Are they going to be released healthier than they came in or more broken? Uh we're as dumb as we want to be. You reincarcerate them, the cost associated with that when you had that time in prison where we actually could have been fundamentally addressing the issue of trauma and ultimately addressing the issue of public safety. He's basing California's model off of one that's worked for decades in Norway, a country whose recidivism rate went from 70% to 20. In the 1990s, they were operating similar to how the American system was working. They're now an international model in terms of public safety. Uh we want to bring an innovative mindset to criminal justice reform. The overwhelming majority of people that are incarcerated and back in your neighborhoods. This seems like a necessary investment in addition to things that are more preventative like early childhood education, health care, food assistance, rent control, those investments that address the structural factors that increase the risk of violence. There is vast inequality in our justice system. If you're Jeffrey Epstein and Galain Maxwell, you get to decide which criminal charges sound best, which ones you'd prefer, as detailed in recent reporting from Bloomberg. and you get a cushy prison transfer or a sweet little work release deal after running a child sex trafficking operation for years. If you're the average person who struggles to access the kind of resources you need, whether housing or mental health treatment, and you find yourself on the streets where you commit a crime, your life is considered meaningless to people like Brian Kilme. But wait, because after widpread public outcry for him to be fired, which needs to continue, by the way, Brian Kilme was forced to make an onair apology today. Let's watch this and talk about it on the other side. Uh, and it actually happened when we were together on Wednesday, Lawrence, uh, in the morning. We were discussing the murder of Arena Serusa in Charlotte, North Carolina. how to stop these kinds of attacks by homeless mentally ill asalants, including institutionalizing or jailing such people so they cannot attack again. Now, during that discussion, I wrongly said they should get lethal in injections. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I'm obviously aware that not all mentally ill homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion. Lawrence, back to you. Right. Thanks, Brian. I'll see you tomorrow. Y more facts in the weekend. It's actually It's actually not obvious that you believe homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion, Brian. What is obvious is that you need to save your ass. I'm all for rehabilitation, though, as we've seen today. So, let's talk about what Brian can do to actually show he's changed since a 20 second scripted apology isn't going to cut it. One, accept being fired. Okay, it's probably not going to happen. Two, make your pleas for empathy and compassion a centerpiece of your show during the week. Not just a few seconds on the weekend, a sustained ongoing basis. Do you think we'll see that? Better yet, come with me to the forensic psychiatric hospital and do some gardening therapy with individuals in care. Brian, you know what you'll see there? The complicated nature of life. How nothing is black and white. how painful life is for so many people. How much of what happens to us and what our life is is out of our control. You think he'll take me up on that offer, guys? Let me know in the comments. I don't know. You know, as we as we wrap here, I have to say that in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, we've seen people start to create list of people to docks, those who haven't been sufficiently mournful in public, equating a lack of mourning or simply posting Charlie Kirk's own words for people to read as a celebration of his death. It is a dangerous time in this country. I just faced a Trump supporter in court a few months ago as he was sentenced for threatening me and Jesse Dolomore with rape and murder at any time of the day. I can log in and read comments from men getting creative about the ways that they'd like to sexually assault me. People who tell me that I need to be in the cages built for immigrants. When I've done live events, I've thought about the possibility of armed men showing up. I'm fully aware of this toxic political environment. I am, as a person on the left, one of the cockroaches that Charlie Kirk spoke of in this tweet, for example. But one thing you will never see from me on this channel is language that dehumanizes. We're living in this topsyturvy world where Zoran Mendani is called controversial because of his economic policies advocating for improved material conditions. Where you have to walk this careful line when talking about the reality of the legacy that Charlie Kirk leaves behind or you will be fired from your job. But the president of the United States can call the left the enemy from within. Call them scum. Charlie Kirk can call the left cockroaches and talk about the diminished cognitive processing power of black women compared to white men. Brian Kilme can call for exterminating an entire group of people. And the media continues to overemphasize the supposed hateful rhetoric coming from the left instead of grappling with the implications of this extensive dehumanizing language. Hate speech has deadly consequences. And Brian Kilme, host of Fox and Friends, gave us a strong example into the slippery slope to dehumanization that leads to violent places when using the powerful platform he has to inform millions on Fox News. He said we should just kill an entire group of people. Just kill them. Sure, he's apologized, but how many people saw that apology compared to the countless hours that Fox News spends demonizing the homeless and the mentally ill? What is one little apology when that is your constant and continuous record? My message to you all, be mindful of the media that you consume. support media that emphasizes our shared humanity, that works to highlight the complicated nature of life, the gray areas, and that rejects this poisonous political project that seeks to continuously demonize our most vulnerable. I'd love to hear from you on all this. Please share your thoughts in the comments below or call and leave me a fewer than three-minute voicemail 202-6561509 or send an email to info@thepagperspective.com. You can support my work by becoming a channel member. You just click the join button below for as little as $1.99 a month. Or you can go to patreon.comitpodcast. Please follow me elsewhere on social media if you're there. Brittany e page blue sky Instagram threads. And as always, thank you for being here. Take care and I'll see you next time.

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