Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop
Speaker 1: weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 2: I am your host. Rams's job is Rams's job. I
Speaker 2: am q Ward.
Speaker 1: You are tuned in the Civic Cipher and we appreciate
Speaker 1: that we are still going to be talking about some
Speaker 1: things that really matter. This time, we're going to shift
Speaker 1: the lens away from you know, collective struggle, to one community,
Speaker 1: in particular our Mexican American and Latino Latina LATINX brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. It's been a tough time around political season
Speaker 1: typically is because everybody has a new thing to be
Speaker 1: afraid of, which is the border. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: everything is right with the border, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of fear that I believe is unnecessary, and we're going
Speaker 1: to kind of delve into that by discussing the migrant
Speaker 1: workers who lost their lives while they were working to
Speaker 1: make this country better. But before we get there, it's
Speaker 1: time to discuss ba BA becoming a better ally bla BLA.
Speaker 1: Today's bab bla A sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for the free voter whileer from
Speaker 1: fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses
Speaker 1: as well as make an impact with your spending. Again,
Speaker 1: that's fotmglobal dot Com. Today's story comes from the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network. So a once widely used test overestimated how
Speaker 1: healthy black people's kidneys actually were, and automated formula calculated
Speaker 1: results for black and non black patients differently, causing a
Speaker 1: delay in diagnosis for organ failure and evaluation for transplants.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, the National Kidney Foundation and the
Speaker 1: American Society of Nephronology SORRY Nephrology pushed for labor laboratories
Speaker 1: to change how they calculated kidney function. The US Organ
Speaker 1: Transplant Network followed suit by ordering hospitals to use only
Speaker 1: race neutral tests when adding patients to kidney waiting lists.
Speaker 1: In an attempt at restorative justice, the Transplant Network gave
Speaker 1: hospitals a year to find which black patients could have
Speaker 1: qualified for a new kidney sooner and adjust their way
Speaker 1: time to make up for it. Roughly fourteen three hundred
Speaker 1: black patients were moved up the list between January and
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: So I know that this is the BABA. The behavior
Speaker 2: is the.
Speaker 1: Hospitals going back and adjusting same who's been on this
Speaker 1: list black that could have benefited had the data been right.
Speaker 2: Let's get them prioritized.
Speaker 1: But this also kind of shows the harm in how
Speaker 1: the medical industry fails Black people using bogus data, trying
Speaker 1: to say that we're superhumans or inhuman all kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's based on slave experiments during slavery that again
Speaker 1: are just bogus. So shout out to all these people
Speaker 1: making it right. All right, So today we're going to
Speaker 1: take a moment and if we can. I know that
Speaker 1: last week you shared a story about Grayson and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that were very interested in that.
Speaker 2: A lot of people.
Speaker 1: Wrote in and sent emails and hit us on the
Speaker 1: social media and all that sort of stuff. But if
Speaker 1: we have some time, I'd like to get you to
Speaker 1: give our listeners an update. But before we get there, we're
Speaker 1: going to discuss the people who lost their lives in.
Speaker 2: Baltimore. Okay, so I'm going to go through this.
Speaker 1: Dorlan Roniel Castillo Cabrera, twenty six, of Dundalk, lost his
Speaker 1: life in the Key Bridge collapse. Originally from Guatemala. A
Speaker 1: friend described Castillo Cabrera as a giving person who was
Speaker 1: quick to offer rides and other assistans stance to fellow
Speaker 1: members of the Latino community. Okay So originally from Guatemala.
Speaker 1: Miguel Luna, aged forty nine, was from the town of
Speaker 1: California in Al Salvador. He immigrated to the United States
Speaker 1: about nineteen years ago, according to CASA, a nonprofit supporting
Speaker 1: immigrants of which Luna was a member. Alex Alejandro Hernandez
Speaker 1: Flintes was age thirty five and he was the foreman
Speaker 1: of the crew working on the bridge that night. Former
Speaker 1: coworkers described him as a fireball who took his job
Speaker 1: seriously and climbed the ranks at Brauner Builders, going from
Speaker 1: a laborer to driving a company truck. Hernandez was a
Speaker 1: devout Christian who often encouraged his coworkers to turn on
Speaker 1: religious radio stations as they drove from job to job. Hernandez,
Speaker 1: who was born in Mexico and lived in Essex, left
Speaker 1: behind a wife and four children. Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval
Speaker 1: Ah thirty eight, grew up in Aza Coppa, Honduras. He
Speaker 1: immigrated to the United States one seventeen years ago and
Speaker 1: often sent money back to his hometown, even sponsoring a
Speaker 1: soccer league. He had a wife and two children and
Speaker 1: lived in Owings Mills. Dorlean, Oh Sorry, Jose Minor Lopez
Speaker 1: was in his thirties. Was described as a loving family
Speaker 1: man and an intentive father. He immigrated to United States
Speaker 1: nineteen years ago from Guatemala in order to create better
Speaker 1: opportunities for his family. He had four children, including a
Speaker 1: young daughter. His uncle Wilmore Raoul Ortayana said, and other
Speaker 1: people have identified him as one of the victims on
Speaker 1: the bridge. The Mexican embassy told the son that three
Speaker 1: Mexican man Carlos Hernandez, Alejandro Hernandez and Julio were related
Speaker 1: to one another. So it's important for us to say
Speaker 1: the names of these gentlemen.
Speaker 2: He can talk about Dorlean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yep, we did. Yeah, so he was the
Speaker 1: first one we talked about.
Speaker 2: Actually, So.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting here is that this shows
Speaker 1: a picture that brings some balance to the national dialogue.
Speaker 1: This gives people a glimpse into exactly who the people
Speaker 1: crossing the border either are or can ultimately become.
Speaker 2: Right there. I think think it's a mixture of both
Speaker 2: sure sure who they are and who they can become.
Speaker 1: And one of the really unfortunate things about where we
Speaker 1: are right now as a country is that we're looking
Speaker 1: at our southern border. It's a political issue. It's very politicized,
Speaker 1: certainly on the right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Famously, Donald Trump told his Republican colleagues, Hey, don't work
Speaker 1: with if the Democrats don't work with Joe Biden. I
Speaker 1: want to campaign on stronger borders. And so if if
Speaker 1: Biden is able to create a stronger border right now,
Speaker 1: that's one last thing I can campaign on. I need
Speaker 1: that to now I'm I'm giving you the translation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now he's basically going to use this, as he
Speaker 1: did in the last election cycle, to stir up fear.
Speaker 2: Stir up is the perfect words exactly what caring in
Speaker 2: my mind. Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: The best way to do that, to really lean into
Speaker 1: the fear part of it is to villainize, villainize and
Speaker 1: demonize the people who are coming here right now. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert on
Speaker 1: the border, but I do recognize that we do need
Speaker 1: you know, control or you know something, you know some
Speaker 1: way to you know, get these folks in and back out,
Speaker 1: because there are people don't come here to live, They
Speaker 1: just come here to work, right, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that benefit from that.
Speaker 2: There's big money involved.
Speaker 1: But when it's a political issue, people that don't live
Speaker 1: this close to the border, they just look at it like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's an invasion. And that's the word that is used
Speaker 1: on Fox News and other right wing media outlets, despicable, right.
Speaker 1: But when you look at these people that we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, all of these people came from other countries
Speaker 1: south of our border, and I would argue that these
Speaker 1: people lost their life.
Speaker 2: Building a better America quite literally literally right as gentlemen.
Speaker 3: I saw lives in the Owyens Mills. I used to
Speaker 3: live in the owys Mills. So you're talking about something
Speaker 3: that hits really close to home. Myself and Thomas who
Speaker 3: you know, you know, it's real sugs. We all live
Speaker 3: together in these meals. I saw that name drive years ago.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Q has some some really interesting friends. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: definitely something here that makes me feel like, how would
Speaker 1: I say this? This is a very unfair time for
Speaker 1: our Latino Latina LATINX, the migrant community. It's a very
Speaker 1: tough time, you know. Uh And and I also want
Speaker 1: to provide some more context. You know, I live in Arizona,
Speaker 1: and so I was here when I think it was
Speaker 1: SB seventy two something like that basically gave the police
Speaker 1: the power to stop anyone that looked looked.
Speaker 2: Like they were illegal. Goodness gracious man.
Speaker 1: And and you know, start the process of deporting those people, right.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that is that where we live,
Speaker 1: this used to be Mexico. A lot of people forget that.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the people that live here
Speaker 1: they always lived here. And a law like that, it
Speaker 1: gives the police the ability to harass people who maybe
Speaker 1: they're not here illegally. The people who are here illegally.
Speaker 1: I know people like this. We both know people like
Speaker 1: this who've been trying to get their citizenship. For you,
Speaker 1: they came here and when they were two years old
Speaker 1: and now they're thirty seven, and they're like, it's decades
Speaker 1: long process. And now with this legislation being passed, these
Speaker 1: people can pick on me.
Speaker 2: It's a very scary time. Right. So, just kind of
Speaker 2: knowing that our.
Speaker 1: Brothers and sisters in that community are living with that again,
Speaker 1: we felt like it was very important to.
Speaker 2: Share this.
Speaker 1: Snapshot into what that actually translates into.
Speaker 3: You know, there's good. I just want to add Ramsey
Speaker 3: sent this story to me just realizing how important these
Speaker 3: conversations are to have and a part of the foundation
Speaker 3: of Civic Cipher when when Rams just presented the idea,
Speaker 3: the idea was never just to have our voices heard,
Speaker 3: but it was almost ingrained to the very foundation of
Speaker 3: this show that when other people needed amplification and support
Speaker 3: and a space to share their voices and have their
Speaker 3: messages and their and their hurt heard, and and and
Speaker 3: you know, for lack of better broadcast, that Civic Sipher
Speaker 3: would be a vehicle for that. So I just think
Speaker 3: it's very important that you guys know who Rams this
Speaker 3: is and that from the very start of this that
Speaker 3: that was something that was important to them absolutely.
Speaker 1: So I do want you to know that for this
Speaker 1: we spent the better part of the week doing our
Speaker 1: best to try to find someone from this community, an
Speaker 1: activists who you know, would work in this space to
Speaker 1: kind of share some perspective and give us some insight
Speaker 1: and give us some data and what's going on on
Speaker 1: the border and those sorts of things, and we did
Speaker 1: our best, and everyone that we had booked something came
Speaker 1: up or whatever. And it's not like us to speak
Speaker 1: for anyone who is, you know, capable of speaking for themselves. However,
Speaker 1: it just didn't come together, and we felt like, because
Speaker 1: this moment was right now, it was really important to
Speaker 1: explain how this might feel in that community. And again,
Speaker 1: when you know the stories, the real stories, when you know, hey,
Speaker 1: look my uncle or my cousin or my you know,
Speaker 1: these family friends of mine or these people that I know,
Speaker 1: they're hard working, good people. They come across they work,
Speaker 1: they work in fields. You know, it's not like these
Speaker 1: people are coming over here and you know whatever, whatever
Speaker 1: it is that people say, most of the people that
Speaker 1: are coming here for economic opportunities are not coming over
Speaker 1: here to start trouble. Unlike what the President said, they're
Speaker 1: sending Mexico sending their worst, some bad dudes, you know,
Speaker 1: criminals and rapists. Mexico isn't sending people. It's not like
Speaker 1: they're letting people out of jail and shipping them up
Speaker 1: to the border. That's not real. Based on the stories
Speaker 1: of the real people that live this close to Mexico,
Speaker 1: what's real is that you know, people are here doing
Speaker 1: honest work. People are doing their best to try to
Speaker 1: navigate a system that is not an easy system to navigate.
Speaker 1: People are here, you know, working and doing jobs and
Speaker 1: contributing value to society. And that is our lived experience,
Speaker 1: that's our reality.
Speaker 2: We see it every day.
Speaker 1: And these borders, these imaginary lines that human beings in
Speaker 1: positions of power draw to delineate us from them and
Speaker 1: to other people, results in, you know, a value system,
Speaker 1: like a kind of like a de facto value system,
Speaker 1: and then that's something that's held over people's heads. And again,
Speaker 1: with a system that does not allow people to now
Speaker 1: have a gate the how would I say this the
Speaker 1: proper way of doing things as easily as you should
Speaker 1: be able to and as quickly as you should be
Speaker 1: able to, you end up with a lot of people
Speaker 1: just kind of in limbo that are still doing good work,
Speaker 1: that are still contributing, that are still providing a lot
Speaker 1: of value to a society. And so when we use
Speaker 1: the example of these gentlemen who were working maintaining the bridge,
Speaker 1: and there's other people like them, you know, there's people
Speaker 1: like them everywhere. You know, we're Baltimore is on the
Speaker 1: other side of the country from where we are, and
Speaker 1: you know, we have people there from Mexico. So imagine
Speaker 1: how deep into the country you have to be. Imagine
Speaker 1: how ambitious for work that you have to be to
Speaker 1: end up in Baltimore. And then when you lose your
Speaker 1: life doing a job that makes this country better, I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, the news suggested that this was
Speaker 1: like the sixth busiest port in the country. That's not nothing.
Speaker 1: And who's working on it, who's maintaining it, And it's
Speaker 1: really easy to think about, you know, things like this
Speaker 1: that take place behind the scenes, you know, and you
Speaker 1: know or to not think about it. You know, you
Speaker 1: get up, jump in your car, go to work. At
Speaker 1: the end of the week, you go on a vacation,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, and you pay a little thought to
Speaker 1: who's taking care of these bridges, why are these roads
Speaker 1: so smooth, or why aren't these roads smoother or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, unless it becomes a problem.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not really focused on that. But a
Speaker 1: lot of the nice things that we take for granted,
Speaker 1: the things that kind of play in the background, there
Speaker 1: are actual people doing that. And you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of there are a lot of people that do it
Speaker 1: in the front too, Make no mistake, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that do it in the front,
Speaker 1: and obviously we interact with those folks too. But you know,
Speaker 1: I would argue that the real badone of a society
Speaker 1: are people just like this, people who get taken for granted,
Speaker 1: and they work long, hard jobs in some instances, and
Speaker 1: it's thankless work because again, you know, it's it's really
Speaker 1: easy to be just kind of operating in the shadows.
Speaker 1: And then in the meanwhile, you know, in front of
Speaker 1: the cameras and in front of the people and the
Speaker 1: crowds and the audiences, our politicians are suggesting that people
Speaker 1: just like this are the reason that the country is
Speaker 1: not further along, These are the reason that the people
Speaker 1: that the country is not as safe as people want
Speaker 1: it to be. And it's it's just a really hurtful
Speaker 1: time to live in. And unless you know this, and
Speaker 1: unless we share this with you, it becomes it's almost
Speaker 1: like we're committing the injustice at that point, And as
Speaker 1: Q was mentioning, you know, we created this show knowing
Speaker 1: that we would have to share this show. Some people
Speaker 1: know my older brother is raka irascience of the dilated peoples.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that he told us is,
Speaker 1: don't forget about all the people who are out there
Speaker 1: protesting on your behalf when you build this show and
Speaker 1: you have it on seventy five radio stations around the country,
Speaker 1: which is quite an accomplishment. Of course, remember that not
Speaker 1: everybody is going to be in a position to have
Speaker 1: a radio show that's all over the country like that,
Speaker 1: to be able to say what's going on in their
Speaker 1: community and not be able to explain to potential allies
Speaker 1: how it feels to be who they are, how it
Speaker 1: feels to live in a world, in a country at least,
Speaker 1: where this type of rhetoric is shared openly and go
Speaker 1: and these things go unchecked and everybody seems to be,
Speaker 1: you know, really cool with it being that way. It's
Speaker 1: just really not a fear predicament to be in. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, that was something that we decided, you know,
Speaker 1: very early on, that we were absolutely going to do.
Speaker 1: But you know, when my brother told me that we
Speaker 1: should make sure that we build that in you know,
Speaker 1: you know, when it was stop Asian hate, of course,
Speaker 1: we had to do our best to amplify the Asian
Speaker 1: voices that could invite everyone to the table and discuss
Speaker 1: ways that we can protect our Asian American and Pacific
Speaker 1: Islander brothers and sisters. Of course, the same is true
Speaker 1: with the lgbt q I A plus community, with our
Speaker 1: Indigenous brothers and sisters, and so forth, and so on
Speaker 1: and time and again with our Latino Latino LATINX brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters as well, And this time felt particularly timely,
Speaker 1: so because I don't want this to just kind of
Speaker 1: be a news piece where we're like lamorizing the passing
Speaker 1: of these people and it's sensational. I do want to
Speaker 1: share the names again because I don't think that these
Speaker 1: people should just be remembered for dying. I believe that
Speaker 1: they're full human beings and they deserve better than that.
Speaker 1: So once again, dor lean Roni al Castillo Cabrera lived
Speaker 1: to be twenty six years old, and again his friends
Speaker 1: described him as a giving person who was quick to
Speaker 1: offer rides and assistants to fellow members of the Latin community.
Speaker 1: Miguel Luno was aged forty nine when he passed. He
Speaker 1: is from Al Salvador and he came to the US
Speaker 1: nineteen years ago. Alejandro Hernandez Flentiss lived to be thirty
Speaker 1: five the foreman and people described him as a fireball
Speaker 1: who took his job seriously. He was a devout Christian
Speaker 1: and he left behind a wife and four children. Maynor
Speaker 1: Yasir Suazo Sondeval lived to be thirty eight years old.
Speaker 1: Grew up in Honduras and he came to the United
Speaker 1: States about seventeen years ago. It sent money back to
Speaker 1: his hometown. He sponsored a soccer league, and he had
Speaker 1: a wife and two children that he left behind. Jose
Speaker 1: Mignor Lopez was in his thirties and he was described
Speaker 1: as a loving family man and an attentive father. He
Speaker 1: came to the United States nineteen years ago from Guatemala
Speaker 1: to receive to create better opportunities for his family. He
Speaker 1: left behind four children, including a young daughter and Carlos
Speaker 1: Hernandez was one of the victims who died on the
Speaker 1: bridge as well, and the Mexican Embassy said that he
Speaker 1: was related to some of the other folks there. So
Speaker 1: rest in peace, y'all. We won't forget you around here anyway.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: So once again I'm your host, Rams's joh and I
Speaker 1: need you to.
Speaker 2: Do me a favor.
Speaker 1: Hit the website Civiccipher dot com. You can download this
Speaker 1: in any previous episodes if you tuned in about halfway through.
Speaker 1: You can also, you know, make a donation. You can
Speaker 1: suggest topics that we should cover, any comments that you have,
Speaker 1: anything that we missed or got wrong.
Speaker 2: That's the way to hit us.
Speaker 1: Please also follow us on social media again, it's all
Speaker 1: civic Cipher spelled c I b I c c I
Speaker 1: p h e R.
Speaker 2: And support us. Tap in with us.
Speaker 1: We're fighting battles over there as well, and your support
Speaker 1: and your comments and your likes go a long way.
Speaker 1: You know, the show is growing with your support, so
Speaker 1: you know, tap in with us again on all social media.
Speaker 1: Hit the website civiccycer dot com and make a donation
Speaker 1: to next week piece