Chicago Public Schools promotes video defending rioting, looting during the summer of 2020

The video was posted to the Chicago Public School’s Office of Equity on June 24, 2022, under it’s tools section. The video, titled "How Can We Win," was posted to YouTube on June 1, 2020 by David Jones Media.

The video description states: "On Saturday May 30th filmmaker and photographer David Jones of David Jones Media felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. He decided to use his art to try and explain the events that were currently impacting our lives. On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full length documentary, they needed to hear them now."

In the video, Jones describes the "civil unrest" that had spread across the nation following the death of George Floyd, and expressed support and sympathy towards those that were rioting and looting.

Jones opens the video by stating that she’s heard commentaries from "wealthy black people’ who say the "we should not be tearing up our own communities," and instead, "we should be hitting them in the pocket, we should be focusing on blackout dates where we don’t spend money."

"But, you know, I feel like we should do both, and I feel like I support both," said Jones.

"And I'll tell you why I support both. I support both because there's when you have a civil unrest like this, there are three types of people in the streets. There are the protesters, there are the rioters, and there are the looters.

"The protesters are there because they actually care about what is happening in the community. They want to raise their voices and they're strictly to protest. You have the rioters who are angry, who are anarchists, who really just want to f*ck shit up, and that's what they're going to do regardless. And then you have the looters, and the looters almost exclusively are just there to do that, to loot.

Jones continued on to say that many are asking "well, what did you gain from looting," to which she responded, "as long as we’re focusing on the what, we’re not focusing on the why, and that’s my issue with that."

"Some people are like, 'well, those aren't people who are legitimately angry about what's happening. Those are people who just want to get stuff.' Okay, well then, let's go with that. Let's say that's what it is," said Jones.

Jones asked why in 2020, "the financial gap between poor blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it."

She said that these people are so "hopeless" that their only chance to get items like jewelry, electronics, and other items is during the rioting when they are presented with the opportunity.

"We need to be questioning that why are people that poor? Why are people that broke?"

Jones continued on to explain the economic situation in America.

"We must never forget that economics was the reason that black people were brought to this country. We came to do the agricultural work in the south and the textile work in the north. You understand that? That's what we came to do," said Jones.

"Now if I right now, if I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you, and for 400 rounds of playing Monopoly I didn't allow you to have any money, I didn't allow you to have anything on the board, I didn't allow for you to have anything. And then we played another 50 rounds of Monopoly and everything that you gained and you earned while you're playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you. That was Tulsa. That was Rosewood. Those are places where we built black economic wealth, where we were self sufficient, where we owned our stores, where we owned our property, and they burned them to the ground.

"And then finally at the release and the onset of that they allow you to play and they say, 'Okay, now you catch up.' Now at this point, the only way you're going to catch up in the game is that the person shares but wealth, correct? But when every time you share the wealth, then there's psychological warfare against you to say, Oh, you're an equal opportunity hire.

"How can you win? How can you win? You can't win. The game is fixed," Jones said.

"So when they say, 'why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?' It's not ours. We don't own anything. We don't own anything," she continued.

Jones noted a quote from late night television show hist Trevor Noah, with Jones paraphrasing, " There's a social contract that we all have, that if you steal or if I steal, then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation, but the person who fixes the situation is killing us."

"So the social contract is broken. And if the social contract is broken, why the f*ck do I give a sh*t about burning the f*cking Football Hall of Fame? About burning a f*cking target? You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a f*ck. You broke the contract for over 400 years. We played your game and build your wealth. You broke the contract when we built our wealth again, on our own, by our bootstraps in Tulsa, and you dropped bombs on us. When we built it in Rosewood, and you came and you slaughtered us? You broke the contract."

"So f*ck your target. F*ck your hall of fame. Far as I'm concerned they could burn this b*tch to the ground and it still wouldn't be enough, and they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge," Jones concluded.

This video is included in a large library of "equality tools" gathered by the office.

Other tools included in this library are a pamphlet on "White Supremacy Culture," a training on "," like Ibram X. Kendi’s "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You," and more.