Speaker 1: Just tuned in a civic cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's job.
Speaker 1: He is Rams' job.
Speaker 2: I mq ward. You are listening to Civic sciph.
Speaker 1: From ged you are, and we still got a lot
Speaker 1: more show in store for you, So be sure to
Speaker 1: stick around because we are going to take a moment
Speaker 1: to engage with the comments section on our Instagram which,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you are on Instagram, do us
Speaker 1: a favor, follow us at civic cipher, leave us a
Speaker 1: kind comment, something supportive, Just support us. You know, we
Speaker 1: could use the support there also on TikTok and other
Speaker 1: places where a civic cipher everywhere, but Instagram is a
Speaker 1: place where we get the most pushback.
Speaker 3: Everywhere else's people's.
Speaker 2: Teen diagram is particularly negative. Yeah, it seems that we
Speaker 2: only get engagement in the way of comments from people
Speaker 2: who sit opposed to us.
Speaker 1: There's tons of likes, but all the comments areve so,
Speaker 1: but we're going to respond to some of them. Give
Speaker 1: you some talking points in case you have people like
Speaker 1: that in your life. But before we get there, let's
Speaker 1: discuss be becoming a better ally. Today's BOBA was sponsored
Speaker 1: by Friends of the Movement to support black businesses and
Speaker 1: allied businesses sign up for the free voter wallet from
Speaker 1: Fotmglobal dot com and make an impact with your spending. Again,
Speaker 1: that's Fotmglobal dot com. All right, So today we're talking
Speaker 1: about something you can do with the NAACP.
Speaker 3: I will read a bit.
Speaker 1: The student debt crisis has a disproportionate impact on black
Speaker 1: borrows and their families. It is up to us to
Speaker 1: continue to fight to cancel student debt. President Biden made
Speaker 1: a promise to cancel student debt for forty million people.
Speaker 1: Luckily he has several tools to deliver on debt relief
Speaker 1: inaction is not an option. The repayment pause ended on
Speaker 1: October first, twenty twenty three, and let it be known,
Speaker 1: the Department of Education data shows returning to repayment without
Speaker 1: cancelation will be even worse. Make no mistake, The NAACP
Speaker 1: continues to pursue the cancelation of at least fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars of debt per borrower as repayment approaches. We are
Speaker 1: excited to be a part of this Save on Student Debt,
Speaker 1: a national campaign to spread the word about saving on
Speaker 1: a valuable education plan. And if you want to participate,
Speaker 1: you can go to the NAACP dot com. You can
Speaker 1: send a petition. You can also donate to help fund
Speaker 1: these efforts to make sure that we can move past this.
Speaker 1: And for those of you that know, you know this
Speaker 1: will sound kind of redundant. But for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the issues that come up with some
Speaker 1: frequency in terms of black stories, a lot of those
Speaker 1: issues have to do with poverty and debt and lack
Speaker 1: of access to fiscal opportunities. Money makes pretty much everything better,
Speaker 1: and so that's why there's a big push for reparations.
Speaker 1: And that's why canceling student debt is particularly of particular
Speaker 1: interest to black people because, as I mentioned, disproportionately impacts
Speaker 1: black and brown families on the comments. So cute talk
Speaker 1: to me, because once upon a time I had you
Speaker 1: signed up for our social media stuff, and you had
Speaker 1: to turn that off, right.
Speaker 2: So, once upon a time an administrator for our social
Speaker 2: media directly our Civic Cipher Instagram page, and after a
Speaker 2: few hours of seeing the type of engagement we got,
Speaker 2: I had to log out of it and get rid
Speaker 2: of it. I am not bulletproof. Some may know this
Speaker 2: part of my story, some may not, But I was
Speaker 2: I took a four year hiatus from social media, not
Speaker 2: four hours, not four weeks, not four months, four years
Speaker 2: because I don't like the word victim. But I was
Speaker 2: subject to thousands of really really negative online attacks from
Speaker 2: complete strangers because of some things happening in my personal life.
Speaker 2: And I mean tens of thousands, And I am not
Speaker 2: that person. Like there's a lot of people who don't care,
Speaker 2: they could care less and they could laugh at that stuff.
Speaker 2: I am not one of those people. So I had
Speaker 2: to and I regret this now because I had a really,
Speaker 2: really great level of engagement going with some really incredible
Speaker 2: people that I haven't seen since, so I have not
Speaker 2: been able to reconnect with those people. But being subjected
Speaker 2: to those levels of negativity drove me off of social
Speaker 2: media completely. I won't let that happen to me this time.
Speaker 2: I'll just remove myself from being in rooms and spaces
Speaker 2: where I'm not comfortable. And that's not just on social media,
Speaker 2: that's in real life.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: If you attack me in any way, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to attack you back, especially if you're somebody I care about.
Speaker 2: There's no fight back. I don't have a point to prove.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be right. I just throw my
Speaker 2: hands up and remove myself and the type of engagement
Speaker 2: that we get to things that seem so straightforward and decently.
Speaker 2: If you listen to this show, you'll see that even
Speaker 2: when I'm upset, I'm not radical. I don't go to
Speaker 2: any extremes about anything. I don't praise our current president
Speaker 2: or former. I voted for Barack Obama, but I didn't
Speaker 2: get a tattoo. I don't have a Barack Obama flag
Speaker 2: on my house. I don't have a ten foot Barack
Speaker 2: Obama cardboard cutout. He did not become a deity to me.
Speaker 2: He was just the president and one of the most
Speaker 2: decent in my lifetime. I'm talking about as a person.
Speaker 2: I am not a political correspondent. I cannot rate the
Speaker 2: level of politician really that any of our legislators are right,
Speaker 2: because all of them tend to have a position that's
Speaker 2: more about corporate interest and fiscal benefits to themselves and
Speaker 2: their constituency than to the people that vote for them
Speaker 2: and put them in office. So I really don't. I'm
Speaker 2: not a big fan of politicians in general, because they
Speaker 2: all say a lot of really amazing things to get elected,
Speaker 2: and sin seem to get to what do they call
Speaker 2: it when you forget amnesia once they get in office.
Speaker 2: That seems to be the truth on both sides of
Speaker 2: the aisles. So I have to just get to the
Speaker 2: idea of decency, and I mean the idea because I
Speaker 2: don't know any of these people personally. Like to those
Speaker 2: of you that get in our dms and message us
Speaker 2: like fiery and angry and support of the former president,
Speaker 2: that's weird. He doesn't know you or care about you,
Speaker 2: and he's shown you that he doesn't care about you,
Speaker 2: but he also doesn't know you. And for those of
Speaker 2: you that know me that reach out to me on
Speaker 2: behalf of this weird stranger, that's I won't say that's
Speaker 2: weird because I think weirdo is a compliment, so I
Speaker 2: can't even call you weird.
Speaker 3: That's just bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So you know it's interesting, man. I had
Speaker 2: to not only remove myself and as an administrator, but
Speaker 2: I had to mute the page because I'm tagged in
Speaker 2: most of our post so I get all the comments
Speaker 2: and I'm just not here for it. So we can
Speaker 2: talk about some of the comments that we get. You
Speaker 2: can start us on whatever track you want. Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: do it, because I definitely have some that pop right
Speaker 2: to the top of my mind. So yeah, yeah, let'st
Speaker 2: So again we're sharing these with you.
Speaker 1: We're going to respond to them, because we don't really
Speaker 1: respond in the comments section we have. We're on seventy
Speaker 1: eighty radio somewhere in their radio stations. Every week, we
Speaker 1: have thousands of followers. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no sense in need tongue wrestling with or thumb
Speaker 1: wrestling with someone in the comment section. But again, we
Speaker 1: recognize and respect the fact that as a listener, you
Speaker 1: might have people in your world that feel this way.
Speaker 1: So one of the comments came up on a video
Speaker 1: that Q posted recently where he was talking about there
Speaker 1: was a conservative gentleman who was attacking a black woman
Speaker 1: who was trying to fund other women of colors businesses
Speaker 1: and startups. Attacked her because because of that she's trying
Speaker 1: to fund women of color. So it's crazy. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: one of the comments says, what about Oprah, Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: jay Z, Lil Wayne, et cetera. Maybe if you work
Speaker 1: as hard as they did instead of complaining and playing
Speaker 1: the victim, you'd have power as well.
Speaker 2: So I do that.
Speaker 1: How many people did he named, he said, Oprah, Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: Jay z Lil Wayne, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Okay, for those four people, you people should just shut
Speaker 2: up and be happy because this is a meritocracy and
Speaker 2: all that takes is hard work. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so let me let me give you something,
Speaker 1: some food for thought, just in case something like this
Speaker 1: comes up in your world. So what are these people
Speaker 1: have in common, Oprah, Michael Jordan, jay z Lil Wayne. Well,
Speaker 1: they're all celebrities working entertainment. Okay, Entertainment is a very
Speaker 1: very very very very very very very small field. We
Speaker 1: work in entertainment. It's very small, very competitive. I was
Speaker 1: watching a video you might have shared it with me,
Speaker 1: where there was a gentleman explaining how every year there
Speaker 1: might be a million children that want to go to
Speaker 1: the NBA, but ultimately seven people are drafted into the
Speaker 1: NBA something like that every every year or something. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly what the numbers, but it's a very
Speaker 1: small amount of number of people that get drafted into
Speaker 1: the to the year, more than seven. But wait whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's so there's like a million people that want to
Speaker 1: play and it ends up being like or on a team.
Speaker 1: I think it's four people on a team something like
Speaker 1: that in an area. So all of these million kids
Speaker 1: are all competing for the these well, the number was seven.
Speaker 1: I just I can't quote the video directly, but it was.
Speaker 1: That's the number he used. So I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: he was explaining it. But you have all these kids
Speaker 1: competing for what was effectively seven full time jobs. And
Speaker 1: oh no, sorry there was I forgot the number of
Speaker 1: what you said, but it was the job lasts for
Speaker 1: seven years on average.
Speaker 3: That was the number seven. Okay, so forgive me.
Speaker 1: But the long and short of it is, there's a
Speaker 1: million kids that want to play in the NBA, and
Speaker 1: the number of jobs that are available is very small.
Speaker 2: They draft in the two rounds about sixty four players
Speaker 2: a year.
Speaker 3: There you go, So you have sixty four jobs, and
Speaker 3: then I think some of them only last seven years
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: So in terms of like a full career for your life,
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of those million people that will
Speaker 1: actually end up.
Speaker 2: With that job.
Speaker 1: Well, the same holds true with the rest of the
Speaker 1: entertainment business. That's sports entertainment, but the rest of the
Speaker 1: entertainment business. So you're going to look at people who, yes,
Speaker 1: have worked hard. But as you know, hard work isn't
Speaker 1: the only thing that goes into this and sports in particular,
Speaker 1: you need like some sort of genetic advantage, you need
Speaker 1: the right sort of guidance, you need to be free
Speaker 1: of all the encumbrances that comes along with that. And
Speaker 1: then the truth is you have to be in the
Speaker 1: top zero point zero, zero zero whatever percent of the athletes.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't really matter how hard you work. There's
Speaker 1: people that work day in and day out and day
Speaker 1: in and day out that will never go to the
Speaker 1: If I wanted to work all day, I'm five foot
Speaker 1: eight of never going to the NBA. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how hard I work. Right in terms of Oprah, In
Speaker 1: terms of Little Wayne, you know, there's these are people
Speaker 1: that are born with like natural gifts and they couple
Speaker 1: that with hard work. Right now, let's talk about something
Speaker 1: that makes a little bit more sense. You know, if
Speaker 1: we're talking about stem jobs, there might be one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand of those jobs available, right but what you need
Speaker 1: is people to show these kids who are born in environments.
Speaker 1: So there's a great deal of hopelessness and not a
Speaker 1: lot in the way of access to those particular opportunities
Speaker 1: where you can and there's the opportunity to create that
Speaker 1: connective tissue and to shape those outcomes for those students, right,
Speaker 1: and then you start to have impact on the amount
Speaker 1: of income that comes into black households and black communities
Speaker 1: and so forth, and start changing the way that the
Speaker 1: world wire. And it's not just a matter of working hard.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of what opportunities exist. And for those
Speaker 1: people that look at black people and say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to stop selling drugs your own community, and
Speaker 1: you got to, you know, stop committing crimes and whatever,
Speaker 1: you're not accounting for the fact that desperate people and
Speaker 1: desperate circumstances do desperate things. This is a fundamental fact
Speaker 1: of humanity or really of any creature of life.
Speaker 2: Definitely not limited to black people. I want to use
Speaker 2: an extreme example on purpose. There was a movie that
Speaker 2: came out years ago. I don't remember the name of it,
Speaker 2: but essentially a plane crashed in the mountains and it
Speaker 2: was freezing cold, oh and they started eating it. Eventually
Speaker 2: they ran out of food and cannibalized to survive. Not
Speaker 2: because they were awful, not because they were criminals, because
Speaker 2: they were dying. It's we want to make it more
Speaker 2: complicated than that, because we want to have a clear
Speaker 2: moral compass when we make decisions that continually and perpetually
Speaker 2: disenfranchise other people. We don't want to be seen as
Speaker 2: bad people. And I don't know why I'm saying we
Speaker 2: because I don't fit into that group. But that group
Speaker 2: they defend those principles and those ideals so hard so
Speaker 2: they can sleep at night. Yeah right, There's no way
Speaker 2: that I'm responsible or partly responsible, or even participating in
Speaker 2: a system that's responsible for causing these people to be
Speaker 2: oppressed and poor and homeless. It has to just be
Speaker 2: because they're black and criminal and lazy. Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: It's not and at some point we have to accept
Speaker 2: that that's not the case. This gentleman used, or this
Speaker 2: young lady whoever used? Jay Z and Lila Wayne ass
Speaker 2: right where the greatest of all time at what they do? Right,
Speaker 2: I have two examples to point to, because Chris Rock
Speaker 2: made a joke about this at one point, jay Z
Speaker 2: and Mary J. Blige being his neighbors. Their neighbor was
Speaker 2: a white dentist He didn't invent teeth. He did not
Speaker 2: invent teeth or dentistry. He was just a dentist. They
Speaker 2: Mary J. Blige, Chris Rock, and jay Z, three of
Speaker 2: the greatest who ever exist in their fields. Their neighbor,
Speaker 2: a white dentist, not the greatest dentist of all time.
Speaker 2: Write another example. Just Spotify alone, daily, sixty thousand songs
Speaker 2: are uploaded a day from artists all over the world.
Speaker 2: You ever listen to the radio, of course, of course,
Speaker 2: how many songs you think you're here? Day thirty of
Speaker 2: the same songs over and over again for months at
Speaker 2: a time, without there being a new song that breaks
Speaker 2: into that cycle. So fifty nine point nine of fifty nine,
Speaker 2: nine hundred and ninety nine of those songs will never hear.
Speaker 2: That's insane. So the idea that you just work hard
Speaker 2: and keep uploading and keep recording and keep writing you'll
Speaker 2: be jay.
Speaker 1: Z one day don't work that way. That's not how
Speaker 1: this works. And let me add to that, because again
Speaker 1: he's talking about entertainment. If he was talking about any
Speaker 1: other industry where black people were successful and they had
Speaker 1: the money and all that stuff to go with it,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, yeah, let's keep talking. Let's keep having
Speaker 1: that conversation. But he's only talking about entertainment. So do
Speaker 1: me your favorite Go to an audition or a speaking role,
Speaker 1: in a paid speaking role in pretty much any on
Speaker 1: the level production, film, television, whatever, and see how many
Speaker 1: people are auditioning, and then see how many people get cast,
Speaker 1: and then you'll start to see how.
Speaker 2: See how successful that project is, because there are TV shows,
Speaker 2: commercials and movies that get made that are not successful
Speaker 2: that too, So then you're back at square one, trying
Speaker 2: to audition again.
Speaker 1: So again you're starting to see how limited your scope
Speaker 1: is and the field is there, and how unrealistic it
Speaker 1: is to just say, well, just work like these people
Speaker 1: and you'll be successful.
Speaker 2: And there's three of those people are billionaires. Yeah, okay, right,
Speaker 2: So when you're talking about private equity, ask us to
Speaker 2: search money capital vcs, you know, being an approved investor,
Speaker 2: I don't think could ever get to the point where
Speaker 2: you'll make a billion dollars. That that world doesn't exist,
Speaker 2: sir or ma'am. I don't think this individual is asse equated.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous comment.
Speaker 3: So let's move on.
Speaker 1: Here's another comment, says BLM pulled it over y'all's eyes
Speaker 1: and took your money many of my favorite many of
Speaker 1: you's freedom and turned that into mansions and millions for themselves.
Speaker 1: And IT and Antifa are homegrown terrorist organizations attacking, burning, looting,
Speaker 1: and killing indiscriminately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that happened, all right? Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Speaker 1: No one buys the BLM virtue signaling stuff anymore unless
Speaker 1: they willfully choose to be ignorant or want to start
Speaker 1: the burning slash murder, slash degenerate stuff cycle all over again.
Speaker 1: And then a skull emoji. Don't get hung up. We
Speaker 1: got a lot.
Speaker 2: When I say black lives matter, I'm talking about myself,
Speaker 2: my mother, my friends, my siblings, my children, my family,
Speaker 2: my classmates, my coworkers. I'm not talking about the name
Speaker 2: of an organization, however you feel about that organization. That's
Speaker 2: not what I'm talking about. And I'm saying what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about because this comment was in response to a
Speaker 2: video where I said those words, and I even explained
Speaker 2: in the video, sir or ma'am, if you just press
Speaker 2: rewind or watch again or listen the first time, that
Speaker 2: when we say black power, black girl magic, and black
Speaker 2: lives matter, that we are simply affirming our worth to
Speaker 2: a country that has gone out of its way for
Speaker 2: its entire history to show us that those words aren't true.
Speaker 2: Hard stop period.
Speaker 3: Everything you said, okay, okay, so let me let me
Speaker 3: add something to that.
Speaker 2: Does not apply. Let me. I had to stop myself
Speaker 2: from getting very very angry just there. The things that
Speaker 2: you said have nothing to do with what I said, sir,
Speaker 2: all right, so let me add something to that real quick.
Speaker 2: For those of you who've never worked in activism, you
Speaker 2: don't know how activism works.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that the powers that be.
Speaker 1: Have done to discredit the Nation of Islam, or to
Speaker 1: discredit doctor King or Malcolm X or Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton,
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers, on and on, is they try their
Speaker 1: best to discredit how they are spending money, in addition
Speaker 1: to villainizing them, saying that they're black supremacists and all
Speaker 1: kinds of other wid stuff. But we're talking about money here,
Speaker 1: because that's the issue with this guy and a lot
Speaker 1: of people when they talk about BLM the organization. So
Speaker 1: if you have not been an activist, you don't know
Speaker 1: how scary that is. If you have kids, if you
Speaker 1: know whatever, you're affirming your life and your right to exist. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when I start my activism, I live in an apartment.
Speaker 1: Live in an apartment. You know, people can just walk
Speaker 1: right up to your front door and it's made out
Speaker 1: of cardboard.
Speaker 2: Okay. If I.
Speaker 1: Get a higher profile, then that comes with a lot
Speaker 1: of people who hate me, would rather see me dead.
Speaker 3: A lot of these people are crazy people.
Speaker 1: Crazy people exist on the Internet and people get docked,
Speaker 1: and that means that they put your information up on
Speaker 1: the internet. So all of a sudden, your apartment with
Speaker 1: the cardboard door is not safe anymore. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many guns you try to purchase or bulletproof vest
Speaker 1: or whatever. Your life is at risk walking down the
Speaker 1: street and at home when you're asleep. Somebody can just
Speaker 1: kick that door, ride open, unload in your house and
Speaker 1: that's the end.
Speaker 3: Of your story.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants that, right, So you can't stay there. You
Speaker 1: need to move somewhere more secure, probably somewhere with a gate.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So when people start pointing to the money of BLM
Speaker 1: and they start looking at these people, first things first, Okay,
Speaker 1: when you're at the helm of an enormous organization, you
Speaker 1: draw a salary.
Speaker 3: Any organization. It could be McDonald's, it could be whatever charities,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever.
Speaker 1: The Ronald McDonald's Cross, Ronald McDonald's children's charities, the CEO
Speaker 1: of that organization makes a lot of money, enough to
Speaker 1: afford whatever mansion that individual lives. And then pick again,
Speaker 1: Red Cross, pick anyone, because there's still corporations and you
Speaker 1: still need to pay for that executive level talent. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they would just go and work for a for profit company.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: These people aren't just bums and broke people at the
Speaker 1: helm of these huge organizations. These women are no different.
Speaker 1: But because they're black, the optics look worse because we've
Speaker 1: been taught to view dobs.
Speaker 2: Don't actually look worse. They're just framed works framed worse.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I got to make sure I knocked this out in
Speaker 1: just a second because there's a lot more comms we're
Speaker 1: not going to get to, but as far as this one,
Speaker 1: because this is a tired argument, to me, this was
Speaker 1: the most important one. So so what I want to
Speaker 1: say is that for those people, whatever it is that
Speaker 1: they're paying themselves, which I don't suspect is more than
Speaker 1: someone at the Ronald McDonald house to do the work
Speaker 1: that they're doing. Not everybody volunteers their time for free.
Speaker 1: We are radio professor professionals, me and Q.
Speaker 3: We should be getting paid for the work that we do.
Speaker 3: We always have.
Speaker 1: Now that we've moved into this space, we don't get
Speaker 1: paid for it, but we will and that will be okay,
Speaker 1: because we're professionals at what we do. Okay, they're getting paid.
Speaker 1: And then they purchase a more secure residence because their
Speaker 1: life is at risk. And then what is the media
Speaker 1: frame it as? Oh, they bought mansions with your BLM money. Right,
Speaker 1: So again the optics of these black organizations that are
Speaker 1: affirming our right to exist and our right to live
Speaker 1: is twisted. And then it you know, you get a
Speaker 1: candae Owens to co sign it, and then we all
Speaker 1: look like bad folks. Right, So I would tell you
Speaker 1: to take this comment, twist it up, and I'll leave
Speaker 1: it right there. All right, With that in mind, thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning into another episode of Civic Cipher. Once again,
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ramsay's.
Speaker 2: Jah he is' jah. I am frustrated, of course, And
Speaker 2: again I wasn't talking about BLM the organization. I was
Speaker 2: simply saying something that you should think is true as well.
Speaker 2: Black lives matter as do yours. But there's no need
Speaker 2: to affirm that in this country because you built the
Speaker 2: place and it's always been structured for your benefit. And
Speaker 2: by you, I mean anybody offended by me saying black
Speaker 2: lives matter.
Speaker 1: Sure, do us a favor, though we got a lot
Speaker 1: more comments that we couldn't even get to follow us
Speaker 1: on social media. We're at Civic Cipher. Follow us on
Speaker 1: YouTube as well at Civic Cipher. Help us with these comments,
Speaker 1: you know what we're talking about. We're not going to
Speaker 1: engage with everything just because it's so taxing and overwhelming,
Speaker 1: but we could use the support.
Speaker 3: We're trying to change the world here and you know
Speaker 3: this is what we do.
Speaker 2: All right, till next week out peace,