Speaker 1: It could happen here is the podcast that This is
Speaker 1: where we talk about things that are happening here. Generally
Speaker 1: things fallen apart um, sometimes things getting put back together.
Speaker 1: Today we have a story that I wasn't sure if
Speaker 1: we were ever going to cover. Um. In brief, we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about a group called Black Hammer
Speaker 1: that is, on its surface, a leftist anti colonial political organization. Um,
Speaker 1: and a reality is more or less occult. Um. The
Speaker 1: reason we're talking about them is that someone is now
Speaker 1: dead connected with them. The story is interesting and messy
Speaker 1: and says a lot about the way social media works
Speaker 1: today and the way that the United States is essentially
Speaker 1: like forty different cults in a trench coat. Um. So Uh,
Speaker 1: today I'm here with James Stout and we are talking
Speaker 1: with journalist W. F. Thomas. H Thomas. What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you? What do you? How?
Speaker 1: How are you doing today? Uh? Today is a day, Um.
Speaker 1: This story is stuff is still coming out. About an
Speaker 1: hour ago, charges were finally posted um for the cult leader. Um.
Speaker 1: But that's further along. Yeah, the story. If you hear
Speaker 1: chirping in the background, those are for live chickens. So
Speaker 1: my apologies all little babies. I just got rabbits that
Speaker 1: I have now living in my my chicken facility, and
Speaker 1: they seem to be thriving. It's nice. I like having
Speaker 1: little animals around all Right, So who are Black Hammer
Speaker 1: and how did how did they get to the present position?
Speaker 1: So I think we should probably start of like nineteen right,
Speaker 1: is kind of when these these folks sort of start
Speaker 1: to come on the scene. Yeah, Um, you know you
Speaker 1: could take this story back a lot further. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: do that. Um. So, sometime in the late eighties, Um
Speaker 1: Augustus Romaine Jr. Was born. Um, this is the person
Speaker 1: we're commonly known as Gazikazo. Um they used they then
Speaker 1: pronouns who would go on to be the leader of
Speaker 1: this group. Um. Cazo grew up in Stone Mountain outside
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, UM and in the early had kind of
Speaker 1: a lifestyle blogger YouTube thing going on. Um was a
Speaker 1: self professed Cosmos biggest fan and generally seemed like they
Speaker 1: were trying to get famous, Yeah, like in fluencers style famous. Right.
Speaker 1: This was not at all political at this period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And UM, that's gonna be kind of the red thread
Speaker 1: through this story is Caso. I'm gonna refer to them
Speaker 1: as CASO. I guess this remained junior. Um. Wanting to
Speaker 1: be famous is kind of, unfortunately the main thing that
Speaker 1: drives most of what has happened. UM. At some point,
Speaker 1: you know, in the mid um Cardso took this turn
Speaker 1: and started making more incendiary videos. UM. I don't have
Speaker 1: them directly in front of me, so I don't want
Speaker 1: to misquote them. UM, but kind of like going out
Speaker 1: pushing this concept like white people are evil, going for
Speaker 1: this very specific type of leftism, and um Ghazi Carso
Speaker 1: gets taken taken under the wing of and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: mispronounce this name uh O'Malley yesh hella UM. And this
Speaker 1: is a person who is leading a group in St. Petersburg,
Speaker 1: Florida called the African People's Socialist Party UM and Africans
Speaker 1: People Socialist Party. It was part of this larger thing
Speaker 1: called the Huru Solidarity movement. I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: still around, but you know their their ideology was their
Speaker 1: world communism, African internationalism, that type of thing. And what
Speaker 1: is let's talk a little bit about the word of Huru,
Speaker 1: because that's something if you if you've ever been in
Speaker 1: and around Proud Boys. First off, I'm sorry, it's not
Speaker 1: a fun experience generally, but they like to shout at
Speaker 1: huru UM, and I understand that that's kind of related
Speaker 1: one way or they outed the other to this. Yeah, so, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't have it directly in front of me what
Speaker 1: or huru means. But you know the reason probably say
Speaker 1: that is because of Gazi Cadzo. There are times several
Speaker 1: times when Codso spoke made appearances with Gavin Mcinness, founder
Speaker 1: of the Proud Boys, and Carso generally became and still
Speaker 1: is treated as a loll cow UM kind of this
Speaker 1: target for derision to poke at to see what is
Speaker 1: this person doing which is still happening right now. Unfortunately, UM.
Speaker 1: You know, Carzo rose through the ranks of this group
Speaker 1: UM and then eventually found out that this is basically
Speaker 1: a cult. The African People's Socialist Party UM had a
Speaker 1: specific focus on membership from colonized people, people of color, UM.
Speaker 1: But it turns out this was being steered entirely by
Speaker 1: a group of white people. So it's out of the
Speaker 1: ashes of this experience, this abusive experience UM, this Coli group, cause,
Speaker 1: along with some other people leave this group and they
Speaker 1: go onto for a Black Hammer in February of two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, which the originally was the Black Hammer Organization UM.
Speaker 1: And there's some really good write ups, especially read Voice
Speaker 1: definitely recommend that and there are I think you broke
Speaker 1: out for a second. So the title of that article
Speaker 1: is the Devil Wears a Dashiki. It's like six seven parts,
Speaker 1: but it's really good conference and that gets into a
Speaker 1: lot of what's wry to get a lot of this
Speaker 1: information from UM. And there were additionally, what would happen
Speaker 1: to some of these people who founded this group Black
Speaker 1: Hammer Organization who are also parts of the African People's
Speaker 1: Socialist Party UM would disavow ghazi kads that would disabout
Speaker 1: Black Hammer and have kind of their own statement about
Speaker 1: here's what happened, you know, and which they say, Hey,
Speaker 1: we never recovered from this experience in this traumatic group,
Speaker 1: in this cult like group, and instead went on to
Speaker 1: found this new one, and we're very you know, it
Speaker 1: was kind of failed from the start to become this
Speaker 1: other cult like group. So just to clarify on the
Speaker 1: hurry thing that it comes from the African People's Socialist Party, right,
Speaker 1: and then he's they have taken it and run with
Speaker 1: it in the Black Hammer organization. So the African People's
Speaker 1: Socialist Party was part of this umbrella or group called
Speaker 1: the who Solidarity Movement. This group is still around if
Speaker 1: you look at like the Channel five with Andrew Callahan
Speaker 1: has a video where they go to this march for
Speaker 1: reparations and that group is the WHU Solidarity Movement. Got it?
Speaker 1: Okay if you're familiar with that. Yeah, yeah, so we
Speaker 1: get this organization founded and kind of from what my
Speaker 1: perusal of because I've also you can go to their website.
Speaker 1: Black Hammer has like a news site. Um, they are
Speaker 1: kind of building huh oh yeah, yeah, they're they're kind
Speaker 1: of for now. Yeah. They bill themselves as like an
Speaker 1: anti colonial organization that is specifically like, um, like one
Speaker 1: of the things they do is they have like a
Speaker 1: white people's auxiliary that like is for the purpose of
Speaker 1: people paying reparations. Um. They have you know, they carried
Speaker 1: out a couple of actual direct actions during including like
Speaker 1: handing out masks and whatnot. Um. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: they seem to exist primarily to drive attention to themselves
Speaker 1: and thus donations via social media. And yeah, that that's
Speaker 1: that's I think if you've, if you've personally interacted with
Speaker 1: Blackhammer propaganda at all, it is probably because you've seen
Speaker 1: someone on the internet talking about how Anne Frank Uh
Speaker 1: is a Karen or something like that. Yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah yeah. So, so I want to touch
Speaker 1: on something real quick that you mentioned, you know, in
Speaker 1: these comments from the people who found the organization, left
Speaker 1: the organization, these were these are still true believers who
Speaker 1: believe in this cause of de colonialization of African internationalism
Speaker 1: and who do want to build a better world and
Speaker 1: do good things. Um. You know, in talking with people
Speaker 1: have survived the cold, it sounds like Causo probably never
Speaker 1: was a true believer, but there weren't true believers around
Speaker 1: Causo who believed in this cause. Um. And because about
Speaker 1: we're able to be abused, to be profoundly abused by
Speaker 1: Carso and the people working directly under Canso Casos behest
Speaker 1: um So April twenty in a tweet I believe Uh,
Speaker 1: Caso calls and Frank Becky follows up by how she's
Speaker 1: a Karen, which one is a ridiculous statement, two is
Speaker 1: entirely meant to cause this kind of uproar around that
Speaker 1: you know, um, back at this time there was acceptance
Speaker 1: of the Black Hammer organization in leftist circles, in that
Speaker 1: kind of online communist community. Um, and there were people
Speaker 1: who came out kind of like, oh no, let's hear
Speaker 1: what they're saying about this, you know, talking about how victims.
Speaker 1: You know, the term genocide was invented to describe the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: but that term wasn't used to describe slavery that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, which, to be clear, is not the conversation
Speaker 1: that Caso was trying to have. That was not No,
Speaker 1: and that is a worthwhile conversation to have, is like why,
Speaker 1: you know, like why is that not? Why is the
Speaker 1: the enslavement and like mass murder of a huge number
Speaker 1: of African people not seen as an act of genocide?
Speaker 1: Certainly a valid conversation to have, but also should not
Speaker 1: at all intersect with Anne Frank or how we think
Speaker 1: about the Holocaust. Yeah, and because we're living in health Yeah,
Speaker 1: this fake you know, kind of propped up, not a
Speaker 1: real discussion. It's meant to just piss people off. Is
Speaker 1: back again? Oh good, what a great time. Yeah. Based
Speaker 1: on documents that have come out that are purported to
Speaker 1: be from internal Black Hammer documents. This is part of
Speaker 1: their operations Storm of White Tears UM, which was seemingly
Speaker 1: this and again I don't know for sure if these
Speaker 1: documents are from them, but these documents that are purported
Speaker 1: to be from Black Hammer UM lay out this strategy
Speaker 1: to cause division too, kind of bring other groups down,
Speaker 1: to elevate Black Hammer's own status by putting themselves as
Speaker 1: the center of attention in all of this that is
Speaker 1: happening UM, in this online fiasco UM. Because again, the
Speaker 1: ideology is not the point. The attention is the point.
Speaker 1: The control is the point. Along this way, there's there's
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of allegations out there.
Speaker 1: There are you know, for example, allegations that false, false
Speaker 1: allegations of pedophilia and sexual assault were used against people
Speaker 1: who left the group, people who spoke about against the group,
Speaker 1: that they were recruiting people on tinder. Um. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: along the way, some more chapters form. UM. There's one
Speaker 1: believe near Aurora, Colorado, or at least in Colorado. There's
Speaker 1: a New York City one, and kind of the group
Speaker 1: continues to rise as almost you know, you know, your
Speaker 1: typical revolutionary communist cell that we have wait a few
Speaker 1: of in the United States going on right now. Um,
Speaker 1: they structure, they purport to structure themselves around the tenets
Speaker 1: of democratic centralism as some of these other groups do. Um,
Speaker 1: which to dump things down a lot, and there's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be left is screaming at me right now. Um.
Speaker 1: Was this idea from lenin where a group takes a
Speaker 1: vote and then if that vote passes, they all agree
Speaker 1: to go along with that platform with usually about fium
Speaker 1: so that there's not kind of the splitting off of faction.
Speaker 1: So it can lead to this very centralized and hierarchical
Speaker 1: control structure. That's certainly what happened in Black Hammer. Um.
Speaker 1: There are other democratic centrals groups that have been in
Speaker 1: the news lately who use a similar strategy. UM. But
Speaker 1: you know what this meant is it allowed God cause
Speaker 1: it allowed Codso to run this group with an iron fist. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, on paper, there were there was a group
Speaker 1: of people leading the group. Um, someone else was in
Speaker 1: control of the money, but in fact it was Carso
Speaker 1: controlling all of this. Um. They also had you know,
Speaker 1: shared living spaces where members of different chapters of Black
Speaker 1: Hammer lived Hammer houses. UM. And that's always going to end, well, yeah, don't. Generally,
Speaker 1: it's a good rule not to go live with the
Speaker 1: revolutionary cell you just joined. Yeah. If if you are
Speaker 1: joining a political party and they want everyone to live
Speaker 1: in the same space that is controlled by that political organization,
Speaker 1: you may in fact be joining a cult. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, there's there continues to be kind of trying
Speaker 1: to get more attention. At one point, you know, Caso
Speaker 1: starts beef with a local anti fascist crew in Colorado.
Speaker 1: You know, another thing to mention about this group is
Speaker 1: it's a lot of queer people in the group. You know,
Speaker 1: Gauzi identifies as non binary. There are you know, several
Speaker 1: many members who love people of the same sex. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that happens as Gauzi
Speaker 1: is beefing with the local anti fascist crew is something
Speaker 1: that people are probably thinking of when they hear the
Speaker 1: name Gazzi Kozo. Is this bizarre video of Cazo running
Speaker 1: around in joker makeup talking about white anarchists and anti fascists,
Speaker 1: which the background is actually even more funked up than
Speaker 1: you would I think, having just heard that, UM as
Speaker 1: outline Red Voice goes into this specifically, UM there were
Speaker 1: members of the group who were you know, practitioners of
Speaker 1: Yoruba um, an African religion. Um. And one of them
Speaker 1: was a trained Um I don't know the correct term,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna say practitioner of this religion had
Speaker 1: gone through an education process in that that took some time. Um.
Speaker 1: And this video of Gazi running around and joker makeup
Speaker 1: was Gazie's idea too. Channel the ddsume and my apologies
Speaker 1: on mispronounced now which is a Guroba deity you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And before this happened, apparently Gazi had brought this up
Speaker 1: to the person and the person said that is extremely
Speaker 1: disrespectful of my religion. Don't do that, and Gazi did
Speaker 1: it anyway. Um. And this is you know, another one
Speaker 1: of the things where this gets sent around all the time,
Speaker 1: as you know, treating Black Hammer as a loll cow.
Speaker 1: But you know, even as this was going on, there
Speaker 1: was this abuse that was going on as well and
Speaker 1: people being preyed upon by this group in black Ham
Speaker 1: announces that they are planning to build Hammer City, which
Speaker 1: is supposed to be this utopian settlement in the rockies. Um,
Speaker 1: you look like you have something you want to say, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean look there. It's a perfectly normal dream to
Speaker 1: want to build a utopian settlement and the Rockies. There's
Speaker 1: some downsides to that. One of them is that the
Speaker 1: Rockies is actually a terrible place for a large number
Speaker 1: of people to live. Um. And it this is why repeatedly,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's been a lot of utopian settlements
Speaker 1: out in that part of the world, and they don't
Speaker 1: tend to last very long or they turn into normal towns.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's always interesting when folks try, when
Speaker 1: folks want to do a commune type situation, and then
Speaker 1: they immediately go for a place like that, because like
Speaker 1: the mountains is the hardest place to do it if
Speaker 1: you want to have a self sufficient commune, like fucking Kansas,
Speaker 1: you know, Arkansas, like somewhere where the soil is good
Speaker 1: for growing stuff and you can get like a flat
Speaker 1: track tract of land that can grow food as opposed
Speaker 1: to high alpine elevations where very little is gone. Anyway, whatever,
Speaker 1: this is compound talk, um. So yeah, there's there's If
Speaker 1: there's one thing you take away from this episode, don't
Speaker 1: build your compound in the Rockies. Don't build a compound
Speaker 1: in the rockies. Look, Okay, that's all I got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a message this podcast unless you have
Speaker 1: the tenaceous unicorn ranch, which case go right ahead. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you gotta think you know what they're doing,
Speaker 1: which is raising alpaca as opposed to relying on like
Speaker 1: growing crops, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: didn't actually see any advanced I was just looking at
Speaker 1: their at the Hammer City website. If they just told
Speaker 1: they just say sustainable farming, I can't see advanced plans
Speaker 1: for press went any they did raise a hundred and
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars so yeah, according to their website, they
Speaker 1: raised dred and twelve thousand dollars so far. Okay, yeah, educated,
Speaker 1: that's more on this project. Yeah, really interested to know
Speaker 1: how much money they actually raised. Um, maybe it was
Speaker 1: that much. The point is we don't really know because
Speaker 1: there's no there was no kind of an open record
Speaker 1: keeping within this group. Um. And it was Cazo who
Speaker 1: was in control of the money. So the group found
Speaker 1: land to buy, and they actually began the process of
Speaker 1: a land deal in early they and and this is
Speaker 1: some information now coming from a fantastic Colorado Sun article
Speaker 1: about the whole Hammer City thing um that I also
Speaker 1: recommend if someone wants to read more in depth about this. So,
Speaker 1: as the land deal was in the process of going through,
Speaker 1: a portion of the group moved out there. So about
Speaker 1: two dozen people. This was. This wasn't you know, it
Speaker 1: was remote, but it was it on top of a mountain.
Speaker 1: This was in a subdivision that had parcels for sale,
Speaker 1: which leads to some problems. And this this is a
Speaker 1: subdivision with the homeowners association and strict limits on land
Speaker 1: use as well. So they didn't have water rights for
Speaker 1: one thing, Yeah, exactly, they didn't have water rights to
Speaker 1: land um which I have not started compound, but I
Speaker 1: imagine water rice is something you want to have figured
Speaker 1: out if you if you just want to live on
Speaker 1: a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, it
Speaker 1: can be fine. If you want to grow crops, then yeah,
Speaker 1: having the ability to irrigate said crops is kind of important. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So another thing at this time is black Hammer tends
Speaker 1: to be a pretty heavily armed group. You know, the
Speaker 1: group moved out to this land, they were camping out there,
Speaker 1: basically squatting on the land that they did not own,
Speaker 1: and brought their you know, armed security along with them. UM.
Speaker 1: And we're also like blocking road access for residents of
Speaker 1: the subdivision. UM. So they they had neighbors, you know
Speaker 1: and UM. At one point this leads to an altercation
Speaker 1: with a neighbor UM with three armed Black Hammer members UM.
Speaker 1: And a neighbor driving in his car who you know,
Speaker 1: according to this Colorado Sun article, gets out with an
Speaker 1: unloaded shotgun and there's a standoff. This could have been
Speaker 1: one of those things that went really bad. It went
Speaker 1: about as good as you can hope a situation like
Speaker 1: that can go where um, nobody got killed. UM. But
Speaker 1: while this was happening, the member of Black Hammer who
Speaker 1: was responsible for the land deal I forgot to sign
Speaker 1: or didn't sign the paperwork on time. UM. And after
Speaker 1: information comes out about the standoff, the land deal completely
Speaker 1: falls through. There is no Hammers Toby that is going
Speaker 1: to be built. UM. And cadso was maintaining in Black
Speaker 1: Hammer as a whole, is maintaining a superactive social media
Speaker 1: presence at this time as well. So you know. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that gets brought out is like
Speaker 1: this video of them talking about, oh, we built this
Speaker 1: bridge on our land, which is kind of a bunch
Speaker 1: of two I force across the ditch. Yeah. Are they
Speaker 1: planning to buy um in invent as like an organization
Speaker 1: or as cards? Are planning to by themselves? Just an
Speaker 1: individual between know? They? This is actually something I did
Speaker 1: some research on. UM. They did this fun thing. They
Speaker 1: created a front group, a front organization to buy the
Speaker 1: land nice which they called Hammerstone Industries Incorporated. Yeah, it's stealthy.
Speaker 1: They one of the member, one of the prominent members,
Speaker 1: was responsible for that. So power of Google. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: also found their bitcoin what what we were talking? And
Speaker 1: it has never had any donations and remains empty. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, that has it gone well? Ah? So
Speaker 1: after this land deal falls through, hammer City is not
Speaker 1: being built. A lot of people get really fucking piste. Also,
Speaker 1: it sounds like they shot through the real estate sign
Speaker 1: on their way out of the Stuff division. So on
Speaker 1: the seventeenth, when the group leaves hammer City. UM. So,
Speaker 1: going back to what Robert mentioned earlier, UM, the group
Speaker 1: took a very i'll say interesting approach when the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen started UM, which is the belief that COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: is real, that people should wear masks and be protected,
Speaker 1: but that they should not take the vaccine, and that
Speaker 1: fought Fauci was a liar, which comes out a bit later.
Speaker 1: So we're doing for example, there's a there's a news
Speaker 1: article and with the video of them doing mutual aid
Speaker 1: distribution of masks and food in Colorado. So lots of
Speaker 1: people are really fucking pissed. UM. When Hammer City falls through,
Speaker 1: there's also been you know, these allegations that have been
Speaker 1: coming up again and again. UM. And at this point,
Speaker 1: several chapters break apart from Black Camera, UM, break away
Speaker 1: from Caso and kind of go off and do their
Speaker 1: own thing. UM. And Caso is left with this core
Speaker 1: group of members UM kind of true believers and says,
Speaker 1: fuck it, We're moving to Atlanta. So the group does
Speaker 1: a marathon drive from Colorado to the southern suburbs of
Speaker 1: Atlanta and outside of Atlantas where cause that grew up
Speaker 1: on the east side, UM, from the northeast. UM. And
Speaker 1: they they keep going. They rent a house where everyone
Speaker 1: lives together, another one of their Hammer houses. I believe
Speaker 1: that this time there is another active chapter that is
Speaker 1: still connected with CADSO and the Carolinas as well. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know this is a when prophecy fails moment
Speaker 1: for Causo UM, and the people that are left behind
Speaker 1: are these true believers UM and conser doesn't take this well,
Speaker 1: It doesn't take the failure of this deal well, becomes
Speaker 1: even more paranoid than they already were, more controlling and
Speaker 1: more abusive than they already were. So there's the red
Speaker 1: Voice gets into some of the really wild allegations that
Speaker 1: come out at this time. Allegedly CAUSO has members sign
Speaker 1: over um control of the bank accounts to them at gunpoint,
Speaker 1: as people reveal personal information at gunpoint. And again these
Speaker 1: are allegations. I'm not saying GODSA did this, UM that
Speaker 1: we get some of these classic cult techniques coming out,
Speaker 1: forcing people to sit and listen to CASO kind of preach,
Speaker 1: having people constantly working, not getting enough to eat, um,
Speaker 1: having you know, love bombing where God where Caso makes
Speaker 1: you know, deep eye contract with the person, talks about
Speaker 1: how important they are, how much they love them, and
Speaker 1: the consumption of psychedelics as well. Cool, that's good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you love to hear that. Um. Yeah, just a bunch
Speaker 1: of heavily armed people being cops for each other and
Speaker 1: drugging each other in support of I don't know. Charismatics
Speaker 1: seems like a weird word for Ghazi, but it must be, right, Like,
Speaker 1: clearly it works on some people. Yeah, I think they
Speaker 1: think they are charismatic, right, Like, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: necessarily they are to be good to be charismatic. But no,
Speaker 1: some people seem to be responding to their I don't know,
Speaker 1: the way they present themselves. It's so I guess that's
Speaker 1: always the way with cults, right that, Like, to the outside,
Speaker 1: the cult leader is always an obvious cult leader, but
Speaker 1: everybody's got different things they're vulnerable to, and for some
Speaker 1: people that's well. And I also, I said, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it is they have like presented themselves
Speaker 1: differently in different periods and them I think from what
Speaker 1: I've been reading, it sounds like a decent chunk of
Speaker 1: the folks who were kind of most deeply wrapped up
Speaker 1: and it have been with it for a while, so
Speaker 1: they've kind of followed along with Ghazi as they've you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is a group that preyed upon young people,
Speaker 1: preyed upon queer people, preyed upon on a housed people,
Speaker 1: preyed upon people of color who are at the intersections
Speaker 1: you know of oppression in our society, um and discreet.
Speaker 1: Like most cults, it offered them a cause, a purpose,
Speaker 1: something to fight for, thing to do, friends roof over
Speaker 1: their head even you know, um yep, which is a
Speaker 1: huge part of it, right because if you if this,
Speaker 1: if this place is not just your social circle but
Speaker 1: also your safety net and like how you keep roof
Speaker 1: over your head and how you stay fed and you
Speaker 1: don't have close ties to family, or maybe your family
Speaker 1: aren't people that you can trust. Like I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's not a different story than you get in a
Speaker 1: bunch of other cults, but like this is yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a very frightening situation for those people to
Speaker 1: wind up in. And of course one of the things
Speaker 1: that is unfortunate is that so much of the stuff
Speaker 1: that the Blackham Organization said and did is so absurd
Speaker 1: that like it leads to this kind of mockery of
Speaker 1: anybody who gets wrapped up in it and the people
Speaker 1: who are very much victims of it, which I think
Speaker 1: is also one of the things that makes it harder
Speaker 1: to leave, right, is that siege mentel and inside that's
Speaker 1: where the term collegnitive dissonance comes from specifically people, right,
Speaker 1: you know, when when things that go according to plan
Speaker 1: stick with this group and you know have already given
Speaker 1: always so much of their time, so much of their lifesy,
Speaker 1: of their connections, that they just roll with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there's I'm just thinking back to a story
Speaker 1: I wrote years ago where fortunate enough to interview someone
Speaker 1: who's like an expert on these small cults, and they
Speaker 1: had actually been a survivor of I think it was
Speaker 1: a trotsky Ast cult, so they were very familiar and
Speaker 1: they like, this group exhibits all those patterns, right, like
Speaker 1: the charismatic leader that you mentioned, the use of their
Speaker 1: own language, the control of their relationships and their contacts
Speaker 1: inside and outside the group. Yeah, and then they mirror
Speaker 1: this like very positive it's into like just look at
Speaker 1: their aesthetics after you mentioned it that they're definitely sort
Speaker 1: of seeking to mirror that Black Panther Party aesthetic, right,
Speaker 1: which is obviously something that has, for good reasons, very
Speaker 1: positive associations for a lot of people. So I can
Speaker 1: see they've constructed this very appealing package that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: now there's a body right now, a person has died. Connected,
Speaker 1: let's get to the station. So yeah, let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: So in Atlanta is where things get really wacky. Basically,
Speaker 1: as is often the case with Atlanta, has is often
Speaker 1: the case with this beautiful, beautiful city owned by Coca
Speaker 1: Cola and home depot with with I have to admit
Speaker 1: it as a Texan the best barbecue in the South,
Speaker 1: that's true. Excellent Ethiopian food as well. I was sad
Speaker 1: this weekend. Yeah, yeah, fucking amazing, fucking amazing ethiopen Ethiopian food. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Big refugee population, that's besides the point. M So you know,
Speaker 1: Causo has found themselves in this city without a ton
Speaker 1: of money, um, and so needs to get more attention,
Speaker 1: needs to appeal to more people. So this is when
Speaker 1: Causo announces that Black Hammer is forming a coalition with
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys, which is one of those things that
Speaker 1: comes out and really since nationalized headlines, but doesn't actually happen.
Speaker 1: What happens is cause of goes on a podcast with
Speaker 1: Gavin McGinness and they talked about we have so much
Speaker 1: in common and there's you know, a little toast evidence
Speaker 1: of actual organizing or work together between the two groups.
Speaker 1: But with this group like this, no, especially because Vin
Speaker 1: doesn't organizing anymore, vol problems anymore? What was the podcast
Speaker 1: they went on instead of interest? Daniel cut that and
Speaker 1: add in the entire audio from b movie condensed into
Speaker 1: a two second blast like we talked about. You know,
Speaker 1: the group gets more attention to that. UM. They start
Speaker 1: talking about how rate Trump is, how much do they
Speaker 1: love Trump, how Fauci is evil, um. Because again, ideology
Speaker 1: is not the point. The attention is. And this is
Speaker 1: how you continue get attention by acting ridiculous, UM, by
Speaker 1: asking Trump voters to donate money to you. UM. And
Speaker 1: at this time they also begin an extremely aggressive fundraising
Speaker 1: campaign in the city of Atlanta. So there's a park
Speaker 1: in downtown Atlantic call Woodroff Park that has a huge
Speaker 1: on housed population. Because our city is about at being
Speaker 1: a city and it's it's just back but black Hammer
Speaker 1: there there are other groups. There are other leftist groups
Speaker 1: that do mutual aid that help people out in the park.
Speaker 1: Black Hammer says, we're going to do this too, you know.
Speaker 1: So they'll go there and have these sessions where they're
Speaker 1: screaming into a megaphone about whatever, um, and you know,
Speaker 1: handing out clothes and some food to unhoused people. UM,
Speaker 1: and they also start setting there. The members of their
Speaker 1: group pretty much every day of the week, two go
Speaker 1: out into the city of Atlanta and ask people for
Speaker 1: money on the streets UH in their matching branded Black
Speaker 1: Hammer shirts and masks. A site to see and yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is what they call their robin Hood campaign. UM.
Speaker 1: They specifically target college campuses at Georgia State University and
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech especially UM with the idea that college kids
Speaker 1: have a lot of money to give away. It's not
Speaker 1: a great idea, UM, but they do this aggressive fundraising
Speaker 1: where they you know, follow people and if they don't
Speaker 1: take no franswips. Oh, you don't care about homeless people,
Speaker 1: you don't care about unhoused people. UM. You know, you
Speaker 1: just have so much white privilege and really attacking people. UM.
Speaker 1: Which is great when you're coming home, you're riding your
Speaker 1: bike home and then you keep passing Black Hammer members
Speaker 1: m outside of UH you know, on your commute home.
Speaker 1: Not fun. Yeah, And they appear, you know, on the
Speaker 1: belt Line, which is this kind of public green space
Speaker 1: and shared walking space in Atlanta. UM. They do this
Speaker 1: outside of concert venues. You know, I went to see
Speaker 1: the Dead Kennedy's and as I was walking in the venue,
Speaker 1: a Black Hammer guy asked me for money. I have
Speaker 1: to explain to the guy in front of me handing
Speaker 1: them five dollars, this is an anti Semitic cult. You
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. And they they're also taking
Speaker 1: in unhoused people. Um. You know, there's this video of
Speaker 1: of one of the lieutenants saying, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to get you, the unhoused people, to come fundraise for us.
Speaker 1: You know, if you come fundraise for us, you can
Speaker 1: keep half of it split and whoever fundraises the most
Speaker 1: in this week gets to come live with us at
Speaker 1: the Hammer House. So it's pretty funked up, you know.
Speaker 1: Um there's a case where a professor at Georgia State University,
Speaker 1: because the people the Black cant Remembers are out there
Speaker 1: every day all day. Um, this is what they do,
Speaker 1: this is their job, this is how the group makes money,
Speaker 1: you know, calls them out and says, hey, stop asking
Speaker 1: for money here. I know you're a cult. And a
Speaker 1: member follows the professor in films her you know, and
Speaker 1: specifically films her license plate and says, we got you.
Speaker 1: For example, members are arrested for having a megaphone in
Speaker 1: Woodruff Park and get some of their guns taken away
Speaker 1: when the rest because they're in the park with a
Speaker 1: bunch of guns, you just have guns out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Georgia, which sometimes is cool when the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: show up and anti fascists have guns, but it's not
Speaker 1: not great when definitely, tracking following people who criticize you
Speaker 1: and taking pictures of their license plate to try to
Speaker 1: docks them online is not at all cult behavior. They
Speaker 1: attack X members, They leak the addresses of the family
Speaker 1: of X members and their social Security numbers as well
Speaker 1: because they had them give them all this information at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: They seem to get very close to encouraging people to
Speaker 1: shoot cops. In a couple of pieces on their website
Speaker 1: as well, they talked about killing white people a lot.
Speaker 1: Eventually in Yeah, in two they have this rally outside
Speaker 1: of the CNN Center and solidarity with the January six
Speaker 1: political prisoners, um along going in Gauzy claims to find
Speaker 1: have found Jesus and Black Camera will become a religious group,
Speaker 1: you know. They they turned their Mutual Aid distribution into
Speaker 1: what they're calling the Revolutionary Church, which of course is
Speaker 1: filmed and live streamed. They have several live streams that
Speaker 1: they do regularly throughout the week that are mandatory for
Speaker 1: members to attend. UM. You know, there there is corporal
Speaker 1: punishment going on within the group of people living at
Speaker 1: the house. UM. And and the people that they're picking
Speaker 1: up off the street. It's not just adults, it's kids
Speaker 1: as well, UM, cause of claims to have the sixteen
Speaker 1: year old that they have adopted. UM and you know,
Speaker 1: cause of post these videos of them giving the sixteen
Speaker 1: year old guns and money and clothes to where um,
Speaker 1: the kid gets taken into state custody. Um. Before the
Speaker 1: current thing that we're talking about, UM, and this is
Speaker 1: going to be important later on in the story. UM. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there are also these stories from members who have escaped,
Speaker 1: who have to do these elaborate escape attempts to get
Speaker 1: out because they're not allowed to leave, who have to
Speaker 1: kind of run away in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: with none of their stuff through a thunderstorm to get out.
Speaker 1: So this is what we're dealing with. All right, everyone,
Speaker 1: it's James here, and I just wanted to correct a
Speaker 1: couple of things from the episode or add to them.
Speaker 1: One of them was the date of that shooting, be
Speaker 1: it murder or definitely suicide. That was the nine of July,
Speaker 1: note of February, and so it happened about a week
Speaker 1: ago at the time that you will hear this if
Speaker 1: you hear this on the day that we put out. Secondly,
Speaker 1: I also just wanted to give some context to the
Speaker 1: word huru. It's Swahili word means freedom or independence. It
Speaker 1: was used as part of a a backronym, which is
Speaker 1: when and a group has a name with them, they
Speaker 1: create an acronym that fits to that name. And the
Speaker 1: word Huru was part of a backronym for a group
Speaker 1: called the Mau Mau revolutionary anti colonial group who existed
Speaker 1: in Kenya, and the word of Huru was used a
Speaker 1: decent amoutneatic colonial struggles in Kenya. In the backronym. The
Speaker 1: backronym is Mazoomdifrica Party or Huru let the foreigners go home,
Speaker 1: Africa should be independent, will be independent. I suppose I
Speaker 1: just wanted to give that context. And obviously it's been
Speaker 1: appropriated now by by the Proud Boys, but that is
Speaker 1: part of the etymology of the word. And then we
Speaker 1: get to um what happened on February two. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an ongoing story, so the fact what we
Speaker 1: know might be changing. But early in the morning, someone
Speaker 1: calls and talks about being hell hostage by an organization,
Speaker 1: by a group. They don't give the address, but the
Speaker 1: police are the authorities are able to track the number
Speaker 1: to this house in Fayetteville suburb south of Atlanta. UM
Speaker 1: and show up and they see someone is outside walking
Speaker 1: a dog who runs away. That person gets arrested. UM,
Speaker 1: that's a member of Black Hammer. They see someone kind
Speaker 1: of waving from the garage seemingly in distress. UM, and
Speaker 1: the police are able to get that person out. They
Speaker 1: asked that the rest of people in the house come
Speaker 1: out as well. UM. About ten people come out and
Speaker 1: one person remains inside. Now by about two pm, with
Speaker 1: the use of an explosives ordinance, with the use of
Speaker 1: an EO D a bomb robot UM, the police enter
Speaker 1: the building. UM. The SWAT team goes in and they
Speaker 1: find one person dead of a gunshot wound to the head,
Speaker 1: which we at this current time we don't know the
Speaker 1: full details on that might not ever, hopefully something comes out.
Speaker 1: CASO is being held. You know. The group is kind
Speaker 1: of like sitting around outside, not in handcuffs but being
Speaker 1: held by the group. Um and Caso does what Caso
Speaker 1: does and starts to live stream. So here's a clip
Speaker 1: from this thirty minute live stream Facebook Live that Caso does.
Speaker 1: Look because a lot of media girls. So this is
Speaker 1: just going to build me up at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. So thank you. So I think that no
Speaker 1: I am and anything like that, you're out of your mind.
Speaker 1: M At the end of the day, they're still breaking
Speaker 1: my body. I still run an amazing revolutionary party. Our
Speaker 1: community is epping with us, and now all these news
Speaker 1: channels are going to want to interview us, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get to communicate about all the great work
Speaker 1: that we are doing here. So this is great at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. So my chickens coming home
Speaker 1: to roost is more more media, more followers, more you know,
Speaker 1: advancement of work, more movement, more greatness, and so be it, sweetheart.
Speaker 1: Things like this have non stops. Movements are readers before,
Speaker 1: so not even overcome. This is a great moment, right, comrade.
Speaker 1: This is a great moment, a moment where no voices
Speaker 1: will be amplified and our mission cards will be informed.
Speaker 1: Well that's cool. I like that he clearly understands the
Speaker 1: gravity of the loss of a human life. So I
Speaker 1: will say this is probably before someone was dead. But
Speaker 1: the point is that this is exactly what cards have wanted.
Speaker 1: Was this attention. Yeah, they seem pumped. They seem pumped
Speaker 1: and also like deranged. Yeah yeah yeah, that wasn't how
Speaker 1: I envisioned them speaking at all. It's sort of very calming,
Speaker 1: and they seem very very calm in that turn of voice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean calm, but like, I don't know, I see
Speaker 1: an edge to him, but maybe that's a reading. Um,
Speaker 1: So do we know more detail about like what happened
Speaker 1: with that person who died. I don't want to mention
Speaker 1: the name of the person. Um this place, this is
Speaker 1: a minor too, right. This is so the person who
Speaker 1: is killed, who's dead now, was not was not the
Speaker 1: sixteen year old. The sixteen year old was already in
Speaker 1: state custody weeks ago. I believe, Um, this is an
Speaker 1: eight According to the what the group has said and
Speaker 1: other survivors that I have spoken with, this is an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old the group took in off of the street. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a kid, you know who wanted to be a
Speaker 1: rapper who had dreams, um who you know. According to
Speaker 1: Black Cameras own media, they made this person their minister
Speaker 1: of defense. That's a good job for an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old who's dead now because of this group, potentially from
Speaker 1: a self inflicted gunshot wound, which that is the case
Speaker 1: came about because of Cooso putting that eighteen year old
Speaker 1: in this situation. Yeah, so Dirty South Right Watch broke
Speaker 1: the news. They have a really good thread that I
Speaker 1: also recommend about this happening. It seems like the local
Speaker 1: news they started covering the story and the a M
Speaker 1: when it was happening, but didn't quite make the connection.
Speaker 1: There's there's one article it's out there from a local
Speaker 1: news site that just interviews Gazzi Kozo, homeowner of the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that happens, one of the members of the group
Speaker 1: is immediately charged and booked. It's a really fucked up situation,
Speaker 1: you know. There there's like an unhoused individual who that
Speaker 1: who who other good activists were in touch with, who
Speaker 1: are at the house when this happened, because this person
Speaker 1: had no other choice but it was live outside or
Speaker 1: go with black Hammer, who went through all of this happening, Um,
Speaker 1: and then it was still on how it was still
Speaker 1: on housed. After all this happened, Canso was arrested and
Speaker 1: booked Um. The charges didn't come out until about an
Speaker 1: hour before we started recording. The charges are two accounts
Speaker 1: of participation in streaking activity, two accounts of aggravated assault,
Speaker 1: two accounts of kidnapping, two accounts of false imprisonment, two
Speaker 1: accounts of conspiracy to commit a crime, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about this one one account of sodomy, which
Speaker 1: in Georgia the sodomy law refers to non consensual oral
Speaker 1: or anal sex or oral and anal sex performed with
Speaker 1: the minor got you so one way or the other
Speaker 1: that they're being accused of sexual assault. Yes, the other
Speaker 1: person arrested UM was charged with the same crimes, except
Speaker 1: not sodomy, officer obstruction instead, presumably because they fled. And
Speaker 1: that's where we're at. That's where we're at right now. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: that's rough. Yeah, it's it's a pretty bleak story. But
Speaker 1: I don't know at this point. We will probably be
Speaker 1: hearing more as this case blows up, and there's always
Speaker 1: the chance that you know, the rights going to wind
Speaker 1: up adopting it to try to, you know, make it
Speaker 1: into a left wing bad kind of deal. So when
Speaker 1: we have yeah, yeah, I mean, we'll see what kind
Speaker 1: of legs it gets. But it's important to understand both
Speaker 1: what's happening here because a person is dead and a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been hurt, and also kind of
Speaker 1: broadly the trends that are at play here. The way
Speaker 1: like cult dynamics can intersect with radical politics, I think
Speaker 1: is important for people to be aware of because this
Speaker 1: kind of thing isn't going to get less common as
Speaker 1: ship continues to unravel. Yeah, and if there's some takeaways,
Speaker 1: if someone can leave this with, you know, a few
Speaker 1: points that the people who were in this group, they
Speaker 1: are victims in the situation. They were preyed upon by
Speaker 1: this abusive person because they were in a vulnerable state. Um. Anyone.
Speaker 1: This could happen to anyone who falls on hard times,
Speaker 1: who has a bad enough day and then someone comes
Speaker 1: in and offers them this that they say, yes, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: The The other thing is to know about groups that
Speaker 1: are out there before you get involved. Do your research,
Speaker 1: listen to voices that might be critical of the group, UM,
Speaker 1: and know what you're getting yourself into. There are other
Speaker 1: sensibly leftist groups out there who will not as abuse
Speaker 1: of as Black Hammer Um have cases of abuse coming
Speaker 1: out of them that gets covered up. Yeah, it might
Speaker 1: be good for us just to just to suggested if folks,
Speaker 1: you know, find themselves in a difficult situation on someone
Speaker 1: they know is in is in one of these situations,
Speaker 1: like maybe we can link to some resources and the
Speaker 1: notes or something. Yeah, aren't. Yep, there's not. There's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of committed to me that I've been
Speaker 1: trying to find. It's probably Stephen Hassan's book, which um
Speaker 1: Sawan is also he's an expert in the field, but
Speaker 1: he's also the guy who talked about how Tranny hit
Speaker 1: No Mind Control porn was. He's got he's problematic. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean part of the reason that this is such
Speaker 1: a problem is that there's very little in terms of
Speaker 1: good resources or good writing. One of the things that is, like,
Speaker 1: there's good writing analyzing cults, very little of it will
Speaker 1: give you much that's useful in terms of how to
Speaker 1: get people out of cults. For a couple of reasons,
Speaker 1: including the fact that as we talked about earlier. What
Speaker 1: makes people vulnerable. People aren't vulnerable to cults broadly usually,
Speaker 1: I know there's there's a certain subset of people, but like,
Speaker 1: as a general rule, people who get trapped in a
Speaker 1: cult get trapped in a specific cult because it is
Speaker 1: something that they are specifically vulnerable too. And so if
Speaker 1: you don't, like, it's more or less a matter of like,
Speaker 1: if you want to get someone out of a cult, um,
Speaker 1: are you close with that person? Like, are they someone
Speaker 1: that you know? Are they someone that you have a
Speaker 1: deep relationship with? Because if so, like that relationship and
Speaker 1: the care that you have for them is primarily the
Speaker 1: thing that is most likely to eventually help them get out,
Speaker 1: Which doesn't mean it's a magic bullet, but like there's
Speaker 1: no reliable way to get people out of cults. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a I do. I do twelve step recovery stuff
Speaker 1: um for different reasons. But the closest analogy that I
Speaker 1: can think of is dealing with someone who's abusing drug
Speaker 1: and alcohol in your life. You can't force anyone to stop,
Speaker 1: you can't make anyone. When people talk about CULTI programming,
Speaker 1: what that entails kidnapping someone and then putting them through
Speaker 1: more abuse. So there is a magic bullet. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of extremity problematic ship gets offer to people who
Speaker 1: understandably concerned for their friends and family members and just
Speaker 1: want to help. The best time to get someone out
Speaker 1: of a cult is before they join, is to raise
Speaker 1: awareness about abuse in communities UM and share that information
Speaker 1: and take these things seriously. I truly believe so much
Speaker 1: of how this was able to happen is because people
Speaker 1: we're just laughing at them and didn't take it seriously
Speaker 1: that this could get someone killed, that this was ruining lives.
Speaker 1: That's still happening. People are treating this as a joke,
Speaker 1: not Yeah, And I think that's one of the things
Speaker 1: if you're like I don't know a parent or or
Speaker 1: somebody who otherwise works with their interfaces with there is
Speaker 1: raising young people and you're trying to think about how
Speaker 1: you can make them less vulnerable to this. It is
Speaker 1: a mix of educating them about cults in not in
Speaker 1: a way that's like laughing or mocking or talking about
Speaker 1: how silly it is, but actually discussing the very real
Speaker 1: reasons why people fall and for this stuff, because that's
Speaker 1: that's the important one of the most important things it's
Speaker 1: the same as COVID. Really, one of the most important
Speaker 1: things for protecting yourself is not thinking that you're immune,
Speaker 1: which is a natural thing. Most people who have fallen
Speaker 1: into colts earlier in their life when they heard about
Speaker 1: colts said well, that's stupid as hell. I would never
Speaker 1: get trapped in something like that, and then they did.
Speaker 1: And that's basically a hundred percent of Coat membership. You know, um,
Speaker 1: because yeah, if there's if I can recommend some resources
Speaker 1: for parents. Shannon fully Martinez, who is on Twitter, is
Speaker 1: you know, was involved in extreme right skinhead stuff unless fitness,
Speaker 1: committed her life to helping people leave extremist movements. The
Speaker 1: same things you know that are going to make someone
Speaker 1: easily preyed upon by a COLT and by an extremist group.
Speaker 1: Those are the same things. Um. Shannon has some good
Speaker 1: resources out there. She has a Patreon as well. The
Speaker 1: resources are available for free. Don't need to join on
Speaker 1: her patreon. Awesome, Yeah, Shannon is awesome. UM. And other
Speaker 1: than that, you know, don't ye try to avoid falling
Speaker 1: for a cult, um except for you know this podcast.
Speaker 1: Keep listening to this podcast. Make it the center of
Speaker 1: your life. Have no friends of the US for in
Speaker 1: paras social relationships with us. Uh huh, Well we're the
Speaker 1: only We're the only people you can trust. I think
Speaker 1: that's clear. Yeah. Would you like to plug anything before
Speaker 1: we carry you off here? Thomas, Yeah, I'm at Twitter
Speaker 1: at w underscore f underscore, Thomas, don't be weird on Twitter. Um,
Speaker 1: have empathy for the people around you. Almost gonna plug
Speaker 1: HASHTA housed people because they know what best can help them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fucking provide people with options for housing so that they're
Speaker 1: not Yeah, having a could be the best thing they
Speaker 1: can do. But yeah, yep, I'm not a happy note.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Yeah, check in on your friends,
Speaker 1: disbanding people when they're in difficult times. It could Happen
Speaker 1: Here is a production of cool Zone Media. Or more
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com, or check us out on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.