Speaker 1: I think it's about time we get caught up on
Speaker 1: some stories broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd
Speaker 1: like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Ramsey's job.
Speaker 2: He is Ramsey's job. I am q Ward. You my
Speaker 2: friends are listening to Civic Cycles.
Speaker 1: Indeed you are, and there's a lot for you to
Speaker 1: stick around for. We mentioned last week, because it was
Speaker 1: our three year anniversary episode, that we had a lot
Speaker 1: of stories that we really wanted to cover. Well, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. We are going to cover them this week.
Speaker 1: Some of those stories include the when we mentioned this
Speaker 1: the black child that was nearly drowned by his group
Speaker 1: of white friends as they were saying that he was
Speaker 1: George Floyd because he couldn't breathe. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: smash and grab optics and narratives. You know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: all these smash and grab robberies and you know, we
Speaker 1: know wrong is wrong.
Speaker 2: And I've seen mass media build on that narrative.
Speaker 1: Exact we started talking about it, so we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that as well. We're also gonna spend a
Speaker 1: little time talking about Eddie Irizari. We didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to talk about his story last week, and so
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend a little time talking about that. I
Speaker 1: also want to make sure that we get some time
Speaker 1: in to discuss the twenty three year old Janabi Candula
Speaker 1: who was killed in Seattle. I think she was crossing
Speaker 1: the street and the officer was kind of making fun
Speaker 1: of her, saying that she had limited value. So we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about that story as well. And then
Speaker 1: we're going to spend the last part of the show
Speaker 1: talking about police training and a specific story where a
Speaker 1: police trainer was training a new recruit and shot her
Speaker 1: in the training classroom and how this narrative of police
Speaker 1: training can get caught away from us. And for those
Speaker 1: of you that follow us on social media, you know
Speaker 1: this has been something we've been talking about and battling
Speaker 1: with the trolls on social media for some time. But
Speaker 1: did that officer survive that incident? She is gone first
Speaker 1: and foremost, though, it's time for some ebony excellence. This
Speaker 1: week's any Excellence is brought to you by Major Threads
Speaker 1: for Innovative Fashionable Sports, where checkmajorthreads dot com. I would
Speaker 1: go through this fast, but I think you this is
Speaker 1: a better fit for you. Why not give us some
Speaker 1: ebony excellence. We're talking about Dion Sanders Coach Prime.
Speaker 2: If we weren't sitting seated in the studio right now,
Speaker 2: I would do some moves on Coach Prime's behalf. But instead,
Speaker 2: let's just get into this story. Dion Sanders knows the
Speaker 2: game of football and advertising like few others. Evidenced by
Speaker 2: two big wins. On September sixteenth, Sanders entered into a
Speaker 2: collaboration with Blenders I Wear to capitalize on shades that
Speaker 2: he often wears while patrolling sidelines at University of Colorado
Speaker 2: football games. According to Blenders and Prime storefront, the shades
Speaker 2: retail for sixty seven dollars, but with a coupon, first
Speaker 2: time buyers get a fifteen percent discount. During an appearance
Speaker 2: on ESPN's First Take, Sanders handed out pairs to Stephen A. Smith,
Speaker 2: Molly Carum, and Shannon Sharp. He also gave shade to
Speaker 2: Dwayne the Rock Johnson on ESPN's College Game Day. Johnson
Speaker 2: was serving as a guest on the show alongside the Coach,
Speaker 2: wearing a fresh pair as his surprise appearance on September fifteenth,
Speaker 2: As he was going to be appearing on WWE's SmackDown.
Speaker 2: Sanders also gave shade to the entire football team, and
Speaker 2: footage of this went viral. In the video, Sanders implied
Speaker 2: that the Colorado State University head coach j Norvale gave
Speaker 2: them ammunition when he criticized Sanders' habit of wearing sunglasses
Speaker 2: and a hat during his interviews. Sanders told the team
Speaker 2: they had messed around and made it personal. Now we're
Speaker 2: going to kick their butt and it's going to be
Speaker 2: business but also pleasure. He then revealed to the team
Speaker 2: that his line of shades with Blenders Eyewear had done
Speaker 2: a one point two million dollars in sales in twenty
Speaker 2: four hours. Yeah, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah Yeah, and all that because well, I forget the
Speaker 1: guy's name, but he said that Sanders wasn't properly raised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his mama didn't raise him right.
Speaker 1: Something like that, And so I feel like that's of
Speaker 1: any excellence. I want to make sure that we shout
Speaker 1: out Black Enterprise for that reading. And it is time
Speaker 1: to move on. So finally we get to talk about
Speaker 1: some of these really heartbreaking stories that have been in
Speaker 1: the media. The first one and the one that I
Speaker 1: think that we spent the most time kind of going
Speaker 1: back and forth about was the well. The headline reads,
Speaker 1: black kid invite invited by white friends to swim, then
Speaker 1: held him under when he said he couldn't breathe. They
Speaker 1: called him George Floyd. So I'll read a bit from
Speaker 1: NBC News to kind of paint the picture for those
Speaker 1: of you who don't know. A white teenager was indicted
Speaker 1: on an attempted murder charge in massach Sits after he
Speaker 1: was accused of calling a black child a racial slur
Speaker 1: and repeatedly dunking him underwater as the child said he
Speaker 1: did not know how to swim. The fourteen year old
Speaker 1: suspect is accused of taunting the victim on July nineteenth
Speaker 1: at Goose Pond in shape him. I believe that's how
Speaker 1: I say that, Court documents said another juvenile, also white,
Speaker 1: laughed and called the victim George Floyd, referring to the
Speaker 1: black man who died in Minneapolis police custody in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: According to the documents, the implication being the kid was
Speaker 1: saying I can't breathe, and then you know, they were
Speaker 1: making fun of.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying. Imagine the kids thinking that was funny,
Speaker 2: and the type of indoctrination that exists in their homes
Speaker 2: where they thought that was fun.
Speaker 1: Right, And you know, while we're here, before we get
Speaker 1: to the next part of the story, I think that
Speaker 1: you bring up an excellent point. There's been this push
Speaker 1: to erode American history, black people, specifically in the plight
Speaker 1: of black people from American history. It's the attack on
Speaker 1: CRT that's what it's been dubbed, but.
Speaker 2: Which is just a clever way to use vague language
Speaker 2: and misunderstood language so that people can lose sight of
Speaker 2: what they actually mean. So this critical race theory turn
Speaker 2: out there so that people can be distracted by something
Speaker 2: and we can introduce our own definition of it because
Speaker 2: people aren't familiar.
Speaker 1: So here's where this becomes problematic because, as you know,
Speaker 1: the people that are centered in the middle of this debate,
Speaker 1: these are children, These are school children. And this is
Speaker 1: proof positive why understanding history is important. It is important
Speaker 1: to impart on children as they're forming social bonds and
Speaker 1: as there you know, becoming the men and women and
Speaker 1: people that they're going to become ultimately the capacity to
Speaker 1: do with what empathy they have what is right, and
Speaker 1: they need the connective elements to connect themselves. And if
Speaker 1: they don't know what's offensive, what's hurtful, they don't understand
Speaker 1: the history. They hurt something and they prot it without
Speaker 1: understanding the weight of it. You end up with situations
Speaker 1: like this go ahead.
Speaker 2: That's what makes it so criminal because the people behind this,
Speaker 2: they know that they know that these children are at
Speaker 2: the age and the time in their lives where their
Speaker 2: minds can be shaped the most. So they want to
Speaker 2: indoctrinate them with this very very false version of history
Speaker 2: and disguise it as them protecting them, when really they
Speaker 2: just want them to have a different version of history
Speaker 2: when they grow up. They want them to have a
Speaker 2: different mindset. They don't want them to have or to
Speaker 2: use that natural empathy because that's a natural That's what
Speaker 2: I would think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I think that they are They're targeting the youth intentionally.
Speaker 2: Let's start at the education level with removing the idea
Speaker 2: that we've ever done anything wrong. You know, slaves did
Speaker 2: in fact benefit from correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah? So no, no, okay, I was I was, I
Speaker 1: was saying yeah facetiously, but the answer is no, said
Speaker 1: listen for people that might believe that that there might
Speaker 1: be a moticum of truth there. Please understand that everything
Speaker 1: that slaves were quote unquote taught in the US, that
Speaker 1: had all been practiced in Africa already for eons, So
Speaker 1: nobody had to come over here and learn anything. And
Speaker 1: if the cost of learning skills that benefited them was slavery,
Speaker 1: that's that cost is way too high, four hundred years
Speaker 1: slavery and uh subjugation.
Speaker 2: Wait, if the cost is mass murder, trafficking, kidnapping, raping,
Speaker 2: and medical experiments and genocide like, that's that's.
Speaker 1: Way to learn skills that we already had after Also,
Speaker 1: it's a slap in the face to the history of Africa.
Speaker 1: And I know that if you believe that slaves taught skills,
Speaker 1: you already don't know the history of Africa, and I
Speaker 1: feel bad for you. But if you ever felt like
Speaker 1: creating a little bit more strengthening your relationship with your
Speaker 1: fellow man, in particular your African original human beings on
Speaker 1: this planet, those people learn the history of Africa, and
Speaker 1: then you will see how insulting that attempted that narrative,
Speaker 1: their attempting to spend is I want to. I want
Speaker 1: to shift back to this story and these kids too,
Speaker 1: because you you brought up an interesting point that the
Speaker 1: human being's impulse is to be empathetic. Right now, I
Speaker 1: won't say that kids don't horse play. That's the thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: I won't say that kids aren't mean. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: Kids are learning how to be the people that they will.
Speaker 2: In some of those cases, they're not trying to be mean.
Speaker 2: It's just the behavior that they do as horse playing,
Speaker 2: or as kidding around, or even in some cases, as
Speaker 2: trying to show someone that they like them. They just
Speaker 2: end up doing things that are mean because they don't
Speaker 2: they haven't really processed, you know, social interaction or the
Speaker 2: proper way to do those things exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, when you look at the way that these children
Speaker 1: were approaching this situation, a couple things jump out at me.
Speaker 2: At least.
Speaker 1: The first thing is, George Floyd's name has no value
Speaker 1: to these children right now. Say what you will about
Speaker 1: George Floyd, how he lived his life, whatever, whatever. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that say a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I realize that people are imperfect. That is the nature
Speaker 1: of life. We try to be better people every single day.
Speaker 1: But in George Floyd's last moments, the reason why there
Speaker 1: was this uproar was because he was choked to death
Speaker 1: over a potentially counterfeit twenty dollars bill, I want to say,
Speaker 1: for eight minutes. So not only was he killed, he
Speaker 1: died in agony, wailing and screaming and calling for his
Speaker 1: mother while the police snuffed out his life. And when
Speaker 1: you think about the twenty dollars bill and you think
Speaker 1: about what the purpose of police is supposed to be
Speaker 1: like in the minds and hearts of the citizens, you know,
Speaker 1: protecting I don't know, the community from a potentially counterfeit
Speaker 1: twenty dollars bill. By ending a man's life with your
Speaker 1: knee on his neck for eight minutes, watching everybody witness
Speaker 1: this public lunching while they stand around helpless because you
Speaker 1: have a gun. That doesn't really fall in line with
Speaker 1: my idea of public service and protecting and serving the community.
Speaker 1: That really seems more like very morbid and very I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're it's like demonic almost right. But
Speaker 1: again back to these children, there's no reverence there. It's
Speaker 1: almost like it's something to be made fun of. And
Speaker 1: you know, when we get to the last story where
Speaker 1: the police officers laughing at the young woman who was killed.
Speaker 1: He's laughing at her. These kids are laughing at George
Speaker 1: Floyd's name.
Speaker 2: Imagine what it took for those kids to even have
Speaker 2: his name as a reference for making fun of.
Speaker 1: They know the story, but yes, it was not just gravity.
Speaker 2: It's not just that they don't value it. They've been
Speaker 2: given that name in some context around in this kid
Speaker 2: he can't breathe, he's George Floyd like. So it's not
Speaker 2: like this is a namely herd that they don't associate
Speaker 2: with anything just black. They associated specifically with I can't
Speaker 2: breathe and they think that's funny. And I think that's
Speaker 2: something that's taught at the the parental level. Somebody had
Speaker 2: to plant that seed into their minds in that way.
Speaker 1: And if the parents can't teach empathy and the schools
Speaker 1: can't create a pathway from real historical events and real
Speaker 1: harm that has been done to black and brown communities
Speaker 1: to a child's budding empathetic capacity, then we are headed
Speaker 1: for a society where we are more strained in terms
Speaker 1: of our relationships across our tribal and cultural lines, where
Speaker 1: we are less interactive, and I think everybody loses as
Speaker 1: a result of that. I want to finish reading this story, Andy,
Speaker 1: We'll move on. The kid says water went into my
Speaker 1: mouth and my nose and I could not breathe, the
Speaker 1: victims said in a written statement to police. So I
Speaker 1: shouted out that I can't breathe over and over and
Speaker 1: tried to get his hands off me. The victim also
Speaker 1: said that as the teen and the other person continue
Speaker 1: to pull him under water, he started to feel lightheaded
Speaker 1: and almost vomited, according to his written statement and a
Speaker 1: police narrative, after he began to feel exhausted, he shouted,
Speaker 1: he shouted for help. So again, kids are drowning, this
Speaker 1: guy calling him George Floyd, calling him racial slurs. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is that right there is where
Speaker 1: we need to revisit that conversation, in particular in places
Speaker 1: like Florida and Arkansas and Texas, I believe are the
Speaker 1: three states where they've really tried their best to rewrite
Speaker 1: history for the benefit of the parents of white children's sensibilities.
Speaker 1: Conservative white parent the conservative parents of white children, those
Speaker 1: parents's sensitivities. That's what I'm trying to say. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Let's talk a bit about the smash
Speaker 1: and grab shoplifting stuff that's been taking place. I'll say
Speaker 1: this first and foremost, those videos are intense, okay, And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend like everything is okay with
Speaker 1: that and that there's a way to excuse that or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But what I will talk about is
Speaker 1: two things. One, it's not just black people doing that.
Speaker 1: We've seen videos of non black people doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: going into Dick Sporting Goods a white folks with the
Speaker 1: white people hair, white skinned, white arms, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, No masks, no wide open like just going
Speaker 1: in and getting what they got to get and bouncing right.
Speaker 1: And of course we've seen all of the videos of
Speaker 1: black people going into the luxury stores, right, and those
Speaker 1: headlines I think hit a little different. And it's crazy
Speaker 1: because it seems like when the media pushes it, it's
Speaker 1: always the black people doing it, and when we come
Speaker 1: across the videos on like social media or when people
Speaker 1: send us links, it's to white people. In other words,
Speaker 1: when it's black people, the media picks it up, and
Speaker 1: when it's non black people, it just kind of feeds
Speaker 1: the statistics.
Speaker 2: So an easier to sensationalize the black thugs that are
Speaker 2: short of terrorizing shopping centers and luxury you know, fashion stores.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so wrong is wrong no matter who's doing it.
Speaker 1: But the two things I want to say here is
Speaker 1: that it's not just black people doing that. There's groups
Speaker 1: of mobs of people that are not black, breaking in
Speaker 1: stores and getting what they can and leaving. And for proof,
Speaker 1: reach out to us on social media. It's aif, except
Speaker 1: we'll send you the videos we've got. It's there's a thing,
Speaker 1: and it's not like these are old videos or you
Speaker 1: know anything. We'd like that. This is the stuff that's
Speaker 1: happening alongside everything else. There are people who try to
Speaker 1: get it how they live, I suppose, and we.
Speaker 2: Have way more than enough content to show you guys
Speaker 2: just in general of people doing things that are deplorable
Speaker 2: black and white people. Though this is not a black problem.
Speaker 2: This is a criminal problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and an economic problem because usually crime is it
Speaker 1: develops out of poverty, you know what I mean. That's
Speaker 1: just people are trying to come up and get as
Speaker 1: comfortable as they can, and some people resort to some
Speaker 1: desperate things that look a lot like going into a
Speaker 1: store and stealing. But if you remember during Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 1: for those old enough to remember this, when black people
Speaker 1: went in the stores, they called it looting, and when
Speaker 1: white people went in the stores, they called it surviving.
Speaker 1: Because nobody could go to the grocery store and buy food.
Speaker 1: Nobody can go and get the clothes that were dry,
Speaker 1: and nobody can go and get shoes and get you know,
Speaker 1: toilet paper and whatever. So the people that went to
Speaker 1: get what they could get, if they were black, they
Speaker 1: were looters. If they were white, they were survivors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. They were just doing what they could to survive,
Speaker 1: and so you got to be careful was necessary to survive,
Speaker 1: right right. The other thing I want to say, the
Speaker 1: other part of this is that what this does is
Speaker 1: it gives retailers the ability to justify raising prices and
Speaker 1: keeping prices high, and they can point at this criminal
Speaker 1: behavior that has this sort of black face on it,
Speaker 1: if you will, so that people aren't mad at the
Speaker 1: retailers raising the prices, and that people can look at,
Speaker 1: you know, everything that is not how do I say this,
Speaker 1: They can insulate themselves from the root cause of the
Speaker 1: problem and say it's these people that are causing these
Speaker 1: problems in this country, right, And the retailers don't want
Speaker 1: to be the greedy hogs, capitalist pigs, so now they
Speaker 1: have a convenient scapegoat. But so they raise the prices.
Speaker 1: Black kids get blamed for this, and the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is that most of the theft in these
Speaker 1: stores is by employees. It also allows police to justify themselves, right,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's been this push to defund the
Speaker 1: police and reinvest in community resources to prevent the necessity
Speaker 1: of the crimes that would actually have a real impact
Speaker 1: on crime rates, not additional police, but this sort of
Speaker 1: behavior and this narrative and these videos allow police to
Speaker 1: justify themselves. Finally, I want to share this. The CEO
Speaker 1: of Walmart says that he set himself the hype about
Speaker 1: smash and grab theft is overblown, and he's the person
Speaker 1: that also alluded to the fact that most of the
Speaker 1: theft that stores experience that would lead to the increased
Speaker 1: prices is by employees or other shrinkage. Smash and grab
Speaker 1: stuff is very very rare, But if you've got security
Speaker 1: cameras and it can make it for a good headline,
Speaker 1: then then there's your headline there, and California is spending
Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty seven million dollars to combat it.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that that's good or bad
Speaker 1: because we don't want it. But I just don't want
Speaker 1: the narrative to be that black people are the only
Speaker 1: people doing this and they're the reason for all the
Speaker 1: ills the community. Black people are doing this, and so
Speaker 1: is everybody else.
Speaker 2: So the really interesting thing about that part, though, is
Speaker 2: when has there been such a swift and when have
Speaker 2: you seen a headline that said any county or you know,
Speaker 2: municipality or local or state or federal government was using
Speaker 2: close to three hundred million dollars to combat hunger or
Speaker 2: to combat homelessness that help its citizens. Yeah, we got
Speaker 2: three hundred million to spend in response to that luxury
Speaker 2: store got robbed, that assurance that will get all that
Speaker 2: money back.
Speaker 1: If they spent that two hundred and sixty seven million
Speaker 1: dollars on homelessness, that might make a bigger impact on
Speaker 1: crime rates than anything. But they feel like this is
Speaker 1: a specific thing, and that's you got to play the
Speaker 1: media game in the political game. And I don't love that,
Speaker 1: but I need you, our listener, to be as informed
Speaker 1: as you can be, and to give you these additional perspectives,
Speaker 1: because without media like this, you might just get one
Speaker 1: side of it. And our job is to be very
Speaker 1: critical of not just stories we hear, but of the
Speaker 1: media too. So finally, I want to share a bit
Speaker 1: about the police shooting of Eddie Irizari, who shot in
Speaker 1: the head while sitting in his car. And this is
Speaker 1: sort of the police were lying in their account because
Speaker 1: it was filmed by a neighbor and the film came out,
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to read this real quick. This
Speaker 1: comes from Wikipedia. On August fourteen, Philadelphia police told the
Speaker 1: media that the incident began with officers pulled over a
Speaker 1: car that was driving erradically. Then as officers approached the car,
Speaker 1: Irizari stepped out of the car with a knife and
Speaker 1: the officers gave multiple commands from the drop, but Irizari
Speaker 1: lunch death the officers prompting the shooting. On August fifteenth,
Speaker 1: Philadelphia police changed their story, stating that Irazari was actually
Speaker 1: in the car when he was shot Philadelphia. Philadelphia Police
Speaker 1: Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stated that officers body worn camera footage
Speaker 1: made it very clear that what was initially reported, what
Speaker 1: was not, what actually happened. On September eighth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Mark Dill, who fired the fatal shots, was charged with
Speaker 1: first degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, and simple assault,
Speaker 1: as well as reckless endangerment of another person and official oppression. Now,
Speaker 1: what did the police department get for lying? But you
Speaker 1: know anything about that? Who knows? But I got to
Speaker 1: say again, the police are very good at covering up
Speaker 1: their own crimes. We only know about this because there
Speaker 1: was additional footage, and that is often the way it goes.
Speaker 1: So let's rethink policing and stick around for more, because
Speaker 1: we've got a lot more in store.