Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsy's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams' joh I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: listening to Civic Cipher, You should to stick around. We
Speaker 2: got a whole lot in store for you today. Kind
Speaker 2: of a heavy show, but something that is quite educational.
Speaker 2: We're going to be dealing a lot with what was,
Speaker 2: and then we're going to do our best to bring
Speaker 2: it to what is. And so we'll take some time
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about slavery and the implications of slavery.
Speaker 1: I want to start off by making sure that we
Speaker 1: discuss how slavery in the United States was different than
Speaker 1: slavery around the world. This is something that comes up
Speaker 1: a lot in conversations, especially you know, these days, and
Speaker 1: you know, you may not know how to address that,
Speaker 1: how to approach that. You know, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of people use, you know, slavery as being so
Speaker 1: long ago, or they use slavery as being something of
Speaker 1: a global human phenomenon to distance themselves from the actual
Speaker 1: implications of slavery. And we reject that general attitude. You know,
Speaker 1: around here, we like to fall on the sword if
Speaker 1: we need to. And so we're gonna give you everything
Speaker 1: that you need to know exactly how to deal with
Speaker 1: those conversations and you know, maybe your own prejudices in
Speaker 1: your own mind, because let's be honest, you know we
Speaker 1: still have those despite our best efforts and our best intentions.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take some time to talk about slavery
Speaker 1: and America. We're also going to take some time to
Speaker 1: talk about the Willie Lynch Letter, which is something that
Speaker 1: we have mentioned on this show comes up a lot
Speaker 1: in hip hop songs and so forth, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: actually delve into that a bit. And for our way
Speaker 1: black history fact, we're gonna discuss more slavery. So a
Speaker 1: heavy show, but again one that will be educational and
Speaker 1: one that we believe will certainly make a difference. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we will start off with EBNY Excellence.
Speaker 1: Shall we shall we? S So this week ABNY Excellence
Speaker 1: is sponsored by bi Nnews dot com and the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network Daily Podcast. Be sure to check out both
Speaker 1: of those, hosted by yours Truly, We're going to shout
Speaker 1: out a special young lady. She goes by the name
Speaker 1: of a Piper McCoy, who is the VP of Communications
Speaker 1: for Buzzfreed and we actually had a chance to see
Speaker 1: her work and to see the results of her work.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that we do
Speaker 1: every year is we visit complex Con and obviously we
Speaker 1: have a very strong media relationship with you know, these companies,
Speaker 1: and we actually got to see some black girl magic
Speaker 1: in real life and it was very inspirational and just
Speaker 1: knowing where she stands in the world, and I'll read
Speaker 1: a bit more, you can certainly appreciate why we're shouting
Speaker 1: her out so again. VP of Communications for BuzzFeed works
Speaker 1: with the PR team and has a slate of responsibilities
Speaker 1: overseeing all internal and external communications for Complex Networks state
Speaker 1: slate of brands. First we Feast Pigeons and Playing Soul
Speaker 1: Collector and more responsible for the licensing, brand partnerships and
Speaker 1: experiential including complex Con, Complex Land in each your Feed
Speaker 1: festival colms all across the bud BuzzFeed Inc. Which includes Busfeed,
Speaker 1: Complex Networks, Huffington Post and Tasty and you can find
Speaker 1: her on ig at frost Tart that is FROs t
Speaker 1: t A r t E. Just an amazing person, someone
Speaker 1: who beams excellence and if we can shout her out
Speaker 1: we got two microphones. We're going to do it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, magic is the key word in the Black Girl
Speaker 2: Magic with Piper and shout out to our boy Bread
Speaker 2: over a complex as well.
Speaker 1: All Right, So slavery in America this comes from. So
Speaker 1: you may know this. I've mentioned this on the show before,
Speaker 1: but I don't talk about it quite a bit. I'm
Speaker 1: subscribed to quite a few white supremacist blogs on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and that's because I have to be I need to
Speaker 1: know what it is people are thinking, what it is
Speaker 1: people are saying, what it is people are hiding behind
Speaker 1: that is creating a distance between the uses and the
Speaker 1: thems in these very important conversations. Well, one thing that
Speaker 1: I came across it was a little troubling recently, was that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a group of people that really feel
Speaker 1: like black people are responsible for.
Speaker 2: Slavery.
Speaker 1: Something that Q and I have discussed quite a bit
Speaker 1: on our various media rounds is that we take issue
Speaker 1: with the narrative that slavery was a choice made by
Speaker 1: black people. And you know, for those familiar with you know,
Speaker 1: our conversations beyond just this show, you may know that
Speaker 1: that's something that especially for Q's it's a touchy it's
Speaker 1: a touchy subject because he and you know, me and
Speaker 1: most of us wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. It's just
Speaker 1: a complete falsehood and it is extremely insensitive and unfair
Speaker 1: and unkind. However, there are groups of people, mostly white folks,
Speaker 1: in little pockets of the internet who are very, very racist,
Speaker 1: you know who. They need this to be true, and
Speaker 1: so they will do their best to try to build
Speaker 1: an argument that removes white people from the responsibilities of
Speaker 1: slavery and kind of put black people in the hot seat,
Speaker 1: if you will. So, this idea that black people are
Speaker 1: responsible for slavery does exist. And if you start to
Speaker 1: feel that way, you and you're a white person, particularly
Speaker 1: an older white male, if you feel that black people
Speaker 1: are responsible for slavery, then you feel less connected with
Speaker 1: the results of slavery. You feel less connected with sort
Speaker 1: of the responsibility to address, you know, the issues, the
Speaker 1: systemic issues, and so forth. It's very easy for you
Speaker 1: to hide behind a narrative that tells you that, you know,
Speaker 1: white people are the great conquerors of the world and
Speaker 1: deserve to be so, and black people are just born
Speaker 1: bad and they are all bad. And the reason they're
Speaker 1: bad now is because bad is the natural state of
Speaker 1: black people, and it turns a blind eye to the
Speaker 1: reality of the situation. Like, you know, where's the most
Speaker 1: black people in Africa? If you go to Africa, you
Speaker 1: find that there are black people that are literally kings
Speaker 1: and queens and they're full complex societies all the way
Speaker 1: down to you know, some bad people, you know, and
Speaker 1: there's not nearly as many people in prison in Africa,
Speaker 1: but we have a whole separate, you know, prison problem
Speaker 1: in this country. And to those people who say, you know,
Speaker 1: Africa is you know very poor, that Africa is, you know,
Speaker 1: on and on a lot that has to do with
Speaker 1: that is not any It doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with anything other than guns. Who has the gunpowder? Who
Speaker 1: shows up when everyone has the spears with the guns?
Speaker 1: And then you know the snowball effect of that, you know,
Speaker 1: who owns these lands? Who can extract the resource? Is?
Speaker 1: You know, where is the infrastructure pointed? Is the infrastructure
Speaker 1: pointed toward the coastline so that the resources can be
Speaker 1: extracted and shipped up to Great Britain or to the Americas,
Speaker 1: Or is the infrastructure you know in these countries, has
Speaker 1: it developed along with the rest of the industrialized world.
Speaker 1: So again, these falsehoods allow these often very conservative white
Speaker 1: men to insulate themselves from the reality of the situation,
Speaker 1: which is that we're not really conquerors. We're more often
Speaker 1: regarded as you know, thieves and plunderers and looters and
Speaker 1: liars and so forth. Right now, this show has never
Speaker 1: been the sort of show that tries to lay the
Speaker 1: blame of you know, these historical things at the feet
Speaker 1: of any person who's walking a path doing their best
Speaker 1: to be kind and to be a brother and a
Speaker 1: sister to black people and other people in this planet.
Speaker 1: But we also have to recognize that some of us
Speaker 1: are in a better position to address these issues that
Speaker 1: continue to plague these poor communities, black communities than others.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes it's the people with the wealth. Oftentimes those
Speaker 1: people tend to be white. So now we can talk
Speaker 1: about slavery in America. My bad, that was a mouthful,
Speaker 1: but I needed to get that all out there, kind
Speaker 1: of framed the conversation today. So let's start. Slaves were
Speaker 1: purchased from Africans, all right, that is true. That is
Speaker 1: something that you know, we have to acknowledge on all sides,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. I don't think that's the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world, because when you have a full picture
Speaker 1: of exactly what that means, you understand it. Bear in
Speaker 1: mind that when you hear that you can go and
Speaker 1: buy slaves, and then you go and buy slaves, you
Speaker 1: in effect create an economy where slaves is your main export, right,
Speaker 1: and that was true for hundreds of years in Africa. Okay,
Speaker 1: But I think I'm jumping the gun here. I want
Speaker 1: to reframe slavery in your mind, okay. And I want
Speaker 1: you to take this conversation. If you have conversations with
Speaker 1: other people you know in your household, holidays, birthdays, whatever,
Speaker 1: who maybe they feel distant, they feel like these problems
Speaker 1: aren't really theirs to have to deal with. This will
Speaker 1: allow you to kind of bring them into the conversation.
Speaker 1: So here's what I want you to do. Don't get
Speaker 1: mad at me, que because I know you tend to
Speaker 1: get mad when I do this. But I want you
Speaker 1: to change the word slave. I want you to will
Speaker 1: not change it. I want you to add another word
Speaker 1: to it. Let's call it child slave, okay, and everything
Speaker 1: that implies. You know, there are some very awful people
Speaker 1: in the world who may purchase a child slave for
Speaker 1: everything disgusting that you might be thinking right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll refrain from using the real word that you
Speaker 1: know it's probably in your mind, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to trigger anyone. So we'll go with child slave. Okay.
Speaker 1: So let's rethink the the economy of slavery, of buying
Speaker 1: and selling human beings. Okay. And because you may have
Speaker 1: been taught unintentionally to be racist, you know, even black people,
Speaker 1: we're taught racist stereotyp types. You know, we're not impervious
Speaker 1: to those things. Okay. So this doesn't make you a
Speaker 1: bad person. It makes you human and susceptible to propaganda,
Speaker 1: to systemic influence. Okay, but I'm going to help you
Speaker 1: cut through that because you might think about black people
Speaker 1: a certain way, but human beings have a tendency to
Speaker 1: think of children saying. So let's again, instead of slavery,
Speaker 1: we'll go with child slaves.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So we're going to read this again. Child slaves were
Speaker 1: purchased from Africa. Okay. Does that change a bit in
Speaker 1: your mind? Because it should, because then it be goes,
Speaker 1: then it should go well, whoa whoa, whoa. No one
Speaker 1: should be purchasing children, right, that's an awful thing to
Speaker 1: think about. What are they doing with these children? They're
Speaker 1: taking them from a home. They don't you know, what
Speaker 1: is what's the point of this? But I'll continue near
Speaker 1: in child slaves it might grant you a direct line
Speaker 1: of empathy, human empathy where you know, maybe that has
Speaker 1: been calloused over years of you thinking of black people
Speaker 1: as criminal or black people as whatever. Right now, let
Speaker 1: me let me paint another picture for you. The slaves
Speaker 1: in Africa, we're off then conquered tribes. Okay, there were
Speaker 1: thieves or criminals that ended up slave in slavery or
Speaker 1: you know, folks that had committed some sort of offense.
Speaker 1: Said there there was you couldn't go into Africa, You
Speaker 1: couldn't be an African and then go to you know,
Speaker 1: the country over and then buy a slave for yourself.
Speaker 1: That wasn't a thing. Slaves did not come about in
Speaker 1: that way. Slaves were again often the result of tribes
Speaker 1: that had been conquered, which is the thing, you know.
Speaker 1: But bear in mind that if a tribe is conquered,
Speaker 1: typically the tribe gets absorbed into the conquering tribe and
Speaker 1: after a generation, they're all kind of one family. If
Speaker 1: you will, okay, if you're a criminal and you break
Speaker 1: the law or you murder someone or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: and then your punishment is slavery. If you have children,
Speaker 1: those children didn't break the law. Those children are not slaves. Right.
Speaker 1: You found a lot more frequently that slaves would marry
Speaker 1: into families. You found more frequently that slavery wasn't a
Speaker 1: permanent condition. You were a slave for a time. You know,
Speaker 1: this is what would happen in Africa. So again, when
Speaker 1: there are people in these chat rooms, these racist chat rooms,
Speaker 1: that say, well, black people of the Africans sold black
Speaker 1: people into slavery, well, the type of slavery in Africa
Speaker 1: was very different, a very different phenomenon from what we
Speaker 1: ended up with over here in the US. It was
Speaker 1: about economics, was about money. Slaves were not human beings
Speaker 1: in the way that they were in Africa's. It was
Speaker 1: a very different sort of thing for folks that say, oh,
Speaker 1: slavery existed around the world. You know, the Jews are slaves,
Speaker 1: and this and that and the and all these things
Speaker 1: are very true, and we acknowledge all of those things.
Speaker 1: But if you're saying that in a way to distance
Speaker 1: yourself from the responsibility of slavery, I'm trying to help you,
Speaker 1: you know, build that bridge. So we've discussed, you know,
Speaker 1: reframing slavery around child slavery, because again, if you have
Speaker 1: the human capacity to empathize and you have been made
Speaker 1: to be calloused when it comes to black people or
Speaker 1: affairs that affect black people, we're going to appeal to
Speaker 1: your human condition because black people, as you know, are
Speaker 1: human beings. The first human beings ever. I move on
Speaker 1: slavery in the United States was based on race, meaning
Speaker 1: that it was something that followed you, the stench, the
Speaker 1: legacy followed you, even if you found freedom. You know,
Speaker 1: the handful of slave movies you may have seen, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end the hero gets freedom or whatever. You
Speaker 1: can be talking about Django, Twelve Years of Slave, any
Speaker 1: of the slave movies we know them all, right, typically
Speaker 1: during that period, if the movie is from a black
Speaker 1: person's perspective, this is what the end goal is, to
Speaker 1: be free.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about freedom a bit in the second half
Speaker 1: of the show, but freedom in the US from slavery
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily mean freedom. Freedom from slavery in Africa absolutely
Speaker 1: could mean that, you know, and again it's because the
Speaker 1: United States, slavery was based around race. These group of
Speaker 1: people who look like this, they are the slaves. That is,
Speaker 1: it is the permanent condition. If they have children, then
Speaker 1: their children will be slaves and they will work for us,
Speaker 1: and this is what they do. And then they developed
Speaker 1: a whole range of reasons to justify these human rights violations.
Speaker 1: You know, they preached from the parts of the Bible
Speaker 1: that reflected to one degree or another their feelings about slavery.
Speaker 1: As you know, this country fought a civil war about slavery,
Speaker 1: which meant that approximately half of the people felt like,
Speaker 1: hey man, we're not giving up these slaves. Again, think
Speaker 1: child slaves.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: If you have a tough time empathizing, think child slaves, okay,
Speaker 1: just pop that in your head. Half of the country
Speaker 1: was like, no, we need to keep these childs. Everything
Speaker 1: that happened to a child slave happened to black men
Speaker 1: and black women in this country. We'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a second. But you know, slavery was very popular,
Speaker 1: very lucrative financially and otherwise, and it was based on race.
Speaker 1: This is a very different phenomenon in the borders of Africa,
Speaker 1: which again, at that time, you don't have huge prison complexes.
Speaker 1: You don't have ways to punish people that assure that
Speaker 1: they will be confined or you know, relegated to a
Speaker 1: certain space for a certain amount of time. That's as
Speaker 1: sophisticated as what we have now. You know, so slavery
Speaker 1: as a way to work off your debt to society,
Speaker 1: slavery as a way to you know, whatever, that's your thing.
Speaker 1: You can marry, you can have to you know, for
Speaker 1: the most part, you still were considered a human being
Speaker 1: with a degree of autonomy. Now, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: come back with certain examples, I may even allow them.
Speaker 1: I didn't find any, but you know, certain examples of
Speaker 1: outliers then sure. But for the most part, if we're
Speaker 1: talking about the institution of slavery, we're talking about a
Speaker 1: fundamental difference at the core of what took place in
Speaker 1: Africa versus what took place in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: I've been talking a lot. I know you've been over there,
Speaker 1: champion at the bit anything so far.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, I'd like to really approach it from
Speaker 2: the perspective of a student, right, and you playing the
Speaker 2: teacher in this example. With the topic that we're speaking of,
Speaker 2: you spoke about conquered tribes. I want people to think
Speaker 2: warring tribes and one lost right, because we talk about colonization,
Speaker 2: and colonizers over the history of Earth have kind of
Speaker 2: fit a specific description. Conquered tribes in this sense is
Speaker 2: more about another thing that's not a that is not
Speaker 2: a unique phenomenon, and that's war. War for land or
Speaker 2: resources or whatever throughout the history of Earth has happened,
Speaker 2: and once one of the tribes or one of the countries,
Speaker 2: or one of the group's wins, it was common for
Speaker 2: them to not murder or kill those who remained after
Speaker 2: the fighting was over, and those people became slaves or servants,
Speaker 2: and in some cases, I'm guessing we're able to work
Speaker 2: off or age out of being servants or slaves and once.
Speaker 2: The reason why that's important is because that second, that
Speaker 2: next generation of people, they don't have that resentment or
Speaker 2: that desire to push back because there's no longer an enemy.
Speaker 2: Like you said, they've been absorbed into this tribe or
Speaker 2: and to this country and to this group of people.
Speaker 2: So I kind of want to just add some more
Speaker 2: color to that point where people can understand when you
Speaker 2: say conquered tribes, you know, think war or battle or whatever.
Speaker 2: When you call it, one side loses, they surrender because
Speaker 2: after so much bloodshed or after so much death, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's clear we're not going to win here. We surrender.
Speaker 2: And now those people are not sentenced to death. They're
Speaker 2: sentenced to servitude essentially, and that is much different. These
Speaker 2: people are not our slave because they are beneath us, right,
Speaker 2: They're going to help us create more people and sustain
Speaker 2: the land that we now share. And again, the next generation,
Speaker 2: they're not fighting anymore, so there's no need for those
Speaker 2: people to be slaves, which is much different than you
Speaker 2: were going to be a slave here forever if one
Speaker 2: group had it their way because of the color of
Speaker 2: your skin, by nature, you are beneath us. Your people
Speaker 2: are slaves. That's what they're for, that's why you exist. Again,
Speaker 2: a much different set of circumstances with regards to people
Speaker 2: on the continent of Africa and their involvement with chattel
Speaker 2: slavery in the way that it led to people coming
Speaker 2: to the Americas. People making that same argument that Africans
Speaker 2: sold slaves. I'm thinking in that instance. And again I
Speaker 2: was not around, and I am not a studied historian
Speaker 2: with regards to the slave trade beyond what we learned
Speaker 2: in school, which, as you can imagine, very little, well
Speaker 2: very little intentionally. Right, the history in some instances, in
Speaker 2: a lot of countries is a propaganda of the authors,
Speaker 2: who are the conquerors, who are the people who stand
Speaker 2: to be the heroes in that story. So yeah, this existed,
Speaker 2: but you know, let's paint that picture with as little
Speaker 2: color as possible, selling off people who perhaps were conquered
Speaker 2: in those battles, and I think also not being given
Speaker 2: much in the way of choice, Right, we can purchase
Speaker 2: these slaves from you, or with our guns versus your
Speaker 2: more primitive weapons, we can take them. It's your choice.
Speaker 2: I don't think this was people in Africa saying, hey,
Speaker 2: let's find as many Africans as we can to sell
Speaker 2: to the oppressors.
Speaker 1: So watch this. So I mentioned that a bench it
Speaker 1: became that. So you're absolutely right. Initially when the British
Speaker 1: showed up found out that you could get some slaves
Speaker 1: in the British, of course they're expanding, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of extra hands here and there, might make a difference.
Speaker 1: Once they started to acquire slaves from Africa, the western
Speaker 1: coast of Africa, they ultimately created a demand to where
Speaker 1: the slave the slave trade, the industry in Africa was
Speaker 1: built around conquering tribes for the purposes of enslaving them
Speaker 1: and selling them to white merchants. And you see at
Speaker 1: this time in Africa this mass exodus of human beings,
Speaker 1: which coupled with you know, lands being conquered again because
Speaker 1: of these treaties, because of a lack of gunpowder, which
Speaker 1: is a Chinese invention. I believe you realize that Africa
Speaker 1: lost so much of what was precious, the human capital
Speaker 1: and then of course the resources. And the crazy thing
Speaker 1: about what you mentioned is that, yeah, the history is
Speaker 1: written by the people who conquer whatever. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: funny because we know that the British were the originals
Speaker 1: to start the slave trade or whatever America had were
Speaker 1: British colonies at the time, right, But then the British
Speaker 1: loves to say that they were the first to out
Speaker 1: lost slavery, and they conveniently leave out the fact that
Speaker 1: they paid reparations to the slaveholders. The same thing that
Speaker 1: happened in the US so it's important for us to
Speaker 1: understand that this happens, so that we can understand the
Speaker 1: legacy of it and the weight that it still carries
Speaker 1: in our day to day lives. And we're going to
Speaker 1: touch on that in the second half of the show,
Speaker 1: so stick around for that