Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher,
Speaker 2: where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
Speaker 1: I am your host Rams' job. He is Rams's job.
Speaker 3: I am q Ward.
Speaker 1: You are tuned inna Civic.
Speaker 2: Scycer, Yes you are, and we would like for you
Speaker 2: to stick around today because we are.
Speaker 1: Going to be talking uh to somebody who's very special.
Speaker 1: Very special guest is coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Marissa Estrada Rivera, also known as Ritzy P, is a
Speaker 2: un speaker, first generation Mexican American activist and host of
Speaker 2: Word to Your Mama, the podcast that amplifies diverse voices
Speaker 2: and celebrates shared experiences. She is also the co host
Speaker 2: of the get Down podcast, which covers policy and industry
Speaker 2: trends in DeFi and Web three and emerging tech affecting Black,
Speaker 2: Latino and Indigenous communities. Welcome to the show. We appreciate
Speaker 2: you taking the time out to talk to us today.
Speaker 4: Thank you well, Gia samagannized this for having me And
Speaker 4: let me just start off by saying, happy Happy Block
Speaker 4: History Day, month, year, all day, every day.
Speaker 1: We take that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will take it all and you know, obviously
Speaker 2: this is Black History Month and one of the things
Speaker 2: that we've been doing is providing excellent coverage on the
Speaker 2: Black Information Network. We can't always fit everything we'd like
Speaker 2: to endo this show, but for people who want more
Speaker 2: during Black History Month, please check us out on the
Speaker 2: Black Information Network, both myself and Q on the Black
Speaker 2: Information Network Daily podcast. But for now, we want you
Speaker 2: to stick around because we're going to be having a
Speaker 2: conversation really about the intersection of emerging tech and activism,
Speaker 2: emerging tech and marginalized communities and the opportunities there and
Speaker 2: things that people need to know about. And for those
Speaker 2: who are able to grab some additional content from our
Speaker 2: podcast or online, or for those able to stick around
Speaker 2: for the second part of the show, we're going to
Speaker 2: be discussing the protests around the country, the Day Without
Speaker 2: Immigrants protests with Ritzy on the show with us as well.
Speaker 2: So stick around for that and so much more. But
Speaker 2: first it is time for some ebony.
Speaker 1: Excellence, shall we? I think we shall.
Speaker 2: So today's abny excellence comes from Huffington Post, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of ebony excellence that has to be celebrated,
Speaker 2: but this is the article that we chose, and then
Speaker 2: we'll go from there. Alicia Keys appeared to call out
Speaker 2: President Donald Trump's efforts to mix diversity, equity and inclusion
Speaker 2: initiatives as she accepted the Doctor dra Global Impact Awards
Speaker 2: at the twenty twenty five Grammy ceremony last Sunday.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: DEI is not a threat, It's a gift, she said
Speaker 2: at one point opening her acceptance speech, prompting applause from
Speaker 2: the audience. She goes on to say, this is not
Speaker 2: the time to shut down the diversity of voices. We've
Speaker 2: seen this on stage, talented, hardworking people from different backgrounds,
Speaker 2: in different points of view, and it changes the game.
Speaker 2: DEI is not a threat, It's a gift. The more voices,
Speaker 2: the more powerful the sound. When destructive forces try to
Speaker 2: burn us down, we rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
Speaker 2: And as you see tonight, music is the unstoppable language
Speaker 2: that connects us all. It's so beautiful and you know,
Speaker 2: she's not the only example of the ABNY excellence, but
Speaker 2: of course her using her platform to push back where
Speaker 2: she could and the biggest night in music, we thought
Speaker 2: that was fantastic. I know there's another few examples Q
Speaker 2: is a little bit more learned when it comes to
Speaker 2: what actually happened.
Speaker 3: Right, the person who pulled me into the music space
Speaker 3: is going to try to make it seem like I'm
Speaker 3: the senior here. Just a lot of artists shared that
Speaker 3: stage in a way that was glorious. A lot of
Speaker 3: people were more engaged with the Grammys this year than prior,
Speaker 3: just because of the presence of some very very powerful
Speaker 3: black voices. Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce and Doci among those that
Speaker 3: were great winners and Janello. Ny got on the microphone
Speaker 3: at an after party and made sure she gave a
Speaker 3: shout out to Nelly for crossing over to the other
Speaker 3: spicy shout out. Shout out as a good way to
Speaker 3: put it, the kind of way I can say it.
Speaker 3: But black people showed up at the Grammys in a
Speaker 3: way that the Grammys hasn't always amplified us and platformed us,
Speaker 3: and it was a really good thing to see.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that, all right, So Ritzy p family, family,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: We gave a brief introduction, and I think that there's
Speaker 2: obviously a little bit more to the story. So beyond
Speaker 2: your bio, give us a little bit more about you,
Speaker 2: and in particular tell us about you know, Word to
Speaker 2: Your Mama, and tell us about the get Down podcast
Speaker 2: that this is kind of the space where you work.
Speaker 2: So we want to make sure that our listeners know
Speaker 2: who they're listening to and what qualifies you to kind
Speaker 2: of provide insight into the areas we're going to discuss today.
Speaker 5: Thank you, guys, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: So beyond the bio first gen gen X Mexican American,
Speaker 4: I'm a consultant and founder of Ritti Periwinkle. Through my consultancy,
Speaker 4: I help companies navigate the ever evolving Aberni tech space.
Speaker 4: I'm also a partner of Ola meteverso a member of
Speaker 4: Women of Web three. We just released a book entitled
Speaker 4: Women in the Web three Space Inclusive Futures. And I'm
Speaker 4: also a homeschooling mom. In regards to the podcast, Word
Speaker 4: to Your Mama, like you mentioned before, we amplify diverse
Speaker 4: voices from oscar winners to activists, and they just happen
Speaker 4: to be folks that are part of my tribe because
Speaker 4: I've come from the music industry and the art industry
Speaker 4: and emerging tech and then when we talk about The
Speaker 4: Get Down that is a newer podcast that launched end
Speaker 4: of May last year, and we explore policy, market trends,
Speaker 4: and emerging tech and how that impacts our communities, Black,
Speaker 4: Latin and Indigenous communities. So that's the gist of me
Speaker 4: and the two podcasts that you know, including your show
Speaker 4: and other shows like this super important right now, especially
Speaker 4: right now to just take up all the space.
Speaker 3: Wow, you are described as a diversity and emergent tech
Speaker 3: advocate for those who are unfamiliar and a little less
Speaker 3: tech savvy like myself. Give us some explanation around DeFi
Speaker 3: web three, AI, blockchain, and a bunch of other emerging
Speaker 3: tech and how that can potentially impact Black and Latino
Speaker 3: and Indigenous communities.
Speaker 4: So emerging tech, I don't want people to be afraid
Speaker 4: of it. Emerging tech just basically means innovative tech that
Speaker 4: significantly impacts industries, economies, and societies. So I'm talking about
Speaker 4: like stuff that really changes the game. So currently, as
Speaker 4: of today, emerging tech is AI, artificial intelligence, blockchain, spatial
Speaker 4: web that includes augmented reality, virtual reality, extended reality, and more.
Speaker 4: And to you know, because of time, let me just
Speaker 4: kind of break down some of the main points into
Speaker 4: try to break it down into like laming terms.
Speaker 1: We got block time, we got time, let's learn.
Speaker 5: Let's learn then okay, then let me let me, let
Speaker 5: me back it up.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: So you've heard like negative connotation when people talk about
Speaker 4: crypto and web three. Right, But let me break down
Speaker 4: and what I do and a lot of my presentations,
Speaker 4: whether it's for big tech conferences or if I'm speaking
Speaker 4: to middle schoolers, black and brown middle schoolers, I tell
Speaker 4: them about when the Internet was invented. Right, there's Web one,
Speaker 4: Web two, went three. But when it first started, and
Speaker 4: I think it was nineteen eighty six January of nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty six, it wasn't invented by us. It wasn't invented
Speaker 4: for us. We weren't even a thought, right, And then
Speaker 4: you had that. It was basically the beginning. You could
Speaker 4: have a page and that's it to give information. Web
Speaker 4: two is when you were able to have a dialogue
Speaker 4: online with email, social media, back and forth. Web three,
Speaker 4: which some of us are in and some of us
Speaker 4: on a two point five it's where we're on a
Speaker 4: whole nother situation. We're on a network of things, we're
Speaker 4: on the blockchain, and it's decentralize, we own our data,
Speaker 4: we can build on it. It's immunable to break it down.
Speaker 4: Blogchain is a public, decentralized ledger that records transactions via
Speaker 4: a network, and you can think of it kind of
Speaker 4: like a digital notebook where it records transactions and then
Speaker 4: when something's written on there, it can't be changed or erased,
Speaker 4: so it's really secure. And people say that it's immunable.
Speaker 4: And then there's records and they're public records. So say
Speaker 4: you know, Ramseys, you have a song, right, you came
Speaker 4: up with a song. You're going to put it on chain,
Speaker 4: on one of the different protocols, and Q you produced it.
Speaker 4: Then when you write on this ledger, there's a thing
Speaker 4: called a smart contract that's basically a receipt saying this
Speaker 4: is what I'm doing, this is what I'm putting on here,
Speaker 4: and it says Ramses did this song, he gets this
Speaker 4: percentage from all sales into perpetuity.
Speaker 5: Q did the production. He gets this.
Speaker 4: So it's on that and I can see at any time,
Speaker 4: so no one can go in. I can't go in
Speaker 4: and say like, oh no, he did this and this
Speaker 4: and this, No it's like on this chain of networks,
Speaker 4: so people can't really change it. So crypto is short
Speaker 4: for cryptocurrency, and it's basically digital money, but that is
Speaker 4: also on chain, so it's digital cash that exists online.
Speaker 4: And then it's not controlled currency, not controlled by banks
Speaker 4: or governments, and instead it runs on the blockchain. So
Speaker 4: you have different cryptocurrencies because they're named different things because
Speaker 4: they're on different chains, right. And then DeFi is just
Speaker 4: short for Decentralized Finance, and it's basically all of that,
Speaker 4: all of those transactions. It's online banking without the bank.
Speaker 4: It's how you handle money. You save it, borrow it,
Speaker 4: invest it. There's things called staking, there's stable coins, there's
Speaker 4: all these different things, and that also runs on the blockchain,
Speaker 4: and it lets you know, people manage their finances directly
Speaker 4: without a middleman or and you get to own your
Speaker 4: data and get to see what's happening. Sure, there's a
Speaker 4: lot more to it, and I feel like it could
Speaker 4: be very intimidating, But the reason why I'm in it,
Speaker 4: and the reason why I'm a diversity in Emergency tech
Speaker 4: advocate is because all this can and actually does right
Speaker 4: now help marginalize communities domestically and globally via social, creative
Speaker 4: and economic empowerment because there's less barriers to entry. There's
Speaker 4: a study when we were sent over via the get
Speaker 4: down to the DNC. I forget her name right now
Speaker 4: and should have wrote it down. She was at one
Speaker 4: of our events and they did a study. I think
Speaker 4: it was through Paradigm. They did a study and that
Speaker 4: showed how voters, Democratic, voters of color, how they're interacting
Speaker 4: with blockchain, Web three, emergent tech stuff, and it said
Speaker 4: that more are black and brown folks are interacting, not
Speaker 4: according to main media, but are interacting and contributing into
Speaker 4: Web three and using crypto than the stock market.
Speaker 5: And why is that? Because there's less barriers to entry.
Speaker 5: You can learn.
Speaker 4: From communities, you can learn by yourself and just experimenting,
Speaker 4: right do you I think? I think system systemically we've
Speaker 4: been told like, oh, stock market and all this stuff
Speaker 4: is kind of like a white people's type, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. So so the studies are out there,
Speaker 4: but I think mass media just portrays you see the
Speaker 4: negativity of Web three and and uh you know crypto,
Speaker 4: and you see tech bros. And you see, but it's
Speaker 4: really according to the data. It's really black, brown and
Speaker 4: in genous folks that are really utilizing building and not
Speaker 4: just consumers like we are in in you know web
Speaker 4: two spaces where we we we are huge consumers of
Speaker 4: a lot of things. And I think you guys recently
Speaker 4: like had a conversation about that. Here we're building, our
Speaker 4: people are building, you know, and it's about shifting the
Speaker 4: power to the people. And when we're you know, building
Speaker 4: and learning and engaging in the space, I mean, we
Speaker 4: could really shift for ourselves but also for other people.
Speaker 4: And so it gets a bad rap, but it's really
Speaker 4: us that are in that. I've been there since the
Speaker 4: end of the Fall of twenty twenty one and what
Speaker 4: people call a bull run. When I started, it was
Speaker 4: a bull run. It was like, oh, crypto people were
Speaker 4: making mad money and people were also getting rugged, which
Speaker 4: is when you know, people get you know, scammed and
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 5: And then when that went down, everyone a lot of
Speaker 5: people left.
Speaker 4: But the people that stayed, including myself, were the communities
Speaker 4: that I connected myself with, the communities that I'm a
Speaker 4: part of, the communities that I build with. And we're
Speaker 4: all of color, where women, you know, we're LGBTQI were disabled.
Speaker 4: We're like, oh, this is new. We don't have to have,
Speaker 4: you know, that much capital to be a part of this.
Speaker 4: All we need is, if possible, a good Internet connection,
Speaker 4: a phone and maybe a laptop. Doesn't even have to
Speaker 4: be new, and I can participate in this and build
Speaker 4: and you don't have to be a developer. You don't
Speaker 4: have to have that type of skills. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of no code stuff you can get with someone in
Speaker 4: a community. You know, Like one of the things I'm
Speaker 4: gonna mention, UH is on NAJU. It's a it's an
Speaker 4: HBCU on chain. They're one of the first communities that
Speaker 4: I built, UH, you know, a bridge with and in
Speaker 4: different communities, connecting us all Latinos, not just in domestically,
Speaker 4: but internationally and globally.
Speaker 5: So yeah, a lot of a lot of.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of it's a huge intersection
Speaker 4: of creative innovation, UH, emerging tech, utilizing all these different facets.
Speaker 4: There's so many different things, and then a social impact
Speaker 4: and I think that's where all this connects. And you know,
Speaker 4: as a as a advocate and activist, this is this
Speaker 4: is exciting to me.
Speaker 5: This is why I'm in the space.
Speaker 1: Sure, and I could see that because.
Speaker 2: You know, for a lot of folks who are again
Speaker 2: community to organizers and activists, especially under the current administration,
Speaker 2: it very much feels like there are a lot of
Speaker 2: forces out there that oppose your reality, that oppose your
Speaker 2: vantage point.
Speaker 1: You know. Think you know, social media.
Speaker 2: You mentioned barriers to entry with respect to you know,
Speaker 2: the stock market and so forth. Those are historical sort
Speaker 2: of barriers, but nowadays people can kind of silence your voice,
Speaker 2: People can interfere with your capacity to organize. People can
Speaker 2: allow misinformation to flow and silence your correct information, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 2: You know, I definitely see the benefit in terms of,
Speaker 2: like you know, moving your finances beyond a bank, you know,
Speaker 2: so there's you know, that might provide a little bit
Speaker 2: more security actually if you're an organization or something like
Speaker 2: that and you're you know, going against what you know,
Speaker 2: the current administration is saying should be the norm. But
Speaker 2: you know, speaking about you know, social media platforms and
Speaker 2: so forth, and a figure like Elon musk Uh and
Speaker 2: you know, remember we had that scare about the sale
Speaker 2: of TikTok and that I guess that's still lingering in
Speaker 2: the air. You know, I mentioned meta removing the fact checkers.
Speaker 2: How can marginalized communities and activists reclaim the ownership of
Speaker 2: their online voice because I remember you mentioning something about
Speaker 2: there there being alternative platforms.
Speaker 4: Yes, and let me just speakin with recently on social media,
Speaker 4: something was written about this person that you mentioned, and
Speaker 4: they said, you can take the part, you can take
Speaker 4: the boy out of the aparth type, but you can't
Speaker 4: take the apartheid out of the boyd. So marginalized community
Speaker 4: is what we can do right now because before TikTok
Speaker 4: was a place where we could learn, share resources, learn activate,
Speaker 4: make plans for all these different things.
Speaker 5: And it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: When we had that pause right where they took us
Speaker 4: offline and came back. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 4: noticed it, but we all did. It's not the same.
Speaker 4: It's been compromised. And I don't know if you've seen
Speaker 4: people on TikTok talking about lipsticks, been holding holding paper
Speaker 4: with what they're really talking about, because they'll push beauty stuff,
Speaker 4: they'll push that type of frivolous stuff that when when
Speaker 4: they hear because they're listening to audio they're listening, they're
Speaker 4: they're seeing what's being said and what's in the captions,
Speaker 4: so they're suppressing those that are telling the truth that
Speaker 4: are you know, there's certain trigger words. So what I
Speaker 4: want us all to do is look for alternatives and
Speaker 4: not have to, you know, relate lie on big tech
Speaker 4: because really, right now, all the platforms are mostly meta.
Speaker 5: Right, A lot of people don't know.
Speaker 4: They're like, oh, well, WhatsApp Well it used to be,
Speaker 4: but now that's meta, and so there's not even that
Speaker 4: many spaces that the regular community that's not in emerging
Speaker 4: tech knows up. So what are some alternatives if you
Speaker 4: want to go into centralize and stay within that network
Speaker 4: because you feel that that's safe. Then there's two that
Speaker 4: I know that are black owned that I've found that
Speaker 4: are are big platforms. There's fan base that you guys
Speaker 4: know about. And then there's Spill that was two black
Speaker 4: owners that used to work at Twitter.
Speaker 5: I refuse to call it x and then they started
Speaker 5: that right.
Speaker 4: But I really feel this is a great opportunity for
Speaker 4: those to know more about blockchain and to learn and
Speaker 4: to be on decentralized social platforms. I'm not paid, I'm
Speaker 4: not sponsored by them, but I believe in what they're doing.
Speaker 4: There's so many social media apps on on chain, on chain,
Speaker 4: but the one that sticks out right now is blue Sky.
Speaker 4: I mean there's there's institutions and activists and academics and
Speaker 4: companies that are literally announcing we're leaving Twitter and we're
Speaker 4: going to blue Sky because of what's happening that we're
Speaker 4: you know, we're being silenced, it's being watched, all that
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be on a platform owned by
Speaker 2: a Nazi, No, not at all.
Speaker 4: Right, So blue Sky for those who do not know,
Speaker 4: because there's a lot of people that are on Blue
Speaker 4: Sky that have no idea that it's decentralized and that's
Speaker 4: a good thing that helps with mass adoption.
Speaker 5: We're all on the Internet.
Speaker 4: You don't know how it's built, you don't know how
Speaker 4: it's run, you're just using it, right, But blue Sky
Speaker 4: is decentralized. It's it's right currently in its iteration right now.
Speaker 4: It's similar to Twitter. They're currently working on a TikTok
Speaker 4: esque you know, part of it on arm of it,
Speaker 4: photo arm of it like to to you know, to
Speaker 4: bring more people in. But it's built on what's called
Speaker 4: at protocol. It's its own type of blockchain, and you
Speaker 4: can customize your algorithms. It's open source, so you can
Speaker 4: dictate what you see and don't see. It's people can
Speaker 4: build with their own things on top of the platform.
Speaker 4: And then also it's a place where you know, it
Speaker 4: feels when you log on, you don't have to do
Speaker 4: all this extra stuff that a lot of things in
Speaker 4: emerging tech have you do where it's like I don't
Speaker 4: know what I'm doing, this is so foreign and it
Speaker 4: feels unsafe. But you can definitely just log on and
Speaker 4: it just works like you don't even know. You log
Speaker 4: on with the email if you want to, you don't
Speaker 4: necessarily have to do with the wallet. So I feel
Speaker 4: like those are great places right now, go claim your
Speaker 4: your user name, even if you're not going to use
Speaker 4: it immediately, you know, like I did to your brother,
Speaker 4: I was like, claim those things because people can claim
Speaker 4: them now, and then you're not going to be able
Speaker 4: to have your name, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: so those are the types of things that was what
Speaker 4: can you do to you know, decentralize and get off
Speaker 4: and have to worry and rely on big tech because
Speaker 4: they make if you don't know already, folks, they make
Speaker 4: money off of your data. They want as many people
Speaker 4: to be on there, they want you to post, they
Speaker 4: want you to put your because if you notice, you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I was just talking about that dog food boom, yeah,
Speaker 4: dog dog ads and stuff like that, because they're making
Speaker 4: money off of your search stuff like what your algorithm is,
Speaker 4: what you're into and if you're on decentralized then you
Speaker 4: know that's your data.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'll take it a step further too, because I
Speaker 2: saw something recently saying that Google was rolling back their
Speaker 2: DEI initiatives and that felt kind of hurtful. They were
Speaker 2: talking about they were going to restructure or something like that.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, kind of reducing your reliance on big
Speaker 2: tech seems like as a smart move.
Speaker 3: Before we change subjects, I just want to, you know,
Speaker 3: before we move on, can you let us know some
Speaker 3: community resources, things that folks can learn more about and
Speaker 3: get more information, more access to emerging tech, and ways
Speaker 3: they can incorporate that into their community organizing efforts.
Speaker 1: Yes, about about one minute.
Speaker 4: Okay, one minute, okay, hold on one second, because I it's.
Speaker 5: Not in order, and I had some listed it's.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it okay.
Speaker 4: So for trusted sources for our communities to learn more
Speaker 4: about emerging tech, they can go check out Ola, meta verso,
Speaker 4: they can check out on agu, Women of wib three
Speaker 4: and for those that are Spanish speaking, they can check
Speaker 4: out cryptoc And as far as utilizing emerging tech, they
Speaker 4: can use it for fundraising so that it's transparent, you
Speaker 4: know exactly where it's going to so it's not you're
Speaker 4: not getting you know, bamboos.
Speaker 5: Out of that.
Speaker 4: You can use AI to help you make data driven
Speaker 4: decisions and how to engage with the community better. And
Speaker 4: then you can utilize the centralized social media platforms so
Speaker 4: you can organize digitally across the nation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember back in it might have been
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, I was introduced to a couple of platforms
Speaker 2: that existed beyond the reach and the discernment of police departments.
Speaker 2: And so this idea that you know, community or sorry,
Speaker 2: information needs to be able to flow freely without being
Speaker 2: compromised is something that has been with us for at
Speaker 2: least a few years in the tech space. And so
Speaker 2: to know that there are some additional resources out there.
Speaker 1: That certainly helps out real quick. What is your social media?
Speaker 5: It's ritzyp across all social media.
Speaker 1: Fantastic