Speaker 1: And now prop my mic back like.
Speaker 2: We can strike.
Speaker 1: Head borders behind.
Speaker 3: In the.
Speaker 1: Just tuning in the civic cipher. I'm your host, Ramsay's jack.
Speaker 1: He is Ramsay's jaw. I am to ward.
Speaker 2: You got back the civic side.
Speaker 1: From did you? Are?
Speaker 4: That?
Speaker 1: A lot more in store for you, so be sure
Speaker 1: to stick around. I'm still talking about stereotypes and how
Speaker 1: they impact our lives and shape outcomes. Are going to
Speaker 1: be talking about protesting while black. This is a big one,
Speaker 1: uh for us, because how do we change the world
Speaker 1: if we are not able to make our voices heard
Speaker 1: or if that act appears criminal and the optics surrounding
Speaker 1: it make us appear more sinister than we actually are. Listen,
Speaker 1: rams If you don't like it here, leave that. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's unacceptable, because that would be me failing you,
Speaker 1: my non black brothers and sisters. You deserve better than
Speaker 1: what you've been own. We're also going to discuss some
Speaker 1: the roots of some stereotypes in our way black history
Speaker 1: facts to stick around for that as well. But right
Speaker 1: about now, let's take a break and let's talk about
Speaker 1: becoming a better ally ba Ba. So today's Baba Baba
Speaker 1: is sponsored by Unknown Union, the fashion how situated at
Speaker 1: the intersection of meaning, innovation, and culture. More info checkout
Speaker 1: Unknown Union dot com. I'm going to be reading from
Speaker 1: Essence magazine. A skate park, A skate park sorry in California,
Speaker 1: has been named in honor of Tyree Nichols, a black
Speaker 1: motorist who was killed in January and what prosecutors said
Speaker 1: was a fatal beating by police in Tennessee during a
Speaker 1: traffic stop. Obviously, we talked about Tyree Nichols, and still
Speaker 1: talk about Tyree Nichols. I'll keep reading. Nichols, who was
Speaker 1: an avid skateboarder, spent much of his time as a
Speaker 1: youth at the park on the outskirts of Sacramento. City
Speaker 1: officials and others held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the
Speaker 1: newly renovated skate park, now named for Nichols. Associated Press
Speaker 1: reports the twenty nine year old moved to Memphis, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: shortly before the coronavirus pandemic in twenty twenty and resided
Speaker 1: with his mother and stepfather. He enjoyed past ten. He
Speaker 1: enjoyed photography, especially taking photos of landscapes and sunsets, and
Speaker 1: one of the cool things that happened. Many of you
Speaker 1: may know that I host a podcast for iHeart and
Speaker 1: Black Information Network. Q sometimes guest hosts on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and Q actually was able to interview Tyree Nichols's good
Speaker 1: friend Jerome Neil Junr, who I believe was involved in
Speaker 1: this effort, and you got to talk to him for
Speaker 1: a little bit, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a difficult conversation to have because again
Speaker 2: speaking in the past, tense about Yeah, he wasn't a kid,
Speaker 2: he was a young man, but in the very very
Speaker 2: early sunrise of his life and so much that he
Speaker 2: didn't get too experience again once again, because of that
Speaker 2: suffix wild black, wild black, driving, skating, teaching, living, shopping, eating.
Speaker 2: When you put wild black on the end of all
Speaker 2: of those things, we collectively understand what's coming. Yeah, what's
Speaker 2: coming the rest of that conversation. Now listen. Okay, we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about protesting now. But I don't want
Speaker 2: this conversation to sound to you, our listener like.
Speaker 1: Woe is me. We believe that we can all be
Speaker 1: better to each other.
Speaker 2: I think it is criminal that we have to qualify
Speaker 2: it like yeah, but because there are people that will
Speaker 2: hear this and very apathetically, their minds will go right to, ah,
Speaker 2: woe is me?
Speaker 1: They're always complaining and no, no, no, no, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's the perfect way to kind of seg because they're
Speaker 1: always complaining is often the attitude adopted by people who
Speaker 1: want nothing to do with it? What is this? What
Speaker 1: is the saying that we hear so often to the
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing. I don't know if this is exactly it,
Speaker 1: but to the privileged, equality feels like oppression, and I
Speaker 1: believe it's something like that. And so voicing our concerns
Speaker 1: or complaining, as as this imaginary person might call it.
Speaker 4: Is.
Speaker 1: Perhaps annoying, right, and so they want what they get
Speaker 1: often from the media, which is what we're talking about
Speaker 1: today when it comes to protesting, which is basically an
Speaker 1: amplified version of complaining. So I appreciate you setting me
Speaker 1: up for the segue here protesting while black Now, Q
Speaker 1: and I were on another radio show called The Beatlock
Speaker 1: with a good friend of ours shout out to poke Face.
Speaker 1: This was a recent interview that we did and we
Speaker 1: were asked about the origin story for this show here
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher and for those that don't know the origin story.
Speaker 1: This show was based out of the protests of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Q and I would.
Speaker 4: Show up to the protests for obvious reasons, but also
Speaker 4: at the time, Q and I were radio personalities on
Speaker 4: a hip hop station.
Speaker 1: I get we are, We're on way more hip hop
Speaker 1: stations now, but this was our occupation. We were DJ's
Speaker 1: radio personalities. This is kind of what we did. We
Speaker 1: were nightclubs and we talked on the radio, right, So
Speaker 1: being out there, we felt like, hey, we should probably
Speaker 1: capture some of this magic, some of these narratives, some
Speaker 1: of these conversations, and put it on the radio so
Speaker 1: that we can combat the narrative that is being chronicled
Speaker 1: by the news outlets saying that we're out rioting. These
Speaker 1: are not riots, as illustrated by the fact that we
Speaker 1: are here with our children, and indeed many of our
Speaker 1: allies are here with their children as well. There's no riots,
Speaker 1: there's no smoke, there's no burning, none of this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. Right, But we would go home at the
Speaker 1: end of the day and watch the news and we
Speaker 1: would see that it was reported that there were riots,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Very overtly splinted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, negative.
Speaker 2: Kind of violent inciting.
Speaker 1: So what would happen is police would end up cornering
Speaker 1: certain activists and they were targeted because they had the
Speaker 1: facial recognition stuff. And this is we're talking about our
Speaker 1: city in Phoenix. You feel free to check this out
Speaker 1: because they've had to come out and a mid all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But they had facial recognition things that they
Speaker 1: set up on different corners. I have a couple of
Speaker 1: businesses downtown, so I was down there every day this
Speaker 1: was happened, So I saw this stuff. They had the
Speaker 1: sound canons and all the police presidents and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. They were targeting specific folks. I suspect
Speaker 1: they weren't targeting me and you because of our higher
Speaker 1: profile and our capacity to.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, because our profiles are a
Speaker 2: lot higher now now. I think they weren't targeting us
Speaker 2: because the proximity to our children made us move very very.
Speaker 1: Carefully in the space. Perhaps that was it, but I
Speaker 1: know for a fact that. But I know for a
Speaker 1: fact that at least my name was on those people's
Speaker 1: radar for being there. Again, no crimes, nothing like that.
Speaker 2: And sometimes when you're there and you look like you
Speaker 2: there's the crime.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and say it. So we're telling our story,
Speaker 1: we're describing what's going on, and then the narrative that
Speaker 1: we're seeing on the news is that it's criminal activity.
Speaker 1: The police were picking off protesters here and there. They'd
Speaker 1: turn the wrong corner or be going to their car
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then the police would swoop in. Other
Speaker 1: folks would see it and try to go and help
Speaker 1: and protect, because again, you got to understand the climate
Speaker 1: of the country at that time. You see police running
Speaker 1: after someone black, immediately you're like, oh my god, the
Speaker 1: worst could happen. This happened to us when we were
Speaker 1: pulled over in Mississippi. Everybody people were crying because they
Speaker 1: were fearing the worst about what could have happened to
Speaker 1: us based on what they were seeing our Internet of
Speaker 1: our interaction with the police. Now, parts of those clips
Speaker 1: were being shared and then it was, like you said,
Speaker 1: they were kind of skewing the conversation in such a
Speaker 1: way to suggest that the protests were unsafe. The police
Speaker 1: and the protesters were fighting somehow, which isn't true. The
Speaker 1: police have guns, protesters have bullhorns. It's not the same.
Speaker 1: You know what, I mean, But this is kind of
Speaker 1: what helps the media keep the viewership of the people
Speaker 1: who really want it to be true that black people
Speaker 1: are always complaining and that, you know, the people that
Speaker 1: have the privilege to whom equality feels like oppression.
Speaker 2: But you know, the really interesting thing is, even for
Speaker 2: those who are the most cynical of our position and
Speaker 2: really really feel like, you know, like again, whatoe was
Speaker 2: me and you guys are always complaining, how our law
Speaker 2: enforcement responds, it's very very telling, you know. So the
Speaker 2: people are probably wondering about the wild black part, especially
Speaker 2: considering so many of the protesters here were not black,
Speaker 2: except the cause they were standing for was real black,
Speaker 2: very black, and therein lies the difference, even quote unquote
Speaker 2: their own are treated the way that we're treated if
Speaker 2: you're standing up for us. And the largest example was
Speaker 2: January sixth, because prior to that, when the idea was
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter, protesters will be present, the police militarized
Speaker 2: themselves tanks, riot gear and came out in recognition and
Speaker 2: came out in mass I'm not even talking about the technology.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the physical president with big guns and
Speaker 2: big guns and full gear who make sure we didn't
Speaker 2: show up and harm any property. January sixth, a date
Speaker 2: that they were made privy was coming. They were told
Speaker 2: we're gonna go, not just show up, we're gonna go
Speaker 2: take over, and they were conspicuously absent. Because white supremacy
Speaker 2: has a very hard time checking white supremacy a very
Speaker 2: hard time.
Speaker 1: And that's a bar. All right, let me give you this.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about riots. We're talking about protesting that
Speaker 1: are described as riots and then fed to the masses,
Speaker 1: and these things helped shape public opinion, and this is
Speaker 1: what leads to stereotypes. Okay, doctor King, he's known for
Speaker 1: his non violent, peaceful protests, his marches, right, he's known
Speaker 1: for that. Now he is not known for that. When
Speaker 1: he was doing he.
Speaker 2: Was known for it then, he just wasn't celebrated for it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good way to say it.
Speaker 2: However, it's infamous for his marches house speech, sure when
Speaker 2: he was alive.
Speaker 1: So watch this. There would be let's say he did
Speaker 1: five marches. There might be a skirmish between the protesters
Speaker 1: and the police at two of them, and in our
Speaker 1: estimation it was probably provoked by the police. But that's
Speaker 1: all that's necessary.
Speaker 2: For this time, I do mean to cut my brother
Speaker 2: off because of his grace.
Speaker 1: I love Ramses.
Speaker 2: He said that those skirmishes were probably yes, I paused
Speaker 2: on purpose, that Mike did not get up. Those skirmishes
Speaker 2: were probably started or instigated by the police. There's video, people,
Speaker 2: we don't have to use probable right, I guess we
Speaker 2: have to. You know, what are they say in court
Speaker 2: allegedly even when.
Speaker 1: They have videos?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm going to say those skirmishes, skirmishes, sorry,
Speaker 2: were allegedly started by the police and their dogs and
Speaker 2: fire hosers and billy clubs.
Speaker 1: And yeah. So while he was alive, folks like to
Speaker 1: challenge that narrative that he was a peaceful, benevolent leader
Speaker 1: type of individual, hence his twenty percent approval rating among
Speaker 1: white Americans and critically his twenty percent approval rating among
Speaker 1: Black Americans. Right, so stereotypes can't affect black people as well. Now,
Speaker 1: of course we know the end of that story. Doctor
Speaker 1: King is, as you mentioned, Q celebrated for his non
Speaker 1: violent approach to changing at least that time in American
Speaker 1: history or the better for marginalized people. Right. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't until after his death that the government took it
Speaker 1: seriously and actually changed some living what might have been.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Nixon. What's his name? I can't think of
Speaker 1: his name anyway, one of the presidents changed the laws
Speaker 1: after his death because there were so many eruptions around
Speaker 1: the country after that, so protests. Doctor King said that
Speaker 1: a riot is the language of the unheard. Now there
Speaker 1: are people that push back and say, listen, you need
Speaker 1: to be patient. You guys need to be patient. These
Speaker 1: things move slowly. The wheels of society turned very slowly.
Speaker 1: This is a long road. I say that I occupy
Speaker 1: a different space, but yes, you do. Yeah, I occupy
Speaker 1: a different space. But I can say that because I'm
Speaker 1: indeed marching on that road. Someone else in a position
Speaker 1: of power cannot say that to me because they don't
Speaker 1: get to define what justice should be like or how
Speaker 1: long it should take. And I want to quote James Baldwin. Actually,
Speaker 1: do me favorite. You can read the James Baldwin quote,
Speaker 1: because I know you love this one.
Speaker 2: I might get this quote tattooed because I do love it.
Speaker 2: And it is a quote that Ram is laughing as
Speaker 2: he says he knows I love it. Because Rams encourages
Speaker 2: me and reminds me that this is a that this
Speaker 2: progress is slow, and that we should be patient and
Speaker 2: one step at a time, and YadA, YadA, yad. And
Speaker 2: this incremental approach to this progress that could over by
Speaker 2: way of legislation, just be changed is insulting to me.
Speaker 2: James Baldwin said, and I quote it has taken my
Speaker 2: father's time, my mother's time, my uncle's time, my brother's time,
Speaker 2: and my sister's time, my nieces and nephew's time. How
Speaker 2: much time do you want for your progress right the
Speaker 2: multiple lifetimes of our ancestors. We've already given that time.
Speaker 2: You've already taken that time. In what world do we
Speaker 2: get where we're going? Do I pass away knowing or
Speaker 2: having some type of understanding that for my grandchildren things
Speaker 2: will be different, that things will be better. That's still
Speaker 2: a question.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to add to it that you're
Speaker 1: saying that it is possible to change overnight. So I
Speaker 1: think that that statement in and of itself suggests more
Speaker 1: than suggests that it is very possible to make huge
Speaker 1: sweeping changes, not just in terms of laws, but in
Speaker 1: terms of public opinion and how we interact with each
Speaker 1: other over the course of a lifetime to where a
Speaker 1: person could see the world is in a much better
Speaker 1: place than it was when we started. Hence my frustration. Sow,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, So watch this now. We talked about
Speaker 1: protesting because often enough, protesting is the language that we
Speaker 1: have that is has been relatively consistent in terms of
Speaker 1: our plight, in terms of our arsenal toward achieving a
Speaker 1: more equitable America. Let me say what I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: watch this when we want to vote, sometimes that's taken
Speaker 1: away from us. There I countless black men permanently disenfranchised
Speaker 1: because they've been they're convicted felons. We could talk about
Speaker 1: that that is almost grotesquely unfair, but permanently disenfranchised. We
Speaker 1: can talk about access to voting. We can talk about jerrymandering,
Speaker 1: weakening the strength of the black person's vote, which weakens
Speaker 1: the value of the black person's experience in terms of
Speaker 1: input to the relative to the overall American experience. Right,
Speaker 1: And so protesting is kind of that last vestige, that
Speaker 1: last tool that many people feel like they have, and
Speaker 1: for that to then be villainized and conflated with rioting
Speaker 1: is exceptionally unfair and it's based on stereotypes that I
Speaker 1: do want to challenge. Now, I want you to jump
Speaker 1: in right here, but I got some examples. It will
Speaker 1: help me challenge this idea of what a protest is.
Speaker 2: God, I guess my problem is more with the idea
Speaker 2: that protesting is somehow still a vehicle for us. I
Speaker 2: don't think it is.
Speaker 1: Now. We do it kind of a lot of a duty.
Speaker 1: There's no outcome.
Speaker 2: We don't leave city Hall after our protests, and then
Speaker 2: they text us like okay, you guys came out. We
Speaker 2: heard you, Like, no, that doesn't happen, right, So it's
Speaker 2: more a symbol of solidarity in a way for us
Speaker 2: to err our a grievances and our frustrations amongst each other.
Speaker 2: The lawmakers and the policy makers, they don't come out
Speaker 2: to these protests, listen to our plight here, our points,
Speaker 2: take that back to their body and make changes based
Speaker 2: on that anymore. And once upon a time, I think
Speaker 2: the idea of a protest was so scary, right, there
Speaker 2: would be in some cases like boycotts and strikes. There
Speaker 2: are fiscal damages that happen. People lose money and they
Speaker 2: respond to that. But that's just going up in mass
Speaker 2: upset does not tend to really move the needle like
Speaker 2: it once did.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not going to disagree with you, but I
Speaker 1: can't wholly agree with you there. I think that there
Speaker 1: may still be some value. But critically, if you have
Speaker 1: no other form of representation in terms of the government,
Speaker 1: then showing up with your person and the sign is
Speaker 1: not nothing. Sitting at home is nothing.
Speaker 2: I did not say it was nothing, right, and I
Speaker 2: also did not say it didn't have value. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just not the vehicle that it once was. Sure that
Speaker 2: you can quantify that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to make sure that because I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not going to disagree with you, but
Speaker 1: I want to make sure.
Speaker 2: That we say that for our listen, it has qualitative value,
Speaker 2: not quantitative.
Speaker 1: Now here's what I want to do for folks that
Speaker 1: take issue with riots. First off, earlier we're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, uh, shopping while black right and and how
Speaker 1: stereotypes work, the the the stereotypes that black people steal right.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that that other people steal from
Speaker 1: black people culture. Of course, liberty as I mentioned, right
Speaker 1: to vote, access to you know, representation, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Wealth.
Speaker 1: This country story is littered with massacres, riots and legislation
Speaker 1: and so forth, terrorism, black codes, Jim Crow redlining, the
Speaker 1: g I Bill, et cetera, of stealing wealth from black people, stealing.
Speaker 2: Very intentionally to not just happenstance. Weren't collateral damage, we
Speaker 2: were the target.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to take from us, right, life, stealing life from us.
Speaker 1: We talk about black life being snuffed out all the
Speaker 1: time and people getting away with it with no consequence.
Speaker 2: Of creation intellectual property.
Speaker 1: But even if it's not go on, even if we're
Speaker 1: not talking about murder, we just talked about the prison
Speaker 1: industrial complex. People get sentenced unfairly in this country. It's
Speaker 1: stealing life. Okay. Now black people have the stereotype, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's entirely fair. I'm going to
Speaker 1: make another point here, like people have a stereotype of
Speaker 1: being aggressive rioters when we're protesting. So I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: some stuff about riots for sports teams around the country
Speaker 1: that celebrated or I guess rioted after this form of
Speaker 1: celebrations or of loss. I'm just read these just so
Speaker 1: you know, and I want you to ask yourself, why
Speaker 1: is there no stereotype that these people riot? But why
Speaker 1: is there a stereotype to black people. I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets. Obviously they won the national championship recently. This
Speaker 1: was a couple weeks ago, maybe two hours later. Thousands
Speaker 1: went to McGregor Square and destroyed it. In Boston in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, two thousand and seven, and twenty
Speaker 1: and thirteen, the Red Sox was the baseball team. Everybody
Speaker 1: got out there and rioted all three of those years. Boston, Okay, Detroit.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty four, Detroit has a team called Tigers. They
Speaker 1: probably played some cool sport. And then the Detroit Tigers
Speaker 1: are a baseball team. Ooh, that's what I was on,
Speaker 1: all right. And then nineteen ninety the Detroit Pistons. That's
Speaker 1: a basketball team. I know them. In twenty eleven, the
Speaker 1: Vancouver Canucks lost the twenty eleven Stanley Cup to the
Speaker 1: Boston Bruins, and fans trashed parts of the city, causing
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in damage. Philadelphia Eagles they ride all
Speaker 1: the time in Philly. Chicago. In nineteen ninety one through
Speaker 1: ninety three, that was basketball. Denver in ninety six the
Speaker 1: Avalanche is the hockey team. Ninety eight the Broncos ninety nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, the Avalanche hockey team again and
Speaker 1: in Cleveland in nineteen seventy four baseball team. All Right,
Speaker 1: sit with it. It's sound for the way Black History
Speaker 1: Effect sponsored by Underground Beach Club from the streets to
Speaker 1: the beach, the finest in beach where visit Underground Beachclub
Speaker 1: dot com. Today I'll be reading from the National Museum
Speaker 1: of African American History and Culture slash the Smithsonian. Shout
Speaker 1: out to our people over at the Smithsonian for working
Speaker 1: with us all the time. We're discussing widespread and pervasive
Speaker 1: stereotypes of African Americans.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Stereotypes of African Americans grew as a natural consequence of
Speaker 1: both scientific racism and legal challenges to both their personhood
Speaker 1: and citizenship. In the eighteen fifty seven Supreme Court case
Speaker 1: tread Scott versus John F. A, Sandford, Chief Justice Roger B.
Speaker 1: Taney discussed the humanness of those of African descent. This
Speaker 1: legal precedent permitted the image of African Americans to be
Speaker 1: reduced to caricatures in popular culture. Decades old ephemera and
Speaker 1: current day incarnations of African American stereotypes, including Mammy, Mandingo, sapphire,
Speaker 1: Uncle Tom, and watermelon, have been informed by the legal
Speaker 1: and social status of African Americans. Many of the stereotypes
Speaker 1: created during the height of the Transatlantic slave trade were
Speaker 1: used to help commodify black bodies and justify the business
Speaker 1: of slavery. For instance, an enslaved person forced under violence
Speaker 1: to work from sunrise to sunset could hardly be described
Speaker 1: as lazy, Yet laziness, as well as characteristics of submissiveness, backwardsness, lewdness, treachery,
Speaker 1: and dishonesty historically became stereotypes assigned to African Americans. The
Speaker 1: Maimi stereotype developed as an offensive racial caricature constructed during
Speaker 1: slavery and popularized primarily through minstrel shows in sad slave
Speaker 1: Black women were highly skilled domestic workers working in the
Speaker 1: homes of white families and caretakers for their children. The
Speaker 1: trope painted a picture of domestic workers who had undying
Speaker 1: loyalty to their slaveholder as caregivers and counsel. This image
Speaker 1: ultimately sought to legitimize the institution of slavery. The mammy
Speaker 1: stereotype gained increased popularity after the Civil War. War and
Speaker 1: into the nineteen hundreds. During this time, her robust, grinning
Speaker 1: likeness was attached to mass produced consumer goods from flower
Speaker 1: to motor oil. Considered a trusted figure in white imaginations,
Speaker 1: Mamey's represented contentment and served as a nostalgier for whites
Speaker 1: concerned about racial equality. The Pole Milling Company's incartionation of
Speaker 1: the smiling domestic aunt Jemima became synonymous with the mammy stereotype.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety nine, the company hired real life cook
Speaker 1: Nancy Green to portray the character at various state and
Speaker 1: world affairs. The stereotype and the overweight, self sacrificing, independent
Speaker 1: mammy figure would grow alongside the American film industry through
Speaker 1: works including Birth of a Nation, Imitation of Life, and
Speaker 1: Gone with the Wind. All Right, Uncle Tom Uncle Tom,
Speaker 1: written by Harry Beecher Stowe in eighteen fifty two, featured
Speaker 1: the title character as a large, broad chested, powerfully made
Speaker 1: man whose truly African features were characterized by an expression
Speaker 1: of grave and steady good sense. United with much kindliness
Speaker 1: and benevolence, He forfeits his own chance at escaping bondage
Speaker 1: and loses his life to ensure the freedom of other slaves.
Speaker 1: It's a much different idea of what Uncle Tom means
Speaker 1: in the black community today, all right. The stereotype of
Speaker 1: Uncle Tom is innately submissive, obedient, and inconstant desire of
Speaker 1: wide approval. The term became popular during the Great Migration,
Speaker 1: when many Southern born blacks moved to northern cities like
Speaker 1: New York, Chicago, and Detroit. With them, they brought codes
Speaker 1: of condom expected and hostile Jim Crow environments. The stereotype
Speaker 1: was first publicly recorded during an address by Marcus Garvey's
Speaker 1: Universal Negro Improvement Association member Reverend George Alexander MacGuire in
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen. Do not call a black person and uncle
Speaker 1: Tom unless you know what you're talking about. That is
Speaker 1: a serious accusation. Please be very careful to deal with that,
Speaker 1: all right. Sapphire The sapphire caricature from the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: to the mid nineteen hundreds popularly portrayed black women as sassy, emasculating,
Speaker 1: and domineering. Unlike the Mammy figure, this trope depicted African
Speaker 1: American women as aggressive, loud, and angry, and direct violation
Speaker 1: of social norms. The Sapphire stereotype earned its name on
Speaker 1: the CBS television show Amos and Andy, an association with
Speaker 1: the character Sapphire Stevens, airing from nineteen fifty one to
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three with an all black casts. Sapphire Stevens
Speaker 1: was the wife to George Kingfish Stevens, a character depicted
Speaker 1: as ignorant and lazy, fueling Fire's rage. During the Gym
Speaker 1: Crow period, when blacks were often beaten, jailed, or killed
Speaker 1: for arguing with whites, these fictional characters would pretend chastise whites,
Speaker 1: including men. Their sassinus was supposed to indicate their acceptance
Speaker 1: as members of the white family, and acceptance of that
Speaker 1: sassinus was implied that slavery and segregation were not overly oppressive.
Speaker 1: Watermelon before it became a racist stereotype in the Jim
Speaker 1: Crow era, watermelon once symbolized self sufficiency among African Americans.
Speaker 1: Following emancipation, many Southern African Americans grew and sold watermelons,
Speaker 1: and it became a symbol of their freedom. Many Southern
Speaker 1: whites reacted to this self sufficiency by turning the fruit
Speaker 1: into a symbol of poverty. Watermelon came to symbolize a
Speaker 1: feast for the unclean, lazy, and childlike to shame black
Speaker 1: watermelon merchants, Popular ads and including postcards, pictured African Americans stealing,
Speaker 1: fighting over, or sitting in streets eating watermelon. Watermelons being
Speaker 1: eaten hand in mouth without utensils made it impossible to
Speaker 1: consume without making a mess, and therefore branded a public
Speaker 1: nuisance all right. Last one Mandingo, the black buck, conjured
Speaker 1: by the minds of enslavers and auctioneers to promote strength
Speaker 1: and rereading ability and agility of muscular young black men.
Speaker 1: The mandingo trope was born while under the violence of enslavement,
Speaker 1: a physically powerful black man could be subdued and brutally
Speaker 1: forced into labor. Emancipation brought with it fears that these
Speaker 1: men would exact sexual revenge against white men through their daughters,
Speaker 1: as depicted in the film Birth of a Nation. The
Speaker 1: reinforcement of the stereotype of the Mandingo as animalistic and
Speaker 1: brutish gave legal authority to white mobs and militias who
Speaker 1: tortured and killed black men for the quote safety of
Speaker 1: the public. Headlines of newspapers across the nation beginning around
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, document a phrenzy of arrests,
Speaker 1: attempted lynchings, and murders of black brutes accused of insulting
Speaker 1: or assaulting white women. I feel like this is kind
Speaker 1: of the reason that they were able to rile so
Speaker 1: many people up and take the life of Emmettil. Heavyweight
Speaker 1: boxing champion Jack Johnson epitomized the mandingo or black brute
Speaker 1: of white imaginations in the flesh, called a beast brute
Speaker 1: and a coon in print, Johnson's relationships with white women
Speaker 1: took up as much newsprint as his fighting abilities. With
Speaker 1: his nineteen ten victory over James Jeffries, promoted as the
Speaker 1: great White Hope, Johnson brought white fears to a head.
Speaker 1: The result was weeks of riotous mob violence across the
Speaker 1: nation that left thousands of African American communities and lives
Speaker 1: in ruin. So that's just a handful of stereotypes that
Speaker 1: the origins of a lot of those stereotypes, and they've
Speaker 1: evolved and they've taken on news shapes, but you know,
Speaker 1: those are harmful. They shape outcomes. Clearly, we talked about
Speaker 1: I mentioned Immettil. You know that had they not been
Speaker 1: coerced into thinking something that wasn't true.
Speaker 2: They didn't really have to be coerced.
Speaker 1: I think they got what they wanted. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was just what we.
Speaker 2: Like to call now just They're all things they already
Speaker 2: believed being confirmed, confirmation, bias and biers.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot to think about today. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank you all for tuning in once again to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Rams's job. I am.
Speaker 2: I am continually, perpetually, mentally and emotionally exhausted because these
Speaker 2: things are true every day, not just when we crack
Speaker 2: our microphones to tell you about them. And so many
Speaker 2: of the things that come across our desk we don't
Speaker 2: even get to talk about.
Speaker 1: Sure, we left a lot on the cutting room floor,
Speaker 1: as it were, but we do appreciate your continued support
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