A black grandmother who grew up in the Ferguson, Missouri, came out swinging against the Black Lives Matter movement in an emotionally charged video in which she condemned the activists as little more than “thugs” who ought to point the fingers of blame at themselves, not police.
“Who do you think they’re protesting for – the thugs, the criminals? Because they’re howling police brutality,” said Peggy Hubbard, who now lives in Illinois, in a video posted to her Facebook page that’s received at least seven million views.
“Are you kidding me? Police brutality? How about black brutality. You black people, my black people, you’re the [expletive] most violent [expletive] I have ever seen in my life.”
Hubbard goes on to say: “You’re shooting at the police. Police drops your ass, ‘oh poor so and so. He died due to police brutality.’ One-hundred and twenty-seven homicides later, ya’ll want to holler police brutality? Black people: You’re a [expletive] joke. You’re tearing up communities over thugs and criminals.”
She then said police are naturally going to shoot back at those who try to shoot them.
“You think the police are out here for fun? You think they’re out here for games? They’re not going to tuck you in,” Hubbard said, in the video. “They’re not going to give you a cookie and sing you a lullabye and tuck you in. No, they’re going to pop a cap in your ass. You shoot at them, they’re going to shoot at you.”
Click below to hear Hubbard’s interview with CNN:
[jwplayer akyK1fUO]
Hubbard said on CNN she made and posted the video because she was angry at the violence in the community where she was raised, but particularly at the fact that protesters took to the streets to denounce the police shooting of an armed 18-year-old suspect, Mansur Ball-Bey, after he allegedly pointed a gun at them, but did nothing for 9-year-old Jamyla Bolden.
Bolden was killed by a drive-by shooter who fired into her Ferguson home while she sat doing homework.
Police are still seeking suspects; as Hubbard said on CNN, the shooters fired into the wrong home. “She’s killed by a drive-by shooting and it’s the wrong house. It should have never happened to anybody, but it happened to her, a child,” Hubbard said, explaining what sparked her anger and decision to make the video.
She also pointed to the fact the media was quick to cover Ball-Bey’s shooting and the activist presence, but very little was said about the innocent 9-year-old girl’s death.
“There was as a full blown riot in St. Louis … on the news,” she said, adding she and her husband were watching television when the news cut into programming to cover the police shooting of Ball-Bey and ensuing protests.
She went on: “Jamyla died the day before. I didn’t hear anything about it on the news until the next day … It was just a blip. … This guy died and all of a sudden there’s a riot in the neighborhood where I grew up. And there’s nothing for her. And we’re hollering Black Lives Matter. He had his chance to matter. He chose his path. He chose his destiny. Jamyla had never got her destiny. She never got her promises. Her life mattered. Her dreams mattered. Her vision mattered. She could have been the next secretary of state. … she never got her chance.”
Hubbard, a U.S. Navy veteran who also worked for the IRS and is a cousin to East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Hubbard, according to Heavy.com, admitted on CNN she has received threats of violence, laced with racial epithets, from those who disagree with her views.
And her response?
“Bite me,” she said, CNN reported. “I’m not afraid to speak my mind. If they want to say that, knock yourself out. Freedom of speech … but they know I am telling the truth. … They know I am speaking the word. And the word right now is we are wrong. We are dead wrong.”
Hubbard also posted a new video on her Facebook page. She began by apologizing for the profane language in her original rant. “That is not me,” she said, explaining that she was very upset “because of the deterioration of our society and our neighborhoods, and losing that little girl. As a mother, as a wife, as a grandmother … I have a grandchild that age, and it broke my heart, because what if it was mine?”
She pledged to refrain from profane language going forward, but said she has no intention of keeping quiet.
“Given all the comments I received, black and white, saying, ‘Don’t stop, we need your voice,’ I’m going to keep going,” she said. “This is not a race issue. It never has been a racial issue … This is about accountability and responsibility … Last night we had another homicide … and we’re saying black lives matter. Black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter, Lithuanian lives matter, Russian lives matter, life in general matters … but it’s never gonna get better until we admit that we have a problem in our community.”
