Speaker 1: That's right, y'all. Welcome to another edition of Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'my host Ramsay's joh.
Speaker 2: Called me q Ward and that just so happens to
Speaker 2: d my name.
Speaker 1: And today's show is a very special show, and I'll
Speaker 1: say that quite a bit.
Speaker 2: But you fortunately this week, our text thread.
Speaker 1: That we have between you and me and our producer
Speaker 1: DJ Swirl plentiful stuff to talk about, and so we've
Speaker 1: kind of wheeled it down for you, our listener. Today,
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about
Speaker 1: an incident in the Washington State where a man was
Speaker 1: attacked by a police dog for a very long time.
Speaker 1: It's just another kind of weird way that you know
Speaker 1: police brutality exists and is perpetuated.
Speaker 2: You can't wait to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Also, we're going to talk about fighting back against voter suppression,
Speaker 1: So stay tuned.
Speaker 2: For that, super all allies of.
Speaker 1: Black people and of you democracy, stay tuned for that
Speaker 1: because there's some mans start seeing information you might want.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna spend some time talking about a sheriff's
Speaker 1: department that is tracking kids they think ultimately will become criminals,
Speaker 1: which feels a little weird. I can't wait to get
Speaker 1: into that.
Speaker 2: How do they? It's weird, right?
Speaker 1: And then of course DJ Swirl is gonna let us
Speaker 1: know about once upon a time when you know, folks
Speaker 1: used to do some really horrible things to black people
Speaker 1: and sell their body parts. But before we get there,
Speaker 1: let's start off where we like to start off with
Speaker 1: some ebony excellence, so cute. All I do is win, win,
Speaker 1: no matter what.
Speaker 2: You got something for today?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yes? And I want to read this to make sure
Speaker 2: I quote this young man's position properly. Brother Carl Sanderfer
Speaker 2: of five Beta Sigma Fraternity incorporated from the Elite Epsilon
Speaker 2: five chapter at Owling Green State University, helps power NASA's
Speaker 2: Mars Perseverance Rover mission. Owling Green State University alumnus is
Speaker 2: the Deputy Chief of the Space Science Project Office at
Speaker 2: NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. I was fortunate
Speaker 2: enough to be a classmate and fraternity brother of Brother
Speaker 2: Sandifer in college. And it's interesting watching all the things
Speaker 2: that he's done. But none of us can pretend to
Speaker 2: be surprised because Carl had already started his work at
Speaker 2: NASA before we ever met him. At Bowling Green State University.
Speaker 2: Just to give you an idea of the level of
Speaker 2: excellence this young man has achieved all of his life.
Speaker 2: So definitely want to bring some attention to that if
Speaker 2: you get a chance. Ramses always reminds everybody that Google
Speaker 2: is free. If you want to read a story that's
Speaker 2: going to make your day and make you feel better,
Speaker 2: just google Carl and type Mars or type NASA and
Speaker 2: you will read a really really cool story about a
Speaker 2: wonderful young man and human being and someone that I'm
Speaker 2: honored to call a friend. So go mob Carl.
Speaker 1: You know there's people like me who are big fans
Speaker 1: of like Star Trek and you know, sci fi stuff,
Speaker 1: and it takes folks like that who are pioneering new
Speaker 1: trails maintaining pathways for folks like me, a young me,
Speaker 1: to find themselves in those positions.
Speaker 2: So yeah, however, I hear somebody sarcastically, jab it's not
Speaker 2: rocket science. I always think about Carl. Carl's literally an
Speaker 2: aeronautics engineer and rocket scientist. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Well shout out to Karl one time. You know, I
Speaker 1: really like doing the Ebony excellence. It starts us off
Speaker 1: on a positive and a great way to start the show. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, we do have to transition here into
Speaker 1: some real stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what we're here to talk about.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if you, if either of you
Speaker 1: have heard of this story, but you know, I read
Speaker 1: a story. So I read the Atlanta Black Star. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a newspaper or really more an online publication, but
Speaker 1: it's a place kind of like Civic Sipher where you know,
Speaker 1: we catch black stories that really don't exist out in
Speaker 1: mainstream media and we you know, bring attention to them.
Speaker 1: And this story happened to have a video. You know,
Speaker 1: videos are for me and u Q. They're kind of
Speaker 1: we have a system in place. You want to tell
Speaker 1: them about our system.
Speaker 2: So in order to keep each other afloat, so that
Speaker 2: neither one of us gets pushed too far down into
Speaker 2: a dark place and don't have you know, don't end
Speaker 2: up with PTSD from you know, digesting constant trauma. We alternate.
Speaker 2: You know, who's going to watch the videos this week?
Speaker 2: Or you know sometimes you know, I've watched enough of
Speaker 2: these broken you give this a gander because I can't
Speaker 2: take it anymore. So to try to hold each other
Speaker 2: up we take turns, you know, watching these videos and
Speaker 2: consuming this, like I said, trauma, so that we can
Speaker 2: speak to it, you know, for our listeners and our audience.
Speaker 1: And I think that's important. I like the system that
Speaker 1: we've developed here, but also for folks going about their
Speaker 1: their day, their normal lives. You know, we recognize that
Speaker 1: a lot of this, you know, I call it trauma
Speaker 1: porn makes its way to your phone, you know, if
Speaker 1: you have an iPhone or any other type of phone.
Speaker 1: You know, it just pops up, you know, black man, assaulted, brutalized, beaten.
Speaker 1: And this has been true my whole life. You know,
Speaker 1: one notable incident and when I was ten years old,
Speaker 1: Rodney King beating in ninety two. But the one thing
Speaker 1: that we don't want to grow accustomed to is seeing
Speaker 1: black bodies brutalized because there's the potential, I guess two
Speaker 1: for it to become normal, you know, and we always
Speaker 1: want to be in shock of that. And so while
Speaker 1: being present and making sure that we're on top of
Speaker 1: things like that, we also have to maintain a little
Speaker 1: bit of distance because it is emotionally training. As I'm
Speaker 1: sure you our listener is aware of. Part of the
Speaker 1: reason why you're listening to the show now. I'm sure, sir,
Speaker 1: so in this incident and this is why, you know,
Speaker 1: Que and Swirl are not as familiar with this story
Speaker 1: as I am.
Speaker 2: It was my turn to.
Speaker 1: Familiar with the story. But I didn't watch the videos.
Speaker 1: To watch the video, so it was my turn to
Speaker 1: you know, check this out. I had to draw the
Speaker 1: shorts and so basically what happens in this video is
Speaker 1: it's a police chase. You know, we'll call it what
Speaker 1: it is. Police are in pursuit of a car. It
Speaker 1: seems like it's a two lane highway nighttime. Doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like super high speed, but certainly not speed limit. You know,
Speaker 1: it looked like whoever was getting away was trying to
Speaker 1: get to somewhere specific. That's just what it looked like
Speaker 1: to me, because you know, you see high speed chases
Speaker 1: where they drive all erratic. You know, this guy was
Speaker 1: on his you know, on the road. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: I just need to get here and then I'll be good.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, so don't let me say something
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure of.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: It was a chase. The police were in pursuit of
Speaker 1: a vehicle. The vehicle was abating and before I get
Speaker 1: to the rest of the story, if you're afraid of something,
Speaker 1: your body automatically responds in one of two ways.
Speaker 2: You either fight or you flee, so.
Speaker 1: Evading the police when we know that the police often
Speaker 1: are very brutal in their interactions with black bodies, as
Speaker 1: we've seen time and again decade in and decade out.
Speaker 2: Too many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world, but
Speaker 1: you know, some folks really have this idea that hey,
Speaker 1: if you just pull over, everything will be all right,
Speaker 1: and we've seen hundreds of times if that's not true
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: They've they've found a way to criminalize everything, every every reaction.
Speaker 1: Everything, even an unnatural reactions. Your head can spend in
Speaker 1: a circle. Bang, sure, if your.
Speaker 2: Head spends in a circle, though, then I might justify it.
Speaker 2: But be afraid, right, But they've criminalized every natural reaction
Speaker 2: of a person that's afraid. That's what I was going
Speaker 2: to get to. But go ahead, no, please, I mean
Speaker 2: I'm just kind of piggybacking. Yes, so I'm afraid of you,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna run from you or.
Speaker 1: Trolled to until until you can be a penguin. It's
Speaker 1: built into you if you have anyway. So finally the
Speaker 1: car pulls over, kind of drives off on the side
Speaker 1: of the road, pulls over. The guy gets out of
Speaker 1: the car, and if memory serves me correct, his hands
Speaker 1: are up and you know, he's like surrendering. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he was on his knees as he was standing,
Speaker 1: his hands were up, something like that, but the action
Speaker 1: that followed was immediate surrender. He was An option of
Speaker 1: the video states that the person was very obviously surrendering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you see him, you see him doing the video.
Speaker 1: I just don't remember what his mannerisms look like in
Speaker 1: that point. But no one would look at him and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this person was being aggressive or there was a thread here.
Speaker 1: And you know, the police, this officer that was chasing them.
Speaker 1: There was two officers, but the officer that had the
Speaker 1: dash cam has a dog with him, right, So the
Speaker 1: dog gets out and goes right to work.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: Hard to blame a dog because dogs do what they're
Speaker 1: trained to do.
Speaker 2: These dogs are trained specifically to do exactly what the
Speaker 2: dog did.
Speaker 1: Sure, so I'm not coming down on the dog. All
Speaker 1: your animal lovers, which I'm not not the biggest dog person.
Speaker 1: I got bit by a dog when I was little.
Speaker 2: So let me chime in because I'm not an animal lover.
Speaker 2: Sounds bad, except when you've been bit by a dog.
Speaker 2: There is a built in response to that. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: not an animal hater. No, no, never. You know, like
Speaker 2: if somebody said I'm not a I'm not a black
Speaker 2: people lover, it would come across the way. So I
Speaker 2: just heard him say that. I had to chime in
Speaker 2: to make sure people don't think he's not anti animal.
Speaker 2: There's just not dogs at rams Is house. No, no,
Speaker 2: no's just be clear.
Speaker 1: On that he had a bad experience, shot almost death.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but you know this is the person watching
Speaker 1: the video, the person who you know. I was bit
Speaker 1: when I was three years old by a dog that
Speaker 1: I was friendly with. I hadn't hurt the dog. I
Speaker 1: would never hurt the dog. I'm the sort of person.
Speaker 1: Or if there's a fly in my house, if I
Speaker 1: can catch him in my hands or her in my hands,
Speaker 1: I'll take him or her outside and release them. I
Speaker 1: don't If some living creature is on its journey and
Speaker 1: there's no reason for me to take a life, I
Speaker 1: won't do it.
Speaker 2: I know, no matter how small.
Speaker 1: So I have a tremendous amount of respect for obviously
Speaker 1: for dogs, it's an extremely complex creature. And from what
Speaker 1: I understand, as long as you love your babies, you're good.
Speaker 1: In my book. Man, I'm not going to bring any
Speaker 1: harm to you. And I've seen dogs care for their young.
Speaker 2: That's my bar.
Speaker 1: Anyway, as someone who does not a big fan of dogs,
Speaker 1: I see the dog go to work and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Immediately it's like, oh jeez, and I'm
Speaker 1: stuck watching this video this time thanks Wirl And yeah, man,
Speaker 1: the dog proceeds to bite the man. He's surrendering. He's
Speaker 1: not running, he can't run, he's already pulled his car over.
Speaker 1: They're hanging out. Dog bites him. He goes immediately to
Speaker 1: the ground, gets on the ground. Dog keeps biting him him.
Speaker 1: And you know the dogs that bite, and they do
Speaker 1: that and they try to drag you. So imagine those
Speaker 1: teeth sinking into your flesh and then the dog pulling
Speaker 1: and like ripping that skin away from the bone and
Speaker 1: the flesh away from the bone. So the way the
Speaker 1: police car was pointed at the scene, he was like
Speaker 1: in full view, so you could see the dog doing this,
Speaker 1: and the dog's biting his head. The dog's biting like
Speaker 1: his arms and legs. Obviously, you know, there was a
Speaker 1: point where it bit is genitals.
Speaker 2: The man has already been apprehended at this Ya's by the.
Speaker 1: Way, And the whole time you hear him screaming. He says,
Speaker 1: you know, please, sir, please, screaming, I'm not in the
Speaker 1: officer of course.
Speaker 2: Stop moving, stop moving, mother effort.
Speaker 1: You know, and he's like, sir, I'm not moving, you know.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's wailing, I'm not moving, you know, And the
Speaker 1: dog just continues biting.
Speaker 2: The way my body responds to being bitten over and
Speaker 2: over again by your dog that you won't call off
Speaker 2: while telling me to not move as it bites and
Speaker 2: make it literally forces me to move. Sure, I want
Speaker 2: to get to even if I'm not involuntarily moving myself.
Speaker 2: The dog's moving me, yes, sir, exactly. And so.
Speaker 1: This goes on for almost four minutes, the dog just
Speaker 1: attacking and biting, barking, biting, biting, barking, biting, managers laying
Speaker 1: there getting bitten, and the police officer is yelling, and
Speaker 1: no point does the officer go to like place him
Speaker 1: in handcuffs. At no point does the officer do anything
Speaker 1: to you know, he just let the dog continue to
Speaker 1: attack him, right, and the officer was waiting for another
Speaker 1: police car to show up to then call the dog
Speaker 1: off and put him in handcuffs. Let me guess because
Speaker 1: the officer was afraid. Sure, Okay, that'll be what he's said.
Speaker 1: So let me say this. The man's name who was
Speaker 1: attacked is Robert Gillian again of Washington State. He had
Speaker 1: a broken hip as a result of that. He's suing officer.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't even want to say this guy's
Speaker 1: namely cross this outing.
Speaker 2: Officer or the police department instead of the individual.
Speaker 1: There's a lawsuit, so he might be suing all those folks.
Speaker 1: I didn't get into that details. But the officer is
Speaker 1: on unpaid suspension and he's suing for a million dollars.
Speaker 1: The officer unpaid suspension. Ye, that's a big deal. It's
Speaker 1: a big deal, right, And here's a direct quote from him.
Speaker 1: He says, I could not move, I was unarmed. I
Speaker 1: did not threaten the officers. I have permanent scars on
Speaker 1: my head to my legs. I thought the dog was
Speaker 1: going to kill me. Okay, now I want to talk
Speaker 1: about what happens when they say don't move, when they
Speaker 1: say stop resisting, because I think this is what often
Speaker 1: gets chronicled and in the minds of folks who say,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of folks who don't interact
Speaker 1: with the police, right, and they imagine in their minds,
Speaker 1: if I were to interact with the police, I would
Speaker 1: just do what they say.
Speaker 2: It's that simple.
Speaker 1: And you and I are both people who have interacted
Speaker 1: with the police. Were doing what they say is not
Speaker 1: a guarantee of anything. You know, again, if someone from Compton, California.
Speaker 1: The only time in my life when I've ever had
Speaker 1: a gun pointed at me was from the police, and
Speaker 1: I have never been arrested. I've never done anything wrong.
Speaker 2: And not only just doing what they say, but with
Speaker 2: an excessive amount of respect and humility. And how do
Speaker 2: you remember our interaction, which we've chronicled on the on
Speaker 2: the show multiple times, we were we were excessively to
Speaker 2: a point of exaggeration, respectful and and and and reverent
Speaker 2: and humble, you know what I mean? Yes, sir, please, no, sir,
Speaker 2: thank you. Like every manner you can be taught.
Speaker 1: As someone's actively uh, denying you your dignity, insulting you.
Speaker 1: You know, ours perhaps wasn't as overt and loud, but
Speaker 1: you know, when someone assumes it wasn't less scary though,
Speaker 1: But when someone assumes anything about you, when their assumption
Speaker 1: is already you know that the law is supposed to
Speaker 1: be your innocent until proven guilty. There had to be police.
Speaker 1: It assumes that you're guilty until they figure out that
Speaker 1: they can't prove any shred of it. Because they can
Speaker 1: even prove something that was somehow distantly related.
Speaker 2: Oh got you see, I knew it. And in some cases,
Speaker 2: even when they can't make it, they'll pretend that they
Speaker 2: can't they and create it like the dog smelling some
Speaker 2: hint of Yeah.
Speaker 1: I won't talk about it. That's our story anyway. So
Speaker 1: there's another thing that I really wanted to talk about here,
Speaker 1: and it's that we all have a nervous system, right.
Speaker 1: You know this forgive me, this is a bit morbid,
Speaker 1: but your nervous system is the makeup of everything in
Speaker 1: your in your body so much so to where it
Speaker 1: can eat cause you I remember a pastor told me
Speaker 1: this that when a person's life has left their body,
Speaker 1: sometimes though you know, as it's custom and many cultures
Speaker 1: around the world they'll burn the body. We still do
Speaker 1: that here. It's called cremation. And if a person has
Speaker 1: been dead, even for some time, when you burn the body,
Speaker 1: the body will shake and convulse and it's a response
Speaker 1: to the nervous system. Have you seen those weird morbid
Speaker 1: videos where it'll be like frog legs and stuff, and
Speaker 1: they'll squeeze lemon on the frog legs and they'll start moving.
Speaker 1: They're like severed. You know, that's the nervous system. So
Speaker 1: obviously a frog is not moving its legs because the
Speaker 1: frog is no longer connected to its legs. Obviously, a
Speaker 1: body with where the life has left it is not
Speaker 1: jumping and moving. It's a response to It's the nervous
Speaker 1: system's response to that stimulation. And again, forgive me for
Speaker 1: being morbid, but I needed to establish that because it's
Speaker 1: like everyone forgets that even if you make a conscious decision,
Speaker 1: even if you know full well, okay, this is going
Speaker 1: to hurt These people are going to come and they're
Speaker 1: going to hurt me. I'm going to take this and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to move because I don't want them
Speaker 1: to be afraid. Because getting hurt is something I can
Speaker 1: live with. Getting killed, obviously, is something I can't live with, right,
Speaker 1: pain over death.
Speaker 2: Right, So even if you.
Speaker 1: Make that decision, it's a firm commitment on your end,
Speaker 1: and you decide I'm not going to move a muscle.
Speaker 1: Your muscles might say otherwise.
Speaker 2: Especially if you're being bitten and tug that and your
Speaker 2: flesh is being torn into my teeth of anything that
Speaker 2: even have to be a police trained K nine. Now
Speaker 2: for me, there was.
Speaker 1: A flat back again, having been bitten by a dog
Speaker 1: named Josh when I was three years old. Wait, oh man, listen, wait,
Speaker 1: you make memories with emotion. Listen you guys, so I
Speaker 1: can remember that because I was emotional. All just learned
Speaker 1: together that the dog. Now I've heard the dog bite
Speaker 1: Rams's story a dozen times and I'm not exaggerating, but
Speaker 1: you and.
Speaker 2: I, at today years old, at right now o'clock, just
Speaker 2: both learn that the dog's name was.
Speaker 1: What Josh belong to Melody.
Speaker 2: Give me for laughing, because it's not funny that Josh
Speaker 2: bit Ramses. But man, we all just learned that this
Speaker 2: dog's name was Josh.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, just to kind of bring you
Speaker 1: to where I'm at briefly. Melody was a friend of
Speaker 1: my father's friend is putting it mildly. So we went
Speaker 1: to Melody's house all the time. My father and Melody
Speaker 1: would hang out. I was a child, was three, so
Speaker 1: I would hang out in the living room watch cartoons.
Speaker 1: Melody had a dog, Josh. I would sit and pet
Speaker 1: Josh from time to time. I wasn't a wild kid.
Speaker 1: I wasn't petting him hard anything like that. One day,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in front the fireplace petting Josh, and he
Speaker 1: just and I have a little baby arm, you know,
Speaker 1: three years old, just turns it er bit my arm
Speaker 1: and they let go, and I saw these deep purple
Speaker 1: sockets in my arm from his teeth having sunk into
Speaker 1: my supple childlike flesh. And then, of course I cried.
Speaker 1: My dad responded, my father did love his son. He
Speaker 1: proved it that day. Josh was not a happy camper.
Speaker 1: After my father got hold of him. Dad took me,
Speaker 1: got me wrapped up. But after that I was not
Speaker 1: able to trust dogs, and I felt like they were
Speaker 1: all going to attack me. This is the person that
Speaker 1: I am now, I can't shake that fear just is
Speaker 1: there right not fear because I'm not afraid of dogs,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I prefer I can't predict them, you know.
Speaker 1: But for a long time I was afraid. Now I
Speaker 1: don't think fear is a bad word in that instance,
Speaker 1: but I know what fear looks like, and I know
Speaker 1: what I just don't really rock what you looks like,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely out on rock. Once I got a
Speaker 1: man body and my dogs are a lot smaller than me,
Speaker 1: it wasn't fear as much of us. I just you know,
Speaker 1: you keep your dog over there. I'll be go over
Speaker 1: here and will be fine. Anyway. With that said, watched
Speaker 1: the movie called Django Unchained. There's a part in this
Speaker 1: movie where Leonardo DiCaprio's character has one of his runaway slaves.
Speaker 1: He was a Mandingo fighter, so he had bought slaves
Speaker 1: so that they could fight to the death. One slave
Speaker 1: tried to escape. DiCaprio's character, I forget his name, didn't
Speaker 1: like that so much. It says, you know the guys
Speaker 1: that were hunting them down. He says, why don't you
Speaker 1: let the dogs rip them apart? Let the dogs send
Speaker 1: them to heaven. And then all the guys they're like
Speaker 1: these slack jawed, he'll billy sorts. They let their dogs go.
Speaker 1: And this man, this slave who's running away, poor guy,
Speaker 1: he did the dog's rived inmpartant. So that's very much
Speaker 1: what this video look like. And you know, my heart
Speaker 1: goes out to Robert Gillian. I believe that's how I
Speaker 1: say his last name, or Gillian, one of the two.
Speaker 1: But I think that what we take from this is
Speaker 1: that the stop resisting narrative, the you know, be still
Speaker 1: the comply that, don't run, those sorts of things. It's
Speaker 1: never as cut and dry as some folks would like
Speaker 1: them to be.
Speaker 2: For their peace of mind.
Speaker 1: They want to assume police are not that bad. These
Speaker 1: people aren't listening, and they fail to consider the human component,
Speaker 1: or rather the nervous system component, where there are just
Speaker 1: some things that are instinctive and they happen automatically, and
Speaker 1: this story illuminates that. And then obviously, on top of that,
Speaker 1: this officer lets this dog abuse this man for a
Speaker 1: full four minutes after he's complied. And what you have
Speaker 1: is the intersection of a human being getting attacked in
Speaker 1: real time and the responses and the convulsions that go
Speaker 1: along with that, and the officer really abusing this person
Speaker 1: through his dog and not doing anything that resembled policing
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: For a lot of those officers, stop resisting in the
Speaker 2: stop moving is like theater. Yeah right, it's it's like
Speaker 2: a reassurance to themselves to continue doing whatever it is
Speaker 2: they're doing, and it's it's quite disgusting. Yeah, and now
Speaker 2: watch my back.
Speaker 3: To strike.
Speaker 2: Head borders behind and the if you're just tuning in
Speaker 2: the civic cipher, I'm your host Ramsy's job. They called
Speaker 2: me q Ward and that just so happens to be.
Speaker 2: You know, my mother gave baconde And we still got
Speaker 2: a lot of things that we want to talk about
Speaker 2: coming up.
Speaker 1: First, Uh, I want to talk about some voter suppression,
Speaker 1: some ways to fight back against voter suppression. But be
Speaker 1: sure to stick around because we definitely want to talk
Speaker 1: about what's going on in Florida with the Sheriff's Department
Speaker 1: tracking kids they think quote unquote will ultimately become criminals.
Speaker 1: And of course our way Black history fact where it's
Speaker 1: pretty morbid. Stick around if you want to find out
Speaker 1: the details on that. But let's start off with our
Speaker 1: Ba Ba Baba segment. How to become a better ally.
Speaker 1: So the NAACP is an organization that you know, we
Speaker 1: are fan of around here. The NAACP is older than
Speaker 1: everybody on earth, so so we don't pretend like we
Speaker 1: know more than them, but we do recognize that we
Speaker 1: perhaps represent a younger generation. But also, you know, the
Speaker 1: NAACP is sort of an all inclusive in terms of
Speaker 1: age at least organization as well. It just has a
Speaker 1: lot more relatively speaking, conservative viewpoints. But I think that
Speaker 1: everyone is on the same page when it comes to
Speaker 1: voter suppression initiatives, and the NAACP is mounting legal.
Speaker 2: That's the word.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for legal challenges to all the voter suppression
Speaker 1: laws that have passed. We know that they were trying
Speaker 1: to get them passed, but in a lot of places
Speaker 1: they have passed. And so the NAACP is putting together
Speaker 1: a defense to challenge these laws and to take them
Speaker 1: to court to you know, prove that they're on constitutional
Speaker 1: and so forth.
Speaker 2: And of course that costs money. And so.
Speaker 1: A way that you could become a better ally to
Speaker 1: your black brothers and sisters and your Hispanic and Latino
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters is by supporting I'll be I'll be Frank.
Speaker 1: Just check out NAACP dot com and you can read
Speaker 1: all about what they plan to do to fight back.
Speaker 1: They of course wann't free, fair and inclusive elections. And
Speaker 1: I just wanted to put that in your ear. That's
Speaker 1: the call to action this week. So again, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: let's challenge these voter voter suppression laws. And since it's Juneteenth,
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of information in the world around you,
Speaker 1: so just kind of be clicked into your social media.
Speaker 2: It's a good time to you know, get involved with
Speaker 2: black folks and you know, help out where you can
Speaker 2: if you don't mind me saying ram good and a
Speaker 2: time where black people in this country, in a very
Speaker 2: real and literal way, saved democracy. It's more than discouraging
Speaker 2: to see laws put into place. It's not just discourage,
Speaker 2: but prevent that in the future.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: It's really you guys, try to keep me hopeful. Things
Speaker 2: like this just reassure the way that I feel. And
Speaker 2: I hey, man, you know, exhausting man.
Speaker 1: As long as we you know, there's a story in
Speaker 1: the Bible that's you know, Jesus's last words on the cross,
Speaker 1: you know, Father, forgive them for they know not what
Speaker 1: they do. I'm not comparing myself to Jesus. I would
Speaker 1: never do that. But I think that the idea there
Speaker 1: is to lead with forgiveness, lead with love, and to
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, everyone has their challenges ours hour,
Speaker 1: you know what we talk about on the show.
Speaker 2: I think I think there are people that are supporters
Speaker 2: of what i'll just call the other side, that know
Speaker 2: not what they do, that really think they're doing the
Speaker 2: right thing. But I think the people that they are
Speaker 2: supporting and that they're following absolutely know they're doing well,
Speaker 2: that they're doing the wrong thing, but it's for their
Speaker 2: benefit specifically.
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, Yeah, let's move it on down to
Speaker 1: Penscoe County, Florida.
Speaker 2: I mean that, give my chuckle Florida's but to keep
Speaker 2: from punching through our table sometimes you got to chuckle
Speaker 2: it out. You guys will know why here in the second.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So, the Sheriff's Department in Penscoe County, Florida
Speaker 1: has a program in place where they are tracking kids
Speaker 1: that they think will become criminals. They call it intelligenced
Speaker 1: intelligen based policing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So I got this from Vice right, and the Vice
Speaker 1: has a tendency to have a liberal you know, skew
Speaker 1: to it, to its reporting and whatever. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking for it to reinforce a narrative that I already
Speaker 1: have in my mind. I just came across it. I
Speaker 1: was like, really, so, you know, these people are just
Speaker 1: assuming that you're going to be a criminal when you
Speaker 1: grow up. And I watched the video and sure enough,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: Basically how it works is in the video, at least
Speaker 1: the uh so, the vice folks are interviewing a father, right,
Speaker 1: and they're talking about his son, and there's a direct
Speaker 1: quote he says, this is the father recalling an incident
Speaker 1: where he interacted with the police who were watching his son.
Speaker 1: So the father says, he's like, the this is the
Speaker 1: police talking, right, we heard about your son in the
Speaker 1: other county. We want you to know we'll be keeping
Speaker 1: an eye on you, right. And when they first moved
Speaker 1: there to that Pennscoe County, what proceeds to happen.
Speaker 2: Is the police work with the school.
Speaker 1: To get incident reports, behavior reports, things like this, and
Speaker 1: the offenders are placed under a watch by the police department.
Speaker 2: Are we talking about children.
Speaker 1: Children, Yes, elementary school children, middle school and high school
Speaker 1: as well. So anybody under eighteen as a child. My
Speaker 1: son Christian is fifteen as a child.
Speaker 2: So some people at eighteen are still children. But listen, man,
Speaker 2: my child.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so what happens is in the vice story,
Speaker 1: just to finish up, the police end up harassing the
Speaker 1: father of the child. So the father ends up getting
Speaker 1: arrested a bunch of times. The child, of course gets arrested.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. Story goes on, and then the father
Speaker 1: is like, you know, I'm just gonna move my family
Speaker 1: because the police are He's told a story of the
Speaker 1: police showing up to his house, knocking on the door
Speaker 1: when he wasn't home, scaring his other kids, scaring his wife,
Speaker 1: you know, arresting him because the paint on the you
Speaker 1: have to paint your address on the sidewalk or whatever,
Speaker 1: the paint was a little faded and you couldn't see it,
Speaker 1: and they gave them a reason they'll harass him. So
Speaker 1: they would harass him over and over again for years.
Speaker 1: But I think that you know, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this. I think that this on its face
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like policing as much as it feels like
Speaker 1: harassment right now in your world. That goes without saying right,
Speaker 1: but follow me. If you know, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a civil servant, and you know that a child has
Speaker 1: had some behavioral issue, was a child right has had
Speaker 1: some behavioral issues, they're acting up, you know whatever, you.
Speaker 2: Would think, hey, we should fix this, not.
Speaker 1: Not oh, let's keep an eye on him because he's
Speaker 1: going to be or her because she's going to be
Speaker 1: a troublemaker. You would think, like, these are babies, they
Speaker 1: just got here, they're still figuring it out, and you
Speaker 1: don't know where they come from. You don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on, you don't know what the state of their
Speaker 1: mental health is. And you know, policing is supposed to
Speaker 1: like make the community safer, and there's a way to
Speaker 1: make these people constructive, contributing members of society by offering
Speaker 1: resources that are not along the lines of gun and jail,
Speaker 1: and you know, like let's talk, let's figure it out.
Speaker 2: What do you need? What's going on? You know, you
Speaker 2: know there's this weird thing that happens.
Speaker 1: And I read this story where kids if they have
Speaker 1: like parents that are real old school and they like
Speaker 1: beat 'em, right, which I'm not talking about here on
Speaker 1: this show, but you know there's kids that have a
Speaker 1: problem where if they get beat, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: wet the bed, right, And those same kids, when they
Speaker 1: wet the bed, get beat. And you see how like
Speaker 1: quickly they get in a cycle. And it only happens
Speaker 1: with children, right, and that weird And so this kind
Speaker 1: of feels like something very similar where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're creating the cycle that you want this child to
Speaker 1: go in, n You're not. You would think that the
Speaker 1: police could put together something, some sort of program, community outreach,
Speaker 1: something like that, but no, everything is heavy handed and
Speaker 1: with a gun and prison and jail and that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 2: We have a criminal justice system that is not incentivized
Speaker 2: by reform and has decided that a very specific portion
Speaker 2: of its population is irredeemable. Of course, its kid is
Speaker 2: going to be a criminal, right, he didn't get a
Speaker 2: good citizenship grade last card marking, so he's of course
Speaker 2: going to be a criminal. And it's probably not in writing,
Speaker 2: but I'm certain that a very high percentage of these
Speaker 2: students that are being watched and profile are students of color. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it talks about that. It's the same with epidemics that
Speaker 2: we've had in our history. You know, the War on
Speaker 2: drugs criminalized addicts. Those people were poor and black, they
Speaker 2: were criminals. Now you have an epidemic that has moved
Speaker 2: into a different sector of our community, and they are
Speaker 2: treated as people who are not well. It's a health issue.
Speaker 2: It's not a criminal issue. Now. It's not by accident.
Speaker 2: It's because the people that are being affected are redeemable.
Speaker 2: Therefore they don't look like you and I by nature.
Speaker 2: Those acts were criminal because of the people that were involved,
Speaker 2: not because of the acts themselves. It didn't take them
Speaker 2: this long to realize that people that were addicted to
Speaker 2: drugs was a health issue. It's just the people that
Speaker 2: were addicted weren't valuable enough for them to care. And
Speaker 2: there is a system in place that profits heavily from
Speaker 2: criminalizing those people and again creating that cycle, knowing absolutely
Speaker 2: well that what they're doing is wrong, but someone benefits
Speaker 2: immensely from it, so it's perpetuated on purpose. Once again,
Speaker 2: it's quite disgusting when you start paying attention to what
Speaker 2: the very obvious truths are to a system like that.
Speaker 2: Do you know the.
Speaker 1: It might have been like the FBI director or they
Speaker 1: some sort of director. I think he worked under Nixon.
Speaker 2: Forgive me.
Speaker 1: I don't have the notes in front of me, but
Speaker 1: I do remember reading it on the show before even
Speaker 1: where you know, this was when they just before they
Speaker 1: started that just Say No campaign or whatever. So what
Speaker 1: they did was they criminalized marijuana. And what they were
Speaker 1: trying to do was, well, the activist movements from hippies
Speaker 1: and from the Black panthers. There was like a revolutionary
Speaker 1: you know, movement taking place in the country at that time.
Speaker 1: And the direct quota is by criminalizing the marijuana, we
Speaker 1: could disrupt those communities.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: Marijuana, as we know now that it's legal and everywhere,
Speaker 1: was never really creating a harmful society. It didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: if anything had made it better. People who chilled out
Speaker 1: and hung out and had fun. But because the government
Speaker 1: had perhaps fiscal incentive or otherwise needed to, you know,
Speaker 1: maintain their grip on society, and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: thirsty for power, decided that marijuana was going to be criminalized,
Speaker 1: and then we end up in that situation. So the
Speaker 1: other thing about this, though, in Florida was that. You know, again,
Speaker 1: it's called intelligence based policing, which is it misrepresents what
Speaker 1: it is. You know, it's not the opposite because it's
Speaker 1: not stupid. It feels very deliberate, and it's just it
Speaker 1: feels like busy work. If we look busy, then people
Speaker 1: will think that if we can tell them that we're
Speaker 1: doing where, people will feel safer doing stuff right a lot,
Speaker 1: But there's no real help. I mean, I would imagine
Speaker 1: that at least some people, some of the nobler officers
Speaker 1: that say, you know what, I want to have a
Speaker 1: noble profession. Policing seems noble. You know, everyone drinks the
Speaker 1: kool aid at a certain age, they go into it
Speaker 1: with those intentions. I really want to make a difference.
Speaker 1: I think I can keep people safe. I feel brave,
Speaker 1: I feel strong, and I want to protect people who
Speaker 1: can't protect themselves.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's very noble and sensible, you know. And if that's
Speaker 1: really if you don't have any other options, you know, sure,
Speaker 1: why not?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Or maybe if you do,
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 1: Everyone has their own story and some people I don't
Speaker 1: know what it's like to want to be a police
Speaker 1: officer but I do, well, then you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You My.
Speaker 2: Mother's brother and my father's brother, so my uncle's on
Speaker 2: both sides of my family tree were distinguished police officers
Speaker 2: in in Detroit. Yes, my mother's brother had the unfortunate
Speaker 2: pleasure of policing the police, so as you can imagine,
Speaker 2: he was not a very popular person amongst officers. He
Speaker 2: was the chief inspector of internal affairs. And making police
Speaker 2: police police seems like a bad idea to me, anyway.
Speaker 2: I know I just said that word a lot, but
Speaker 2: I was trying to say, it's slower, you should be
Speaker 2: able to track it swirls tracking too. So I wanted
Speaker 2: to be a police officer when I grew up. The
Speaker 2: most handsome and accomplished and distinguished men in my life.
Speaker 2: My uncles were very successful police officers. One of them
Speaker 2: still he retired and then did it again, and you know,
Speaker 2: in different parts of the country, and you know they
Speaker 2: both up the ranks as high as you can go.
Speaker 2: So you know, he's speaking to someone and very close
Speaker 2: to someone who wanted to be a police officer and
Speaker 2: even tried to be well.
Speaker 1: I think what happens is whenever I talk about policing.
Speaker 1: I don't have anything super awesome to contribute to it
Speaker 1: because I never wanted to be a police officer. It
Speaker 1: never appealed to me. I grew up in LA so
Speaker 1: it's the LAPD. So that's like I want to grow
Speaker 1: up and join a gang, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean?
Speaker 1: Like nobody says that I wanted to grow up and
Speaker 1: be a police officer. The police were the bad guys.
Speaker 1: You know that I saw the police hurt people for
Speaker 1: no reason. Maybe there was a reason, but in my
Speaker 1: young mind, I didn't see anyone doing anything wrong.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a justifiable reason. But there was absolutely a reason. Okay,
Speaker 2: that reason remains. We see it on our smartphones and
Speaker 2: on our TVs. They're daily.
Speaker 1: And one of the stories I told before was that
Speaker 1: I saw the police take a man's head. They take
Speaker 1: him out of his cart red light after pulling the more.
Speaker 1: They took a man's head and they smashed his head
Speaker 1: into the door of the car and it din at
Speaker 1: the door of the car. In this isn't an eighties,
Speaker 1: so it was a metal car. And he was black
Speaker 1: of course, heavy heavier guy who's wearing like a tank
Speaker 1: top T shirt. And that's what I remember. It was
Speaker 1: a night time and then once that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: we sped through the green light and left and that
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, why would the police do?
Speaker 1: He wasn't even fun, you know anyway, So I recognize
Speaker 1: that I don't always speak about police with a certain
Speaker 1: reverence that perhaps police are accustomed to hearing about themselves
Speaker 1: or people are, you know, and it's not. I never
Speaker 1: want to be disrespectful because I recognize that beyond that uniform,
Speaker 1: they're humans. And I've committed my life to all men
Speaker 1: are my brothers, All women are my sisters. That means
Speaker 1: them too, That means I have to love them, right.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate you bringing that into my world, the
Speaker 1: story about your uncles, because and then you're wanting to
Speaker 1: do it, because that helps me to have a bit
Speaker 1: of reverence for that profession and folks that do want
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 2: Chief Inspector Harold Scott, Detective Gerald Ward. There it is.
Speaker 3: So do you guys remember the movie Minority Report, which
Speaker 3: sounds eerie to say now?
Speaker 2: Correct? It was science fiction once upon a time, except
Speaker 2: it is a.
Speaker 3: Book written in nineteen fifty six, made popular by Tom
Speaker 3: Cruise and two. But the premise was they fought crime
Speaker 3: be where it had to happen because they had the
Speaker 3: information to stop it.
Speaker 1: And the way that movie ends, I'm glad you brought
Speaker 1: that up, sir. The way that movie ends is they
Speaker 1: have to disband that program because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the last minute, it left the
Speaker 1: come doown. When it comes down to the comedown, people
Speaker 1: still have a choice. Despite all of the information pointing
Speaker 1: to this, the crimes be committed, there was an error
Speaker 1: in the system. They had to release all the prisoners
Speaker 1: from their pre crime unit, all this sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's the way the movie ended Crime. So watch
Speaker 1: this now, want to I want to talk about something
Speaker 1: that happened in this video and this was very important
Speaker 1: to me. Right, So again, this is the backdrop. These
Speaker 1: police are policing children under the assumption that they're going
Speaker 1: to be the ones who are going to be criminals.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What do the teachers have to say about this? You
Speaker 1: might hear me speak with a bit more reverence when
Speaker 1: I talk about teachers, because I have some teachers that
Speaker 1: made my life very special. Doctor Camilla Westenberg, who's been
Speaker 1: on the show a couple of Times is one such person.
Speaker 1: There's a teacher that is interviewed and she says, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna paraphrase, I'm gonna just kind of tell her story.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what she said, but it was
Speaker 1: something like, you know, I love my students. Not all
Speaker 1: of my students are perfect, not all of them come
Speaker 1: from perfect circumstances, not all of them have everything that
Speaker 1: they need to thrive, but I love them. Somebody has
Speaker 1: to love these people, and I've chosen to love them.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm speaking for it. I'm not saying she
Speaker 1: said this, but I'm trying to convey what I took
Speaker 1: from it.
Speaker 2: She says that these students show up.
Speaker 1: And you know, the school has betrayed them because the
Speaker 1: school says, oh, we're going to share your behavior.
Speaker 2: We're not going to take care of the behavior stuff.
Speaker 1: Here, We're going to share it with the police, the
Speaker 1: grown up police, right We're going to share your behavior
Speaker 1: or your incident reports. You're times in detention with the
Speaker 1: actual police.
Speaker 2: You were in detention because you didn't get to class
Speaker 2: before the bill rung or something. For whatever reason.
Speaker 1: You see, this is part of the reason why you
Speaker 1: Janelle Wood has been on the show for before from
Speaker 1: the Black Mother's form. And she's a big opponent of
Speaker 1: in school policing. You know, when you went to high
Speaker 1: school there was a police officer on the campus.
Speaker 2: She does not like that.
Speaker 1: She feels like that is a big part of the
Speaker 1: school to prison pipeline. And let her make a case
Speaker 1: for it, you will be on board. She is a
Speaker 1: powerful speaker and she has her facts straight.
Speaker 2: But I digress this other teacher she's.
Speaker 1: Saying, you know, the school has has condemned these children
Speaker 1: to bad quote unquote criminal behavioral issues, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of times, a lot of places
Speaker 1: in society. Maybe they had to move and they're living
Speaker 1: with an aunt or you know whatever they you know,
Speaker 1: whatever happened in their story, right, and no one tries
Speaker 1: to fix the problem. Everyone tries to diagnose the problem.
Speaker 1: And what happens is if you get bounced around, if
Speaker 1: you go from this place to that place, you go
Speaker 1: even if you have a steady home life, and you
Speaker 1: go from school to home and you hear, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a bad kid or this is a bad student.
Speaker 1: There's a behavioral issue or whatever. What motivation, what incentive?
Speaker 1: What prospects do you see for yourself. If that's all,
Speaker 1: These aren't adult minds where they say, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're wrong about me, I'm going to prove you wrong.
Speaker 1: That's not a common thing with children. Children their whole reality.
Speaker 1: What they know is what they see. So if you
Speaker 1: tell a child over and over again you know this
Speaker 1: is who you are, they don't have the frame of
Speaker 1: reference to expect that they are anything different, and it
Speaker 1: becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And that's why it was
Speaker 1: so important to stop and say, what is the benefit
Speaker 1: of policing these children when you could take the same resources,
Speaker 1: the same man power, the same fiscal resources, and put
Speaker 1: together What's to stop a police officer from working overtime
Speaker 1: putting together a basketball league for all those fourteen hundred
Speaker 1: students and playing basketball with them. What's to stop them
Speaker 1: from ingratiating themselves with these people?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I know that's me pieing the sky talking, but
Speaker 1: that seems like am I am I crazy?
Speaker 2: You have to give a damn about those kids to
Speaker 2: start a basketball league and invest your time in them.
Speaker 1: You have to care about them. Well, I know that
Speaker 1: this happens. This isn't an incident in Florida. But I
Speaker 1: do recognize that while it might not be as formal
Speaker 1: as it is in Penscoe County, Florida, these are sorts
Speaker 1: of things that happen all over the place. You know,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of stories of people getting harassed by police.
Speaker 1: You know, the police that lives on the other side
Speaker 1: of town, but patrols in your neighborhood and they come
Speaker 1: and you know, hang out in front of your place
Speaker 1: all the time, stop of your business. You know that
Speaker 1: it's just how it works. And so far be it
Speaker 1: from me to assume that this is the only place
Speaker 1: where this type of thing happens. And you know, this
Speaker 1: show was part partially born out of being critical of
Speaker 1: the way policing is done, not the humans, but the system.
Speaker 1: And so that is something else for us to ponder here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, stay out at Pennscoe County, Florida.
Speaker 2: To keep your kids away too. What did at all cost? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So uh got to move it on here a bit,
Speaker 1: brace yourselves. Yeah, it's time for the Way Black History Fact,
Speaker 1: sir man. What you got for us today?
Speaker 3: Today's Way Black History Fact comes courtesy of mister Khalil Green.
Speaker 3: You can find on Instagram and TikTok at Khalil Green
Speaker 3: dot Green which is ka j l I L dot
Speaker 3: g r e E n E And Khalil does this
Speaker 3: series it's called the Hidden History Series where he talks
Speaker 3: about the creepy, crazy and covered up parts of American history,
Speaker 3: which you know, I had Central Indiana public schooling, so
Speaker 3: a lot of what he talks about another young folks
Speaker 3: on TikTok and on social media. The education continues. In
Speaker 3: this clip, he discusses an article from eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 3: which describes a doctor who's wearing shoes made from the
Speaker 3: skin of negroes. The doctor, who was interviewed said that
Speaker 3: he had no sentiment on the matter because he wasn't
Speaker 3: from the South and he had fought to free black
Speaker 3: people in the Civil War. Uh. The article goes on
Speaker 3: to highlight that the doctor was not an exception and
Speaker 3: more practical uses of Negro skin included cigar cases, slippers,
Speaker 3: and of course the best leather was always obtained from
Speaker 3: the cadaver's thighs. Khalil Green on ig and TikTok Hidden
Speaker 3: History series, So.
Speaker 2: Wow, wow was all I got rams My.
Speaker 3: First My first mental image is Chaps.
Speaker 2: Like leather chaps, Like, wow, it's all I got.
Speaker 3: About Django earlier, Like that feels right, it feels on brand. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And by the way, him not being from the South,
Speaker 2: as if that absolved him from like this idea that
Speaker 2: we can't have empathy unless we've literally experienced something ourselves,
Speaker 2: unless something directly affects us or our.
Speaker 1: House, Like, come on, people, you know there was I
Speaker 1: read something recently and it was about like a riot
Speaker 1: on Wall Street in eighteen hundreds, and in that article
Speaker 1: it mentioned that one in four white families owned.
Speaker 2: At least one slave.
Speaker 1: So based on that, seems like there's a lot more
Speaker 1: folks who owned slaves than what some folks might have
Speaker 1: you to believe. But you know, I wasn't there, so
Speaker 1: who knows. But yeah, man, how would you like a
Speaker 1: Negro skin wallet or some Negro skin shoes? And as
Speaker 1: insane as this sounds while you're listening to our voices
Speaker 1: say it today, once upon a time, no one would
Speaker 1: flinch from this, you know, Just like we talk about
Speaker 1: a lot of the photos that we see that are gruesome,
Speaker 1: but you see families and their children in these photos,
Speaker 1: and it's every day for them. It's a normal thing.
Speaker 1: These people don't see themselves as immoral or unkind.
Speaker 2: I think that that.
Speaker 1: Kind of points to this undercurrent that exists in this country,
Speaker 1: this base line of emotions with respect to black folks
Speaker 1: and the black plight. You know, there's this you know
Speaker 1: idea that hey man, slavery was a long time ago. Man,
Speaker 1: you weren't a slave, I wasn't a slave, you know,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But that attitude of like, hey man,
Speaker 1: that's just that's just how it is. That's how, you know,
Speaker 1: like whatever. That's kind of the attitude you see in
Speaker 1: those old photos of these people hanging out with at
Speaker 1: lynchings and burnings and you know, all these sorts of
Speaker 1: things where it's just like, hey man, that's just how
Speaker 1: it is, you know, smiling, smile, happy, having a great day.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was an occasion. We're going to the
Speaker 2: lynching today, you guys ready, they called it picnic. Don't
Speaker 2: forget your lunch pill. So you know, there's you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's obviously a very gruesome thing too. To know, obviously,
Speaker 2: I've I've heard of that before.
Speaker 1: I remember reading about that in high school, that they
Speaker 1: would sell like alligator skin and Negro skin wars.
Speaker 2: They peddle them, you know in the South.
Speaker 1: But you know, for black folks that don't know that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just another atrocity to throw on the
Speaker 1: back of, you know, all the other things that we carry.
Speaker 1: But for folks who you know, maybe have listened to
Speaker 1: the show this far and are doing their best to
Speaker 1: be better, kinder people and more supportive people of their
Speaker 1: black brothers and sisters, that might be.
Speaker 2: Horrifying to hear.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't know how true it is,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've talked before about you know, generational trauma,
Speaker 1: traumas that like exist in our bones, things that make
Speaker 1: us sort of predisposed to triggers and things that really
Speaker 1: we're not able to be comfortable with make peace with.
Speaker 1: And I know that if you've heard that for the
Speaker 1: first time that once upon a time, the people that
Speaker 1: look like you, they took them and they took their
Speaker 1: skin and made clothes out of it and made jackets
Speaker 1: and shoes. You know, what comes to mind is, Okay,
Speaker 1: this person didn't get a proper burial. This person didn't
Speaker 1: get probably when you get a proper story, they were
Speaker 1: a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were an object. They weren't.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, Like, there was just I read
Speaker 1: something recently. It was jeez, I read so much stuff.
Speaker 1: But they were talking about, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: slave owners treated their slaves really good, right, and then
Speaker 1: they were like families. You know, that's just kind of
Speaker 1: how it was, and they would love for you to
Speaker 1: think that that's the way it was. First off, that's
Speaker 1: never what it is. Everything that has consciousness wants it's
Speaker 1: customary freedom. Human beings are paramount in that regard.
Speaker 3: But imagine if the the couple from the first story
Speaker 3: that were giving reparations, imagine if they pulled out their
Speaker 3: wallet and it's negro skid. That's the kind of mindset
Speaker 3: that they would be oblivious to that level of gruesome.
Speaker 2: But still that's how it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so. So anyway, that's that's the way Black
Speaker 1: History fact for the day. Unfortunately it was a little
Speaker 1: a little heavy, but you know, you need to know this.
Speaker 1: We need to know where we come from to know
Speaker 1: where we're going. We need to really have a come
Speaker 1: to terms with what's happened to really understand what's happening.
Speaker 1: We need to know where we've come from to know
Speaker 1: where we are and where we need to go, and
Speaker 1: we will take time now and in the future to
Speaker 1: know point out things like this. Hopefully some are a
Speaker 1: little bit more positive or less gruesome, but certainly I
Speaker 1: think it's worth knowing so that we understand who we
Speaker 1: are relative to each other and how to best support
Speaker 1: each other. And I think that's going to do it
Speaker 1: for us today on Civic Cipher. So once again i'm
Speaker 1: your host rams this job. They called me q Ward.
Speaker 1: A big shout out to our producer d J Swirl
Speaker 1: Swirl you the greatest, Yes indeed, and yeah check us
Speaker 1: out online. Hit Civic cipher dot com to download this
Speaker 1: in all previous episodes. You can also check out our
Speaker 1: social media. It's all at Civic Cipher and please donate
Speaker 1: to the show. This show exists because of your donations.
Speaker 1: We're able to keep doing it and keep growing. So
Speaker 1: if you can please make a donation, we'd love to
Speaker 1: keep bringing you this content. We think it's important and
Speaker 1: hopefully you do too. And until next week, y'all peace.
Speaker 1: Know we had.
Speaker 2: These brothers the Fabulus our Ladies show. When you move on,
Speaker 2: travel well, speak to you from sunlight