Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'my host Ramsay's job.
Speaker 2: Most people call me q Ward.
Speaker 3: There are a couple of people that call me Quintin,
Speaker 3: and I've started to notice the young people call me
Speaker 3: mister Quintin, which is really not sitting well with me.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to figure out how to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I gotta start dressing different or what.
Speaker 3: But I had a couple of twenty something it's called
Speaker 3: me mister Quintin today and I'm like, wait now, wait.
Speaker 2: It's because you can like it's like the crossing signal. Wait.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm mister, I don't hold on now, mister. Yeah,
Speaker 2: mister is my dad. I was not ready. Uh well,
Speaker 2: these were young adults calling me mister Quintin.
Speaker 1: Hey man, you know it's bound to happen, man, so
Speaker 1: uh you know, take it every come. But yeah, man, Uh,
Speaker 1: glad to be back in here. What you're doing another
Speaker 1: episode of Civic Cipher. Of course you got a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about today. Uh. I got to mix back today,
Speaker 1: mixed bag. Uh. You know, we got to talk about
Speaker 1: the written House verdict, Yes, written House Verdict. Last week
Speaker 1: we weren't able to touch on that because of our
Speaker 1: recording schedule and you know the way you know our
Speaker 1: our our airing schedule, but definitely going to dive into that.
Speaker 2: And then of.
Speaker 1: Course we got the verdict from the Amad Aubrey trial
Speaker 1: as well, so we're gonna examine that. Uh So, so
Speaker 1: for those that didn't know, that's why I meant we
Speaker 1: got a mixed bag today and another couple of things
Speaker 1: that I feel are going to be pretty informative our
Speaker 1: way black history. Fact, we're gonna examine the origins of
Speaker 1: policing in this country, and uh lots of other neat
Speaker 1: little things to stick around for. So, like we always
Speaker 1: do at this time, let's not dawdle any further and
Speaker 1: get into some ebony excellence. That sound good to you, Q,
Speaker 1: Let's go right. So today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a young lady named Deja Taylor. Shout out to the
Speaker 1: whole Taylor gang one time if you don't mind, and
Speaker 1: I'll read this briefly. At just seventeen years old, Deja
Speaker 1: Taylor became a nationally recognized scientist by creating color changing
Speaker 1: sutures that detect infection. Her invention was centered around equity
Speaker 1: her main career focus and making this life saving medical
Speaker 1: technology accessible to everyone. And basically what she uses is
Speaker 1: beats and they change colors at different pH levels, and
Speaker 1: what they'll do is they'll let you know if there's
Speaker 1: an infection because of the acidity and the skin versus
Speaker 1: the acidity of an infection or something like that. But
Speaker 1: the long and the short of it is, her research
Speaker 1: project landed her among the top forty finalists in the
Speaker 1: Regeneron Science Talent Search, the country's oldest and most prestigious
Speaker 1: science and math competition PRIGH school seniors, and she's currently
Speaker 1: seeking a patent for her invention and plans to continue
Speaker 1: her research to ensure these life saving sutures help people.
Speaker 1: Desia recently graduated from Iowa City West High School in
Speaker 1: Iowa City and we'll be attending the University of Iowa
Speaker 1: in the fall. And of course she is black and
Speaker 1: so she Yeah, this week's exchame is the truth, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I wish you could.
Speaker 3: I was when I was seventeen, rams, I was at Meyer.
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all even heard of that story,
Speaker 3: but I was at Meyers trying to find stuff from
Speaker 3: my dorm room.
Speaker 4: This young lady is changing the world as a scientist,
Speaker 4: inventing things to actually change the world, and that I
Speaker 4: was trying to I was trying to find a shower.
Speaker 1: Caddy. Well, that's the reason why we wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure to give credit where it's definitely in eb Any.
Speaker 1: Excellent shout out to Dajah Taylor. So moving on first
Speaker 1: things first, Kyle Rittenhouse, you and I have avoided talking
Speaker 1: this whole week because I knew that you wanted to.
Speaker 1: You had a lot of feelings about the written House trial. So,
Speaker 1: in brief, how do you feel about the verdict?
Speaker 5: So we had not spoken about this because you wanted
Speaker 5: the first time I talked about it to be on
Speaker 5: our show.
Speaker 2: Yes, but one thing I did express to you.
Speaker 5: Was that I would not be able to expe rest
Speaker 5: on our show how I.
Speaker 2: Actually feel.
Speaker 6: Because our show has to be able to be broadcast
Speaker 6: on the radio, and some of the things that I
Speaker 6: want to say and some of the things that I.
Speaker 2: Feel would not be appropriate on FCC airwaves. So I'll
Speaker 2: start with saying something that may sound very obvious and simple,
Speaker 2: and that's just that I'm really really disappointed.
Speaker 5: I'm having a harder and harder time being positive, being optimistic,
Speaker 5: being hopeful.
Speaker 2: When I have so much evidence presented to me that
Speaker 2: I'm being foolhearted and thinking that things like justice and
Speaker 2: fairness for to think that there's a level of accountability
Speaker 2: that will ever be prescribed.
Speaker 5: To people like Kyle Ritnhou's okay, and the idea that
Speaker 5: this kid's mother would put him in the car with
Speaker 5: an assault rifle, drive him to a protest, have him
Speaker 5: murder people him, walk by the police with the murder reapon,
Speaker 5: make it home safe and sound, go to trial and
Speaker 5: be acquitted of all charges. I wish I could say
Speaker 5: it was the most insane and ridiculous thing I'd ever
Speaker 5: seen or heard. Unfortunately is not. Unfortunately, before the verdict
Speaker 5: was read, I knew what it was going to be,
Speaker 5: and there shouldn't have even been a chance of that
Speaker 5: being true. You and I had discussions before. When we
Speaker 5: say black lives matter, and when we protest and when
Speaker 5: we ask for justice and fairness, we are not saying
Speaker 5: treat other people more harshly. We're saying, have the same grace,
Speaker 5: have the same understanding, the same compassion, and the same
Speaker 5: empathy for us. And that's why we always draw conclusions
Speaker 5: and give examples of any story like this one where
Speaker 5: Kyle is not a white man, a white kid, but
Speaker 5: a black kid. And we know how that would have
Speaker 5: turned out, because we've seen black kids get murdered by
Speaker 5: police officers. We're playing with toy guns. Kyle rittenhouse, after
Speaker 5: murdering people, got to walk by police with the murder weapon,
Speaker 5: and I think be given a bottle of water and
Speaker 5: be saluted and greeted. And then after murdering people, treat
Speaker 5: it like a hero, going to bars and to clubhouses
Speaker 5: and shaking hands and posing for pictures, throwing up white
Speaker 5: supremacy signs, and then he gets to go to court
Speaker 5: and pretend that he's so remorseful that he can't contain
Speaker 5: his tears. That crying performance he did where there were
Speaker 5: no actual tears, but a lot of noise and a
Speaker 5: lot of performance. When that was not laughed at, right,
Speaker 5: when that was not pointed out as a performance that
Speaker 5: looked ridiculous but accepted as a kid that was really sorry,
Speaker 5: it was very clear to me how it.
Speaker 2: Was going to play out. And I am trying to
Speaker 2: remain as subdued and calm because I think the way
Speaker 2: that we speak about this will only be received if
Speaker 2: it's spoken in this tone, I can't yell and curse
Speaker 2: like I want to, because the level of anger, the
Speaker 2: lingual of the level of discouragement, the level of just
Speaker 2: emotional exhaustion that comes with watching things like this happened
Speaker 2: over and over again, it starts to feel like, Okay,
Speaker 2: so who am I even talking to here? What am
Speaker 2: I even doing here? Are we and people like us
Speaker 2: making any difference at all?
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me add let me let me
Speaker 1: jump in right here. So for me, I'll say the
Speaker 1: same thing. You know, I wasn't surprised by it based
Speaker 1: on how the judge was handling the situation. And then
Speaker 1: now there are people on the other side that said
Speaker 1: the judge was being fair right when but you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of examples that suggest that the
Speaker 1: judge might have been partial toward you know, a viewpoint
Speaker 1: that is similar or consistent to those of written house. Right.
Speaker 1: But in terms of where do we go from here,
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment on our show because
Speaker 1: this show does exist in the spaces where it exists
Speaker 1: to empower folks who are or have been in the
Speaker 1: past or will be in the future. Allies to black people,
Speaker 1: to brown people, to all people right to fight alongside
Speaker 1: their brothers and sisters a fight that is not necessarily theirs, right,
Speaker 1: And what we see here is I'm saying this just
Speaker 1: to be funny because it doesn't exist. But what we're
Speaker 1: seeing here is white on white crime. The reason why
Speaker 1: it resonates with you and me is because we know
Speaker 1: that those people who lost their lives and the other
Speaker 1: person who was shot, the reason they were out there
Speaker 1: was to protest, was to stand up for the mistreatment
Speaker 1: of black people by the police. And you know, for
Speaker 1: those people to come out there because Jacob Blake was
Speaker 1: shot in the back and say this was wrong. You
Speaker 1: should not do this to these people. These are our countrymen,
Speaker 1: these are our brothers and sisters. For them to show
Speaker 1: up and fight a fight that wasn't theirs and to
Speaker 1: lose their lives on that quote unquote battlefield for us,
Speaker 1: for my son, for my sons, for your son and
Speaker 1: your daughter. I feel like on our show, we need
Speaker 1: to take a moment and salute those people who have
Speaker 1: been are currently and would be allies to black and
Speaker 1: brown people. To acknowledge how scary that must feel, to
Speaker 1: know that the precedent has been set that a person
Speaker 1: who in theory would be a mass shooter, who else
Speaker 1: walks around with an assault rifle, you know, other than
Speaker 1: a mass shooter, you know, or a soldier in a
Speaker 1: foreign country, But that person could end your life for
Speaker 1: standing up for your brother Ramses and your brother q
Speaker 1: Ward and their children. It could end your life and
Speaker 1: walk away from it because of some manufactured sense of
Speaker 1: fearing for your life or whatever the case is. I
Speaker 1: acknowledge that it must be a scary time for our
Speaker 1: white allies and for people whose fight this isn't you know,
Speaker 1: it's not your fight, And I wanted to say thank you,
Speaker 1: keep the faith, stay strong, and in this moment, I'm
Speaker 1: standing with you. I'm gonna keep that energy. I remember
Speaker 1: you all, you different people, people with turbans, people that
Speaker 1: didn't speak the language, people from all from all walks
Speaker 1: of life out there marching in twenty twenty. I remember that.
Speaker 1: So when one of our soldiers fall, you show up.
Speaker 1: How about this one of your soldiers fall? I show up?
Speaker 1: And I know it's not the same with the ranks,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of you know, white folks or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's just kind of a it might feel a little different,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm gonna keep that energy. Nonetheless, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna acknowledge what happened, and I'm going to say that
Speaker 1: my heart goes out to anybody that's feeling a little
Speaker 1: bit more scared, feeling a little bit more vulnerable, and
Speaker 1: reminding you how much we appreciate you. Those people that
Speaker 1: lost their lives, I have their names here. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: hold on the man with the gun that lived. His
Speaker 1: name is Gauge Gross Cruits. I want to say thank
Speaker 1: you for him, you know, he and you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny because you know, on the right they say, you know,
Speaker 1: the only thing, the only thing that could stop a
Speaker 1: bad guy with a gun is a good guy with
Speaker 1: a gun, and he had a he got shot, he lived.
Speaker 1: We did to have a gun. And so everybody trying
Speaker 1: to villainize that guy on the right, you know, for
Speaker 1: doing exactly what they preach, is that's kind of hypocritical.
Speaker 1: But there was a thirty six year old named Joseph
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum and a twenty six year old named Anthony Huber,
Speaker 1: and they both lost their lives trying to make the
Speaker 1: world a better place, shouting black lives matter. In the
Speaker 1: last few moments of their lives and for me, that
Speaker 1: needs to be acknowledged. And you know, I salute you
Speaker 1: while I have this moment. There's another couple of names.
Speaker 1: I you know, before we had this show, I would,
Speaker 1: you know, do little posts here and there on Facebook
Speaker 1: or whatever else, just to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: people knew. And I know that all these people these
Speaker 1: names I'm mentioning. You know. I don't know if my
Speaker 1: voice transcends, you know, to the afterlife, you know, but
Speaker 1: you know, I want you to know that your life
Speaker 1: is more and your death. But I will say your name.
Speaker 1: Heather Hayer, who was the thirty two year old woman
Speaker 1: who died in Charlottesville when the when the man drove
Speaker 1: his I think it was a charger or a challenger
Speaker 1: or something into a crowd of protesters. This was the
Speaker 1: tiki torch when that day happened in Virginia. I went
Speaker 1: to her college and I saw where she had her
Speaker 1: last moments, you know, and she she was out there
Speaker 1: protesting for black people as a white woman. She lost
Speaker 1: her life that day fighting a fight that was not
Speaker 1: her fight. And I appreciate her and I want to
Speaker 1: say her name on the show. Summer Taylor. She was
Speaker 1: twenty four years old when she lost her life and
Speaker 1: she was hit by a car that ran through a
Speaker 1: barricade in Seattle. You remember when folks used to get
Speaker 1: on the freeway and slow down traffic just to bring
Speaker 1: attention to what was happening. You know, she's the one
Speaker 1: that paid for her for that with her life on
Speaker 1: that day. White woman again, Summer Taylor, if my boy transcends,
Speaker 1: you know, just I know y'all hear me in speakers
Speaker 1: or whatever. I might sound a little crazy, but you know,
Speaker 1: I salute you, Summer. I appreciate your sacrifice, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you know, what you stood for and what you
Speaker 1: felt for, and you deserve to be remembered and acknowledged.
Speaker 1: And maybe other folks ain't doing it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that you know, we take
Speaker 1: a moment to just say thank you to people who
Speaker 1: are not black who are championing, helping champion a black
Speaker 1: agenda or a fair agenda. You know, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a black agenda. It's a human agenda. But you know,
Speaker 1: these people pay for with their lives. And again, your
Speaker 1: life is more than your death. Anyway, back to Rittenhouse,
Speaker 1: So now that we've acknowledged you know what's happened there,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you through the things that I felt
Speaker 1: were kind of funny. Style. So the jury has one
Speaker 1: black person, and I know in that part of the country,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not the population, doesn't you know, skew that way,
Speaker 1: and you know the court system, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot you know. The thing is, courts systems are wildly
Speaker 1: inconsistent across the board. You know, we're talking about this
Speaker 1: day because you know, in the next half of the
Speaker 1: show we have to talk about them ade Aubrey, which
Speaker 1: for most folks who see the world the same way
Speaker 1: we do, would say that that's a desirable outcome. But
Speaker 1: the jury has one black person, you know. The the
Speaker 1: judge said that the prosecutors could not refer to deceased
Speaker 1: victims to the deceased as victims, but the defense could
Speaker 1: refer to them as arsonists and looters, which may or
Speaker 1: may not have been.
Speaker 2: True and rioters.
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, so that that shows you a little
Speaker 1: bit of bias there, I mean, to me, a lot
Speaker 1: of bit of bias. So I mean, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to be a little conservative because they got a long list.
Speaker 1: You know, the picture paints itself when the judge dismissed
Speaker 1: the underage weapons charge because of a hunting exemption. And
Speaker 1: I don't believe this man was out there hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: but that no, he was hunting, but you know, hunting animals.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's why you drive across state lines with an
Speaker 7: AR fifteen to hunt.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The crazy thing is that I forgot what the defense said,
Speaker 1: but they said something to the effect of or sorry,
Speaker 1: the prosecution. They said something to the effect of, you
Speaker 1: can't claim self defense from a like a an incident
Speaker 1: that you created, you know, And this guy's.
Speaker 7: Run up on somebody with your gun. Yeah, they defend
Speaker 7: themselves and you shoot them and then say that's self
Speaker 7: defense for you, and and and then when you frame
Speaker 7: them of the country member. This is twenty twenty. Now
Speaker 7: we're two years after. You know, they're being a mass
Speaker 7: shooting every week. But when we're one year passed it,
Speaker 7: everybody was waiting for the next one, and a lot
Speaker 7: of us in the streets was like, yo, one of
Speaker 7: these dudes is going to show up with a with
Speaker 7: an AR and try to mow us down. Out here
Speaker 7: marching with these signs, right, So I know that that's
Speaker 7: what these folks had to be thinking as soon as
Speaker 7: they saw this kid with his hat turned back, you know,
Speaker 7: and is ar fifteen walking around the streets. Oh my god,
Speaker 7: he's going to start killing people. We need to take action, right,
Speaker 7: And then that's exactly what the right suggests that you do.
Speaker 7: You know, the only thing that could stop a bad
Speaker 7: guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Speaker 7: Or you know, if I would have been there, I would.
Speaker 1: Have you know. So it's it's it feels very unfair.
Speaker 2: And then another thing, of the men, one of the
Speaker 2: men who tried to stop here from killing people, is
Speaker 2: now being charged.
Speaker 1: See I didn't even know that. Oh okay, I'll save
Speaker 1: that for another show. Well man, we well listen. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well back to the judge. So the judge's phone it
Speaker 1: rang with God Bless the Us. Say. This is something
Speaker 1: that they talked about in a lot of the articles
Speaker 1: it you know, it's a very patriotic ring ring tone
Speaker 1: rather and you know, we talk about that a lot
Speaker 1: on this show. You know, we're Americans, proud to be
Speaker 1: American until we get around some like people. That's like
Speaker 1: to the n degree American, and you start feeling a
Speaker 1: little uncomfortable because they have a different sense of what
Speaker 1: America is than you know, folks like us. We feel
Speaker 1: like America is where we live. They feel like America
Speaker 1: is where they live and where we have encroached upon
Speaker 1: their you know, something like that.
Speaker 2: Think we think America is where we live and where
Speaker 2: we're from. They think America is who they are.
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 2: Very very different mindset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have never got it that good. He
Speaker 1: nailed that. And so when you hear that the judge
Speaker 1: has this really ultra patriotic ringtone, okay, that tends to
Speaker 1: be associated with folks who are very conservative, very right wing,
Speaker 1: right leaning First Amendment, Second Amendment, you know, those sorts
Speaker 1: of folks. And it feels like the judge really fixed
Speaker 1: this trial up to give him the best possible outcome.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was a lot that people made
Speaker 1: a big deal out of. Okay, they drew names for
Speaker 1: the jewors from hat to whatever. The judge was like,
Speaker 1: you I do that every trial. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that they tried to pick apart with
Speaker 1: the judge and he was like nope, I'm consistent across
Speaker 1: the board. He was allowed to hide behind that. But
Speaker 1: these things I think should have made a much bigger
Speaker 1: deal out of it, because I think those really helped
Speaker 1: paint the picture of Okay, are we going to see
Speaker 1: some accountability here or is this a child he was
Speaker 1: at the time going to be able to murder people
Speaker 1: and get off with it, And you know, they're championing
Speaker 1: this guy like he's just the second coming. And the
Speaker 1: crazy thing about it. As soon as he got released
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, man, I'm a big fan of BLM,
Speaker 1: And I was like, really, you know, it could have
Speaker 1: fooled me. He was out there with an AR fifteen
Speaker 1: to defend a business that wasn't his, that was empty,
Speaker 1: an empty I think it was an empty used car.
Speaker 2: Lot in the city and state that he didn't live in.
Speaker 1: He didn't live in that wasn't his. In't that wild?
Speaker 1: And the thing is two human beings, their heart is
Speaker 1: not beating anymore. They're buried in the ground now or
Speaker 1: otherwise creamating extinguished, life extinguished, and no accountability for that.
Speaker 1: And it's such a hurtful thing because I recognize that
Speaker 1: we have a way to go to get where everything
Speaker 1: is kumbaya and peaceful and copasetic across the board, and
Speaker 1: all the systems that are oppressive have been dismantled and
Speaker 1: challenged in ways that have caused them to, you know,
Speaker 1: mature and be more beneficial to more people. Right. But
Speaker 1: on this journey, we need folks to be allies to us.
Speaker 1: And what this does is this causes even our allies
Speaker 1: to stop and say, WHOA all this privilege I thought
Speaker 1: I was sharing with my black and brown brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: You know, it does have a you know, if I
Speaker 1: come up against a conservative judge, my privilege doesn't go
Speaker 1: beyond me being liberal, you know. And that's a part
Speaker 1: that's really scary and a part you know, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to just look at it like it's politics.
Speaker 1: I really do want to heed the gravity of the
Speaker 1: loss of human life in this situation and just make
Speaker 1: sure that we acknowledge that. But you know, this is
Speaker 1: another page in the book of America. You know, Ojay,
Speaker 1: When oj got off, a lot of people were upset
Speaker 1: about that. When this guy gets off, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are upset about that. And for better or worse,
Speaker 1: we're writing the story where These are the times of
Speaker 1: our lives. You know, these are the days of our lives,
Speaker 1: to quote a popular saying. And you know it's up
Speaker 1: to us to not be disheartened. It's up to us
Speaker 1: to acknowledge feel and you know, forge ahead, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll continue to do that together as brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: You know that's always going.
Speaker 2: To be I try my best, but it's hard, it.
Speaker 1: Is, but that's all that's really all we got. And
Speaker 1: you consider the alternative is to roll over and die,
Speaker 1: but stick around your radios. We'll coming back with more
Speaker 1: cific cipher right after this