Speaker 1: And now.
Speaker 2: My back.
Speaker 1: You're like that.
Speaker 2: We can strike waters from head borders behind him.
Speaker 1: And for those just tuning in to Civic Cipher, I
Speaker 1: am your host, Rams's Jack. I am today and moving
Speaker 1: forward referred to as Q Waterer. Yes, indeed, and stay tuned.
Speaker 1: We got a lot more to talk about. We're still
Speaker 1: peeling back the layers of the hate crime slash mass
Speaker 1: shooting in Buffalo, New York. We're going to discuss some
Speaker 1: details and I'm trying to figure out the whys and
Speaker 1: maybe kick around some ideas and how we can what
Speaker 1: we can do, you know, moving forward. So yeah, Also,
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend our way black history fact talking about
Speaker 1: a lady named Laya Chase who the Princess and the
Speaker 1: Frog movie, the Disney movie was based on her. Wow,
Speaker 1: and that felt kind of special. So I'm happy to
Speaker 1: share that with you. The first and foremost, let's discuss
Speaker 1: how to become a better ally? Ba shall we we? Shall?
Speaker 1: You want to take this movie? You want me to get?
Speaker 1: This is from TMZ. Okay, let's go. Justin Bieber, a
Speaker 1: young man who I've met and you know, have a
Speaker 1: lot of respect for, at a concert in Buffalo addressed,
Speaker 1: They're very, very difficult and impossible. Why I have to
Speaker 1: feel mass shooting that happened in the city where he
Speaker 1: was performing, asking his audience for a moment of silence,
Speaker 1: He didn't waste any time addressing it, you know, right
Speaker 1: off the bat, at the start of the show, you know,
Speaker 1: asked the people and attenders to join them in the
Speaker 1: moment of silence. This was Saturday, so this was immediately
Speaker 1: at the Key Bank Center, just hours after a man
Speaker 1: allegedly gunned down at least ten individuals and what clearly
Speaker 1: appeared to be a race driven attack. But even amid
Speaker 1: the blood bath, Justin called for peace. He posted a
Speaker 1: few videos showing him talking about the massacre at a
Speaker 1: few different points in the concert, including right before he
Speaker 1: took stage, where he went into prayer with his team.
Speaker 1: After that, Justin went on to perform to a pack
Speaker 1: house full of people who were static to see him.
Speaker 1: It sounds like before he dove into any music, though,
Speaker 1: he took a moment to acknowledge the tragedy and even
Speaker 1: called for a moment of silence. You can hear people
Speaker 1: hooting and hollering during this solemn period, and Justin called
Speaker 1: them out, asking why couldn't you respect it? I think
Speaker 1: that that part is important, you know, for becoming a
Speaker 1: better ally. We sometimes we ask you to share your platform,
Speaker 1: share your voice. If you have an audience listening, to
Speaker 1: please share it. But in this instance we thought that
Speaker 1: this stood out because Justin doubled down on the Hey,
Speaker 1: let's have some respect, you know. And so that's our
Speaker 1: example for this week of how to become a better ally.
Speaker 1: It's important to point out, as will round us in
Speaker 1: his IG posts, racism will never prevail prevail God. Does
Speaker 1: we stand with you, Buffalo and stand against the racist
Speaker 1: act of terror? Bo shout out JB. All right, replacement theory.
Speaker 1: You know what, Let me read a little bit please.
Speaker 1: So this one comes from the New York Times. From
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six to twenty nineteen, seventy seven percent of
Speaker 1: mass shooters obtain the weapons they used for their crimes
Speaker 1: through legal purchases, according to a comprehensive survey of law
Speaker 1: enforcement data, academic papers, and news accounts compiled by the
Speaker 1: National Institute of Justice, the research wing of the Justice Department. Okay,
Speaker 1: the reason I'm saying that is because what we have
Speaker 1: is people going and purchasing legal firearms right, and this one,
Speaker 1: this mass shooting, we will be fair. This mass shooting
Speaker 1: was targeted black mass shooting. There have been mass shootings
Speaker 1: that have targeted Hispanic people. There have been mass shootings
Speaker 1: that have targeted our brothers and sisters who are Muslim
Speaker 1: or from the Middle East. There have been mass shootings
Speaker 1: who have been indiscriminate. There have, of course been mass
Speaker 1: shootings that have targeted LGBTQIA plus brothers and sisters and
Speaker 1: our family from those communities as well. There's a gun
Speaker 1: problem here, and seventy seven percent of mass shooters obtained
Speaker 1: the weapons they use through legal purchases. In upstate New
Speaker 1: York a few months ago, the eighteen year old suspect
Speaker 1: in the Buffalo shooting walked into Vintage Firearms and Sleepy Indicott,
Speaker 1: passed an instant background check without a glitch, and bought
Speaker 1: a used bush Master M fifteen semi automatic rifle, a
Speaker 1: copy of the ubiquitous AR fifteen used in many other
Speaker 1: mass shootings. Now this is the gun that Q was mentioning.
Speaker 1: He wrote all of this stuff on some of the
Speaker 1: things that I know he wrote was again he wrote
Speaker 1: the N word at the end of the barrel of
Speaker 1: that gun, and he wrote, I think he wrote, here
Speaker 1: is your reparations on the gun. That's been a you know,
Speaker 1: an ask for black people ever since really the end
Speaker 1: of slavery. You know, it was once proposed that maybe
Speaker 1: forty acres and a mule ought to cover it, but
Speaker 1: that never happened, and so we've just been trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out ever since then. But you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of us and a lot of non black people
Speaker 1: do feel like there's kind of a debt to be
Speaker 1: paid there. You know, it's economic empowerment would change quite
Speaker 1: a bit. He also paid tribute to one of his heroes,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Yeah, aforementioned Dylan Ruth. And there were other
Speaker 1: things written on the gun as well. Perhaps there were
Speaker 1: just codes for other white supremacists or whatever, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, another right wing media personality mentioned something that
Speaker 1: if you took the enrollment numbers of all the white
Speaker 1: supremacists organizations in the country, that they wouldn't even fit
Speaker 1: into a college or that they would fit into a
Speaker 1: college football stadium, right, And that's sort of a strange
Speaker 1: way to quantify racism, because race, to be a racist,
Speaker 1: to be a white supremacist, doesn't mean that necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that you need to be registered for and receive the newsletters.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be an extremist in any form,
Speaker 1: or you can be and just not be a part
Speaker 1: of those organizations. Yeah, but I mean, let's say double
Speaker 1: that number, say all of the extremists also registered, right,
Speaker 1: so now you've got two football stadiums or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think trying to make it like, hey, there's only a
Speaker 1: couple hundred thousand of these people in this nation of millions.
Speaker 1: It's a small number. But we're not just talking about extremists.
Speaker 1: You and I have talked that length. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of very very passive racists, I think, angering us
Speaker 1: even more, those who can be sort of apathetic about it.
Speaker 1: It's not a big of a deal. It's not really
Speaker 1: bothering us, so, you know, and it's not alarming to
Speaker 1: you know, people on the right, because you know, the
Speaker 1: things that they fear are in our estimation, largely imaginary.
Speaker 1: The thing we're in line with white supremacy. There you go. Now,
Speaker 1: the things that we fear are real. You know, we've
Speaker 1: told a story, you and I have told a story
Speaker 1: before of a real panic inducing incident that happened to
Speaker 1: the both of us in Mississippi driving back home from Florida,
Speaker 1: where we had to interact with some police. And what's
Speaker 1: so intense, Ramses, is that we've told that story now,
Speaker 1: let's say, half a dozen times, and every time we
Speaker 1: tell it, it feels less scary because we're further removed
Speaker 1: from it until this happens. And then I remember why
Speaker 1: we were so terrified when it happened. It's a real
Speaker 1: it was in the wake of something similar that the
Speaker 1: country felt a lot like it does now, and driving
Speaker 1: through the Deep South in this country and the wake
Speaker 1: of that, like even Ramses and I would stop and
Speaker 1: take pictures because for those of you that don't know,
Speaker 1: Ramses visited every state while we were sitting down, while
Speaker 1: we weren't outside, ram just thought, Okay, let me go
Speaker 1: see this country that he also loves, because somehow, if
Speaker 1: you don't, if you're not a patriot in the way
Speaker 1: of the white supremist, you don't love America. Now if
Speaker 1: there's to some degree critical correct, So now that you
Speaker 1: bring that back up, my heart just started beating fast
Speaker 1: because we were terrified when that happened. And this is
Speaker 1: why these are not one offs this is it's more
Speaker 1: likely that we don't survive that than that we did.
Speaker 1: And then in the wake of it we can kind
Speaker 1: of hoof. But during it, especially in this moment where
Speaker 1: Ramses can't see me. You understand, I'm outside of the car.
Speaker 1: It's pitch black outside. There's me and these two members
Speaker 1: of our law enforcement community in Mississippi at three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, in the wake of George Floyd. I
Speaker 1: want to add this too. They took you out of
Speaker 1: the car, and they didn't need to. They knew everything
Speaker 1: they needed to know. So when they came back and
Speaker 1: said can you step out of the car, then it
Speaker 1: went from scary to really scary because I knew it
Speaker 1: was a matter of time before it was coming to
Speaker 1: getting me out of the car. Q got out of
Speaker 1: the car to make the likelihood that he died less.
Speaker 1: Now imagine I'm going towards these guys and their guns,
Speaker 1: hoping that that makes it less likely that they'll use
Speaker 1: them on me when there's zero reason for me to
Speaker 1: get out of this car. So that's the difference between
Speaker 1: real fear and imaginary fear. Now I have to be
Speaker 1: measured here. Fear makes people do strange things. Whether or
Speaker 1: not it's based in a shared reality or based on
Speaker 1: some delusion, it makes people do strange things. Right, these
Speaker 1: are facts, so I have to say this, right. But
Speaker 1: a part of that imaginary fear that exists on the right,
Speaker 1: it's called replacement theory. So replacement theory. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to explain it verbatim, but effectually, replacement theory is
Speaker 1: the idea that there is an intentional, concerted, deliberate effort
Speaker 1: by liberals to increase the birth rates or otherwise maintain
Speaker 1: high birth rates for melanated individuals, non white individuals, and
Speaker 1: to bring in other people from other countries to help
Speaker 1: bolster a liberal political agenda through voting or through numbers,
Speaker 1: or through whatever it is. And the reason it's called
Speaker 1: replacement theory is because a lot of this is largely
Speaker 1: a white male thing. Feel like that subscribe to this
Speaker 1: way of thinking, feel like they're deliberately getting replaced and
Speaker 1: written out of their land and their history. Right now,
Speaker 1: we could talk about that, because we know that this
Speaker 1: land actually belongs to our Native brothers and sisters. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to have a conversation about the Aboriginal people. Oh no,
Speaker 1: we can talk about it here, though nobody will to
Speaker 1: have that conversation. Well, yeah, but the thing is that
Speaker 1: this has caused I know you're not gonna like this,
Speaker 1: cue I don't. I know that I'm me saying this
Speaker 1: feels like it makes me my stomach turn a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I know it's true right now. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say it, but it will always be true because this
Speaker 1: is the man that I am, and this is the
Speaker 1: microphone I got, and I got to talk to you.
Speaker 1: These people that are so scared of me, they're still
Speaker 1: my brothers, they're still my sisters. And I don't it's
Speaker 1: not my responsibility, but there's got to be something there
Speaker 1: where me understand standing their fears and the nature of
Speaker 1: their fears, maybe I can help them not be so afraid.
Speaker 1: I don't push back hard on that, because there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with compassion and empathy. However, you have nothing to
Speaker 1: base it on. You have the history of humanity that
Speaker 1: tells you the opposite is true. Right, there's no longer
Speaker 1: a redeeming quality here. Like I know, black people specifically
Speaker 1: have gone out of our way to not just extend
Speaker 1: this outive branch, but to create this space where there
Speaker 1: should be a redeeming quality right where we should be
Speaker 1: able to point to this young man and the difficulty
Speaker 1: of his life and his fears and his ideology, and
Speaker 1: point to how that sent him spiraling into this murderous rage.
Speaker 1: For what Why do we have to afford them that
Speaker 1: the redeeming qualities don't exist, the road back doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Where is this progress? The nation's getting younger, and as
Speaker 1: you said, the birth rates are increasing, we have more
Speaker 1: people and younger people. How old is this kid? It's twenties,
Speaker 1: not even twenty. This is not some sixty year old
Speaker 1: get off my lawn inWORD, No, this is an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old young man in New York a very metropolitanism
Speaker 1: staate or and three right, and the hypocrisy and even
Speaker 1: the way that they think their own ideologies contradict each other. Sure, right,
Speaker 1: we want to they're going to replace us, right, but
Speaker 1: then they make self safe and healthy abortions less available
Speaker 1: to poor people. That's a great point. So right, we
Speaker 1: must make sure they have babies, But then once they
Speaker 1: have them, we have to make sure we keep those
Speaker 1: people off of welfare. So which is it? Folks like
Speaker 1: your pro life, but you're not pro taking care of
Speaker 1: those lives once they get here, especially those who are
Speaker 1: most helpless and can do the least for themselves. Is
Speaker 1: a very very confusing pullpit that they preach from. But
Speaker 1: they're able to pedal ignorance because the audience does not
Speaker 1: require them to be based in any truth. As long
Speaker 1: as it's hateful and divisive and racist, it flies. Let
Speaker 1: me offer this. So twenty twenty, doctor Camilla Westernberg, who's
Speaker 1: a good friend of the show, reached out to me
Speaker 1: and she says, hey, Ramses, the census is there. There's
Speaker 1: like an effort by the US Census to make sure
Speaker 1: that black and brown neighborhoods are reporting accurately so that
Speaker 1: we can have enough fire departments and enough schools and
Speaker 1: enough resources. So we need the census data so that
Speaker 1: government funds will be allotted appropriately in black in brown neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: And without people reporting, without people knowing the whys, they
Speaker 1: won't report. Without those reporting, you know, the community suffer.
Speaker 1: And I will say, because I know this, there is
Speaker 1: a deep distrust of black and brown communities of the government.
Speaker 1: So telling anybody your business with reason, Yeah, telling anybody
Speaker 1: your business is not something that you readily do in
Speaker 1: those communities. But when you see the why, when you
Speaker 1: see what it's for, maybe it might help out. So
Speaker 1: I helped, you know, in Arizona where I live in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: For those that don't know, I'm a radio personality. Certainly
Speaker 1: was back then and I'm still now obviously a radio personality,
Speaker 1: and you know, having a big name and having some
Speaker 1: status in my city, I was one of those people
Speaker 1: that can kind of motivate folks to champion this cause, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's make sure we all get out there and do
Speaker 1: this right. What it did was it gave me in
Speaker 1: site into what was happening in the country. And you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this on the show before too.
Speaker 1: When those numbers came back, it reflected what a lot
Speaker 1: of people knew to be true, which was that the
Speaker 1: racial makeup of the country was changing. It just confirmed
Speaker 1: again what everyone knew to be true that this country,
Speaker 1: in terms of its percentages, was moving away from a
Speaker 1: majority white country to a minority white cot. Now they
Speaker 1: would still be the largest minority, but you know, there's
Speaker 1: still the largest the majority. That yes, singularly the majority.
Speaker 1: But if if you take all of the minorities and
Speaker 1: put them together, then it would make up the majority
Speaker 1: of humans. Now, is that eventually or already? I believe
Speaker 1: that we're on the cusp of it, So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that that's true yet. But
Speaker 1: the writing is on the wall, like it's it's inevitable
Speaker 1: at this point. There's no way to kind of bring
Speaker 1: that one back in. So it's a matter of time
Speaker 1: now for people who were born in this country. If
Speaker 1: you were born in the nineties, if you were born
Speaker 1: in the eighties, you know, born in the seventies, whenever
Speaker 1: you were born. You know how old you are listening
Speaker 1: to this show. You know, maybe you are a white man.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know a white man. I hope at least
Speaker 1: one of those things is true. Again, those are our brothers,
Speaker 1: same as anyone else, right, you, if you were a
Speaker 1: white man, you were born into a country that said that,
Speaker 1: you know, you could live the American dream. This has
Speaker 1: been true since the forties, fifties. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a country you know you can if you have a
Speaker 1: little bit of stick to itness, a little bit of fortitude,
Speaker 1: and you know, drive, a little bit of brains, work ethic,
Speaker 1: you can you can do anything. American dream, right, greatest
Speaker 1: marketing campaign of all time. Well, it's effective. It makes
Speaker 1: everyone think that they have a fair shot at it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and face live, but yes, effective effective. You know this
Speaker 1: American dream is yours. Right. You can be a rock star,
Speaker 1: you can be a football player, you can be a
Speaker 1: titan of industry, you can be a millionaire. You can
Speaker 1: have the prettiest girl you know, wherever in your town
Speaker 1: or whatever she can. She's going to fall in love
Speaker 1: with you. If you watch these movies and you know
Speaker 1: you can be top gun, fly your airplane, you can
Speaker 1: be I don't know whatever, whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: think is cool. That's that's something that's realistic for you. Right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of your reality reinforces that all the
Speaker 1: presidents look like they could be you. You know, all
Speaker 1: of the judges and the people with prominence of people
Speaker 1: on TV growing up in that time, people look like you,
Speaker 1: The people with status that people were, the heroes in
Speaker 1: the movies, et cetera. Right, So of course that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Right then you get a little bit older and reality
Speaker 1: starts to set in. And not only did those things
Speaker 1: not become true because of what Q and I like
Speaker 1: to call capitalism, but also you realize that this American
Speaker 1: dream thing is pretty much the only thing that you
Speaker 1: got left. Well, I'm not a rock star, but at
Speaker 1: least I'm American. You know, I'm not a whatever, but
Speaker 1: at least I'm American. But I know I'm you know,
Speaker 1: this is a real thing, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: this is why we see a lot of my belief
Speaker 1: why we see a lot of flags and American to
Speaker 1: that group became synonymous with something else. Sure, sure, but
Speaker 1: it creates a sense of community. Human beings, we need community.
Speaker 1: That we're social creatures. That's just what we do. So
Speaker 1: tie that binds for a lot of folks and for
Speaker 1: it to becoming us versus them in terms of the
Speaker 1: American and who gets to fly the flag? That sort
Speaker 1: of a thing. And then of course Donald Trump coming
Speaker 1: along and kind of with fanning those flames, it becomes
Speaker 1: gasoline on those flames. Here you go, and all the
Speaker 1: while you see the population shifting away from that last
Speaker 1: pillar that you can stand on. This is our at least,
Speaker 1: this is our country. And I got my rights, freedom speech,
Speaker 1: I can carry a gun. You know that my Bible
Speaker 1: got my gun. You know, this sort of thing. They'll
Speaker 1: die on that ship. Well, when it comes to like, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, hold on, the country is shifting away
Speaker 1: from you, know what I mean? And then imagine the
Speaker 1: world changing out from under you that you thought was
Speaker 1: so solid, right even if you're even if that's all
Speaker 1: you have and you don't necessarily hate this group or
Speaker 1: hate that group, but if let's say that's all you have,
Speaker 1: that's a scary world to live in as it's actively
Speaker 1: changing away from you. And I just need to say that.
Speaker 1: I need to say that before we move on. I
Speaker 1: want to say this out loud. This is from CNN.
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not hesitate to call
Speaker 1: the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo an act of domestic terrorism,
Speaker 1: condemning the racist ideology of the suspected shooter. Why supremacy
Speaker 1: is a poison. It's a poison running through our body
Speaker 1: of politics, Biden said, adding that silence is complicity. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to say that part out loud, rams
Speaker 1: what do you think? Absolutely, there's also a part of
Speaker 1: this that I feel is important if we understand sort
Speaker 1: of the root cause of why people are so freid,
Speaker 1: and maybe our conversations, maybe if we come across someone
Speaker 1: and we can talk them off of the ledge. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can let them know that there is not a
Speaker 1: concerted effort. This is just natural. I know. It's we
Speaker 1: have to say something thing. So that's what I got.
Speaker 1: My brother is so hopeful. I don't think we would
Speaker 1: be on the radio for we did no reason at all.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd be on the radio. We knew
Speaker 1: we could do something to support the way that you
Speaker 1: feel with that regard my brother. That hey man, it's
Speaker 1: just it's a a prayer bless you man. Anyway, it's
Speaker 1: time for the Way Black History Facts. So we'll leave
Speaker 1: it there. Yeah, that flow. We're praying for you guys
Speaker 1: all the time. This week. The Way Black History Fact
Speaker 1: comes from hip Hop Wiki, sponsored by Hip Hop Wiky magazine.
Speaker 1: The source is the James Beard Foundation. So I will
Speaker 1: read lead Chase. She received the twenty sixteen Lifetime Achievement Award,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read from that article article so
Speaker 1: that she so I can make this breathe. But the
Speaker 1: truth is she is the inswer again for Tiana, the
Speaker 1: Princess from Disney's The Princess and the Fraud. So this
Speaker 1: wasn't something made up imaginary whatever this is based on,
Speaker 1: like a real person, and a real Black woman at that.
Speaker 1: And so I didn't know the roots ran this deep.
Speaker 1: So I'm happy to share this with you, all right.
Speaker 1: The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual whose
Speaker 1: lifetime body of work has had a positive and long
Speaker 1: lasting impact on the way we eat, cook, and or
Speaker 1: think about food in America. Trailblazers don't always intend to
Speaker 1: beat a new path. When Leah Chase first moved to
Speaker 1: New Orleans in nineteen forty, she chose not to follow
Speaker 1: her aunt's to work in a factory. Instead, she applied
Speaker 1: for a job as a waitress in the French Quarter.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the French Quarter. It was a humble,
Speaker 1: entray entree, I guess is how I say that into hospitality,
Speaker 1: but also the first step toward her groundbreaking role as
Speaker 1: the chef at Doukie Chase's restaurant, a position that she
Speaker 1: has held for seven decades. I do want to mention
Speaker 1: that she has since passed since this article came out,
Speaker 1: but I'll read it as it was written. She has
Speaker 1: spent politicians and civil rights leaders, celebrities and bus drivers,
Speaker 1: all while amassing an influential collection of African American art.
Speaker 1: As New Orleans born food historian Lolis Eric Ellie says,
Speaker 1: quote missus Chase is an icon of American cooking, of
Speaker 1: Creole cooking, and of African American cooking. Quote. In nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six, Leah Lange married Edgar Dukie Chase Junior, a
Speaker 1: big band leader whose family had owned Dukie Chase's restaurant,
Speaker 1: a sandwich shop, and a bar room in Treme. The
Speaker 1: neighborhood at the heart of New Orleans is black and
Speaker 1: Creole culture since nineteen forty one. Quote. When we got married,
Speaker 1: I said we're going to change things. What it calls chase.
Speaker 1: The black community had no restaurants. We only had fried chicken,
Speaker 1: fried fish, and that kind of thing. Inspired by restaurants
Speaker 1: in the French Quarter, she reinvented her husband's business, adding
Speaker 1: Creole cuisine to its menu, tablecloths to his dining room,
Speaker 1: and art to its walls. Most radically, the reimagined Doogie
Speaker 1: Chase became one of the first restaurants in the segregated
Speaker 1: South where black people and white people could dine together.
Speaker 1: Freedom Riders made plans over gumbo and fried chicken, while
Speaker 1: Third good Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior held strategy sessions in the upstairs meeting room. Quote.
Speaker 1: In some ways we changed the course of America right
Speaker 1: here in this restaurant, Chase says, in a moment when
Speaker 1: trends come and go, when restaurants come and go, when
Speaker 1: chefs come and go, she has proven the value of
Speaker 1: fidelity to place, to community, to purpose, says John T. Edge,
Speaker 1: director of the Southern Food Bays Alliance, of which Chase
Speaker 1: is a founding member. Quote. Through her restaurant and her
Speaker 1: long service to the community, she proved that to invest
Speaker 1: deeply in one place, by way of your restaurant, is
Speaker 1: a higher calling in our world. Quote. Her influence extends
Speaker 1: beyond the mere culinary end. Quote, says Jessica Harris, author
Speaker 1: of Beyond Gumbo, Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Grim
Speaker 1: and longtime friend of Chaser's. She's been an extraordinary force
Speaker 1: for good and for change in New Orleans. She has
Speaker 1: captured the imagination of young African American chefs around the country,
Speaker 1: thereby becoming not only an icon but also a role model.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters reached five
Speaker 1: feet inside the restaurant, and the damage forced a business
Speaker 1: to close for two years. Right Anderson, restaurant critic for
Speaker 1: The Times Picayune, visited Chase after the water receded. Quote.
Speaker 1: I have an incredibly vivid image of this hunched over
Speaker 1: woman living in a trailer in a neighborhood where there
Speaker 1: was really nobody living anymore. Quote. Outside were completely devastated buildings,
Speaker 1: and she was talking so cheerfully about how everything was
Speaker 1: going to be okay. That's when I realized what missus
Speaker 1: Chase was up to. She was assuming a certain responsibility
Speaker 1: during the interview. Sorry, During the intervening decade, the area
Speaker 1: surrounding the restaurant has changed. The Lafitte housing projects, which
Speaker 1: sat across the street for decades were torn down, but
Speaker 1: Dookie Chase remains as a ballast for the community. Quote.
Speaker 1: It was a neighborhood restaurant in the best sense of
Speaker 1: the word in quotes, says Edge. Quote. The people who
Speaker 1: once lived in that neighborhood have dispersed, but when they returned,
Speaker 1: the returning to their neighborhood restaurant. No matter where they
Speaker 1: live now, Dookie Chase is still a family owned restaurant
Speaker 1: with Lea Chase now ninety three and her daughter stell
Speaker 1: A Chase Reese at the Helm every day. Quote. At
Speaker 1: some point they're going to get rid of me and
Speaker 1: my grandchildren will take over. Chase chuckles. I push hard
Speaker 1: every day. I work every day I come into this
Speaker 1: kitchen and I work that work, ethic, that cheer. These
Speaker 1: are hallmarks of Lea Chase's life. Quote missus Chase seeks
Speaker 1: to see the best in people and seeks to be
Speaker 1: a peacemaker and quote says Ellie, quote if you talk
Speaker 1: to her about politics, what you'll find is her looking
Speaker 1: for common ground. She's often said, quote, if I can
Speaker 1: get the people on both sides to just sit down
Speaker 1: at my table, I think we can work this out.
Speaker 1: There's an optimism there, a faith in humanity that exemplifies
Speaker 1: who she is and exemplifies her approach to cooking. Purchase
Speaker 1: the Queen of Creole cuisine. It's simple. Quote, I don't
Speaker 1: care if you're the Pope, the president. You have to
Speaker 1: eat and I can cook for you. Unquote, she says,
Speaker 1: quote all I do is try to make people happy
Speaker 1: through food. Now Disney Princess and Frog based a character
Speaker 1: on this woman. She passed in two thousand and nineteen,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, But that's a movie. You know,
Speaker 1: I have little sisters. When The Princess and the Frog
Speaker 1: came out, that was the Black Disney Princess. I think
Speaker 1: it might have been twenty fourteen ish when that movie
Speaker 1: came out, give or take. It felt long overdue, but
Speaker 1: it felt special for that to come out. Now there's
Speaker 1: a princess that my sister named Princess could dress up
Speaker 1: like and not feel like she wasn't matching. If you will,
Speaker 1: you know that matters. The reason we're talking about it
Speaker 1: today is because there's a woman who lived an inspirational life.
Speaker 1: You might think of her as a chef, but we
Speaker 1: know that a woman like this is special, you know,
Speaker 1: the way our community works, the way our culture works,
Speaker 1: that's special. And it is our honor to honor her.
Speaker 1: And it is a pleasant surprise to know that she
Speaker 1: was the inspiration for a movie that really mattered, you know,
Speaker 1: like before Black Panther came out, there was Tiana and
Speaker 1: the Princess and the Frog in that mattered. And so
Speaker 1: I wish we'd had a chance to meet her. That
Speaker 1: would have been awesome. That would have been incredible. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for us today here on
Speaker 1: Civic Ciphers. So once again i'm your host rams this job.
Speaker 1: I go by the name q Ward. Now he's fourth
Speaker 1: and forevermore. Thank you for hanging out with us today.
Speaker 1: Today is you know, we were doing last week's show,
Speaker 1: we didn't think we would be talking about a mass
Speaker 1: shooting and having to say the names of ten people
Speaker 1: who are no longer alive because of a racist attack
Speaker 1: in Buffalo, New York. But here we are. This is
Speaker 1: last week's show. We talked about a young man being
Speaker 1: murdered with his hands up by police. This man was
Speaker 1: arrested with an assault rifle in his hand while killing people.
Speaker 1: What a wonderful world, but it's our world. And so
Speaker 1: when we got and we got to try to fix
Speaker 1: it and that's what we're doing. So with you know,
Speaker 1: the help of our producer Maggie AKA that you be knowing,
Speaker 1: you're going to continue to bring you this show in
Speaker 1: the meantime with the website exactly dot com, follow us
Speaker 1: on all social media, be sure to shoot us a
Speaker 1: donation if you can, And until next week, y'all, PA Mayo.
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Speaker 2: What's happening? You've got a question to ask if the
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Speaker 3: And this from a white wartime journalist headlines wait got
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