Speaker 1: If you're just tuning into civic cipher, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job. He is rams this job. I am q woard.
Speaker 2: You are tuned in, hopefully tuned back in.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and we are having a fantastic time and in
Speaker 1: fellowship and becoming educated by the one and only THEO. E. J. Wilson,
Speaker 1: a man known for his many viral moments online and
Speaker 1: a man known for his experiments that have yielded some
Speaker 1: results and some insight into what it means to be
Speaker 1: really the victim of an algorithm and to find yourself
Speaker 1: in an echo chamber, which is often the case for
Speaker 1: our especially our far right leaning brothers and sisters. So
Speaker 1: we're having an educational conversation with him, and we have
Speaker 1: a whole lot more of that in store. In particular,
Speaker 1: we're going to get his thoughts on CRT his show
Speaker 1: I was there. We want to talk about that first
Speaker 1: and so much more. But first and foremost, it is
Speaker 1: time to discuss Ba Ba Baba becoming a better ally.
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Speaker 1: media and support the candidate Kassim Rashid that is spelled
Speaker 1: Qasim no U Qasim r A s hi D. He
Speaker 1: is a Pakistani born American author, an activist, and an attorney.
Speaker 1: He's a member of the Democratic Party and he's currently
Speaker 1: running for the Democratic nomination for Illinois eleventh Congressional District
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty four. Kasim Rashid is a human rights
Speaker 1: lawyer who built his career fighting for survivors of domestic violence,
Speaker 1: asylum seekers, and low income communities. He and his family
Speaker 1: immigrated from Pakistan to the United States when he was five.
Speaker 1: As a child, Cassim grew up in Section eight housing
Speaker 1: in DuPage County. Cassim's parents, who were both teachers, instilled
Speaker 1: in him a deep commitment to service and humanity and
Speaker 1: upholding justice. His website is Kassim Rashid dot com that's
Speaker 1: q A s I M R A s h I
Speaker 1: D and you can donate to his campaign. His social
Speaker 1: media is at Kassim Rashid at present. I believe he
Speaker 1: is saying that he is being shadow banned, still getting
Speaker 1: plenty of views, but please give him a follow give
Speaker 1: him your support. I know that q Q brought him
Speaker 1: to my attention, so I know you're a huge fan
Speaker 1: of this guy. But he is a very measured man,
Speaker 1: very I believe to be compassionate at least based on
Speaker 1: what I know, and a person who's fighting to make
Speaker 1: the world a little bit better. He could use your
Speaker 1: support in this moment. So again, Cassim Rashid dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, back to the lecture at hand, to quote
Speaker 1: the one and only Snoop Dogg, mister.
Speaker 2: Great philosopher Snoop, the great philosopher Snoop Dogg, mister THEO. E. J.
Speaker 1: Wilson. Okay, So decolonizing the narrative.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. That is.
Speaker 1: A very eloquent way to say what I know that
Speaker 1: you've been saying. But you know, for the benefit of
Speaker 1: our listeners, give them a little bit about what that
Speaker 1: means and where that comes from.
Speaker 3: Well, you can't have colonialization without a narrative that supports it.
Speaker 3: It's a manifest destiny holdover. We are dealing with the
Speaker 3: fallout of ahistorical society as as as America truly is.
Speaker 3: This is the land of forgetten brother, This is the
Speaker 3: land where even white folks was beating out of speaking
Speaker 3: their native language. Don't you speak that German, that Gaelic,
Speaker 3: that Polist, that Italian? Right? Let alone what happened to
Speaker 3: black folks? Let alone happened to the indigenous folks and
Speaker 3: then boarding schools. And so we have a narrative that
Speaker 3: has been put in place that we have been lowed
Speaker 3: asleep by.
Speaker 1: And you got to do it.
Speaker 3: If you are somebody who slaughtered a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: indigenous folks and whipped a whole bunch of Africans, how
Speaker 3: do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night?
Speaker 3: You have to fabricate a bedtime story that makes it
Speaker 3: easier for you and your children to fall asleep. Knowing
Speaker 3: that there are so many black and indigenous bodies under
Speaker 3: the empire and specifically critical race theory, let's talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like or, which is not what we're dealing with. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's all for the sixteen nineteen projects. It's American history,
Speaker 3: but it's all the American history. Right, it's been called
Speaker 3: indoctrination by those who have been indoctrinated, and specifically they
Speaker 3: were indoctrinated by military Rutherford and the Daughters of the
Speaker 3: American Confederacy.
Speaker 1: Wow, say it.
Speaker 3: The Daughters of the American Confederacy. They are the only
Speaker 3: ones to lose a war and win the narrative. And
Speaker 3: this was a movement started way back during the reconstruction
Speaker 3: era to frame the South in a better light. And
Speaker 3: the Daughters of the American Confederacy are the only ones
Speaker 3: to have power to rewrite the history books of the
Speaker 3: North and the South. And so by the time we
Speaker 3: get to the time that my parents were in school,
Speaker 3: it's no coincidence that there was like a page and
Speaker 3: a half about slavery, and everything was about George Washington
Speaker 3: chopping down the cherry tree. They even took Northern history
Speaker 3: and removed the bodies from it. Right. And the Daughters
Speaker 3: of American Confederacy, they've had children's camps, they've had literal
Speaker 3: you know, I mean dance songs. They preserved like anti
Speaker 3: Bellum history in paintings. There's these friendly portraits of Roberty
Speaker 3: Lee reading books to children, right, and they've had the
Speaker 3: run of the day up and until now. Where they
Speaker 3: got folks who are their descendants. Who are we writing
Speaker 3: history books in the state of Texas calling black folks
Speaker 3: involuntary immigrants?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk about that quite a bit, right, So
Speaker 1: you got.
Speaker 3: To know where it came from. And like most people
Speaker 3: who are against critical race theory have no idea about
Speaker 3: Mildred Rutherford and the daughters of the American Confederacy and
Speaker 3: how she is responsible for the indoctrination that we are
Speaker 3: fighting to break with narratives like the sixteen nineteen project
Speaker 3: that's decolonizing the narrative.
Speaker 1: Listen, that is a masterful explanation. And what I've learned,
Speaker 1: Cull chime in here. What I've learned is that when
Speaker 1: you have a degree of eloquence to a statement, you know,
Speaker 1: brevity and eloquence. I think that intersection, it moves the needle,
Speaker 1: It gets people interested. Not to say that it won't
Speaker 1: be challenged, but I think that it can go a
Speaker 1: little bit further. And Q brought up a great point.
Speaker 1: I firmly believe in a lot of in principle what
Speaker 1: the movement defund the police stands for. I believe that
Speaker 1: there's the ideas have a lot of merit, but the packaging,
Speaker 1: the freezing, and this was Q's position, go ahead, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was.
Speaker 2: The resistance was so prepared for a statement like defund
Speaker 2: the police. They got to jump on that and make
Speaker 2: it sound like we were all doomed if something like
Speaker 2: this was to come to pass. Even though if they
Speaker 2: gave you bullet points of everything that defund the police
Speaker 2: meant and wanted to accomplish, most intelligent people would.
Speaker 1: Say, you know, those are some good ideas. It might right,
Speaker 1: but defund the police.
Speaker 2: The packaging, the marketing turned people off so fast that
Speaker 2: we even got to get to the meat of what
Speaker 2: was trying to be accomplished.
Speaker 1: At least a lot of individuals never got to that point.
Speaker 2: You know that that packaging made it easy for those
Speaker 2: who opposed it to oppose it was just well, let
Speaker 2: me I heard it.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I wish we could have said
Speaker 1: that different or better.
Speaker 3: Right, And how I would have said it is deburden
Speaker 3: the police. There you go.
Speaker 2: So that's why I'm a fan of lightening their load.
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of light just lightning load. And here's
Speaker 2: why it becomes relevant to I was there because we filmed.
Speaker 2: I was there in Minneapolis, and that you know, I
Speaker 2: was housed for the filming fourteen minutes away from George
Speaker 2: Floyd's Square. During the entire filming of that, and on
Speaker 2: my off days, I would hang out in George Floyd's
Speaker 2: Square with the sister who's in charge of that, her
Speaker 2: name is Janelle, and we talked about what it was
Speaker 2: to live in a community police zone and what we
Speaker 2: were really trying to get. In fact, when I was there,
Speaker 2: no pun intended. In Minneapolis filming.
Speaker 3: The ballot measure to actually disband the police was voted on, which,
Speaker 3: of course that ballot measure failed. But it's literally all
Speaker 3: about the fact that, you know, we don't call the
Speaker 3: fire men to take the kidnapt the tree no more.
Speaker 3: They not for that. Right here in Denver, we have
Speaker 3: and Ramsey's posted about this, not the I think it's stars,
Speaker 3: but we have ride alongs with mental health professionals that
Speaker 3: when it is a mental health call and somebody is
Speaker 3: in crisis, they get out the car first. The police
Speaker 3: is there just in case it hits the fan. I
Speaker 3: don't know if I can curse here, but just in
Speaker 3: case things hit the fan, right because their burden is
Speaker 3: too heavy. They are a hammer. Everything looks like a nail,
Speaker 3: and so you can't be surprised when they end up
Speaker 3: smashing stuff. So deburdening the police, dispersing the their responsibilities
Speaker 3: so that they can focus on the things that we
Speaker 3: really need them for, like interceding when a mass shooter,
Speaker 3: for example, takes place, which they failed in uv all day,
Speaker 3: but they picked up. Actually, if you've been looking, people
Speaker 3: like these police officers are, we're not going to beat
Speaker 3: uvald APD, right, So that's what we need cops for. Right,
Speaker 3: And I'll end my diatribe with this. I got locked
Speaker 3: up in Florida when I was an undergrad. I was
Speaker 3: actually protesting on behalf of Palestine back when I was
Speaker 3: in college. I'll get there, you how dare I see
Speaker 3: what's really happening? But when I was locked up, I
Speaker 3: you know, and I mean these cups were super tight.
Speaker 3: I remember they come into this bar and holding cell
Speaker 3: and I just listened to the police and these were
Speaker 3: working class Joe's working too many hours, not getting paid enough,
Speaker 3: And what the cops were talking about was just like
Speaker 3: I need more money to make ends meet, and this
Speaker 3: job I have ain't cutting it. So when those working
Speaker 3: class joes who have the job of policing her defund
Speaker 3: the police, it was like, I'm already not making enough
Speaker 3: as it is, and that's the bird. And that's how
Speaker 3: literal wording something can change the outcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is why I was again a fan
Speaker 1: of the way that you know that that kept coming
Speaker 1: up in our our earlier conversations at decolonizing the narrative.
Speaker 1: So let's do this. I really do want you to
Speaker 1: talk about I was there where people can go and
Speaker 1: get that check that out, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we plug that. So so let's do
Speaker 1: that before we move to this next part.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, basically this is a History Channel special. It's
Speaker 3: twelve part twelve episodes on History dot com and if
Speaker 3: you just type in the search button I was there,
Speaker 3: you'll see me in a trench code with a really
Speaker 3: bad background. It's amazing what they did with that show.
Speaker 3: I got that show in the middle of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 3: I have an agent that I attracted from the Ted
Speaker 3: Talk to do nonfiction television, and this agent slid this
Speaker 3: project on my desk. They said, we need somebody who
Speaker 3: can carry a show. We need somebody with on camera charisma,
Speaker 3: but it's not necessarily a big name, and we think
Speaker 3: you should audition for this. So when I auditioned for it,
Speaker 3: they was like, what you know about history? And they
Speaker 3: gave me like five examples, And I didn't know that
Speaker 3: my five examples blew everybody out of the park. But
Speaker 3: as a history buff already kind of, I had already
Speaker 3: been lecturing at the college level, and with the other things,
Speaker 3: including a background in stunts, I used to actually get
Speaker 3: trained and beat how to be a stunt man for
Speaker 3: the movies because the show is quite physical sometimes. It
Speaker 3: all led to me getting the part, and I was
Speaker 3: able to help in writing four episodes when it came
Speaker 3: to historical correctness, which made me an asset to the team.
Speaker 3: And it's a bunch of folks who really want to
Speaker 3: do the right thing at the History Channel, including talks
Speaker 3: that I was in about decolonizing the narrative, and so
Speaker 3: great folks I was there, History dot Com.
Speaker 1: Got it understood. Okay, So I did want to ask
Speaker 1: this strange question. Okay. One of the things that comes
Speaker 1: up for me and Q at least uh is that
Speaker 1: you know we're activists, but we work in a broadcast space,
Speaker 1: and so people ask us a lot of times, you
Speaker 1: know what inspires your creative approach, your novel approach to activism. Well,
Speaker 1: you are the sort of person that we feel those
Speaker 1: things apply to. We only do this because we this
Speaker 1: is what we do. You know, we're broadcasters. If if
Speaker 1: there was no need for black people to fight for
Speaker 1: equity in this country, we'd still be giving away CARDIB tickets.
Speaker 1: No problem there. We were having the time of our lives.
Speaker 1: We did this because it was necessary, an extension of
Speaker 1: our profession. But we get asked that question a lot
Speaker 1: and we don't ever have a really good answer for it.
Speaker 1: But in your case, I've seen you flex your creative
Speaker 1: muscles again, primarily with the story, the origin story at
Speaker 1: least for you, and my view of going underground and
Speaker 1: kind of learning how algorithms work and how this divide
Speaker 1: has been established and is still growing in this country.
Speaker 1: So I guess my question, to make it as succinct
Speaker 1: as I can, is what inspires your novel approach to activism?
Speaker 1: Your unique brand of activism? Where does that come from?
Speaker 3: I think that all of this, to me is spiritual
Speaker 3: to a certain extent. Okay, when I was at Florida
Speaker 3: A and M University. It's when I kind of shook
Speaker 3: off my last bit of Christian doctrination and found the
Speaker 3: metaphor behind all the religious hubbuh. And this was a
Speaker 3: time in which I was expanding artistically.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: My roommate was a rapper, and he was a battle rapper,
Speaker 3: so he was, you know, dropping bars about you know,
Speaker 3: you know, shooting brothers up and whatnot. But man, he
Speaker 3: was creative and I started getting into rap because of him.
Speaker 3: And slowly, over time that evolved in the spoken word,
Speaker 3: and I realized that I will never write a poem
Speaker 3: greater than I am. I have to evolve to a
Speaker 3: certain level in order for me to be a certain
Speaker 3: level of impactful with my art. So this was a
Speaker 3: spiritual thing that I expressed through my art. And that
Speaker 3: journey began at Florida A and M University. And I
Speaker 3: noticed that there's a lot of times spiritual stuff wasn't
Speaker 3: touched in the ground. It was high for Lutin. It
Speaker 3: seemed philosophical but boring. I wanted to see if I
Speaker 3: could make my art be impactful in the real world.
Speaker 3: Now after college, I got beat up by the cops
Speaker 3: horrible story, but in regaining my footing, in regaining even
Speaker 3: my masculinity, even regaining my sense of identity, poetry was
Speaker 3: paramount in that. And so all of this began as
Speaker 3: an exercise in figuring out the most impactful way to
Speaker 3: be a spoken word artist.
Speaker 1: Actually, OK, so.
Speaker 3: I'll say that one of my professors at Florida University,
Speaker 3: doctor Dana Dinard, he said, speaking to brothers' minds is
Speaker 3: not enough. You have to speak to their souls. And
Speaker 3: I was like, what does that look like? How what's
Speaker 3: the mechanism behind that? And that's really all I was
Speaker 3: trying to uncover. So there's many ways of which I
Speaker 3: do that, but the ability to articulate the idea, to
Speaker 3: create not just a good feeling, but a paradigm shift
Speaker 3: was what I practiced as a slam poet, and that
Speaker 3: skill carried over into activism and journalism.
Speaker 1: You know what happens. I appreciate the response because what
Speaker 1: happens is there are a lot of people who listen
Speaker 1: to the show every week, and you know, they they
Speaker 1: wonder what more can they do, and they don't know
Speaker 1: how they can make an impact or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: think that your story and to a degree, our story.
Speaker 1: It illuminates just kind of starting where you are and
Speaker 1: doing what you can with the gifts that you have
Speaker 1: available to you. And you know it takes, you know,
Speaker 1: every everything to move everything forward. But obviously a person
Speaker 1: with such a visible platform, you know, and and a
Speaker 1: wider audience, those sorts of questions, I think that they
Speaker 1: translate to our listeners, our more active listeners, especially in
Speaker 1: a way that's really meaningful and impactful. So I appreciate
Speaker 1: your response. Now, you mentioned something. We've been talking about
Speaker 1: this on the show as well. You mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: you're protesting once upon a time what was going on
Speaker 1: in Palestine and Q and I we do our best
Speaker 1: what was and is there? It is, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: we have been doing our best to be responsible journalists
Speaker 1: and to respect, you know, all of our brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters that we share this planet with, regardless of their faith.
Speaker 1: And for a person like you who has a long
Speaker 1: standing appreciation for what's been going on over there, I'll
Speaker 1: admit that I'm new to this conversation. I want to ask.
Speaker 1: I feel it's important to ask, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on what's going on in Gaza as of late?
Speaker 3: We are watching a paradigm shift, and we are watching
Speaker 3: the bill come do for Western imperialism. And what I
Speaker 3: mean by that is that for the last eighty years,
Speaker 3: the rightful compassion for Jewish people, after surviving the Holocaust
Speaker 3: and losing what was that two thirds, almost of all
Speaker 3: Jews in Europe bought the experiment of Israel a lot
Speaker 3: of good will and humanity. That will is running out
Speaker 3: as we speak, and it is because of the fact
Speaker 3: that in doing so, a devil's bargain was struck. In
Speaker 3: partnering with the British Empire long before nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 3: long before there was a Nakba right, which is what
Speaker 3: the Palestinians called their great tragedy when seven hundred thousand
Speaker 3: of them were displaced. Zionism targeted Palestine, but it did
Speaker 3: it in a time of imperialism. And the author of
Speaker 3: the first book about Zionism, whose name was Theodore Herzel,
Speaker 3: who wrote an Austro Hungarian the Judenstadt, which is the
Speaker 3: Jewish State, first articulated Gavid legs and in eighteen ninety
Speaker 3: seven Hell the first Zionist conference, and he jockeyed all
Speaker 3: over Europe for a colonial partner. Is where it was
Speaker 3: always supposed to be under the protectorate militarily of a
Speaker 3: colonial power.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: In that devil's bargain, a seed was planted and it
Speaker 3: could only create fruit that grew after its own kind.
Speaker 3: And now we are in harvest. Now we are seeing
Speaker 3: this time and space has created this birth that we
Speaker 3: are watching. This is what this has been all along.
Speaker 3: And I will say that the humanity of the Jewish
Speaker 3: people is challenged by the inhumanity of how is real
Speaker 3: was caused to exist, not the idea of Israel. See
Speaker 3: eat me As a Garvyite, sometimes I can understand and
Speaker 3: oppress people needing a home. As a Garvyite, sometime I
Speaker 3: can understand how wanting a place to call your own
Speaker 3: is a thing that all of us in the diaspora
Speaker 3: can appreciate. But the fact is the colonial side of
Speaker 3: the experiment has been denied to even Jewish folks themselves
Speaker 3: and those of us who sympathize. It's making itself nakedly
Speaker 3: clear and sadly that do was coming, that bill is
Speaker 3: coming due in blood.
Speaker 2: I thought I had a question, but you spoke to
Speaker 2: everything I wanted to ask, that that goodwill didn't just
Speaker 2: run out it was misused in a very very unfortunately brother, Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: in a very very you know, manipulative way, right right. Well,
Speaker 2: always feels like we never have enough time on this show.
Speaker 2: That just means we got to keep talking. I mean
Speaker 2: we have I hope we can beg j'all come back
Speaker 2: and talk to us.
Speaker 1: Bro. Yes, indeed, thank you mister Wilson for your time today.
Speaker 1: I apologize that it took so long, but we have
Speaker 1: a full on We're on over seventy radio stations, so
Speaker 1: for those of you who've been listening to the show
Speaker 1: for a long time, we appreciate your support. We are nationwide.
Speaker 1: And then oh yeah, way back again time. Yes indeed,
Speaker 1: so this is Civic Socer once again. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job. He is Rams' job. I am q Ward.
Speaker 1: You guys are listening to the Civic Cipher. Welcome to some,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to others. Mister Wilson, go ahead and shout
Speaker 1: out your social media so people can check in the O. E. J.
Speaker 3: Wilson all one word on Instagram and I am kid
Speaker 3: Charisma on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Guys, don it k I D D K A R
Speaker 1: I Z M A H on TikTok word and until
Speaker 1: next week, y'all pass