Speaker 1: And now how my mic back. You're like that you
Speaker 1: can strike.
Speaker 2: Waters from headquarters behind him.
Speaker 1: And then if you're just tuning in to Civic Cipher,
Speaker 1: I am your host Ramsey's job. Big shout out to
Speaker 1: my man q Ward, who has taken a week off
Speaker 1: but shall return in short order to give you more
Speaker 1: of his thoughts and his perspective on all the things
Speaker 1: that you know him of for him to talk about,
Speaker 1: I'm sure anyway, Uh, this week, we have very special
Speaker 1: guests with us, Harry Curtin, who I met at a
Speaker 1: panel for you know, folks running for city council. He's
Speaker 1: the person that I thought I would lend my endorsement
Speaker 1: to and I invite him up on the show, and
Speaker 1: he's here with us to discuss, you know, the role
Speaker 1: of local government, certain policies that he feels could be
Speaker 1: beneficial and just you know what the future may hold
Speaker 1: for us. So we're gonna talk more with him, and
Speaker 1: we're also going to discuss Benjamin Banneker for our Way
Speaker 1: Black History Fact and he's a very interesting person that
Speaker 1: shows that we were not just slaves and conquered tribes
Speaker 1: brought over to this country, but great thinkers and contributors
Speaker 1: to the foundation of this great nation of ours. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, let's discuss baba. How to become a
Speaker 1: better ally. Today's Baba sponsored by Major Threads where high
Speaker 1: fashion meets timeless men's where visit major threads dot com
Speaker 1: from more information. The passage I'm reading comes from SCOTUSblog
Speaker 1: dot com. And I'm going to need you to pay
Speaker 1: a little bit of attention because the Baba comes in
Speaker 1: the end, all right. In February, divided Supreme Court temporarily
Speaker 1: blocked ruling by a three judge district court in Alabama,
Speaker 1: which had agreed the state's new congressional map likely violates
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act. After nearly two hours of oral
Speaker 1: argument on Tuesday, the justices appeared inclined to permanently set
Speaker 1: aside the district court's ruling, even if it wasn't clear
Speaker 1: on exactly what theory they would do so. But even
Speaker 1: a narrower ruling than the broad pronouncement the state seeks, would,
Speaker 1: the plaintiffs contend, make it much more difficult to challenge
Speaker 1: redistricting plans on the grounds that they weaken the collective
Speaker 1: voting power of black people. So yeah, this is something
Speaker 1: we got to pay attention to. The law at the
Speaker 1: center of this case is Section two of the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act, which bar's election practices that result in the
Speaker 1: denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race.
Speaker 1: Voters and other groups have challenged Alabama's twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: redistricting map for its seven seats in the US House
Speaker 1: of Representatives, arguing that the map violates Section two by
Speaker 1: diluting the votes of the state's black residents, who make
Speaker 1: up twenty seven percent of the state's population. The state,
Speaker 1: the challenge is said, illegally packed many black voters into
Speaker 1: one district as as part of Alabama known as the
Speaker 1: Black Belt at the time. The challengers contend the state
Speaker 1: dispersed black vast voters and the rest of the Black
Speaker 1: Belt and to several other districts where they are only
Speaker 1: a minority, when it should have created an additional majority
Speaker 1: black district. A three judge court that included two judges
Speaker 1: appointed by President Donald Trump ruled that the map likely
Speaker 1: violates Section two, but in February, the Supreme Court, by
Speaker 1: a vote of five to four, put that decision on hold,
Speaker 1: allowing Alabama to use the map in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two elections and set the case for argument in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two to twenty three term. If you want
Speaker 1: to help push back against this, please visit N DOUBLEACP
Speaker 1: dot org slash donate. We need our vote, we need
Speaker 1: our voice once again N DOUBLEACP dot org slash donate.
Speaker 1: All right, now back to today's guest, mister Harry Curtin.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, we talked about local government. We
Speaker 1: talked about homelessness a bit. Yep, let's get to the
Speaker 1: visit of the meet. Let's get to the meet. All right,
Speaker 1: what are your thought on the current state of police?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is something at a city council level.
Speaker 4: You have a lot of input and a lot of
Speaker 4: you can make some real good happen in this area
Speaker 4: for sure. All Right, So the police for me, I
Speaker 4: talked a little bit in the beginning about you know,
Speaker 4: my story and kind of what I went through as
Speaker 4: a kid. When I was a kid, I wanted to
Speaker 4: be a police officer. You know, they were my heroes.
Speaker 4: They looked out for me in these you know times
Speaker 4: when they would be shown up to our house to
Speaker 4: break up a dispute between my parents. I mean, they were.
Speaker 4: I sometimes knew their names better than I knew my teachers.
Speaker 4: Little kids don't want to be police officers anymore, and
Speaker 4: probably for good reason. You know, we haven't evolved that
Speaker 4: department the way we should. We haven't supported the officers
Speaker 4: the way we should. But I think what we're missing
Speaker 4: is how we policed in the past is not what's
Speaker 4: going to work in the future today in the future,
Speaker 4: and we've been unfair to them, and we've been fair
Speaker 4: to the public, and there's a lot that can change
Speaker 4: there to make them more support, make them want to
Speaker 4: be a police officer again, allow them to have the
Speaker 4: career opportunities that they should have, but also get the
Speaker 4: officers we want to support the problems we have in
Speaker 4: the city. So you know, this is a problem I've
Speaker 4: thought so deeply about. I mean, I think about it
Speaker 4: all the time. And one of the things that really
Speaker 4: drove me to run for office. For me, if I
Speaker 4: just had like a golden opportunity, if I said, hey,
Speaker 4: I could just wave a want and get what I want.
Speaker 4: What I would want is essentially a advanced campus for
Speaker 4: training for police officers, one that country has never seen before.
Speaker 4: Something I mean, I think star trek, I mean advanced,
Speaker 4: beautiful campus that focuses on social work, mental health, you know, cyber,
Speaker 4: all these different areas that a police officer now deals
Speaker 4: with in a daily basis. Not always cyber, but a
Speaker 4: lot of these areas, because I mean, we're expecting an
Speaker 4: officer to show up and deal with mental health crisis,
Speaker 4: at domestic dispute, you know, all these things and solve
Speaker 4: in one day, and they don't have those skills. You know,
Speaker 4: we haven't given them those tools. We're not fair to them.
Speaker 4: And then we're like, oh, yeah, you did a bad job.
Speaker 4: Well I wouldn't do it. I mean, how could you
Speaker 4: possibly do it? What I see is an expanded police force,
Speaker 4: but a different kind of police force. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: community policing. And you have a domestic dispute, you have
Speaker 4: someone that shows up that's highly trained in that era,
Speaker 4: show up, Maybe have an officer in the background, you know,
Speaker 4: the gun if something goes wrong. But you're essentially diagnosing
Speaker 4: the problem from nine to one to one as best
Speaker 4: you can to bring the right resource. So we're not escalating,
Speaker 4: we're de escalating.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's just a totally different vision, and you're gonna get
Speaker 4: officers that want to be there again. You're gonna get
Speaker 4: a community that's supported, You're gonna have people going out
Speaker 4: that can actually help with these problems.
Speaker 3: We're just not We're just not.
Speaker 1: I love that you have this approach. I want to
Speaker 1: share something with you if i'm any First off, my
Speaker 1: cos Q he has the same background. When he was younger,
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a police officer. In fact, when
Speaker 1: he was old enough he actually applied. Really so he's
Speaker 1: someone that grew sort of espousing the idea.
Speaker 3: Heroes die hard.
Speaker 1: I was kind of meant to be a rock star,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't. But I guess you're very kind. So
Speaker 1: here's my view. You're absolutely right. We asked police to
Speaker 1: do too much the way that we have framed policing
Speaker 1: via what is known as copaganda, meaning police are espoused,
Speaker 1: especially espoused through Hollywood films and you know, crime stories
Speaker 1: and true crime this sort of stuff, and the way
Speaker 1: that police misconduct is sort of buried, the way that
Speaker 1: the policing kind of Are you familiar with the Stanford Experiments.
Speaker 1: We won't get into how the Sanford Experiments is basically
Speaker 1: a prison experiments where you know.
Speaker 3: I saw the movie I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but you know, it just gives you a
Speaker 1: glimpse into human psychology. It's not the most you know,
Speaker 1: it's debatable you know, how the experiment was conducted, but
Speaker 1: it does serve as you know, again we mentioned absolute
Speaker 1: power corrupts absolutely. This is the thing. It's a human condition.
Speaker 1: We're not you know, pointing anything racially. It's a human condition, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to policing. So I've been around
Speaker 1: the world, I've been very fortunate. I've traveled. I've been
Speaker 1: all fifty states, I've been you know, done, seeing a
Speaker 1: good amount of this planet. Awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've been in places where police have no guns.
Speaker 1: It's not a real thing. They don't have crime in
Speaker 1: the way that we do. Jails are different, jails are different,
Speaker 1: of course, But I've been in places where police do
Speaker 1: have guns. And this is a country where we do
Speaker 1: have the right to bear arms. Q famously as a
Speaker 1: gun owner, I famously am not. I do not believe
Speaker 1: that my purpose, I was not created by our common
Speaker 1: creator to take a life. And I don't believe a
Speaker 1: gun is how you defend yourself, that's how you end
Speaker 1: the life. That's the only purpose that if I'm defending myself,
Speaker 1: it's with a vest or hiding or something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but I you know that's to execute, not
Speaker 1: to defend.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I've been places where the police do have guns.
Speaker 1: You know, they have the right to bear arms in
Speaker 1: these countries as well, and the police will keep their
Speaker 1: guns in the trunk of their car. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a step between, uh, where where you have no gun,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, and where you have sort of this
Speaker 1: ready fire aim happening over and over again. I'm with you, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I know that you are. This is for our listeners,
Speaker 1: but we're paying a picture here because I love your thoughts.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 1: Now I think we can get there, Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So watch this what we have right now. I think
Speaker 1: it appeals to people who I want to do good, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it also appeals to people who maybe themselves have
Speaker 1: been bullied by parents in their home. They want respect,
Speaker 1: they want you know, they want that gun. That gun
Speaker 1: commands respect. There's no two ways about it, right, And
Speaker 1: if they have a gun and a way to if
Speaker 1: you don't respect me, if you don't respect my authority,
Speaker 1: you know, then they kind of it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a rage quit. You know this, and this is
Speaker 1: something that we see quite often. I have an example
Speaker 1: where we will talk about it next week on the show.
Speaker 1: Our producer Maggie b. Noan put it together for us,
Speaker 1: and this is normally we talk about stories that affect
Speaker 1: black and brown communities, our Asian American and Pacific Islander
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, so forth, and so on. But this
Speaker 1: will probably be a third or fourth show where we
Speaker 1: talk about exclusively our Caucasian brothers and sisters. And there
Speaker 1: was a young man who lost his life at the
Speaker 1: hands of police on video, and he was white. He
Speaker 1: parked his vehicle and he called the police and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm having a tough time here. I need some help.
Speaker 1: And the police came and they did try to talk
Speaker 1: to him, and after some time they wanted to go home.
Speaker 1: I guess or whatever he may have had like a
Speaker 1: pocket and something in the car. I don't remember what
Speaker 1: it was. You'll get the actual story next week, or
Speaker 1: of course you can look this up. And they wanted
Speaker 1: to taste him when they started tasing him, of course
Speaker 1: he's moving radically and then someone one of the officers
Speaker 1: shot him to the front window. He called them because
Speaker 1: he was having a problem. He wanted to help, but
Speaker 1: he didn't want to get out of the car because
Speaker 1: health issue. And he's no longer here for that. There
Speaker 1: you go. So what we have is a system that
Speaker 1: puts fear kind of squarely in the middle of the narrative.
Speaker 1: For police officers.
Speaker 3: They have right now, watch yeah.
Speaker 1: Watch watch this. You're a police officer, you know it's
Speaker 1: crazy out here. Everybody has a gun, so you need
Speaker 1: to have your gun. If you feel your life is
Speaker 1: in danger, you need to shoot, you know, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: rather than hey, you realize that this job could be dangerous.
Speaker 1: You know, this could be a dangerous job. Our job
Speaker 1: is to help people, you know, and kind of have
Speaker 1: a different orientation around it. We have a certain orientation
Speaker 1: where the officer had to say fear for his life.
Speaker 1: It was justified blah blah blah. And we're seeing that
Speaker 1: people are losing their life needlessly. People that didn't intend
Speaker 1: to wake up and do anything crazy and end up
Speaker 1: dead end up dead very often. Not to say that
Speaker 1: police officers shouldn't be able to protect themselves, but when
Speaker 1: we go into it with fear, the officers are that afraid.
Speaker 1: Q doesn't like when I use that word because he
Speaker 1: often sees these videos as being overt racism or you know,
Speaker 1: like I just don't care about these people's life, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to see this through to the end. But
Speaker 1: for me, a lot of times I try to give
Speaker 1: the benefit of doubt. I call it fear. When the
Speaker 1: officers are made to be afraid. When fear is sort
Speaker 1: of where they operate from, and we give them a device,
Speaker 1: a contraption whose only purpose is to end to life,
Speaker 1: then we end up seeing the same stories that we
Speaker 1: see over and over again. And so to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, the state of policing is not necessarily about
Speaker 1: the individual police officers. It's about police culture. It's based
Speaker 1: around fear. For giving people guns, and the guns is
Speaker 1: like the first line of defense. If we're militarizing the police.
Speaker 1: They got these punisher masks that align with their identity
Speaker 1: and so forth. It enhances bully culture. It enhances us
Speaker 1: versus them as opposed to listen, we are in the
Speaker 1: same community. I have friends right now who are police officers.
Speaker 1: I've shouted them out on this show before, and a
Speaker 1: lot of you listening I know, well, A lot of
Speaker 1: my listeners. They are going to hear that and be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, but I do I be honest, I
Speaker 1: do have friends.
Speaker 4: Looks until we've given them the tools and the investment
Speaker 4: and given them tools that they can actually address these
Speaker 4: problems correctly. Sure, I think we're man. I mean, think
Speaker 4: about think about a day in the life of a
Speaker 4: police officer in terms of what they make. You know,
Speaker 4: there's there's struggling with to raise their family, and then
Speaker 4: they're going out.
Speaker 3: They're laying their life on the line. They have to
Speaker 3: solve all these city problems in a day. Often.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I know there's the bad Apple thing.
Speaker 4: You know, I get it, but Jesus, how many times
Speaker 4: do you make a mistake in a week and one
Speaker 4: of the implications.
Speaker 1: Very serious scale.
Speaker 3: We got one. They've got no room, you know, and I.
Speaker 4: Just I want to give them the right tools. I
Speaker 4: want to invest, I want to create that and then
Speaker 4: I can kind of come in with a stick, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to do the right thing. I don't
Speaker 3: think we're doing the.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, you know, wants to be a cop and
Speaker 1: another thing. So there's a lot of people that feel
Speaker 1: like the change is going to happen overnight, and I
Speaker 1: realized that things need to evolve and they probably are
Speaker 1: going to eat involved very slowly, as is often the
Speaker 1: case with things central to the black plight in this country. Again,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of institutions that are resistant to
Speaker 1: change because simply because that's the way we've always done right,
Speaker 1: And a shift in the narrative, a shift in the identity,
Speaker 1: and the shift in we'll call this is tough.
Speaker 4: This will be a tough fight people that are used
Speaker 4: to it be in this way. There's officers that want
Speaker 4: it but won't be able to speak up.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's going to be all there.
Speaker 1: All of it. And I think to your point, I
Speaker 1: someone who's willing to say, listen, what we have is
Speaker 1: not working. What we've done in the past is not working.
Speaker 1: Throwing more money at the problem without creating new uh uh, guidelines, solutions, rules.
Speaker 1: You know, a plan doesn't it does nothing for no one.
Speaker 1: And so this is kind of what really stood out
Speaker 1: to me when you were speaking. Obviously I could go
Speaker 1: on and on about the way policing is done. Again,
Speaker 1: the human beings. I don't take issue with the human beings,
Speaker 1: but the institution, the way that it is executed throughout society, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: well said it overwhelming right, and it overwhelmingly benefits a
Speaker 1: certain group of people. They don't see the problems, they
Speaker 1: don't see the flaws. The police never interact with them
Speaker 1: other than the wave and say hi. And then there's
Speaker 1: other groups of people where they are overly policed and
Speaker 1: therefore overly incarcerated. Not that they do more crimes.
Speaker 3: Worried about that too.
Speaker 4: But I'm worried about the police officers as you should
Speaker 4: feel for them, as you should be.
Speaker 1: But you know, we have to bear in mind the
Speaker 1: nature of the job, and the purpose of the job
Speaker 1: is to serve the community, or at least in theory.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court decided that police officers do not have
Speaker 1: to in fact serve and protect, but in theory, this
Speaker 1: is what they do. And so everyone deserves a voice
Speaker 1: in terms of how their communities are policed. And because
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's black and brown mothers that are grieving the
Speaker 1: loss the permanent loss of their children or families are
Speaker 1: ripped apart or beaten or whatever things that don't make
Speaker 1: the news, everyone deserves to have a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: And I think a person who has a degree of
Speaker 1: empathy and focuses on the human experience of this. All
Speaker 1: deserves to be elected, which is why I will be
Speaker 1: for you. You're in my district, yes, sir, So let's
Speaker 1: move on. Let's move on.
Speaker 3: Can I tell one story please? Well?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, I'm a part of a group called the
Speaker 4: one hundred Club that supports fallen off first responders if
Speaker 4: they get hurt.
Speaker 3: So I went out. There was a big story here
Speaker 3: about a year ago where officers.
Speaker 4: Were protecting a baby. Somebody was using a baby basically
Speaker 4: to dodge the bullets. Five officers went out. They all
Speaker 4: got shot, and a woman really went in there, dug
Speaker 4: in got shot the worst. I went out there, part
Speaker 4: of the one hundred Club to kind of give them checks,
Speaker 4: just to help them out. I didn't know what else
Speaker 4: to say to them, but I wish it was me.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are kind, nice people given their lives.
Speaker 4: What am I doing?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 5: And I think the story is complex, you know? And yeah,
Speaker 5: so I'm glad. I'm glad you said that. It is
Speaker 5: important to say that. And this is why I keep
Speaker 5: saying that these are people who are part of an
Speaker 5: institution that there are disproportionate outcomes and effects on communities,
Speaker 5: the people who are brave people. We've covered stories of
Speaker 5: officers being very brave charging into a firefight to help
Speaker 5: protect black and brown people. We've told those stories on
Speaker 5: this show, and we've also had to talk about uvalde.
Speaker 1: You know, and and everything in between. And so something
Speaker 1: that's a bit more consistent that acknowledges the fact that
Speaker 1: we're dealing with human beings on both sides of love.
Speaker 1: Still still there, you go so well, said sir. All Right,
Speaker 1: So I want to get this one in because this
Speaker 1: is something that we've touched on a lot on this show.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you're six in business and helping people
Speaker 1: billion dollar you know, operating problems. So big business is
Speaker 1: responsible for a lot of what is now being deemed
Speaker 1: as environmental racism. This is something again that we discussed
Speaker 1: on this show. For those of you listening who may
Speaker 1: not be familiar with environmental racism, check out anything on YouTube.
Speaker 1: John Oliver has a great segments about twenty minutes long.
Speaker 1: We don't have twenty minutes. I'm sure there's vice, there's
Speaker 1: you know, other reputable sources, but environmental racism, please look
Speaker 1: it up. But again, big business is responsible for a
Speaker 1: lot of what is now being deemed as environmental racism.
Speaker 1: How can or how should we address this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's such a and you know we
Speaker 4: talked just for a second before. It's not a subject
Speaker 4: I feel. I'm I've got clocked, you know, I just don't.
Speaker 4: And that's what I think. You bringing it up. What
Speaker 4: it pushes me to do is really dig in you
Speaker 4: know what in the city where those.
Speaker 3: Situations maybe happening. That's what I want to know.
Speaker 1: I can give you, I can give you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: My Hispanic brothers and sisters are central concentrated, is what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for in certain pockets of the city that
Speaker 1: we live in. And what we have seen, I've seen
Speaker 1: a report on this is that you know, in Arizona,
Speaker 1: we have a very specific, unique issue in that it
Speaker 1: gets very hot here. If you look in places like
Speaker 1: you know, Paradise Valley, which is very affluent, Scott's Still Arizona,
Speaker 1: which again is very inffluent, things like this, in those
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where there's a larger concentration of our Caucasian brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, you'll notice that the temperature itself is about
Speaker 1: I believe it's two to eight degrees cooler on average, exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: And what the city doesn't realize is that it affects health,
Speaker 1: the health of the individuals of our Hispanic brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: It affects mobility, It affects housing prices, it affects you know,
Speaker 1: so forth, and so on. And so when the city
Speaker 1: comes up with funds to put in parks, green belts,
Speaker 1: things like this, and they continue to go into neighborhoods
Speaker 1: that beautify parts of the city that are not really
Speaker 1: the hardest hit by you know, the sun, because they're
Speaker 1: older neighborhoods, because they're underdeveloped, because they're poor and populated
Speaker 1: by Hispanic folks. What we all miss out on is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to bring a little bit of comfort if
Speaker 1: we invest there. That's the point. So this is an example.
Speaker 1: How does this is an example getting to the root exactly,
Speaker 1: thank you. And this is an example one example of
Speaker 1: environmental racism. Of course, it's often associated with big business
Speaker 1: pollution things like this. Businesses in black and brown neighborhoods
Speaker 1: don't being polluting the air, so forth. It creates health
Speaker 1: disparities in healthcare, It contributes to early mortality obesity, things,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff and.
Speaker 4: Arizona's and you know, we're in the desert, and I
Speaker 4: think a lot of if you look at our landscape,
Speaker 4: we try to be somewhere else sometimes and we have
Speaker 4: things that maybe shouldn't be here. We're wasting water, but
Speaker 4: also we're just not being coherent to the environment that
Speaker 4: we live in.
Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, So what I want to do is I
Speaker 1: want to take a minute and I want you to Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a voter. Yeah, why would I vote for you?
Speaker 1: It takes one minute? One minute? Why would I vote
Speaker 1: for you? And then I need your website, social media
Speaker 1: all yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is I'm not a pitch man. I'm a storyteller.
Speaker 1: I'll watch the clock you yeah, time.
Speaker 3: I'm here to.
Speaker 4: Help, you know, I really I've spent a career in
Speaker 4: my last twenty years to solve these problems, big complicated problems.
Speaker 4: I'm the last guy you call, and I just want
Speaker 4: to put those skills to work. I'm not a career politician.
Speaker 4: I believe you get in, you get out. You know,
Speaker 4: this is a public service. I'm servicing the community, not
Speaker 4: about servicing myself in my career. This is what it's
Speaker 4: about and I truly believe in this city. I think
Speaker 4: we can be a leader in this nation. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be doing it otherwise. You know, if I didn't think
Speaker 4: we could lead in police, if I didn't think we
Speaker 4: could lead and homeless, I wouldn't be doing this. I
Speaker 4: think there's an opportunity here and that's why I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: Wonderful And you know, there's the person who you are
Speaker 1: hopefully replacing. You know, I reached out to him a
Speaker 1: few times and he actually responded to me. This is
Speaker 1: by a Facebook and he was so dug in on
Speaker 1: one side that and so deaf to any complaints or
Speaker 1: anything like that that it made it very difficult. One
Speaker 1: thing that I want to applaud, sir, is that you
Speaker 1: seem like a person is willing to listen to the humans,
Speaker 1: and my hope is that you will go far. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're learning our platform to you today. Please find out
Speaker 1: more about Harry Curtin at Harry Curtin dot com yep
Speaker 1: and your social media please.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so just Harry Curtin very easy to hurt. So
Speaker 4: it's h A R R Y c U R T
Speaker 4: I N. You know, at the Harry Curtain dot com.
Speaker 4: We're taking donations. Campaigns are expensive. Anything you can do
Speaker 4: we certainly appreciate, but just appreciate your support jumping on board, Twitter,
Speaker 4: et cetera. We'd love to have you absolutely.
Speaker 1: And now it's time for the Way Black History Fact.
Speaker 1: This week's a Way Black History Fact is sponsored by
Speaker 1: hip Hop Weekly magazine. All the latest in hip hop
Speaker 1: culture is available at hip Hopweekly dot com. Today's story
Speaker 1: comes from biography dot com and we will be discussing
Speaker 1: Benjamin Banneker, so I will read. Benjamin Banneker was a
Speaker 1: largely self educated mathematician, astronomer, compiler of ALMANACX, and writer.
Speaker 1: A free black man who owned a farm near Baltimore,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Bannicer was largely self educated in astronomy in mathematics.
Speaker 1: He was later called upon to assist in the surveying
Speaker 1: of territory for the construction of the nation's capital. He
Speaker 1: also became an active writer of Almanacs and exchanged letters
Speaker 1: with Thomas Jefferson, politely challenging him to do what he
Speaker 1: could to ensure racial equality. Born November ninth, seventeen thirty
Speaker 1: one in Elliott's Mills, Maryland, Banniker was the son of
Speaker 1: an ex slave named Robert and his wife, Mary Banickey.
Speaker 1: Mary was the daughter of an english woman named Molly Welsh,
Speaker 1: a former indentured servant, and her husband Bannica, an ex
Speaker 1: slave whom she freed and who asserted that he came
Speaker 1: from tribal royalty in West Africa. Because both of his
Speaker 1: parents were free, Benjamin escaped the wrath of slavery as well.
Speaker 1: He was taught to read by his maternal grandmother and
Speaker 1: for a very short time attended a small Quaker school.
Speaker 1: Banneker was primarily self educated. His early accomplishments included constructing
Speaker 1: an irrogration system for the family farm and a wooden
Speaker 1: clock that was reputed to keep accurate time and ran
Speaker 1: for more than fifty years until his death. In addition,
Speaker 1: Banneker taught himself astronomy and accurately forecasted lunaran solar eclipses.
Speaker 1: After his father's passing, he ran his own farm for years,
Speaker 1: cultivating a business selling tobacco by a crops. Banneker's talents
Speaker 1: and intelligence eventually came to the attention of the Elliott family,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs who made a name and fortune by building a
Speaker 1: series of gristmills in the Baltimore area. In the seventeen seventies.
Speaker 1: George Elliott had a large personal library and loan Banniker
Speaker 1: numerous books on astronomy and other fields. In seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Andrew Elliott, George's cousin, hired Banneker to assist in surveying
Speaker 1: territory for the nation's capital city. He worked in the
Speaker 1: observatory tent, using a z the zenith sector to record
Speaker 1: the movement of the stars. However, due to a sudden illness,
Speaker 1: Banneker was only able to work for Elliott for about
Speaker 1: three months. For those of you that know like kind
Speaker 1: of the mysteries and you know the secrets of DC,
Speaker 1: there's a much deeper story here about Benjamin Banneker and
Speaker 1: how the buildings are aligned in certain positions and so forth,
Speaker 1: how the streets are laid out, et cetera. Anyway, I'll continue.
Speaker 1: Bannicker's true acclaim, however, came from his almanacs, which he
Speaker 1: published for six consecutive years during the later years of
Speaker 1: his life between seventeen ninety two and seventeen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: These hard books included his own astronomical calculations as well
Speaker 1: as opinion pieces, literature, and medical and title information, with
Speaker 1: the latter particularly useful to fishermen. Outside of his almanacs,
Speaker 1: Baniker also published information on bees and calculated the cycle
Speaker 1: of the seventeen year locust. Bannker's accomplishments extended into other
Speaker 1: realms as well, including civil rights. In seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Banniker considered the respected Virginian,
Speaker 1: though a slaveholder, to be open to view African Americans
Speaker 1: as more than just slaves. Thus, he wrote Jefferson a
Speaker 1: letter hoping he would quote readily embrace every opportunity to
Speaker 1: eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions
Speaker 1: which so generally prevail with respect to us unquote. To
Speaker 1: further support his point, Banneker included a handwritten manuscript of
Speaker 1: an almanac for seventeen ninety two containing his astronomical calculations,
Speaker 1: and as letter, Bannicker acknowledged he was quote of the
Speaker 1: African race unquote, and a free man. He recognized that
Speaker 1: he was taking a liberty writing to Jefferson, which would
Speaker 1: be unacceptable considering the almost general prejudice and prepe pre
Speaker 1: possession which is so prevalent in the world against those
Speaker 1: of my complexion. This is what he said. Banneker then
Speaker 1: respectfully chided Jefferson and other patriots for their hypocrisy enslaving
Speaker 1: people like him while fighting the British for their own independence.
Speaker 1: On October ninth, eighteen oh six, after his unusual morning
Speaker 1: after sorry, after his usual morning walk, Banneker died in
Speaker 1: his sleep, just a month short of his seventy fifth birthday.
Speaker 1: In accordance with his wishes, all the items that had
Speaker 1: been on loan from his neighbor, George Elliott, were returned
Speaker 1: by Bannker's nephew. Also included was Banneker's astronomical journal, providing
Speaker 1: future historians one of the few records of his life
Speaker 1: known to exist. And that is a gentleman that I
Speaker 1: want you to know about because sometimes a way black
Speaker 1: history fact tells you about injustices, sometimes away black history
Speaker 1: fact tells you gives you a historical context of the
Speaker 1: current standing of black people, brown people, Asian people. We
Speaker 1: discuss legislation, we discuss institutions, and so forth, but every
Speaker 1: so often we get to tell cool stories like this
Speaker 1: one where we are not just painted as slaves or
Speaker 1: as people who just simply fought against slavery or just
Speaker 1: fought against oppression, because on a show like this we
Speaker 1: have to highlight those things, but we're rather more than
Speaker 1: just that as a people. Our stories go much deeper
Speaker 1: and obviously illustrated by the numerous things that Benjamin Banneker
Speaker 1: contributed to this country, and of course his influence on
Speaker 1: DC and the construction of our nation's capital and the
Speaker 1: layout and so forth of our nation's capital, which shows
Speaker 1: that our great minds do rather more than just try
Speaker 1: to free ourselves. And if you were here, you know,
Speaker 1: he would know a little bit, He would have a
Speaker 1: little bit more to say there, because oftentimes the stories
Speaker 1: that we have to tell on the stories really the
Speaker 1: stories that we've inherited, as you know, black folks in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, they're oftentimes stories of overcoming a struggle.
Speaker 1: And so it was meaningful today Maggie. Of course, our
Speaker 1: producer Maggie be knowing to share the story at some point,
Speaker 1: and today just kind of felt a little bit more meaningful.
Speaker 1: And again I implore you to look up DC, look
Speaker 1: up the brilliance that went into it. You know, I
Speaker 1: shared on the show before that I was in Egypt
Speaker 1: for my fortieth birthday, and I was made aware of
Speaker 1: how the stars were incorporated into you know, their designs
Speaker 1: and the pyramids and the layout of the temples and
Speaker 1: so forth, so that they could capture the light the
Speaker 1: sun's rotation and it could hit certain facets and certain
Speaker 1: smooth surfaces and reflect and light a room up. And
Speaker 1: you'll see the same type of brilliance in engineering inherent
Speaker 1: in the designs of our nation's capital. And there was
Speaker 1: a black man who was at the table helping design that.
Speaker 1: And so again, very important to tell these stories, to
Speaker 1: tell them accurately, and make sure that we tell our
Speaker 1: whole story, not just the parts of it that pull
Speaker 1: out the heartstrings or you know, paint us as one
Speaker 1: type of people, because we, like other people, are very
Speaker 1: diverse and have a lot to offer. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out to Benjamin banneker Uh. We accept your legacy, sir,
Speaker 1: and we salute you today. But that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for us here on Civic Cipher. So once again,
Speaker 1: I am your host, rams this jaw. Big shout out
Speaker 1: to my man q Ward again. He will be back
Speaker 1: next week. The show is produced by our show producer
Speaker 1: ms Maggie A KA Maggie B. Knowing And again I
Speaker 1: want to thank our guest Harry Curtin once again, do
Speaker 1: me a favorite plug your website and your social media
Speaker 1: so we can get folks taped in.
Speaker 4: Harry Curtin dot com, h A R R Y c
Speaker 4: U R T I N dot com and then Harry
Speaker 4: Kurten on social media.
Speaker 3: I'm one of the only Harry Curtins.
Speaker 1: Sure awesome. I love it. I love it. I'm lending
Speaker 1: you my support and I hope that a good majority
Speaker 1: of our listeners do the same, especially those that can
Speaker 1: and everyone else who's beyond the scope of District six
Speaker 1: six follows your career in politics or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You seem to be a good man and and I
Speaker 1: wish you well on your journey. Uh. And that's going
Speaker 1: to do for us once again, So hit the website
Speaker 1: civicipher dot com. Download this in any previous episode. You
Speaker 1: can also make a donation to Civic Cipher. We're at
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher on all social media platforms and all donating
Speaker 1: platforms and until next week.
Speaker 2: Go hey, yo, we had these brothers are fabulous to
Speaker 2: our lady showing you where Ron traveled this wood spect
Speaker 2: from sunlight to move, busting on stage like gonna fight.
Speaker 1: Suppose roll my mic back. You're like that jonal list
Speaker 1: with journalists too.
Speaker 2: We can strike back all horb borders with orders from
Speaker 2: headquarters behind m and be line side stepping the borders
Speaker 2: with press passing. We bring it to you as it
Speaker 2: habits the streets.
Speaker 3: Love pocked from music.
Speaker 2: You're wrapping the street compland the slash week expando. You're
Speaker 2: gonna fight the slander with the proper propaganda.
Speaker 1: What's happening?
Speaker 2: It's hot.
Speaker 1: You've got a question to ask if Deduce is just
Speaker 1: a TV show? Get passing and this from
Speaker 2: Acquiet wartime journalists headlines, wake up, previs and resist like this,
Speaker 2: like this, like this, like it at us