Speaker 1: You're just tuning in the civic cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams's jaw. I am q ward. You are
Speaker 2: either just tuning in or still listening to.
Speaker 1: You are, and we want you to keep on listening
Speaker 1: because we are dealing with some trolls, some online comments,
Speaker 1: some people who don't see things the way that we
Speaker 1: might see them, and they are parroting very old, archaic,
Speaker 1: far right, deeply conservative ideals. We call them zombies because
Speaker 1: they just won't die. And our hope is that you,
Speaker 1: our listener, will benefit from this conversation we're having today
Speaker 1: and learn a couple of things that you might be
Speaker 1: able to use in your conversations in your attempts to
Speaker 1: become a better ally. So stick around for all that
Speaker 1: and so much more. But while we're talking about becoming
Speaker 1: a better ally, why don't we take a moment and
Speaker 1: discuss how you can do that about it? So, right now, now,
Speaker 1: let's discuss becoming a better ally. B A b A BABA.
Speaker 1: Today's BABA is sponsored by Friends of the Movement supporting
Speaker 1: Black Businesses and allied businesses. Check fotmglobal dot com and
Speaker 1: make an impact with your spending again that's fotmglobal dot com.
Speaker 1: All right. I pulled these from the Wilson Organizations. Twelve
Speaker 1: ways to support black people, just some reminders, just some
Speaker 1: light stuff in case you've forgotten, in case there's some
Speaker 1: things that have been on the back burner. Number one,
Speaker 1: keep your Black Lives Matter signs out. We still need
Speaker 1: that support. We have a long road ahead of us,
Speaker 1: and the more people see that black people are being supported,
Speaker 1: the more inclined they are to continue to offer their support.
Speaker 1: That goes a long way. Another Number two, joint diversity
Speaker 1: and inclusion groups at work. These are under attack by
Speaker 1: the far right. They don't want any DEI. They don't
Speaker 1: want any critical race theory, they don't want our history taught,
Speaker 1: they don't want affirmative action, they don't on a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So again, join DEI groups at work and
Speaker 1: be vocal there. Continue supporting black owned businesses. Obviously a
Speaker 1: lot of the problems that plague black life in America
Speaker 1: can be traced to poverty, and so supporting black businesses
Speaker 1: certainly helps alleviate that. Stop supporting racist influencers and companies
Speaker 1: unfollow them. Just don't support. Have difficult conversations with family
Speaker 1: and friends. That's sort of what we're trying to help
Speaker 1: you out with today. Hold companies accountable. That means send emails.
Speaker 1: If you're a Karen, get on that Karen energy, but
Speaker 1: do it for the right reasons. Check in with your
Speaker 1: child school about the district's anti racism efforts and make
Speaker 1: sure they keep their books in the library. Check on
Speaker 1: petitions you signed months ago, see if any follow up
Speaker 1: action is needed. Continue your anti racism learning. You're doing
Speaker 1: that today, we appreciate it. Reflect on your own problematic actions.
Speaker 1: Continue to donate to meaningful organizations at the websitesivixipher dot com.
Speaker 1: And finally, check in with your black friends and family.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to these these commons selves.
Speaker 1: One of our posts we talked about police training, We
Speaker 1: talk about police trank a lot of our posts. You know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned this, and this is very important because it
Speaker 1: really does need to be fleshed out. If there is
Speaker 1: a source of if there was a fix all for
Speaker 1: there's never going to be a fixed all, But if
Speaker 1: there was such a thing for black people in this country,
Speaker 1: it would be economic justice, restorative economic justice. Right, black
Speaker 1: people have been robbed of money, not just our lives.
Speaker 1: And our dignity and our rights and all that, but
Speaker 1: of actual dollars and cents. And we've been relegated as
Speaker 1: a group of people to ghettos and you know, as
Speaker 1: a status as second class citizens in this country. The
Speaker 1: best jobs historically have gone to one group of people
Speaker 1: and have not gone to another group of people. Housing discrimination, redlining,
Speaker 1: all these sorts of things, ways that people build wealth
Speaker 1: and pass wealth onto future generations that informs how people
Speaker 1: get educated. You know, your school district is paid by
Speaker 1: property taxes. So if you live in a poor neighborhood,
Speaker 1: oftentimes there's a black neighborhoods. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: just say that that only black people are poor, because
Speaker 1: I'm aware that there is a part of the country
Speaker 1: where everybody's white and they're all poor and the appellations, right,
Speaker 1: But if we're you know, talking about the numbers and
Speaker 1: the data, it certainly suggested that black people are at
Speaker 1: the bottom end of that spectrum.
Speaker 2: On a percentage basis the disproportionate to black people. Yes,
Speaker 2: of course there are more poor white people because they
Speaker 2: are more poor because there are more white people. Sure, sure,
Speaker 2: but you know, on the percentage the per capita it's
Speaker 2: disproportionately black and brown people.
Speaker 1: Yes, but here's here's a critical difference here is that
Speaker 1: when you talk about poor apple people, they have not
Speaker 1: been subjected to the same disenfranchisement that black people have. Right,
Speaker 1: And so this narrative that black people should pull pull
Speaker 1: ourselves up our bootstraps. This is sort of another common
Speaker 1: thing that shows up in the comments. It is it's
Speaker 1: first off, I might have shared this on the show before,
Speaker 1: but it's based on like, think about it for a second.
Speaker 1: It is impossible to pull yourselves up, pull yourself up
Speaker 1: by your bootstraps. It is physically impossible to do it.
Speaker 1: Imagine boots, now, imagine straps, and then imagine pulling yourself up.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work, right. I believe it was first introduced
Speaker 1: into media via like a newspaper something in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds of late eighteen hundreds, and it was meant
Speaker 1: to illustrate that it was impossible for I think it
Speaker 1: was originally intended to like pick on like Italians or
Speaker 1: maybe the Irish or something like that. But it is
Speaker 1: physically impossible to do that. But the idea was to
Speaker 1: show the government, like, yo, this is not possible. You
Speaker 1: can we cannot fix the problem that we're not creating.
Speaker 1: You know, you're creating the problem, and we need you
Speaker 1: to fix it. Right, So for that to be parroted
Speaker 1: to black people fix your own problems, there's a when
Speaker 1: I talk about personal responsibility. There are things that black
Speaker 1: people that we do own, that we can own provided
Speaker 1: that other things. You know, there's a critical process here.
Speaker 1: Other things need to be taken care of first. But
Speaker 1: I think that we've shown in our history our commitment
Speaker 1: to this country, to living up to the American dream,
Speaker 1: the promise that this country has for all of her
Speaker 1: citizens as a people. If we're painting with broad strokes,
Speaker 1: I believe that we've done that. We haven't left, we
Speaker 1: haven't rioted to any significant degree. It's certainly not to
Speaker 1: the degree that we could. I mean, sure we've been frustrated,
Speaker 1: there have been conflicts, but I.
Speaker 2: Think the thing that you would fear is us rioting
Speaker 2: against a group of people.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's what We've never done that, and that's
Speaker 1: what thank you for saying that. Right.
Speaker 2: I think they pointed out the destruction of property right
Speaker 2: during the summer of twenty twenty, and people showed up
Speaker 2: with assault rifles to keep us from destroying property that
Speaker 2: didn't belong to them.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about human lives, which we correct should
Speaker 1: in theory value more.
Speaker 2: Also, everything that is feared that we will one day
Speaker 2: rise up and do has not happened. That there's an
Speaker 2: entire history that shows that that's not what we're on.
Speaker 2: We are simply trying to exist and we're trying to
Speaker 2: prosper and just by being black. Every so often somebody
Speaker 2: either comes along and tears down what we've built for
Speaker 2: ourselves or they put in the way hurdles and barriers
Speaker 2: to keep us from ever getting where we're trying to go,
Speaker 2: if any cause we're black, and that being the only
Speaker 2: reason why.
Speaker 1: If you want to find out the real reason why
Speaker 1: there's no healthcare in this country, please look that up
Speaker 1: and then you will see kind of how black people
Speaker 1: have been regarded in this country historically.
Speaker 2: Right you say that healthcare expound, Please, I don't want
Speaker 2: I don't want that universal health care.
Speaker 1: Universal health care. Why this country does not have universal
Speaker 1: health care? I want you to look that up. Why
Speaker 1: does the United States not have universal health care? And
Speaker 1: dig deep and you.
Speaker 2: Might be the only of what they call developed countries
Speaker 2: that doesn't have universal health care.
Speaker 1: But I think that when you find the answer that
Speaker 1: I'm pointing you toward, you'll begin to see exactly what
Speaker 1: this country historically, speaking as thought of black people. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, we're all born, you know, in the past
Speaker 1: one hundred years, sure, you know, and things have certainly
Speaker 1: progressed since then. You know, I was born in the eighties,
Speaker 1: so things have even progressed since the eighties. I will
Speaker 1: see that entirely. I was able to vote for Barack
Speaker 1: Obama he was elected president. I saw everyone come out
Speaker 1: and join us when we marched for Black Life. I
Speaker 1: saw that, you know, there was love and that we
Speaker 1: do have potential in this country. But there is a
Speaker 1: not insignificant amount of people who still feel that the
Speaker 1: old way is the best way, and they're in enough
Speaker 1: position of power to do something about it or a
Speaker 1: minimum control us on online. So back to the economic
Speaker 1: restorative justice or reparations or scary words or anything like,
Speaker 1: we don't even have to talk about. Listen, Biden wanted
Speaker 1: to make education free. Let me interrupt.
Speaker 2: I wanted to forgive thee not just that, not just that,
Speaker 2: make it education free moving forward to but yes that too.
Speaker 1: Both of the these things once you see that. I
Speaker 1: don't want to connect some dots and sound like a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist here, but everything that I see time and again,
Speaker 1: it almost seems like if black people stand to benefit
Speaker 1: from it, there is a much stronger response to it
Speaker 1: than if only your majority white people benefit from it
Speaker 1: from the right and the far right. Okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: not imagining that. I know that I've seen it now.
Speaker 2: Far too much data that supports what you're saying or
Speaker 2: or articles or Yeah. So that is something that at
Speaker 2: least in my experience, has been very real. But okay,
Speaker 2: I don't want to do I may want to make
Speaker 2: sure that I make this point. So economic restorative justice.
Speaker 2: So when you talk about I talked about the.
Speaker 1: Schools I talked about, Okay, let's talk about voting. Voting
Speaker 1: happens when p people are able to take time off
Speaker 1: of what we don't have a national voting holiday. Why
Speaker 1: do you suppose that is because then poor people would
Speaker 1: be able to vote? Yeah? Right, So anyway, poor people,
Speaker 1: black people, black people, liberal, you know, et cetera, and
Speaker 1: so they you know, you get what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: so when when when you're poor and you're living hand
Speaker 1: to mouth, your ability to let your voice be heard
Speaker 1: is compromised. Right, in the past, they had things like
Speaker 1: poll taxes and literacy tests and you know that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff, and it's just kind of evolved. Right. Jerry
Speaker 1: Mandering is the most obvious way of disenfranchising black people
Speaker 1: in this country, but these other tactics work as well.
Speaker 1: Right now, when you're poor, let's say you resort to
Speaker 1: whatever means necessary to feed your family. Okay, these means
Speaker 1: might not, strictly speaking, be the most legal means, but
Speaker 1: you're poor. What are you going to do? I gotta eat,
Speaker 1: I gotta feed my family. This is what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm a bus and move right. So you bust a
Speaker 1: move and you get hemmed up by the police. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do the police do. They take you to jail,
Speaker 1: and they put you in jail. Okay. Now, maybe you
Speaker 1: did have a job and you're trying to supplement that income. Okay,
Speaker 1: but when you're in jail as a poor person, the
Speaker 1: only way that you can get out is when you
Speaker 1: bail out. Okay. Now, I'm talking about all these things
Speaker 1: because they disproportionately affect black people. Okay, So if you
Speaker 1: have money to bail out, Well, then you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been shoplifting in the first place.
Speaker 2: Right, And if you're a person with me, then you
Speaker 2: do commit a crime.
Speaker 1: Then you have the money to bail out.
Speaker 2: You got the money to bail out. You don't even
Speaker 2: have to spend the night in jail, exactly. You know,
Speaker 2: our former commander in chief turned himself in and then
Speaker 2: went home because he had the means to do so. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: black people who can't afford bill, and in some instances
Speaker 2: don't ever even commit a crime, are never even tried
Speaker 2: for said crime. They're just arrested and then they bailed
Speaker 2: and they can't make bail, so they're just hailed a month,
Speaker 2: awaiting trial for years sometimes right, Okay, So with I
Speaker 2: forget his name, but in upstate New York, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about, Let's find his name.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure he said his name because
Speaker 1: he's passed away and it's importan press to say his name.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so you're in jail, So what happens to
Speaker 1: the job that you might have had. Well, now you've
Speaker 1: lost that job because you're held in jail, can't make bill,
Speaker 1: And then what impact does that have on your family.
Speaker 1: Now they're fending for themselves, and think of the impact
Speaker 1: that has on the community. Right. So again, economic restorative justice,
Speaker 1: and this is the source of many of the problems
Speaker 1: that the black people have, and our inability to shape
Speaker 1: our reality stems from a lot of these economic limitations
Speaker 1: that are the result, again of a long history of
Speaker 1: this country disenfranchising black people or actively stealing. And I'm
Speaker 1: talking about government agencies, right, Okay, let's find another one.
Speaker 1: So okay, we're talking about I wanted to mention this
Speaker 1: one about police training. Okay, so we were trying to
Speaker 1: dispel the myth that better police training leads to better officers.
Speaker 1: And where do you move on?
Speaker 2: There were so many stories when I put in died,
Speaker 2: denied bail upstate New York that I can't find this
Speaker 2: gentleman's name. And I don't mean this lightheartedly. There are
Speaker 2: too many stories for me to even figure out who
Speaker 2: we're talking about. So just imagine this idea. You're arrested,
Speaker 2: there's proof that you didn't do this thing, but no
Speaker 2: one ever sees that there's truth because you couldn't bail out,
Speaker 2: and while you're hailed to be sentenced and tried at
Speaker 2: some point other people are being arrested at the same time,
Speaker 2: and these people are being hailed and awaiting sentencing during
Speaker 2: COVID government institutions, paperwork, logjams, it goes.
Speaker 1: On and on.
Speaker 2: You can see how a month, several months, a year,
Speaker 2: multiple years can go by, and because you don't have
Speaker 2: the means to do anything about it, the system eachs
Speaker 2: you alive.
Speaker 1: Literally. Well, I happen to remember a detail about his
Speaker 1: case that he was accused of stealing a backpack, which
Speaker 1: he maintained the entire time that he didn't steal, and
Speaker 1: so that's what I plugged in. His name is Khalik Browder.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to make sure that I said his
Speaker 1: name because he's an example of the aforeman scenario. Okay,
Speaker 1: so again back to police training, and we talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show. So in short, there's data that
Speaker 1: suggests that increased police training does not lead to changed attitudes.
Speaker 1: They kind of will adopt a different posture for about
Speaker 1: a month and then they revert to type. They are
Speaker 1: back on whatever they were on before. So the diversity
Speaker 1: training or the whatever the training is that that officersity training,
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, It doesn't work based on the data.
Speaker 1: And and you know we have this in a previous episode.
Speaker 1: Please go to civicyper dot com download and check it out.
Speaker 1: You can't you can't miss it. It's recent enough, probably
Speaker 1: in the last two months. We did that episode. And
Speaker 1: then of course we cited some examples of police trainers
Speaker 1: who the people who are responsible for training the offers
Speaker 1: ending lives themselves.
Speaker 2: Right, be that acting in bad faith or making a
Speaker 2: mistake either way.
Speaker 1: Now, so we use this as an example, and we
Speaker 1: cited the data and everything like that on one of
Speaker 1: our posts. Well, some of these comments again, so okay,
Speaker 1: I just have them right if we want a second
Speaker 1: where to go, police don't need anything. The people need
Speaker 1: to act right and force social norms and quit making
Speaker 1: excuses for bad behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so if as if you behave bad you
Speaker 2: should be killed. But and you know what, I think
Speaker 2: even that person thinks that that would be a ridiculous
Speaker 2: way to end their own comment. Right, people just need
Speaker 2: to act better, because if you behave bad you should
Speaker 2: be murdered. I think even that person would agree that
Speaker 2: that's a ridiculous conclusion to reach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what, even if there was a
Speaker 1: person really felt like it needs to be that strict,
Speaker 1: don't break the rules, and then you get to live,
Speaker 1: even if the person sincerely felt that way. Right. I've
Speaker 1: been to places around the world. They're called what are
Speaker 1: they called, I forget the name of the type of state,
Speaker 1: but it's some sort of state where the penalties for
Speaker 1: crimes are super severe. So you know, no one commits crimes,
Speaker 1: but when someone does, it's often the death penalty. Singapore
Speaker 1: is a place like this. I've been there been a
Speaker 1: few times. Actually, I don't you come there, but let's
Speaker 1: say that this is how you feel, you feel like
Speaker 1: how the Singaporean government feels. Right, don't do any crime.
Speaker 1: You won't have a problem. Nothing to see here. We've
Speaker 1: seen time again, and you just mentioned Q that you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to commit a crime to be at
Speaker 1: odds with the police. What we call it is often
Speaker 1: enough just being black and nearby. Right, this is a
Speaker 1: real thing, and if you're not a black person, you
Speaker 1: don't know this experience. At some point you just have
Speaker 1: to kind of take our work for it. That's a
Speaker 1: real thing. It's not our imagination. We're not victims, and
Speaker 1: nobody wants that who wants to be a victim.
Speaker 2: Pause, we are victims. Well, we're not playing the victory imagination.
Speaker 2: We're not making these things up. These are real life
Speaker 2: experiences that we go through for simply existing in the
Speaker 2: skin we were born into. I have never done drugs
Speaker 2: in my life. I was pulled over on a highway
Speaker 2: and a brand new car. Police dogs came and the
Speaker 2: police told us that their dog sensed or found or
Speaker 2: smelled drugs and the car I just bought. And if
Speaker 2: it wasn't us, that maybe someone walked by the car
Speaker 2: with drugs in their posts and brand brushed up against
Speaker 2: the car. That was not my imagination, folks.
Speaker 1: And the last stop was one hundred and fifty miles
Speaker 1: prior to that. That really happened. I was there, I
Speaker 1: saw it. So anyway, the long and the short of
Speaker 1: it is that you can appreciate that no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: all of these things deserve someone to think about them,
Speaker 1: and these people really need to be educated. But we're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to fight this battle in
Speaker 1: the comments section. That's not how this works. But we
Speaker 1: do recognize that you, our listener, encounter these talking points
Speaker 1: in your day to day lives. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And as these things come up, our hope is that
Speaker 1: we've given you a little bit more to work with.
Speaker 1: One last thing before I go. I made a comment
Speaker 1: recently where I was saying that you and I we
Speaker 1: we deleted our Twitter accounts because we don't want to
Speaker 1: be in spaces where the in word flies freely. And
Speaker 1: there was a person that responded to that saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess you don't listen to rap music and you
Speaker 1: don't watch black comedy and that sort of stuff, and
Speaker 1: they have a different idea of what in word flies
Speaker 1: freely means than I do. Because black people say that word.
Speaker 1: And we've done an episode on this, feel free to
Speaker 1: go back and check the archives. Why is the word
Speaker 1: so offensive when non black people use it? But the
Speaker 1: long and the short of it is that for black people,
Speaker 1: it does not sound like an insult when we hear
Speaker 1: other black people say it. This has been my experience. Okay,
Speaker 1: when other people say it, it does sound like an insult.
Speaker 1: It may as well be two different words, right, And
Speaker 1: so the N word does fly freely on Twitter because
Speaker 1: everyone uses it. It does not fly freely in hip hop
Speaker 1: because where I can sit, you know, it's only black
Speaker 1: people saying that We'll leave that one right there. With
Speaker 1: that in mind, thank you for walking this path with us.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a weird episode for us to do.
Speaker 1: I'm being honest. Normally we talk about things that are happening,
Speaker 1: but we're trying to give you some game.
Speaker 2: And for you guys, I know some of you are like,
Speaker 2: why do you guys even pay attention to that. The
Speaker 2: truth of the matter is, people pretend that social media
Speaker 2: isn't real.
Speaker 1: It's very real.
Speaker 2: Spend all of us spend a large portion of our
Speaker 2: days there, and when every comment you get reads like that,
Speaker 2: it makes even those of us that consider ourselves kind
Speaker 2: of emotionally intelligent and sane pause for a second, like, Hey,
Speaker 2: am I the one that's tripping here?
Speaker 1: Do us a favor. Help us out, Follow us on
Speaker 1: social media and leave some positive comments. Hit the website
Speaker 1: Civiccipher dot com, our webs our social media is all
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher. Rock out with us, man and help us,
Speaker 1: you know, change the world. How about that? Until next week, y'all.
Speaker 2: Peace,