Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cypher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job is Ramsey's job. I am Q Wharton. Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need you to stick around because this is
Speaker 1: our year end recap episode and you are listening to
Speaker 1: Civic cipheres. Indeed, so around here on Civic Cipher for
Speaker 1: those who are just getting familiar, we talk about a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, talk about a lot of heavy stuff.
Speaker 1: We talk about political issues that are important to black
Speaker 1: and brown communities, We talk about systemic issues that are
Speaker 1: important to black and brown communities. We talk about we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about police violence and justice, shootings, that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. In short, our show is not lit, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's important, you know what I mean. There's a
Speaker 1: gravity here. There's a lot of gravity here. That's what
Speaker 1: I meant.
Speaker 2: It's not lit, it's not light, it's not trivial, it's
Speaker 2: not just for your entertaining.
Speaker 1: There's some education here.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of gravity here, a lot of truth here,
Speaker 2: and sometimes even some hurt unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure, And this past year we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time talking about a lot of different issues. So
Speaker 1: we're going to review some of the standout topics that
Speaker 1: we've discussed, and you're welcome to go back and check
Speaker 1: out our websites of Exciteer dot com and listen to
Speaker 1: these stories at length. But great show in store for
Speaker 1: you where we get a chance to really just reflect
Speaker 1: on what we've seen happens about the year. Also, we're
Speaker 1: going to spend some time talking about black banking institutions. Okay,
Speaker 1: why they're important, you know, what they need. This is
Speaker 1: something that is new to me and so I'm excited
Speaker 1: to continue to learn more and hopefully share something that
Speaker 1: you haven't learned before. And then, of course for our
Speaker 1: way Black history fact, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: great African Roman Emperor. Sounds interesting, wow, so stick around
Speaker 1: for that. But yeah, first and foremost, we're going to
Speaker 1: get into some Ebony Excellence, which is q's favorite. Second
Speaker 1: absolutely indeed, So today's Ebny Excellence is sponsored by Hip
Speaker 1: Hop Weekly Media, and we are going to be discussing
Speaker 1: Greenwood Incorporated. I mentioned we're going to talk about black
Speaker 1: banking institutions. Well, this comes from Black Enterprise dot Com.
Speaker 1: Greenwood Incorporated continues to lead the Black bank Movement or sorry,
Speaker 1: the bank Black movement, with another forty five million adventure
Speaker 1: capital funding, so I'll read. Greenwood Incorporated, which kicked off
Speaker 1: the Bank Black movement in twenty twenty, announced that it
Speaker 1: has raised forty five million adventure capital funding to expand
Speaker 1: its digital banking services. Forbes reported the Atlanta based digital
Speaker 1: banking platform is co founded by former entertainment executive Ryan Glover,
Speaker 1: tech entrepreneur Paul Judge, ninety year old former Atlanta mayor
Speaker 1: Andrew Young Junior, and rapper Michael Killer Mike Grinder. Greenwood,
Speaker 1: inc named after the Oklahoma city where the Tulsa Race
Speaker 1: Maxacre took place, was created to help black and brown
Speaker 1: consumers who increasingly pivot to minority own financial institutions as
Speaker 1: an alternative to mainstream banks, which have decades long histories
Speaker 1: of racial discrimination. That's another thing we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show. We'll get to more of that in just
Speaker 1: a minute, but for now, I'll wrap up our emany
Speaker 1: excellence here. Greenwood Incorporated currently has about one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: accounts with another two hundred thousand on a waiting list.
Speaker 1: It's a great position to be in. The digital Bank's
Speaker 1: latest funding round was led by Pendulum, a firm that
Speaker 1: targets black and Brown founders. The investment made Pendulum the
Speaker 1: largest investor on a dollar basis in the digital banking platform.
Speaker 1: So once again, shout out to Greenwood Incorporated and shout
Speaker 1: out to all those responsible for bringing it to life.
Speaker 1: We love to see the growth in that sector. The
Speaker 1: bank Black movement is alive and well and we'll keep
Speaker 1: monitor indeed. So yeah, now Civic Cipher our year in review.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back to January a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Do you remember we had a show Q where we
Speaker 1: asked the question why do many Black people vote Democrat?
Speaker 1: I do remember that show.
Speaker 2: I remember that question being asked on the show, and
Speaker 2: I think we both can recall that question being asked
Speaker 2: hundreds of times before and ask you he's actually even
Speaker 2: had that conversation with Charlottagne.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, of course we invite
Speaker 1: you to go back and listen to the episode. But
Speaker 1: in short, based on what I remember, that essentially boiled
Speaker 1: down to the framework of our political system here in
Speaker 1: the country. We have a two party political system and
Speaker 1: a lot of black people have a shared reality. Of course,
Speaker 1: we have, you know, a large shared culture, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's more of the shared reality we experience
Speaker 1: America in largely the same way, and if we are
Speaker 1: looking at a two party system, then we can only
Speaker 1: choose one of those. And so I want to say
Speaker 1: it was Eldridge Cleaver who said that none of the
Speaker 1: political candidates really speak for us. They don't know us.
Speaker 1: That this was back in the sixties or whatever, but
Speaker 1: he said something was It was a very profound speech
Speaker 1: that he had given, and I just remember this part
Speaker 1: of it, but he said, you know, Nixon and whoever
Speaker 1: his opponent was, I forget the name. They don't they
Speaker 1: don't speak to us. They're not for us, they're not
Speaker 1: for our communities. They have no interest in making our
Speaker 1: realities better. But one of them could potentially make our
Speaker 1: reality worse. And this is kind of a reality that
Speaker 1: a lot of black people have to live with in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, when we cast our vote, a
Speaker 1: lot of times, the excitement that you may see is
Speaker 1: not in us voting for a particular candidate, Obama being
Speaker 1: a notable exception for obvious reasons. I hope that no
Speaker 1: one out there would question why that would be important
Speaker 1: for black and brown people to see. But again, our
Speaker 1: excitement when we cast our votes isn't necessarily because we're
Speaker 1: getting our person in the office. It's often because we're
Speaker 1: voting against a person who will make our reality worse.
Speaker 1: And there's something there, you know, I remember having the conversation,
Speaker 1: there's something there about us voting almost like a voting block,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We we're not a what's
Speaker 1: the word, We're not a monolith. But when we vote again,
Speaker 1: it reflects our shared reality. And we've seen and heard
Speaker 1: from our family members who've come before us, We've read,
Speaker 1: you know, those of us that know a bit about
Speaker 1: our history, we recognize that. You know, there have been
Speaker 1: moments in history, American history where black people have done
Speaker 1: very well, and there's one of the time been a
Speaker 1: subsequent backlash against those various black communities that have done well.
Speaker 1: They've kind of created their own governments, elected officials, created
Speaker 1: black banking institutions, and you know, doctors and hospitals and
Speaker 1: schools and so forth, and they get burned to the
Speaker 1: ground or there's you know, some sort of corruption that
Speaker 1: takes place, or the clan gets called in and they
Speaker 1: kill everybody, or whatever the case is. So because we
Speaker 1: know this, we recognize that things can get worse and
Speaker 1: for many of us, it feels like this is really
Speaker 1: the extent of our allowance of that's not the right word,
Speaker 1: and me think it's the extent of our capacity to
Speaker 1: involve ourselves in the political process. Here. It's not like
Speaker 1: we're writing letters to people and they're going to listen
Speaker 1: and come back. And that's not just a black person thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of people feel like if you write a letter,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really go anywhere unless you're connected, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, once every couple of years we get
Speaker 1: a chance to cast our vote, and if we have
Speaker 1: a largely shared reality, then it's very easy for us
Speaker 1: to have that shared reality be reflected in the votes
Speaker 1: that we cast. And so, yeah, I do remember that conversation,
Speaker 1: but that was the show. In short. We obviously peeled
Speaker 1: back a lot more layers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the acceptance of our reality and
Speaker 2: the truth that comes with the outcomes with regard to
Speaker 2: how they affect our lives. It's a sad truth that
Speaker 2: we have to think and vote that way. You know,
Speaker 2: there's no one out there's going to make things better
Speaker 2: for us. Yeah, there's no one out there who's even
Speaker 2: considering us in most cases. But there's somebody and I
Speaker 2: won't say that there's no one considering us. There's nobody
Speaker 2: considering better outcomes for us. Sure, some people are absolutely
Speaker 2: considering worse outcomes for us, and we have to often
Speaker 2: cases vote to protect ourselves from that.
Speaker 1: Oh, we've seen time and again that we are very
Speaker 1: much disposable. Yeah, the misguided war on drugs is a
Speaker 1: great example there are you're so kind misguided. It was guided,
Speaker 1: it was specific, but it was it was intended to
Speaker 1: disrupt the hippie community and the black power movement. We
Speaker 1: can call it. Share Such a kind, graceful and generous
Speaker 1: human being. I love you for that. You know, we
Speaker 1: got some listeners where the truth kind of hits hard,
Speaker 1: and so we got to soften it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But you know, anyway, you know, there's again active aggression
Speaker 1: from our government toward black people. There's a history of it.
Speaker 1: There's lots of history of it. You know, a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, when we were dealing with whether or
Speaker 1: not to get people vaccinated, we had to, you know,
Speaker 1: come up against the Tuskegee experiments. In short, these experiments
Speaker 1: that the United States government performed on black sharecroppers and
Speaker 1: infecting them with syphilis and then refusing to give them
Speaker 1: treatments just to see what would happen. So these black
Speaker 1: people were disposable, you know, these black people were expendable.
Speaker 1: You know, these these experiments, and this is something going
Speaker 1: back to and so the Democrats often don't feel like
Speaker 1: you know, granted, Democrats have done a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that has made things worse, and particular those studies that
Speaker 1: they did about housing in the structure of the black family,
Speaker 1: where there's a Democrat Democrat backed study that suggested that
Speaker 1: black fathers not being in the home was the result
Speaker 1: of or or ended up resulting in the economic state
Speaker 1: of Black America.
Speaker 2: There is also some I guess role reversal, right, because
Speaker 2: when you say democrat, the modern democrat is not the
Speaker 2: same as.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, that's that's fair. But also I think that
Speaker 1: speaks to the fact that these political parties don't live
Speaker 1: our reality. So to continue with the one subject that
Speaker 1: I was just mentioning, the Democrat backed study on you know,
Speaker 1: economics and black household and so forth and home ownership,
Speaker 1: et cetera, pointed out that like unmarried black mothers was
Speaker 1: the source of all this stuff, and it didn't account
Speaker 1: for the fact that black people economically were worse off
Speaker 1: and when you get married, it compromises your ability to
Speaker 1: get benefits. It didn't account for the fact that black
Speaker 1: people were unfairly targeted by police, died at younger ages,
Speaker 1: et cetera, all these sorts of things. And so when
Speaker 1: you adjust for those elements, and we didn't find that
Speaker 1: out until recently, black people are actually better fathers to
Speaker 1: their children than any other race everybody, right, And it
Speaker 1: took a long time for that to come out because
Speaker 1: it sud He was done and believe in the early sixties,
Speaker 1: late fifties somewhere in there. But that became a myth
Speaker 1: that Black people don't take care of our children, Black
Speaker 1: men don't take care of our children, and everybody just
Speaker 1: accepted it completely ignoring the fact that Africa is a
Speaker 1: place that exists where black men take care of their
Speaker 1: children just fine, you know what I mean. Completely ignoring
Speaker 1: the fact that there are societal and then governmental and
Speaker 1: structural conditions put in place, oftentimes causing a people who
Speaker 1: are trying to survive to get creative with what survival
Speaker 1: looks like. And so if that means that we can't
Speaker 1: get married, so that you can keep getting your benefits
Speaker 1: and we'll have enough food to eat. Then so be it.
Speaker 1: But then that means you're not married. But we're still
Speaker 1: a family. We're married and all but a piece of paper.
Speaker 2: And just suppose what it means to be black in
Speaker 2: America specifically, which is a whole.
Speaker 1: Entire can of gasoline and prone that fire. Sure. Another
Speaker 1: thing we talked about was does defunding the police work?
Speaker 1: And you know, the jury is still out on that.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of defunding the police.
Speaker 2: Is the jury still out though, because we haven't so
Speaker 2: we don't have a control group to give you any
Speaker 2: day that we haven't defunded the police to know if
Speaker 2: it works.
Speaker 1: So, you know what I'm saying, that's a fair point question.
Speaker 1: That's a fair point if we're being scientific about it.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been a control group versus a non control group.
Speaker 1: But we'll we'll get into this a little bit more
Speaker 1: because this has kind of been our thing all year. Yes,
Speaker 1: So when I say the jury still out on that,
Speaker 1: I am saying that to say that this is supposed
Speaker 1: to be a long term look at the overall effects,
Speaker 1: not just what's happened in six months. Or a year,
Speaker 1: not something that's been over overshadowed by you know, the economy,
Speaker 1: or overshadowed by a pandemic. Something that can exist on
Speaker 1: its own, in a vacuum, in a controlled environment, if
Speaker 1: you will, controlled I guess national environment or climate, a
Speaker 1: controlled national climate, where there there's nothing that could really
Speaker 1: sway the results in one significant way or another. You're
Speaker 1: just left to see, Okay, this city has poured more
Speaker 1: money and resources into their police. They had similar rates
Speaker 1: of crime or whatever beforehand, and this city has defunded
Speaker 1: their police department and put those funds into crime prevention measures,
Speaker 1: to increasing job stability, increasing housing stability, and making sure
Speaker 1: that you know, schools are funded properly, making sure that
Speaker 1: there's no need for there to be crime in the
Speaker 1: first place. Because the funding the police narrative assumes that
Speaker 1: human beings will just be bad, and the defunding the
Speaker 1: police narrative assumes that a very small percentage of people
Speaker 1: will just be bad. Everyone else is only bad based
Speaker 1: on the fact that they have lack of options or
Speaker 1: they're backed up against the wall, and then they cultivate
Speaker 1: a lifestyle around the lack. So is the question, then,
Speaker 1: would defunding the police work instead of does right, because
Speaker 1: the example that you just gave would actually be in
Speaker 1: the show. In the show, there were a couple of
Speaker 1: cities where they had they were reporting early data, and
Speaker 1: they were some of the cities where it looked like
Speaker 1: very promising, you know, it looked great. But there were
Speaker 1: other cities that they had defunded the police and if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, and you know, crime rates, there was
Speaker 1: no appreciable impact on crime rates or crime had gone
Speaker 1: up or something like that. And these were the headlines.
Speaker 1: And when you look at who's behind the media, then
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, well wait a minute, have we had
Speaker 1: enough time, of.
Speaker 2: Course to see such a dishonest headline? And are there
Speaker 2: other factors that might be affecting this? You know, if
Speaker 2: there's I again, economic factors. You know, if people have
Speaker 2: no money, we'll figure out a way to eat. People
Speaker 2: will figure out a way to feed their kids. People
Speaker 2: will figure out a way to survive. Right, and it
Speaker 2: does Your laws don't matter at that point. Shoplifting is
Speaker 2: breaking the law. But if you have food in your
Speaker 2: store and I'm hungry, guess who's getting.
Speaker 1: Some food me? I'm not worried about the laws. I'm
Speaker 1: not about to starve to death when you got a
Speaker 1: store full of food, and if I can just walk
Speaker 1: in there and get it right, this is it's inhumane. Right.
Speaker 1: But when they take those crime rates and say, well,
Speaker 1: shoplifting is up because we've defunded the police, No, you're
Speaker 1: connecting the wrong dots here, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we had that conversation and I employed to
Speaker 1: go back and check that out. That was in January
Speaker 1: and February. We talked about did Ahmad Aubrey's murderers get
Speaker 1: what they deserved? And then we talked about the officer
Speaker 1: Kim Potter. That's the woman who was in Michigan and
Speaker 1: she shot the young man. Do me fabric, Can you
Speaker 1: find his name because I want to say his name.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that we do around here. But for
Speaker 1: Ahmad Aubrey's murderers, those are the guys that jumped in
Speaker 1: the truck and chased him down the street. He was
Speaker 1: jogging in and they shot him dead in the street,
Speaker 1: and then they went to jail and then he got convicted.
Speaker 2: Minneapolis suburb is where that happened, not Michigan. That's what
Speaker 2: I meant the young man's name was Daunte Wright.
Speaker 1: That's right. So Kim Potter is the one that if
Speaker 1: you remember the video, she shouted Taser, Taser, Taser, pulls
Speaker 1: out her guns gun and shoots him in the car
Speaker 1: as he was trying to get away. Right, So I
Speaker 1: think she got off after everything's said and done, she
Speaker 1: might have been in prison for maybe like six months
Speaker 1: or so. She might be out now, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So they kind of gave her a reduced
Speaker 1: sentence and then time served in two years. Man, right,
Speaker 1: But there there's something else there where. She got like
Speaker 1: another six months off. So maybe she's not out yet,
Speaker 1: but she's she can see the light of the Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Dante Wright, we'll never see the light of dig And
Speaker 1: so we had that conversation. This year spent a heavy year.
Speaker 1: We did talk about in March. Ryan Kugler, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, he's the person who directed the Black
Speaker 1: Panther movies Wakonda Forever and the Original Black Panther, and
Speaker 1: he was detained at the bank for taking out a
Speaker 1: cash withdrawal, and we used that episode to talk about
Speaker 1: how far prejudice can go because it is possible for
Speaker 1: black people to prejudge black people as well because the
Speaker 1: bank he went into, the teller was black, the bank
Speaker 1: manager was black. And then they called the police on
Speaker 1: him for taking out a cash withdrawal for twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and he said he wanted it. He wanted to
Speaker 1: be discreet because he didn't want anyone to know. So
Speaker 1: he handed a note and they treated it like it
Speaker 1: was a robbery.
Speaker 2: He handled a note and then provided ID. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then provided his bank card and then provided his pin code.
Speaker 2: I think that that part of that has to be
Speaker 2: included because anybody can here he handed a no.
Speaker 1: Well, of course they were scared. He gave them a note. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't identified himself, gave his bank card and his.
Speaker 2: Pen number, and of course the money was in an
Speaker 2: account that had the money in it that was his. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he still got the police called on, right, and then
Speaker 2: still detained by those police.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure, So we had to have that conversation. We
Speaker 1: really had to again peel back the banking while black
Speaker 1: because that incident, while there were black people working at
Speaker 1: that branch, h that's very commonplace. And the remainder of
Speaker 1: the stories that we discussed on the show, everyone else
Speaker 1: was these were white tellers, white branch managers, or hispanic
Speaker 1: or whatever the case is. In any case, walking into
Speaker 1: a bank while being black, it's more likely that you
Speaker 1: would be profiled. And so we had this conversation and
Speaker 1: don't you dare to be black and rich? And it's
Speaker 1: a weird thing. You, Yeah, it's like it's hard for
Speaker 1: people to really conceive of that being true. You must
Speaker 1: be a thief, you must have stolen something, you must
Speaker 1: be doing something illegal. And we try to be fair
Speaker 1: on this show because we recognize that no one is
Speaker 1: born prejudiced. You're taught prejudices based on stereotypes that society
Speaker 1: reinforces all around you. And so again, black people can
Speaker 1: be prejudiced against black people the same as anyone else.
Speaker 1: But if we don't talk about it here, then we
Speaker 1: don't do our part to try to influence folks to
Speaker 1: think critically about their prejudices and to challenge themselves. And
Speaker 1: if you're listening to our voices, you know on this
Speaker 1: show in March and on today's show, this is kind
Speaker 1: of our aim. In April, we spent some time talking
Speaker 1: about Will Smith and Chris Rock. That was something that
Speaker 1: we had to process. We the Black delegations that that
Speaker 1: was not an easy thing for us to process either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had to process it differently for us because again
Speaker 1: I think I said it best, it's like an uncle
Speaker 1: getting in a fight with you know, your uncle, your
Speaker 1: other uncle, and it just felt like kind of so
Speaker 1: we had to we had to sit with that one.
Speaker 1: We also in April talked about how black people were
Speaker 1: being overcharged for housing, and then a separate episode we
Speaker 1: talked about how Wells Fargo was sued for discriminatory loan practices,
Speaker 1: so you know, black people in banking, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if these things were in conjunction, but no, no, there
Speaker 1: was two separate episodes. What I'm saying this next point.
Speaker 1: We also talked about black people's homes being undervalued because
Speaker 1: the owners were black, right, so charged more when you
Speaker 1: buy it, and then it's valued as less because you
Speaker 1: own it. Right now, I think a black couple had
Speaker 1: a white couple of stage the two episodes about that,
Speaker 1: and their value increased substantially. So so yeah, just to
Speaker 1: an interesting year. And you know, if I look back,
Speaker 1: if I'm honest, I'm like, kind of this is like,
Speaker 1: this is crazy that we get to do a show.
Speaker 1: We have you listening to us, we have supporters around
Speaker 1: the whole country, and we get to talk about these
Speaker 1: things that really matter. That these topics almost never come
Speaker 1: up in your normal life. I know that because you
Speaker 1: know many of our listeners share that I would never
Speaker 1: know these things. But this is very true and it's
Speaker 1: our reality. And then in May we asked a very
Speaker 1: important question that has come up many times on the
Speaker 1: show since then, but we asked do police make you safer?
Speaker 2: And another impossible question to answer because we have no
Speaker 2: data to the contrary. We can't because we've always had police, right,
Speaker 2: we don't know how to compare what it would be
Speaker 2: like if we didn't.
Speaker 1: But we did on this one episode. We did start
Speaker 1: off by asking about an increase in officers. We didn't
Speaker 1: go from zero to one hundred, but we had, let's
Speaker 1: say fifty to one hundred, so we an increase in
Speaker 1: officers and a few cities around the country, and those
Speaker 1: increased that increased police presence failed to make a significant
Speaker 1: dentt in crime crime levels. In other words, back to
Speaker 1: the defunding thing. Maybe deal with the issues that are
Speaker 1: causing the crime, not trying to police it away. Because
Speaker 1: the issues was are what caused people to actually engage
Speaker 1: in that type of behavior. But yeah, police either they
Speaker 1: neither prevented more crimes from happening, nor did they solve
Speaker 1: more crimes. And you know, in that episode, we did
Speaker 1: our best to think critically about what public safety looks
Speaker 1: like presently and what it could look like in the future,
Speaker 1: especially if it was a little bit more fairer and
Speaker 1: less hurtful to some of us. So we'll be back
Speaker 1: with more right after this