Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to Qboard, who
Speaker 1: is still out of town handling business, but he has
Speaker 1: assured me and everyone else that he will be back
Speaker 1: next week, so we will be back to business as usual.
Speaker 1: But have no fear. He has left us in capable hands.
Speaker 1: Today we are joined by the one, the only, Amy
Speaker 1: Owen aka Pineapple Lawyer. And for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: Amy Owen is a civil rights attorney who has worked
Speaker 1: major civil rights cases alongside Benjamin Crump. And she's known
Speaker 1: for working alongside professional athletes and celebrities and other high
Speaker 1: profile individuals. For those that are unfamiliar, you can find
Speaker 1: her online as Pineapple Lawyer. Jeff And you know we
Speaker 1: near and dear to our hearts, so welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Ramseys, thanks for having Civic Cipher
Speaker 2: is one of my favorites of.
Speaker 1: Course, yeah yeah. And then today we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about arise in hate crimes. We're going to have
Speaker 1: a conversation about obviously the current administration and the undoing
Speaker 1: of certain civil rights, certain logical, linear pieces of legislation
Speaker 1: that really made the world safer for black and brown
Speaker 1: and marginalized people. And we're going to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a lawyer who kind of works in this space
Speaker 1: and determine how we can be maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: more safer. Of course, we can't have conversations about everyone's
Speaker 1: individual circumstances in their lives, but it's certainly a good
Speaker 1: idea to have conversations like this with someone who's a
Speaker 1: little bit more informed and engaged toward that end. So
Speaker 1: stick around for that and a whole lot more. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to have this conversation because I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to learn some things
Speaker 1: that they can take with them over the next four years.
Speaker 1: But before we get started there, it's time for some
Speaker 1: Ebony excellence. And today's Ebony excellence comes from the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network. Today we're shouting out Maxwell Frost, Florida Representative.
Speaker 1: Frost was silenced and faced threat of removal after he
Speaker 1: called President Donald Trump a grifter during a house meeting.
Speaker 1: The threat came on February twenty fifth, so I understand
Speaker 1: this is a little old, but we're just getting to it.
Speaker 1: From Kentucky Representative James Comer, the House Oversight and Government
Speaker 1: Reform Committee chair, who took issue with Frost calling out
Speaker 1: Trump and ally Elon Musk for abusing their power. Quote,
Speaker 1: people like the grifter and Chief Trump and President Musk
Speaker 1: are openly using their public offices to enrich themselves to
Speaker 1: the tune of billions of dollars, Frost said during Tuesday's
Speaker 1: House meeting. It goes on to say, so, if we
Speaker 1: want to look at waste, fraud, and abuse, which I'm
Speaker 1: down to do, why is there a complete silence on
Speaker 1: the other side of the aisle about looking at the
Speaker 1: complete grifter that is the President of the United States
Speaker 1: and the richest man on earth? He added. Komer asked
Speaker 1: Frost if he sought to quote revise your remark with
Speaker 1: respect to improperly identifying the President of the United States unquote,
Speaker 1: Frost says, I'll say President Musk and grifter in Chief Trump.
Speaker 1: Virginia Representative Jerry Connolly told Comer that he didn't believe
Speaker 1: that mister Musk is protected by the rules of the
Speaker 1: House or the committee. Quote, we're looking at the disparaging
Speaker 1: the president. Now Comer replied, but I don't believe mister
Speaker 1: Frost disparaged the President. I believe he disparaged mister Musk,
Speaker 1: Connolly said. Frost doubled down on his stance again, calling
Speaker 1: out Trump for engaging in grifting. Quote President Musk and
Speaker 1: the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who was
Speaker 1: engaging in drifting. Grifting, Sorry of the American people often
Speaker 1: use their public offices to enrich themselves. And so the
Speaker 1: reason that this is ebony excellence is because you wanted
Speaker 1: a spine, you wanted some pushback, you wanted something, and
Speaker 1: this I hesitate to call it something, but it's not nothing. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to fight as much as we can. So
Speaker 1: shout out to Representative Frost.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, he's stood on business right. He wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be quieted.
Speaker 1: So you know, Okay, So, Amy Owen, what a world
Speaker 1: we live in?
Speaker 2: A time to be alive?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think is really important is for you to
Speaker 1: tell a little bit about your story so people kind
Speaker 1: of get an idea of who it is that we're
Speaker 1: listening to today. Now, I did mention that you work
Speaker 1: with Benjamin Crump, but you know, talk about how long
Speaker 1: you've been a lawyer, you know what motivated you, you
Speaker 1: know all that sort of stuff, just so people kind
Speaker 1: of get more of an idea of who we're talking about.
Speaker 2: That sure, well, I think it started when I was
Speaker 2: a young child. I was always about equality, right. I
Speaker 2: tell a story about being in fifth grade and the
Speaker 2: principle was going to give me an award and wanted
Speaker 2: to send me home for my shorts being too short.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, send the whole school home then,
Speaker 2: because everybodys shorts are too short. So it started a
Speaker 2: long time ago that I believed in equal treatment of everyone.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a you know, in a white family.
Speaker 2: That was difficult. So I always had to fight for
Speaker 2: my own you know rights, and for the rights of
Speaker 2: those that weren't white, I guess, even in my own family,
Speaker 2: and then adopted correct So, you know, going to law
Speaker 2: school for me was an empowering move because the law
Speaker 2: touches everything. And now I'm able to use that power
Speaker 2: and that law degree to help people who are discriminated
Speaker 2: against or who are you know, in car accidents and
Speaker 2: injured as well. So injuries come in lots of different forms, right,
Speaker 2: And I really love helping people and that's my main thing.
Speaker 2: So Pineapple Lawyer is my personal brand, and I use
Speaker 2: that to market and brand myself because people can remember that.
Speaker 2: Nobody forgets pineapp Yeah, you're right, you're going to forget
Speaker 2: Owen Law Firm.
Speaker 1: That's boring.
Speaker 2: There's law firms of every other name. But so I
Speaker 2: use that platform in order to get my message out
Speaker 2: there and to make sure that people know how to
Speaker 2: find me at any time, especially when they're in a
Speaker 2: really bad situation. A lot of my celebrity clients, my
Speaker 2: professional athlete clients, and their families reach out because you know,
Speaker 2: everybody says, well, do you know Pineapple Lawyer? Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I met her, you know, out at the All Star Game,
Speaker 2: or I met her at this concert or that concert.
Speaker 2: So it's a really great way for people to remember
Speaker 2: me and call me in their times you need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've you know, I've seen kind of how
Speaker 1: that works because I've seen, you know, a number of
Speaker 1: your videos going viral. You're giving out little bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of advice and so forth, and that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason why you know, we felt like you would
Speaker 1: be a great person to have this conversation with, so
Speaker 1: we won't keep the people waiting you. Thank you now.
Speaker 1: Q sent over this story a while back, and we
Speaker 1: knew that once the election had taken place and it
Speaker 1: was determined that Donald Trump was going to be the
Speaker 1: next president, there was a spike in hate crimes, right,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a sign of, you know,
Speaker 1: things to come. And obviously during his last administration we
Speaker 1: saw something very similar. It really emboldens a base of
Speaker 1: people that feel very much entitled and feel like they
Speaker 1: that black and brown and marginalized bodies should be subject
Speaker 1: to their whims. Okay, what stood out to this from
Speaker 1: this story that Q sent over is that this was
Speaker 1: in California, a place that's generally known for being a
Speaker 1: very liberal place. Right. So I'm going to share a
Speaker 1: bit from ABC ten. Hate incidents in California are on
Speaker 1: the rise, according to a new report from the Commission
Speaker 1: on This State of Hate. Quote, we have a problem
Speaker 1: with racism in the United States unquote, said Russell Roibau,
Speaker 1: chair of the Commission on the State of Hate, as
Speaker 1: hate incidents in California are increasing. The report says nearly
Speaker 1: seventy percent are reported as violent offenses, while less than
Speaker 1: thirty percent are property crimes. The Black community remains the
Speaker 1: most targeted group in California, with anti Black hate crimes
Speaker 1: increasing more than twenty seven percent between twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty two, outpacing the overall increase in hate crimes,
Speaker 1: which rose by twenty percent. Hate crimes against the Latino
Speaker 1: community also saw a six point six percent increase. What's
Speaker 1: the first thing someone should do? Oh, okay, let me
Speaker 1: stop right here before we get there now. I also
Speaker 1: read elsewhere in the article that there was incidents of
Speaker 1: religious hate crimes. Particularly. It just stands out of my
Speaker 1: mind Muslim American individuals and Jewish people as well. And
Speaker 1: this is something that once upon a time we felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if something happens that's along the lines of a hate crime,
Speaker 1: there exists a political infrastructure to protect us. And this
Speaker 1: political infrastructure is in place to conceivably prevent these sorts
Speaker 1: of things from happening in the first place. Now, with
Speaker 1: this current administration, everybody's sense of how safe they are
Speaker 1: is compromised. Okay, So let's put ourselves in the shoes
Speaker 1: of an individual who now feels as though there's less
Speaker 1: in the way of protection. If you feel like something
Speaker 1: has happened to cause you harm as a result of
Speaker 1: your race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. What are some of
Speaker 1: the things, like, let's just start at the beginning. What
Speaker 1: are some things that people should know about and maybe
Speaker 1: some steps people should take if they're confronted with a
Speaker 1: situation like this.
Speaker 2: I love that question, Ramses. I do get asked that
Speaker 2: a lot. The number one thing I tell everyone is
Speaker 2: your cell phone is your greatest weapon. Take that thing
Speaker 2: out and film whatever is happening, or if you're being detained,
Speaker 2: have other people around you roll their cell phone cameras
Speaker 2: because you can't dispute things that are on video.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So that's almost like having a gun in a war.
Speaker 2: That arms you with facts. It arms you with proof
Speaker 2: of what these people are doing that is horrific or discriminatory.
Speaker 2: And Ben and I actually Ben Crump and I actually
Speaker 2: spoke about this. He was in town, I believe it
Speaker 2: was last month, and I said, you know, it's kind
Speaker 2: of depressing what's going on, right, And I said, I'm
Speaker 2: telling everyone to make sure that they roll their cell phones.
Speaker 2: And he said, yes, that's the number one thing to do.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, don't be afraid of reporting it.
Speaker 2: Even if you think that the checks and balances aren't there,
Speaker 2: you can still send a letter or post about it
Speaker 2: on your social media. I don't always want people to post,
Speaker 2: because sometimes that's your leverage if you're going to bring
Speaker 2: a lawsuit. But a lot of these companies are afraid
Speaker 2: of being called out because people will both boycott, Like
Speaker 2: look at Target right, look at the different businesses that
Speaker 2: people are starting to say, hey, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: buy things from there, So you hit them in their pockets.
Speaker 2: So even if you think, okay, the laws are changing
Speaker 2: and my lawsuit may get dismissed by the Trump administration
Speaker 2: and the judges that are out there, you cannot stop
Speaker 2: the economic damn that will happen to a company if
Speaker 2: they're boycotted, or if somebody says, you know, this hotel
Speaker 2: did this to me, or this restaurant did that to me,
Speaker 2: and you report that to the hotel themselves, right, they
Speaker 2: that might strike some fear into the hotel that hey,
Speaker 2: this is going on. It might blow up in our faces.
Speaker 2: Their risk management people are going to get that letter.
Speaker 2: They're at least going to read it right, So don't
Speaker 2: give up completely. Yes, some of the checks and balances
Speaker 2: with the court systems and having an administration who's kind
Speaker 2: of okay, this is going to make the battle harder
Speaker 2: for people like myself who represent people in this situation.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean it's over. And these court cases
Speaker 2: last for years, so we can kind of outlast the administration,
Speaker 2: if you will, in some ways. Right, So I think
Speaker 2: justice will still be served ultimately.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you said that because that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've been saying to people. I'm going
Speaker 1: to share gears just a bit here. Of course, we're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, hate crimes and discrimination, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Well, we're kind of talking about them both.
Speaker 1: It was originally it was hate crimes. We're going to
Speaker 1: get to discrimination. But I'm glad you took us there. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you took us there. But while we're here,
Speaker 1: I think you make an excellent point in terms of
Speaker 1: how politics works in this country. Lawsuit can last longer
Speaker 1: than people. Sorry, a lawsuit can last longer than people
Speaker 1: can be president. And you know, I'm a very petty
Speaker 1: person and I hold grudges very well. Right, So places
Speaker 1: like Target, places like Walmart, places like Amazon. Right, I cannot,
Speaker 1: for the life of me believe that what they what
Speaker 1: they did by kind of undoing their DII policies to
Speaker 1: like bow down and kill Syring. Like even if Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was the president for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: he's what seventy eighty years old something like that, he's
Speaker 1: going to be dead soon.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Black people are going to be here a lot longer
Speaker 1: than Donald Trump. And all of those companies have to
Speaker 1: come back down this street. And remember what I said,
Speaker 1: I'm very very petty, and I hold grudges very well.
Speaker 1: So when Walmart tries to do their Juneteenth whatever, Nope,
Speaker 1: I'm not shopping there. When Amazon is like, hey, we're
Speaker 1: you know whatever, I'm not shopping there, right, you know, right,
Speaker 1: And that's in terms of the economics. So I'm glad
Speaker 1: you mentioned that. Now, let's let's revert back hate crimes. Well,
Speaker 1: so let's say that you know, a person has kind
Speaker 1: of suffered some sort of injury and they are you know,
Speaker 1: we had a gentleman on the show. This was years ago,
Speaker 1: but he came up and he said, you know, the
Speaker 1: police came to my house. They were looking for someone else.
Speaker 1: They thought that they had him, but they had me,
Speaker 1: and then they beat me up in my house. They
Speaker 1: knocked out my teeth. He's like, this is why I
Speaker 1: sound like this. And he's like, now I'm trying to
Speaker 1: like get some support, get some lawyers, get somebody to
Speaker 1: take this case. As like, I have no money, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what to do. And he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: very fortunate that I was able to even get a
Speaker 1: hold of you. So in a place like California, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure places all around the country, because again California,
Speaker 1: you would imagine this would be kind of on the
Speaker 1: lower end of the increase in those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: What are some like first steps, not in the immediate
Speaker 1: aftermath after you've kind of had your cell phone and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. What does a person do?
Speaker 1: Do you have to you need a ton of money
Speaker 1: to get a lawyer? Do you need you know? How
Speaker 1: does this work?
Speaker 2: So, of course every case is different, but the main
Speaker 2: thing would be to document your injuries. Take pictures of
Speaker 2: like bruising or bleeding or broken bones, get medical treatment,
Speaker 2: make sure that your medical treatment states in your records
Speaker 2: that this was caused by someone doing something that was hateful,
Speaker 2: or you know, just tell the facts of how it happened,
Speaker 2: like somebody bashed my face in with a brick, and
Speaker 2: I think that it was racially motivated. So the more
Speaker 2: information that you give to the medical providers, the better
Speaker 2: your medical records will be. So for me, since I'm
Speaker 2: a personal injury and a civil rights lawyer, having good
Speaker 2: medical records that describe exactly how someone's injury happened is
Speaker 2: very important. So I would say that people who are
Speaker 2: injured in that way be very careful how you state
Speaker 2: your injuries to the treating providers. Get that medical all
Speaker 2: that medical treatment, and then you know, keep a notebook
Speaker 2: of everything that you miss, talk about your feelings like
Speaker 2: missed works, if you miss a family reunion, or you
Speaker 2: miss a trip or something like that. Document everything because
Speaker 2: that goes into what's called your damages. So a lawyer
Speaker 2: is going to only take a case where the damages
Speaker 2: are high enough that I know that I can get
Speaker 2: you a lot of money because you have, you know,
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars in medical bills, you have twenty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in lost wages. Things like that. If your damages
Speaker 2: are only you go to the urgent care and it's
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars and then you're back on your feet
Speaker 2: in a couple weeks. Those damages are going to be
Speaker 2: a lot less than somebody who lost a bunch of
Speaker 2: teeth and has to get dental work to the tune of,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty thousand dollars. Of course, those damages are
Speaker 2: going to be higher. So it's very important for victims
Speaker 2: of these types of crimes to get the medical care
Speaker 2: and then keep all those bills and records, you know,
Speaker 2: at your disposal, so that when you go to ask
Speaker 2: a lawyer to represent you, you can say, hey, I
Speaker 2: have amount of medical bills because a lot of times
Speaker 2: as lawyers, we get a ton of calls and we
Speaker 2: need people who are succinct who can communicate to us
Speaker 2: exactly how you are injured and what you want to
Speaker 2: be done. Do you want to be made whole through
Speaker 2: monetary damages? Do you want that company or that business
Speaker 2: to issue an apology. Would you like to see changes
Speaker 2: in their policies about the way that they handle situations
Speaker 2: like that. There's a lot of different ways to be
Speaker 2: made whole, right, But I would say to our listeners
Speaker 2: or to your listeners. You need to make sure that
Speaker 2: you're documenting things. And then it does sometimes take money
Speaker 2: hire a lawyer. And then other times we do what's
Speaker 2: called contingency fee, and we will work to settle your
Speaker 2: case without any money up front. But that's going to
Speaker 2: be a really good case that we know that we
Speaker 2: can win. Lawyers aren't going to be able to take
Speaker 2: every single case. Sometimes I get, you know, ten twenty
Speaker 2: thirty calls or emails in a week, but they're all
Speaker 2: cases that I'm not going to be able to win
Speaker 2: because there's maybe not enough evidence or the damages are
Speaker 2: so low. And I tell people, hey, there's the Office
Speaker 2: of Accountability, right, go and talk to them. They might
Speaker 2: be able to send a letter for you or something.
Speaker 2: But I'm so busy as a lawyer trying to fight
Speaker 2: some of the other cases. I can't take every single
Speaker 2: case on contingency. So your questions multifaceted. But there are
Speaker 2: lawyers who can take it if it's egregious enough. And
Speaker 2: you know, of course Ben Crump, he gets thousands of
Speaker 2: calls a day and he takes the ones where people die.
Speaker 2: People are you know, really seriously injured. Sure, and I
Speaker 2: mean it sounds sad that the damages have to be
Speaker 2: really high in order for certain attorneys to take it.
Speaker 2: But those are the cases that move the needle and
Speaker 2: help us to change the way the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the country works. Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I did want to ask about kind of the thing
Speaker 1: that distinguishes a regular assault type of thing or some
Speaker 1: other sort of transgression from a bon fight hate crime.
Speaker 1: And my understanding so far is that if two guys
Speaker 1: get in the fight and one of them happens to
Speaker 1: be a different race than the other guy, and they
Speaker 1: just get into a fight with each other or one
Speaker 1: assaults the other one, you know, and they happen to
Speaker 1: be a different race, then that's just an assault charge.
Speaker 1: It doesn't become a hate crime until they either say
Speaker 1: something that's like racially derogatory or otherwise have some sort
Speaker 1: of something linking them to I guess what would fall
Speaker 1: under the umbrella of hate? Do I have that correct?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? It would be maybe if the two guys are
Speaker 2: getting in the fight and one of the guys is
Speaker 2: using a racially explicit term towards the other person, or
Speaker 2: saying I hate all of you blank, so and There's
Speaker 2: there's times when those facts come out later too, you know,
Speaker 2: like you might not know why this person is upset
Speaker 2: with this particular individual. And then a lot of times
Speaker 2: with social media and everything, you can go research someone
Speaker 2: and oftentimes it's implied, I would say, but to be
Speaker 2: categorized as a hate crime, there's definitely boundaries and specific
Speaker 2: pointers that have to be met in order for it
Speaker 2: to be a hate crime.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah, this is something that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: beginning to understand that you know, a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It's just like you you know, people reach out to
Speaker 1: us on the show Myself and Q and they will
Speaker 1: tell us their stories and you know, we have an
Speaker 1: hour a week and yes we can bring some attention
Speaker 1: to it, but we just don't have the time and
Speaker 1: the bandwidth to tell every story. And so it's those
Speaker 1: stories that we feel like, can we can get a
Speaker 1: response from what, you know, whatever, we can get some
Speaker 1: positive outcome for these folks that we try to you know,
Speaker 1: share with people. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, if it if we can't get to everyone,
Speaker 1: it's good so that they have this type of advice
Speaker 1: and they know what they can do on their own
Speaker 1: because again, we cannot highlight every single, you know, instance
Speaker 1: of you know, a transgression or some sort of assault
Speaker 1: or something like that, because you know, people do get jumped,
Speaker 1: they get beat up, they get you know, all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, and you know, we hear about it, we
Speaker 1: get to in our inbox, and so you know, we
Speaker 1: appreciate just kind of the the once sober. I know
Speaker 1: it wasn't very long, and I know you're going to
Speaker 1: stick around for the next part of the show, but
Speaker 1: you know, I want to make sure that we plug
Speaker 1: you one more time. It's Pineapple Lawyer on all platforms.
Speaker 1: Lock in and get yourself educated, y'all.