KJ Brooks Instagram
Keiajah “KJ” Brooks is an activist based in Kansas City, Missouri. A video of Brooks speaking during the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners Meeting has recently gone viral. In the video, Brooks accuses the department of using black children as photo opportunities, and says she wants to turn the building into “luxury low cost housing.”
Brooks first shared the video of her speech to her own Instagram. She wrote, “i spent this morning DRAGGING the board of police commissioners for their COMPLICITY in the brutalization and MURDER of black people in kansas city. they looked soulless and apathetic as the others detailed their frustration and anguish about the gravitas of this situation. so i used my time to drag them. 😊 “
Brooks is 20 years old, according to her Instagram.
Here’s what you need to know:
WATCH: Brooks Clarifies She Doesn’t Want ‘Reform,’ Calls Out Specific Members of the Board
In the video above, you can see Brooks’ speech during the Board of Police Commissioners. Brooks opened her speech by saying,
“Fair warning, I’m not nice and I don’t seek to be respectable. I’m not asking y’all for anything because y’all can’t and won’t be both my savior and my oppressor. I don’t want reform. I want to turn this building into luxury low cost housing. These would make some really nice apartments.
So I’m not here begging anything of soulless white folks and self-preserving Black folks. You get one life, and you all in this room have chosen profits over people. And that’s pathetic.
So I’m going to spend the next two minutes reading y’all for filth, something I’m sure nobody has ever done.”
Brooks proceeded to tear into every single individual on the board, accusing them of racism, among other things. At one point, Brooks said of one person, “You age like trash when you’re racist.”
She concluded with a Bible verse. “Anyways, I’ll leave you soulless, profit-driven, avaricious, greedy, godforsaken humans, including ANYONE who works in this building, with one Bible verse,” she said. “From the Bible. Detailing the life of Jesus. Jesus Christ, who was another unarmed Black man murdered by authorities in the book you Hellbound people claim to love so much. ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit its soul?’”
The video of Brooks tearing into the police board has since been viewed over four million times. Brooks tweeted some background info about the moments leading up to when she spoke: “they tried to skip my name and end public comments and i hopped right on up and let them know that i signed up lol.”
Brooks Received a Civil Rights Award in September for Her Activism in Kansas City
According to a photo shared on her Twitter account, Brooks received an award in September for her work as an activist in the Kansas City area. Specifically, she received a Civil and Human Rights Award from a group of civil rights organizations.
She tweeted of the award, “I will never stop the fight for the liberation of black people. BLACK LIVES MATTER 🖤✊🏽“
Brooks Is an Activist, Community Organizer, & Co-Founder of the Chingona Collective
According to her Instagram, Brooks is an activist, community organizer, and co-founder of an organization called the “Chingona Collective.”
Brooks describes the collective as “a multi-cultural, queer-inclusive, intersectional organization led by black, indigenous, and Latinx women who live lives dedicated to the liberation of their peoples domestically and abroad.”
Brooks shared more about the Collective in another post. She wrote, “We are steeped in activism, political education, community organizing, and social events with specialization in issues that plague our communities in KC directly.”
You can support the Collective through the following apps, per Brooks’ Instagram:
- cash app: $thachingonas
- venmo: thachingonas
- paypal: lachingonacollective
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