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.
Speaker 2: I am your host, Ramsey's.
Speaker 3: Job is Ramsey's jaw. I am q ward. You are
Speaker 3: listening to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Indeed you are, and we have a lot for you
Speaker 1: to stick around for, so please do Today we.
Speaker 2: Are going to be covering some round We.
Speaker 1: Have had to depart from our normal programming to cover
Speaker 1: some really important topics. Please check out the last couple
Speaker 1: of episodes on civiccipher dot com where we talk about
Speaker 1: generational trauma, we talk about how algorithms divide us. The
Speaker 1: OEJ Wilson and io Apha helped us out with both
Speaker 1: of those shows. We talked about pronouns and why those
Speaker 1: are important with Maya.
Speaker 2: But she was moving around the world making sure that.
Speaker 3: We had don't let Ramses make that sound all grand.
Speaker 3: He was I was just going to work.
Speaker 1: He was moving around the world. And so now we're
Speaker 1: both back in the studio and we have a lot
Speaker 1: to catch up on. So we're going to spend some
Speaker 1: time talking about some police stories that have made the
Speaker 1: news that we feel you should know about. We are.
Speaker 2: For those new to the show, we are people that certainly.
Speaker 4: Pay those attention to how we police treat people, particularly
Speaker 4: people from black and brown communities, people who are black
Speaker 4: and brown themselves, and so we're going to bring you
Speaker 4: up to speed on some things that.
Speaker 2: Are going on there.
Speaker 1: Also, we're going to take part of the show to
Speaker 1: rethink the car sool system. We've had some conversations Q
Speaker 1: and I in our group chat, and we put together
Speaker 1: the show, and there are some really important questions that
Speaker 1: have come up recently that have certainly caused me to
Speaker 1: expand my concept of criminal rehabilitation and punishment. And I
Speaker 1: think that it's worth listening to so all that and
Speaker 1: so much more to stick around for to day. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, let's start, like we always do, with
Speaker 1: some Ebony excellence, shall we shall. Today's EBNY Excellent sponsored
Speaker 1: by Major Threads for innovative fashionable sportswear checkmajorthreads dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm going to share a bit from USA today about
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old who invented a soap to treat
Speaker 1: skin cancer. He was named America's Top Young Scientists, so
Speaker 1: Herman Beckel, a ninth grader from annan Dell, Virginia, won
Speaker 1: the prestigious award from three M and Discovery Education, which
Speaker 1: is considered one of the country's top middle school science competitions.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: I believe that young minds can make a positive impact
Speaker 1: on the world, Herman said in his submission for the award.
Speaker 1: I have been interested in biology and technology, and this
Speaker 1: challenge gave me the perfect platform to showcase my ideas.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 1: He spent four months competing against other finalists to be
Speaker 1: named America's top Young Scientist. The competition was created to
Speaker 1: tell students between the fifth and eighth grades create innovative
Speaker 1: ideas that change the world. Heman, I've been calling Hermann.
Speaker 1: I apologize. Heman developed a compound based bar of soap
Speaker 1: designed to treat melanoma.
Speaker 2: The bar of.
Speaker 1: Soap costs about fifty fifty cents to make, and he
Speaker 1: helps to refine his innovation and create a nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: to distribute the soap to communities in need over the
Speaker 1: next five years. According to three M and Discovery Education,
Speaker 1: so Human Bekel, a fourteen year old black child, is
Speaker 1: doing something special over there, treating skin cancer with soap
Speaker 1: and obviously the amounts of research and science and all
Speaker 1: those sorts of things that are beyond my reality.
Speaker 3: Young black ingenuity and that we've been paying specific attention to,
Speaker 3: you know, recently, is blowing me away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a special thing. So again, shout
Speaker 1: out to him and Beckel. We appreciate you, brother.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's get to some business.
Speaker 3: When Ramsen says that you guys can't see us, my
Speaker 3: stomach starts to hurt at because get back to some
Speaker 3: business kind of always means the same thing in the
Speaker 3: space that we're in, very unfortunately, but it's kind of
Speaker 3: a perpetual thing and it's not it's unfortunately not unique
Speaker 3: to today.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, And you know the funny thing about that, Q,
Speaker 1: is that these stories, these national stories, they'll pile up
Speaker 1: if we take a week off. In your case, you're
Speaker 1: taking a couple of weeks off, and you're the only
Speaker 1: person that I feel really comfortable tackling these things with.
Speaker 1: I know I'm the only person you feel really comfortable
Speaker 1: tackling these things with it. You know, we for those
Speaker 1: that don't know, we share this content. Sometimes I'll take
Speaker 1: a subject, sometimes you will take a subject. Sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: watch a video some times Q will rarely do we
Speaker 1: both watch the same thing, just because we have to
Speaker 1: preserve our mental health. We don't want to become overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with death and violence against black and brown bodies. You know,
Speaker 1: we have our processes and Q is my brother, and
Speaker 1: you know, when he's not here, it's harder to make
Speaker 1: these lifts. So we're going to cover a few stories today.
Speaker 1: This first one comes from San Jose, California, and I'll
Speaker 1: share a bit from ABC News an article. So a
Speaker 1: San Jose police officer has resigned after the police department
Speaker 1: found numerous disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias. According
Speaker 1: to a statement by the San Jose Police Department, the
Speaker 1: text message is related to a twenty twenty two shooting
Speaker 1: incident in which the officer shot a college football player
Speaker 1: who had wrestled a gun from a perpetrator during a
Speaker 1: fight in a local Takorea.
Speaker 2: I think I'm saying that right Takorea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the statement released from the SJPD, Mark McNamara
Speaker 1: was identified as the officer. Stateman said that the department
Speaker 1: found the messages during an unrelated criminal investigation into one
Speaker 1: of their other officers quote, there is a zero tolerance
Speaker 1: for even a single expression of racial bias at the
Speaker 1: San Jose Police Department. This according to San Jose Police
Speaker 1: Chief Anthony Mata. Chief Mata added that the investigation quote
Speaker 1: also determined that a current employee who was on the
Speaker 1: receiving end of some of the messages, engaged in other
Speaker 1: concerning dialogue with the former officer. The other employee, who
Speaker 1: has not been identified by the SJPD, was immediately placed
Speaker 1: on administratively pending an internal investigation. According to the statement,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's back up here. In March twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, then twenty year old Kean Green, who is black,
Speaker 1: was at the Takoia in San Jose when a fight ensued.
Speaker 1: One of the perpetrators pulled out a gun, which Green
Speaker 1: wrestled out of his hands. He was then shot four
Speaker 1: times by McNamara, who was responding to the scene as
Speaker 1: Green was backing out of the door of the Takorea.
Speaker 1: Following the shooting, Green filed a federal lawsuit against McNamara, SJPD,
Speaker 1: and the City of San Jose for excessive force and
Speaker 1: the city's related liability in the incident. In another message
Speaker 1: sent by McNamara after he was deposed by Green's legal team,
Speaker 1: he said, quote, I hate black people. In the ten
Speaker 1: page document released by the SJPD containing McNamara's text messages,
Speaker 1: he frequently used racial slurs when referring to Green and
Speaker 1: his legal team. Green, who was a college football player
Speaker 1: at Contra Costa College and still dreams of a career
Speaker 1: in the NFL, said during the press conference he had
Speaker 1: to sit out the entire twenty twenty two football season
Speaker 1: and has been suffering from depression since the shooting. So obviously, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, first your early thoughts, you please, So.
Speaker 3: Before getting into this specifically, you know, Ramses and I
Speaker 3: have been put into a space of being in the
Speaker 3: opinion of the expert with regards to this specific type
Speaker 3: of trauma because of the amount of time we spend.
Speaker 2: Dealing with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that has made us, you know,
Speaker 3: more open to the conversations that we've had to have
Speaker 3: recently with regards to mental health and being open about it.
Speaker 3: The show has kind of thrust us into saying out
Speaker 3: loud and being very transparent that this is a hard
Speaker 3: mental lift for us. Ramses, you know, spoke earlier about
Speaker 3: us kind of sharing the load with and ingesting this
Speaker 3: type of content, these stories, the videos that accompany them,
Speaker 3: so sooner than later, Ramses and I are going to
Speaker 3: take a documented mental health retreat somewhere in the world
Speaker 3: where we probably take a camera with us or a
Speaker 3: camera person with us, and do some introspective mental soul
Speaker 3: searching and healing so that we can do a better
Speaker 3: job at this for you. Because when I say, my
Speaker 3: stomach starts to hurt when we start talking about this,
Speaker 3: I was not We chuckled a little bit, but I
Speaker 3: was being very very serious. It makes me sick. And
Speaker 3: you know, we're looking at kind of where people's humanity
Speaker 3: departs when hate is interjected. And listening to this guy
Speaker 3: say he hates black people, and watching people on the
Speaker 3: news say they hate this group of people or this
Speaker 3: other and other being the key word has made it
Speaker 3: very easy for people to oose their sense of human
Speaker 3: decency and empathy with regards to people who don't look, love,
Speaker 3: or pray the same way that they do. So I
Speaker 3: think it's important to kind of highlight that in general,
Speaker 3: not just specific to this story, but I'm listening to
Speaker 3: this language I hate insert group of people, and in
Speaker 3: their mind. That means that we can mistreat, kill, disrespect, detegrate.
Speaker 3: The list goes on this group of people that we've
Speaker 3: deemed beneath us or less than So here's the funny
Speaker 3: part of this story is trying to veer away from
Speaker 3: this story type. But those are the type of feelings
Speaker 3: that you're reading this cause to stir up.
Speaker 1: And but I say, I'm glad that you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: because these stories that we have in the first part
Speaker 1: of the show here, these are all police officers, and
Speaker 1: they feel this way, and they're empowered to directly impact
Speaker 1: the community, and they are often enough are insulated from consequences.
Speaker 1: And while we're looking at this officer Mark McNamara, hopefully
Speaker 1: that's the last time I ever have to say his name.
Speaker 2: Don't want to make him famous. But you know, when
Speaker 2: we look at people like this.
Speaker 1: You start thinking, Okay, well, I know I would guess
Speaker 1: that there's at least two people in this department that
Speaker 1: feel this way, as you know, based on just the
Speaker 1: fact that he was texting someone openly this language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're comfortable sharing this with a colleague. So now
Speaker 3: there's at least two people. Now we can make the
Speaker 3: argument and after having covered this sort of stuff so
Speaker 3: for so long, we can make several arguments that it's
Speaker 3: the culture of policing in general across the entirety of
Speaker 3: the United States, and the exception is the good cop.
Speaker 3: You know, the system. It does not exist to help
Speaker 3: all of us the same. Right.
Speaker 1: But back to this, this officer was not a lone actor,
Speaker 1: and this officer had been empowered and indeed carried a
Speaker 1: gun and was justified in every street level physical punishment
Speaker 1: he ever doled out to anybody because of the fact
Speaker 1: that he was an officer, and he was able to
Speaker 1: do that for that long and felt this way. There
Speaker 1: is no instance in my life, not one, not one
Speaker 1: instance where you will ever hear me say I hate
Speaker 1: insert group of people. For those that know me, for
Speaker 1: those who've seen me and Q on the Breakfast Club,
Speaker 1: on the cover of a magazine on CNN, wherever you've
Speaker 1: seen us, Google whatever, you see that. I have a
Speaker 1: huge tattoo on my arm and it says I love you, and.
Speaker 3: That is intended for whoever's reading it.
Speaker 1: But whoever's reading whenever I hold a microphone, you could
Speaker 1: read it. So when I know, I know that it
Speaker 1: is not possible for me to ever say that when
Speaker 1: I look at a police officer, knowing that there's at
Speaker 1: least two based on this story.
Speaker 3: And this is on record, by the way, that I
Speaker 3: hate to keep steering away from this story specifically, but
Speaker 3: Ramses in particular right extends a level of grace and
Speaker 3: benefited the doubt to people who don't deserve it because
Speaker 3: he is not inclined to ever lead with hate, even
Speaker 3: to people who have wronged us, people who have aggressively
Speaker 3: wronged us. He provides a space actively of reconciliation for them.
Speaker 3: So it's important for me to interject there. This is
Speaker 3: to sound good or for a good SoundBite on this
Speaker 3: particular story. Listen to every episode we've ever had, and
Speaker 3: you'll hear me interjecting where I feel like there should
Speaker 3: be some stronger negative emotion and Ramses just does not
Speaker 3: come from that space or that place. So imagine that,
Speaker 3: even with the proverbial thumb being pressed down on us
Speaker 3: or boot or however you want to you know, mention,
Speaker 3: imagine that that he still comes from a place where
Speaker 3: there's grace, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation as a possibility, and
Speaker 3: he leads with that with empathy with you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. So again, it's very, very hard because the
Speaker 3: reason he hates black people is not because black people
Speaker 3: have traditionally wronged him and his right. This hate was
Speaker 3: indoctrinated and taught to him by someone else and people
Speaker 3: like him. There's nothing on the application. There could be
Speaker 3: something during the interview right to root people like this out,
Speaker 3: and not just in a way of a question, but
Speaker 3: if a criminal did something, you give them a live
Speaker 3: detector test. If you're giving someone this type of authority,
Speaker 3: maybe as a part of the interview process, hooked them
Speaker 3: up to a lie detector and asked them their thoughts
Speaker 3: on black and brown people, And how about we disqualify
Speaker 3: them if there's something that indicates that they might hate
Speaker 3: a specific group of people, that they have the authority
Speaker 3: and the power to not just arrest and affect their
Speaker 3: livelihood forever, but too unlive.
Speaker 1: Which has a ripple effect across the whole community. Just
Speaker 1: the thought, and it's a brilliant thought. And here's something
Speaker 1: else I want you to remember. We're talking about this
Speaker 1: officer in San Jose who's texting his fellow officer, I
Speaker 1: hate black people. And we have a couple of other
Speaker 1: stories that we need to get to all from the police,
Speaker 1: and we cover a lot of this on our show.
Speaker 2: But remember, these are the officers that got caught Mike Fropp.
Speaker 1: Think about that, if these text messages hadn't come to
Speaker 1: light based on another investigation, this officer who hates black
Speaker 1: people would still be patrolling the streets of San Jose
Speaker 1: doing whatever officers do to people that they hate.
Speaker 3: Impunity by the way, Oh yeah, fully protected by the
Speaker 3: law and the community.
Speaker 1: It says, you know, blue lives matter and thin blue line,
Speaker 1: and it's hurtful and it's not fair. Let's move on.
Speaker 1: This next story is coming from the route. You don't
Speaker 1: know about the route. Check out the route right. That's awesome, Okay.
Speaker 1: Dexter Wade's preliminary autopsy shows his body was carelessly mishandled
Speaker 1: before a secret burial, according to Ben Crump. Now, I've
Speaker 1: talked about this show on the Black Information Network Daily podcast.
Speaker 2: Check that out.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts there, but it's important
Speaker 1: to mention this here on Civic Cyber because this is
Speaker 1: really where I wanted to talk about it. It's just
Speaker 1: that now we're finally getting to it, so we appreciate
Speaker 1: your patience.
Speaker 2: For those that don't know a little bit about the backstory.
Speaker 1: There was a black man who was run over by
Speaker 1: a police car who was I think suing some other
Speaker 1: some unrelated thing. He just lost his life, just accident.
Speaker 1: The police then took him and buried him. He had
Speaker 1: idea and I'll read that part of it, but they
Speaker 1: buried him without his mother knowing. His mother worried about
Speaker 1: her son for seven months until she found out that
Speaker 1: he had died, and the police covered it up.
Speaker 2: So that's the backstory.
Speaker 1: Let me read a little bit about the how his
Speaker 1: body was mishandled just a bit here right again from
Speaker 1: the route. An independent pathologist released the initial findings from
Speaker 1: the autopsy of Dexter Wade, the Mississippi man fatally struck
Speaker 1: by a police car earlier this year and buried by
Speaker 1: the county unbeknownst to his family. The findings we built
Speaker 1: Wade had identification on him at the time of his death.
Speaker 1: Doctor Frank Peretti, hired by civil rights attorney Ben Crump,
Speaker 1: released the initial findings following the exhumation of Wade's body.
Speaker 1: Breddy noted that Wade had several identifying items on his person,
Speaker 1: including his health insurance card and the idea which contained
Speaker 1: his home address. Peretti said Wade was quote completely run
Speaker 1: over by the police car that struck him back in March.
Speaker 1: The report he was I think they let his mom
Speaker 1: know in August sometime, all right. The report also said
Speaker 1: that Wade's body was in an advanced state of decomposition
Speaker 1: and that he suffered multiple blunt force injuries to the skull, ribs,
Speaker 1: and pelvis. His left leg was also amputated. Now you
Speaker 1: see why we got to take turns with these stories. Sorry,
Speaker 1: if that was a bit much, I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was coming, all right. Wade wasn't embalmed when
Speaker 1: the county buried him in a Heinz County Pauper's grave
Speaker 1: weeks following the incident.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: The tragic news we received from the independent pathologist today
Speaker 1: was heartbreaking for everyone who knew and cared for Dexter Wade,
Speaker 1: especially his mother. The fact that Dexter had a state
Speaker 1: ID card and several other identifying items shows us that
Speaker 1: there was a concerted effort to keep the truth and
Speaker 1: the manner of his death from his family. There's no excuse,
Speaker 1: not even incompetence for not notifying a next of kin
Speaker 1: of an identified man's death. Crump said in his statement,
Speaker 1: all right, now, real quick, I want to add a
Speaker 1: couple more things here. His mother, dextra Wave's mother also
Speaker 1: lost a brother to the same police department, and I
Speaker 1: believe that there was a lawsuit there. I don't have
Speaker 1: the notes here just now, so if I'm not correct here,
Speaker 1: I don't owe me to it.
Speaker 2: But I believe there was a lawsuit there.
Speaker 1: And my thoughts were that the police didn't want the
Speaker 1: mother to know because they feared a second lawsuit.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, when we talk about police accountability, police cover ups,
Speaker 1: these are the police that get caught, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We have another such story. It's also important to note that,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that Q and I
Speaker 1: really try our best to do is we try to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the fact that we're both men and we are
Speaker 1: not black women, and we respect the fact that black
Speaker 1: women feel more of the feelings that there are to
Speaker 1: feel when we tell stories like this, and today we're
Speaker 1: talking about one such black mother who lost her brother
Speaker 1: and her son and for seven months had to walk
Speaker 1: around with that not in her stomach, fearing the worst,
Speaker 1: only to find out that not only was her son
Speaker 1: not alive anymore, but he was taken from her in
Speaker 1: a horrible manner, and she wasn't allowed to be present
Speaker 1: when they exhumed the body.
Speaker 2: They believe they had.
Speaker 1: A funeral recently, form a proper funeral, and the manner
Speaker 1: of death and the cover of overshadowed what would normally
Speaker 1: be a very tragic event, very heartbreaking event. And it's
Speaker 1: doubly so now. And I thought back to Emmett Till
Speaker 1: and his mother, Mamie, having the courage to go through
Speaker 1: that and to share that story. And so in this moment,
Speaker 1: and as often as we can, we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we acknowledge the pain that black women suffer
Speaker 1: under the framework of this society, and often enough by
Speaker 1: police in this country. And so I just wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that I stated that. And we're not going
Speaker 1: to have enough time to get to it. But I
Speaker 1: had another one, Elijah McClain. He was the young man.
Speaker 1: He's a sweetheart. Please look up his name, Elijah McClain.
Speaker 1: He was from Colorado. He was such a good person.
Speaker 3: And this kid was on the spectrum.
Speaker 1: I believe that if that's not, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: I believe that's true. But he got the most positive energy,
Speaker 1: energy and personality as a result, so that he was
Speaker 1: a very caring kind soul. And it's cold in Colorado
Speaker 1: and he was wearing a ski mask. Neighbors called the
Speaker 1: police on him. We showed up, lost his life, and
Speaker 1: there's now a second officer that's been acquitted for his death,
Speaker 1: and that obviously has caused a lot of people to
Speaker 1: be upset. So we're talking about accountability, we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, consequences, and we're talking about people that.
Speaker 2: Ultimately ended up getting caught.
Speaker 1: In the case of Elijah McClain, people made a big
Speaker 1: enough deal out of it in order for there to
Speaker 1: at least be an investigation into it. But as is
Speaker 1: often the case, there will be no consequences for at
Speaker 1: least two of the officers that were directly involved in
Speaker 1: his death.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, that's.
Speaker 3: Such a hard thing to try to comprehend and reconcile.
Speaker 1: Listen, imagine the amount of stuff that we couldn't get to.
Speaker 1: We picked three because we thought we could get to it.
Speaker 1: This list goes on and we're just going to keep
Speaker 1: sharing it.
Speaker 2: With him