Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses joh.
Speaker 2: He is ramses Jah, I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned into Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Yes you are, and we are in fantastic spirits. This week.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of really awesome things that we've
Speaker 1: been up to. For those that follow us on social
Speaker 1: media might know what we're talking about. It feels good
Speaker 1: to see some changes, some ripple effects, and you know
Speaker 1: that motion won't stop today. Today we are joined in
Speaker 1: studio by Sarah Tyree, the one and only. She is
Speaker 1: an Army veteran, She's a social worker, and indeed she
Speaker 1: is the Arizona State NAACP President. Yes, sir, welcome, Madam President, tells.
Speaker 1: Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. I'm an Arizona native, I'm a former
Speaker 3: foster care youth, spent eight years in the Army. I'm
Speaker 3: a social worker. I experienced some domestic violence in my life.
Speaker 3: I had a partner previously who nearly took my life,
Speaker 3: and as such, I lost my housing, I lost my job.
Speaker 3: As a disabled veteran, I do have free health care,
Speaker 3: but it took them four months to see me. And
Speaker 3: so once I stabilized, I kind of felt like, if
Speaker 3: me and my privilege, my privilege being a veteran, I'm educated,
Speaker 3: I have my master's degree. If it was this hard
Speaker 3: for me to get the type of support that I needed,
Speaker 3: what is it like for people who have less than
Speaker 3: I do? And so that was really my first step
Speaker 3: into not only the NAACP, but in the political sphere
Speaker 3: within Arizona as well well.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to hear all about that and
Speaker 1: indeed what the NAACP is up to and the optics
Speaker 1: on the current political climate. So we got all that
Speaker 1: and so much more to stick around for. But first
Speaker 1: it is time to discuss some ebony excellence.
Speaker 2: Shall we?
Speaker 1: I think you shall.
Speaker 2: This week's Ebony Excellence sponsored by Actively Black There is
Speaker 2: Greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. Supreme
Speaker 2: Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, recipient of the National Council
Speaker 2: of Negro Women Mary McLeod Bethune Trailblazer Reward at their
Speaker 2: sixty first annual national Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, where we
Speaker 2: were present on the ground and we got an opportunity,
Speaker 2: i'd like to say, to be in the presence of royalty,
Speaker 2: of black excellence and of true civil rights trailblazers having
Speaker 2: those conversations in real time and watching Justice Katanji Brown
Speaker 2: Jackson captivate the room. Rams and I had an opportunity
Speaker 2: to have a conversation in real time, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: I wish my daughter could see this. And as I
Speaker 2: kind of scampered off to be on the spot security
Speaker 2: for some people who were violating or trying to violate
Speaker 2: rules that have been put into place, my brother, as usual,
Speaker 2: saved the day and captured some allowable content for me
Speaker 2: to share with my baby girl when I got home,
Speaker 2: and that was, as you can imagine, a great moment
Speaker 2: for me. So being able to see history happen in
Speaker 2: real time is something that I hope is the norm
Speaker 2: for us moving forward, because a lot of these things are,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, far overdue. We shouldn't still be
Speaker 2: having the first black woman anything. But let's get them
Speaker 2: all out of the way and you know, fast secession.
Speaker 2: Let's have those things happen. The first black whatever you
Speaker 2: can listen, especially the first black woman. I'd like to
Speaker 2: see those things happen back to back to back to
Speaker 2: back to back, because those celebrations feel a little bit
Speaker 2: more special as those who are the reason we're here,
Speaker 2: our leaders and our saviors in almost every instance is
Speaker 2: the black woman. So being able to celebrate that moment
Speaker 2: felt exceptionally and especially special.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that happened over the week
Speaker 1: and is us basking in the presence of black women
Speaker 1: as leaders, black women as thinkers, as philosophers, as champions,
Speaker 1: as heroes, and that spirit is the spirit out of
Speaker 1: which this show was born. We've had to share that
Speaker 1: story many times and we are continuing to celebrate that
Speaker 1: spirit today with our guest. Now, before we get to
Speaker 1: your story, let's talk about the NAACP a bit. So
Speaker 1: for folks that may not know, you know that we
Speaker 1: work in the allyship space and some people are just
Speaker 1: coming to the table, talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: NAACP or NAACP as it's now referred, What is it,
Speaker 1: what does it do? And then of course talk about
Speaker 1: your position as the president of the Arizona in AACP.
Speaker 3: You know, I still call it the end of ACP
Speaker 3: as well. So the end of ACP was founded in
Speaker 3: nineteen oh nine. We just celebrated our one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifteenth year this year. But we are a civil rights
Speaker 3: advocacy organization. We don't do legal representation. I think there's
Speaker 3: a common misconception that people think that they can come
Speaker 3: and will support them legally, but that's not something that
Speaker 3: we do. We do, however, connect folks, community members to
Speaker 3: allied lawyers, other civil rights lawyers that we do partner
Speaker 3: with sometimes if they have housing issues, education discrimination right
Speaker 3: we're facing a lot of that here in Arizona as well,
Speaker 3: and really across the country if we think about the
Speaker 3: voucher program and moving back to segregation of schools and
Speaker 3: so our job really is to support the community and
Speaker 3: uplifting their voices when they're not able to do it
Speaker 3: for themselves.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, So do us a favorite talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about your background. You shared a bit when we when
Speaker 1: we first got on, but talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your background and kind of what led you to becoming
Speaker 1: the president of the ME because that's a huge deal.
Speaker 1: That's a huge deal and for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: we do work all across the country, of course, but
Speaker 1: Arizona is a swing state. Arizona is a state that
Speaker 1: is it's sort of like the Florida of the West coast,
Speaker 1: and that there's a lot of strange things that happen
Speaker 1: here and politically we find ourselves in headlines quite a bit.
Speaker 1: So insofar as the NAACP is concerned, it is definitely
Speaker 1: a factor out here, perhaps the most established civil rights
Speaker 1: advocacy group in the country period, but certainly in the state.
Speaker 1: So tell us how your path led you there? Is
Speaker 1: this something that you always had your eyes on? Is
Speaker 1: this you know? And because we talked to allies again
Speaker 1: and people that want change and sometimes they have to
Speaker 1: be the change. And so I feel like folks could
Speaker 1: find a lot of inspiration in your story. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what a lot of folks don't know is that
Speaker 3: I'm bi racial and I was raised by a white
Speaker 3: mother who essentially was racist, right. She really raised me
Speaker 3: to believe that black and brown people were plagues on society,
Speaker 3: that all we did was about the government were lazy,
Speaker 3: and I kind of not kind of, but I did.
Speaker 3: I grew up with like this identity crisis, viewing myself
Speaker 3: and my habits as a white person probably into my
Speaker 3: early twenties. And then that partner that I mentioned earlier
Speaker 3: was incarcerated at the time, and so being married to
Speaker 3: that person really opened my eyes into what the justice
Speaker 3: system is really truly like. And so from there, I
Speaker 3: think it just kind of propelled me into this wanting
Speaker 3: to do work for former offenders, formerly incarcerated people, being
Speaker 3: with our community. So when I came back to Arizona,
Speaker 3: I am a part of the West Valley Writer Die
Speaker 3: and I started out in twenty twenty as their Criminal
Speaker 3: Justice Chair and moved into a vice president role, and
Speaker 3: then last year myself and Bishop Anthony Holt ran for
Speaker 3: the state conference as the president and vice president and
Speaker 3: he was elected as the president, me as the vice president,
Speaker 3: and he had some health things that he needed to
Speaker 3: take care of, and so I ascended into the role
Speaker 3: of president. It's one that's very important to me as
Speaker 3: I'm the first female president for the Arizona ENDAACP and
Speaker 3: also the youngest at thirty six, So it's an honor
Speaker 3: and even though times are heavy sometimes, it's something that
Speaker 3: I love doing. Now.
Speaker 1: What we've noticed in our.
Speaker 2: Partnership with our legacy civil rights organizations is that a
Speaker 2: lot of the leadership is not young. Talk to us
Speaker 2: a little bit about how important that has been for
Speaker 2: you to be. You know, in a lot of instance,
Speaker 2: it's one of the younger leaders across the country, regardless
Speaker 2: of the organization, The responsibility that you now hold, and
Speaker 2: what that feels like being a young woman leader, someone
Speaker 2: who we will refer to as royalty around here, as
Speaker 2: a as a young leader coming into this new space.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about how that's been for
Speaker 2: you and how you see that moving forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, you know, historically folks are in leadership spaces
Speaker 3: or a decade plus, and the way that I view
Speaker 3: it is that you're not allowing the next generation to
Speaker 3: come in and experience leadership. We're not doing succession planning
Speaker 3: things like that. And so I kind of felt like
Speaker 3: coming in as the first woman and being somebody under
Speaker 3: forty was going to be a bit hard. Maybe I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to be able to garner the respect that
Speaker 3: I feel I have earned, not just by being an
Speaker 3: upstanding citizen. But you know, I was deployed to Iraq
Speaker 3: by the time I was seventeen, and I've seen more
Speaker 3: things than a lot of people have, and so honestly though,
Speaker 3: it has been I think a journey because there are
Speaker 3: folks who've been in seats for a long time who
Speaker 3: were ready to sit down but didn't have somebody to
Speaker 3: step in into that role. And then there are folks
Speaker 3: who aren't ready to sit down. So we're kind of
Speaker 3: bridging that gap between our our elders and Gen X
Speaker 3: Gen A. So millennials are doing what we can.
Speaker 1: So here's something that I thought was interesting, the end
Speaker 1: of the end of the NAACP, sorry, is a nonpartisan
Speaker 1: talk to us about well, how about this? Is it
Speaker 1: difficult to guide the NAACP as a bipart bipartisan organization
Speaker 1: where many of the pursuits of the organization are based
Speaker 1: on left leaning views left leaning.
Speaker 3: Ideas, Yeah, absolutely, So I wouldn't say that we consider
Speaker 3: ourselves bipartisan because that means we're acknowledging that there are
Speaker 3: only two parties, right, and there are multiple, So we are, yes,
Speaker 3: we are a non partisan organization. However, as President Johnson
Speaker 3: has said, we are political as hell, and it is
Speaker 3: sometimes a struggle for us to remain neutral because you're right,
Speaker 3: a lot of the things that we're advocating for are
Speaker 3: left leaning and so when I have young people that
Speaker 3: are coming to me and saying, like, why can't we
Speaker 3: say that we support candidate A, and that candidate be
Speaker 3: is you know, doing harm to our community? My response
Speaker 3: to them is talk about the issues. Right, if we
Speaker 3: talk about the issues and we don't talk about the candidate,
Speaker 3: we can we can get the message across to all
Speaker 3: of our people that what's really happening, And the thing
Speaker 3: that we need to focus on is the issues, not
Speaker 3: the person, because the person will go away, right if
Speaker 3: it's four years or it's eight years, But once that
Speaker 3: person is done, that person is gone, but the issues
Speaker 3: still remain. And so really our focus is to just
Speaker 3: really edge kate young people, old people, middle aged people
Speaker 3: on the issues that are impacting our community as a whole.
Speaker 2: In this season of Donald Trump. How much more difficult
Speaker 2: is remaining in that position when there's such an when
Speaker 2: there's such a forwardly aggressive threat on all of the
Speaker 2: things that are the ideals that we collectively believe in,
Speaker 2: the things that the nd OFACP has been fighting for
Speaker 2: for you know, decades now, When when faced with Trump
Speaker 2: supporters or when trying to remain nonpartisan in neutral how
Speaker 2: much more difficult.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Has this season made that even when, like you said,
Speaker 2: speak about the issues, well, when disinformation and misinformation that
Speaker 2: becomes so prevalent, sure, how much more difficult has that
Speaker 2: made the position that you sit in?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Honestly, I don't even think it's disinformation or misinformation
Speaker 3: at this point. It's outright lives. Okay, Right, you're intentionally lying,
Speaker 3: You're intentionally stoking fear into people, because that's how you
Speaker 3: control folks, is fear and control. So I would say that, yes,
Speaker 3: it's been difficult. I don't know that I would say
Speaker 3: it's more difficult necessarily because the average person isn't tyvically
Speaker 3: engaged the way that they need to be. Right, Civic
Speaker 3: engagement isn't just during election time. It's what happens after
Speaker 3: election time. It's holding people accountable, it's following the bills
Speaker 3: that are being put forth, it's looking at their voting records,
Speaker 3: knowing what a governor does, what a school board member does,
Speaker 3: and so we don't. We're just not as engaged as
Speaker 3: we need to be. So, yes, it's difficult because there
Speaker 3: are outright lies, and also really we just need to
Speaker 3: do better about educating the voter that's it.
Speaker 1: Now, talk to me a little bit about this is
Speaker 1: something that you and I brush up against. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about the black men who have been vocal in
Speaker 1: their opposition to a Kamala Harris presidency. Now you don't
Speaker 1: have to say, sure, what you can't say, but who
Speaker 1: are these people? What are their grievances? And if they
Speaker 1: come to you for clarity or understanding, what do you
Speaker 1: say to them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we were just talking about CBC off air
Speaker 3: and in my time there, I had a cab driver
Speaker 3: who was an older black man, and we were talking
Speaker 3: about all the folks who are here because of the election.
Speaker 3: And so he asked me who I was voting for,
Speaker 3: and I said who I was voting for? And he
Speaker 3: said that the other candidate was better for business. And
Speaker 3: I asked how, and he said, well, he's just better
Speaker 3: for business. I had money in my bank account, and
Speaker 3: well he's that person has bankrupted multiple businesses, right, and
Speaker 3: that person is dangerous to our community, to multiple communities. Well,
Speaker 3: that person is good for business, and so that's why
Speaker 3: they have my votes. And so for me, it's the
Speaker 3: conversation really is just I want to vote for the
Speaker 3: candidate who supports humanity, right, Like, that's it. I'm going
Speaker 3: to support humanity over a business any day, because businesses
Speaker 3: are formed and they're lost, and nonetheless they're created by us.
Speaker 3: It's not the other way around. So I think that's
Speaker 3: one of the conversations that we have. But also, you know,
Speaker 3: I hear sometimes that people are really focused on the
Speaker 3: stimulus check that we got in twenty twenty, which so weird.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about it though, for two things real quick.
Speaker 3: The first is that as former President Trump was in office,
Speaker 3: Congress wanted to put forth the stimulation to help the economy,
Speaker 3: and present former President Trump said no, he was against
Speaker 3: the stimulation. But Congress has the power, and so they
Speaker 3: made sure that the economy had what they needed during
Speaker 3: COVID and and really the second piece of that is,
Speaker 3: if you're if you're basing, you're basing an entire vote
Speaker 3: on something that happened four years ago for sixteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: That's only seventy five cents a day. Dollars, yeah, twelve
Speaker 3: hundred dollars. Excuse me, seventy five cents a day. You're
Speaker 3: you're voting for somebody because they gave you seventy five
Speaker 3: cents a day.
Speaker 1: Can I add something here? Yeah, if that's true, and
Speaker 1: people want to vote because I can say it, And
Speaker 1: people want to vote for Donald Trump because he gave
Speaker 1: them a stimulus check. As you mentioned, it wasn't Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: they gave him a stimulus check. Second thing is he
Speaker 1: actually delayed the stimulus checks from getting sent out because
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't his idea, he wanted his name
Speaker 1: to go on the check correct, so that it would
Speaker 1: have the very effect that it's having right now.
Speaker 2: Clearly a very effective decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so to everyone that's listening to our voice,
Speaker 1: where you might be considering that as your vote because
Speaker 1: you got twelve hundred dollars once upon a time. A,
Speaker 1: he didn't do it. B. He slowed it up so
Speaker 1: he could put his name on it to trick you
Speaker 1: and be and see it's working. So you might want
Speaker 1: to rethink that if that's what you're hanging your hat
Speaker 1: on in terms of why you're voting for him, right.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to add that in.
Speaker 3: There, absolutely, I think in the most layman terms is
Speaker 3: you are at work, can you you know you accomplished
Speaker 3: some task that was really big and a co worker
Speaker 3: took credit for it, right, Like this is that he
Speaker 3: didn't do it, he didn't want it, but he got
Speaker 3: to put his name on it, and so now people
Speaker 3: think that he is associated with it.
Speaker 1: I bet he took it out of his billions of
Speaker 1: dollars and just when we write a check to everyone
Speaker 1: in the country.
Speaker 2: Right, it was a group project and he got an.
Speaker 3: A too, much like his high school record.
Speaker 2: This particular moment in history, for me, carries a lot
Speaker 2: of weight, and sometimes I know voice my fears out
Speaker 2: loud on the show and to my brother Rams this
Speaker 2: when we are just having private conversations. Every election cycle,
Speaker 2: we are told that this is the most important election
Speaker 2: of our lives. And the problem with that rhetoric is
Speaker 2: when it is the most important election of your lives,
Speaker 2: people don't tend to feel that sense of urgency that
Speaker 2: you think those words should cause. In your opinion as
Speaker 2: a participant, as an observer, is that sense of urgency
Speaker 2: something that you feel and that you see those around
Speaker 2: you share, or is that something that, like me, you're
Speaker 2: looking around and realizing, Okay, the only person that seems
Speaker 2: to be taking this serious is me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think for me specifically, the urgency is there
Speaker 3: but you have to also understand that I'm surrounding myself
Speaker 3: with other politicos, right, and so we do understand the
Speaker 3: urgency for this particular election because if a specific candidate wins,
Speaker 3: there will be no democracy left, there will be no
Speaker 3: country left. We will be shipped off to concentration camps
Speaker 3: or shot dead. And so it's it's unfortunate that not
Speaker 3: more people are engaged the way that we need them
Speaker 3: to be so that they understand the urgency that we're facing.
Speaker 3: But as I'm in community spaces, yeah, it's just me.
Speaker 3: It's people just go on living their lives. And that's
Speaker 3: that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to us a little bit about let's let's
Speaker 1: let's go back to the NAACP. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: what the NAACP is is doing on the ground, not
Speaker 1: not just in Arizona, but nationwide, because again there are
Speaker 1: people that listen all over the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so national NAACP has taken the stands of
Speaker 3: our goal this election is to preserve democracy. That is
Speaker 3: our goal. Again, it's not about Canada a candidate b.
Speaker 3: It's that we simply want to ensure that we have
Speaker 3: a country to call home. Post November fifth, and so
Speaker 3: all across the state, all across the country, there are
Speaker 3: naacps that have put out candidate report cards, so you
Speaker 3: can go to their website and you can see for
Speaker 3: that state how they how they've rated candidates in their
Speaker 3: state based on NAACP values. We are have been doing
Speaker 3: vhoter registration, We're working on training up poll observers, making
Speaker 3: sure that you know, our people are in those bases.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the other things is that
Speaker 3: the NAACP has been able to partner with LYFT and
Speaker 3: getting folks to the pole. So you know, we're trying
Speaker 3: in in all areas that we can to make sure
Speaker 3: the areas the states that need the most support have it,
Speaker 3: and thankfully Arizona is finally one of those states.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like for folks to know that
Speaker 1: there are resources out there for you know, people who
Speaker 1: listen to this show, for them to know that there's
Speaker 1: infrastructure they can plug into. If you're in like Tupelo, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: or if you're in Jacksonville, or if you're in you know,
Speaker 1: pick a city in a state, you know, Cleveland, someplace
Speaker 1: like that. If you're not connected to individuals or you
Speaker 1: know an activist group. There's these legacy civil rights organizations
Speaker 1: about NAACP that can help you mobilize, get you mobilized,
Speaker 1: and get you involved in something that can make some
Speaker 1: real change. So food for thought.