Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher Army House. Rams
Speaker 1: is Jah. Okay, So do I just say, like, what
Speaker 1: my name is right here?
Speaker 2: Or do I because you know, sometimes people don't know, okay,
Speaker 2: my name is is Q or sometimes I like to
Speaker 2: explain to people, like the how or the why. Hey,
Speaker 2: I think they need to know. Man, So you birth certificate,
Speaker 2: you know, all right, that'll work. My mom named me
Speaker 2: quin Ton. People don't be wanting to say quin Ton,
Speaker 2: so they call me Quentin, which is not my name
Speaker 2: at all. So then I shortened it the Q. But
Speaker 2: then when I introduced myself as Q, they say, well,
Speaker 2: what's your whole name? And then I end up in
Speaker 2: this you know what I mean. Yeah, I don't feel
Speaker 2: like doing that every time. I'm sorry, y'all, but you know.
Speaker 1: You're not Tarantino, You're You're different. But yeah, I get it. No,
Speaker 1: I've heard it. And we're here to talk to you
Speaker 1: about the goings on in Black America the past week
Speaker 1: and rather unfortunately there's a lot to talk about. But
Speaker 1: you know, starting this week, we're going to start incorporating
Speaker 1: some some positive elements into the show as well. We
Speaker 1: want to end on a high because you know, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of talk about, you know, protecting our
Speaker 1: mental health and so forth, and you know, understanding that
Speaker 1: we have a job to do and having these long
Speaker 1: form conversation, long form conversations about you know, the state
Speaker 1: of Black America and you know what what it is
Speaker 1: we need to be cognizant of and you know, how
Speaker 1: to empower allies of black and brown people. You know,
Speaker 1: after diving into this, you know, day in and day out,
Speaker 1: we recognize it can be very taxing. You know, when
Speaker 1: we do recognize that, you know, we Q and I
Speaker 1: are not the sole source of information that makes its
Speaker 1: way to you the listener. And so you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're going to try to incorporate some some things that
Speaker 1: make this a little bit more digestible so that we
Speaker 1: can also enjoy ourselves. I don't think that you know,
Speaker 1: I said this recently. I was at a at a
Speaker 1: rally protest in Phoenix and I and I said this
Speaker 1: to the crowd that was there. I don't think that
Speaker 1: we're just born to die. I don't think we're born
Speaker 1: to suffer. I think that we are entitled to some happiness,
Speaker 1: even though you know, we have some challenges. You know,
Speaker 1: and so it's in that spirit that I want to
Speaker 1: incorporate some positivity. So stay tuned because a little later
Speaker 1: on the show, hopefully we'll be able to peel back
Speaker 1: some layers and you guys can actually help us with this.
Speaker 2: You want to name a segment and make sure that
Speaker 2: every show we include some positivity because as taxing as
Speaker 2: it you know, might be to you guys to hear
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that we have a responsibility to
Speaker 2: talk about, it's ten times that for us, you know,
Speaker 2: digesting and going through and trying to figure out which
Speaker 2: topics have priority I guess, and what we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about every week, it can it can be mentally
Speaker 2: and emotionally exhausting for all of us. So we have
Speaker 2: to make sure that we bring some light and some
Speaker 2: jump start to the show every week. So we want
Speaker 2: to name a segment. If you have ideas, send them
Speaker 2: to us. Yeah, at Civic Cipher everywhere.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we'd love to hear from you for that and
Speaker 1: for anything else. And speaking of which we've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of recently, a lot of articles sent our way
Speaker 1: from listeners and just to kind of keep us in
Speaker 1: the loop of things that are going on. In different
Speaker 1: cities around the country, and so you know, last week
Speaker 1: we left some we couldn't get to everything, and so
Speaker 1: we were going to try to get through as much
Speaker 1: of this as possible. So forgive us if we don't
Speaker 1: spend as much time on each one. But I just
Speaker 1: do think that some of these things are worth discussing
Speaker 1: and peeling back some layers and just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: we're your friends. So if you're an ally, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of having some perspective, and of course if
Speaker 1: you're black yourself, then you understand it very well. And
Speaker 1: you know, I say it quite a bit, we're going
Speaker 1: to have our therapy together. So first up, I got
Speaker 1: a video this week from this one I think came
Speaker 1: from our producer, shout out DJ Swirl one time. So
Speaker 1: there's a lady in North Carolina. This video went viral,
Speaker 1: so you might have seen it yourself. Yeah, a lady
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. She's an older white lady. She says
Speaker 1: she was in her seventies. If if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: I believe she was at a restaurant or a store
Speaker 1: or something like that. What happens is there's some black
Speaker 1: folks in there, black women and they're having a good
Speaker 1: time and you know whatever.
Speaker 2: Which they're not allowed to do. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you according according to this lady. They give out a pamphlet.
Speaker 1: It's in there.
Speaker 2: I think it's like the third if you fold it open,
Speaker 2: it's not the middle one, but it's third. Y'all can't
Speaker 2: see me, but the third section and the pamphlet when
Speaker 2: you feel it's four of them, it folds into a
Speaker 2: single one and the third ones. I think the second
Speaker 2: paragraph down black women specifically cannot have fun at the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Well, this lady certainly felt that way. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you think back in your life, all of us.
Speaker 1: This happened to me the other day. I was at
Speaker 1: a restaurant called ajo Awls and there were some a
Speaker 1: group of people there. It was actually two different groups.
Speaker 1: I'm there with a business partner of mine. Shout out, sindbad.
Speaker 1: But we're sitting there talking, we're having lunch as we do.
Speaker 1: And there was a couple of women I think in
Speaker 1: a man, and one of the women was being so loud.
Speaker 1: These were not black people. And then there was another
Speaker 1: table of people that were very like vulgar with their language.
Speaker 1: Also white folks you know, and so you know the
Speaker 1: same as I know that there are just types of
Speaker 1: people that are loud, that are really have really bombastic,
Speaker 1: you know, just very loud, loud energy. And that is
Speaker 1: true regardless of what race they are. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: those people are black, but obviously in all of our experience,
Speaker 1: not just mine, sometimes those people are whatever color God
Speaker 1: chose to paint them. You know, that's more of a
Speaker 1: reflection of their personality than their race in my belief.
Speaker 1: But this lady in North Carolina, we're not saying her
Speaker 1: name because we don't think that it really matters. We
Speaker 1: don't want to make heroes out of these people. But
Speaker 1: she ultimately became very frustrated. She excused her frustration by
Speaker 1: saying that she was she suffered from anxiety, I think,
Speaker 1: which is any excuses really lame, because if you reach
Speaker 1: as she did toward you know, using racial slurs, which
Speaker 1: is the most basic form of expression in my belief,
Speaker 1: profanity is the most basic form of expression, but racial
Speaker 1: slurs has got to be three four levels below that.
Speaker 1: Even it means you got really nothing. It's like school yards.
Speaker 1: It shows a complete lack of intellect in my belief,
Speaker 1: In my estimation. But you know, she, yeah, she called
Speaker 1: these women the in word, and of course the women
Speaker 1: and everyone else in that room was taken aback by
Speaker 1: that because it's such a condemnation. And you know, we've
Speaker 1: talked about this on the show, what it feels like
Speaker 1: to hear that word from someone who is not black,
Speaker 1: from someone off of the lips of someone where there
Speaker 1: it's not just an attack on you, it's an attack
Speaker 1: on everyone who came before you, who were the color
Speaker 1: that you wear, whose bodies are buried in the ground
Speaker 1: on this land, who maybe that was the last word
Speaker 1: they ever heard in their life, and the the heartbreak
Speaker 1: and the anger. I think the black people are allowed
Speaker 1: to be angry too, and that word certainly carries a
Speaker 1: lot of that with it. The anger that you feel
Speaker 1: with that is just something that you know, words we
Speaker 1: give words power, but black folks, we know that that
Speaker 1: word exists only to condemn us specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the interesting thing is that even in
Speaker 2: heated moments where there's already raised levels of where people
Speaker 2: have started to raise their voice and they started to curse,
Speaker 2: and the temperature has clearly clearly changed in a room
Speaker 2: when it's turned into an argument and almost to fight.
Speaker 2: When that word is inserted, you can see both sides
Speaker 2: of the situation change very much, even if they were
Speaker 2: already being disrespectful or already shouting, already on the verge
Speaker 2: of a fight, when that word is inserted. Even in
Speaker 2: the video we're talking about, they're already kind of mouthing
Speaker 2: at each other. But once the lady says that, it
Speaker 2: changes the temperature of everyone in the room, people involve,
Speaker 2: people not involved, Like everyone understands, Oh.
Speaker 1: This's just turned into something else. Yeah, this is a like.
Speaker 2: This is not just a lady that's upset. This is
Speaker 2: also a lady that's that's very plainly say racist. And
Speaker 2: to people who are otherwise not it always makes everybody
Speaker 2: kind of pause, even the even the person most angered
Speaker 2: by it has to process it for a second. The
Speaker 2: reaction isn't here that Yeah, the reaction isn't instant. It's
Speaker 2: like it's jarring. Even when we watched the video together
Speaker 2: and it was blurted out yeah like ooh, yeah, she
Speaker 2: wouldn't say it's stung a little bit. Man.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing about that. There's you know, people
Speaker 1: who are willing to like it. You might if especially
Speaker 1: if you're not black, you might imagine what the height
Speaker 1: of disrespect is, you know, And I feel like that
Speaker 1: if you're not black, you wouldn't be able to really
Speaker 1: understand how high that word is on the disrespect totem
Speaker 1: like for someone to like it, it's like on par
Speaker 1: with someone spitting in your face and then standing there
Speaker 1: holding you, trying to hold your gaze like you're staring
Speaker 1: you down, like I'm gonna spit in your face and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stare at you like that level of disrespect,
Speaker 1: Like really, so one of us has to die now
Speaker 1: because I'm not gonna like you think that's cool, you know,
Speaker 1: And I recognize that it's a word and it you know,
Speaker 1: words only have the power that we assigned to them.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk about that for a second
Speaker 1: while we're on this, so you know, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: you might think to yourself, well, obviously this lady had
Speaker 1: nothing else cognitively, intellectually, she had nothing else. This lady's
Speaker 1: a million years old. She's out of her depth. She's
Speaker 1: going full Karen. She's allergic to anybody of any other
Speaker 1: race having any fun and if it causes her to
Speaker 1: be slightly uncomfortable, which is consistent with quote unquote karen behavior.
Speaker 1: Why even give it the dignity that it has so far?
Speaker 1: And I think that one thing that we have to
Speaker 1: examine when it comes to these sorts of occurrences is
Speaker 1: that if those women were not black, Let's say there
Speaker 1: were a group of white women and they were being
Speaker 1: just as loud, right, just as an obnoxious quote unquote,
Speaker 1: if that's what this Karen is saying, what was happening
Speaker 1: in her estimation, But these women were white, this lady
Speaker 1: would have never used that word. The word only exists
Speaker 1: for black people. And the thing is, in no way
Speaker 1: is it singular. It's a condemnation of a whole race
Speaker 1: of people. I'd argue she would have never even been
Speaker 1: annoyed or bothered, of course, of course, of course, but
Speaker 1: I'm trying to you know, of course not Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is purely you know, if someone is brown, or someone
Speaker 1: is if someone doesn't look like you and you are not,
Speaker 1: you don't feel connected to the fund that they're having
Speaker 1: and it somehow inconveniences you or something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: karens are the all the human beings on the planet
Speaker 1: Earth that Karens are the ones that are the most upset,
Speaker 1: the most inconvenience, and the most likely to get up
Speaker 1: and try to do something about it. Right with their
Speaker 1: complete lack of testosterone really put themselves in the middle
Speaker 1: of a predicament where, you know, if anything went beyond
Speaker 1: just words, they're really not equipped to really engage on
Speaker 1: that level. But they've been so empowered by and fortified
Speaker 1: by the cultural you know, optics and their position in
Speaker 1: society that they feel like, well, everybody needs to do
Speaker 1: everything I say or else if the police show up,
Speaker 1: they're going to automatically be on my side. And so
Speaker 1: this is why you get to behavior. But I want
Speaker 1: to share every story. Once upon a time, I had
Speaker 1: a friend named Jim. Jared and Jared and I we talked,
Speaker 1: we hung out. You know, he was a friend of
Speaker 1: a friend, but you know they lived together as roommates,
Speaker 1: and I was always over at that friend's house, right,
Speaker 1: And Jared was super cool man. He was one of
Speaker 1: those guys that you know, he he was into basketball,
Speaker 1: he was in the hip hop. He was you know,
Speaker 1: one of those guys, but he you know, those people
Speaker 1: that are not quite cool but just like kind of
Speaker 1: close because you know, hey, man, I got the new
Speaker 1: master P albums. It was a while back, you know,
Speaker 1: for those that don't know anything about master P's an
Speaker 1: old rapper anyway. So once upon a time, Jared said
Speaker 1: something he was He said, uh so, I remember Shaquille
Speaker 1: O'Neil had done something that he didn't agree with, whatever
Speaker 1: it was, and he said, man, Shack is really stupid.
Speaker 1: Shaq is Shaq is one of those guys that I
Speaker 1: think it's okay if you use the N word when
Speaker 1: you describe. And he said it just like that. He
Speaker 1: didn't say he didn't actually say the word. He said
Speaker 1: quote the D word, right, but he said it to
Speaker 1: me and I reacted just like you whoa right, And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, you know, he's just so stupid. He
Speaker 1: just does that the third and I was like, well listen, man,
Speaker 1: hold on, let me explain something to you. And our
Speaker 1: relationship changed after that because there was some pushback.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I tried to meet him where he was and educate
Speaker 1: him because a lot of folks really need that, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't know, and I try to leave some room
Speaker 1: for forgiveness. That's my emo. Assume me if you don't
Speaker 1: like it, But I think that we all have to
Speaker 1: We're going to have to be here as brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: We just need to teach each other how to love
Speaker 1: each other. That's just my belief. So when that first happened,
Speaker 1: the way our conversation went was, Hey, Jared, so if
Speaker 1: you wouldn't say that about someone who's white, then you're
Speaker 1: only saying that word because he's black. That means that
Speaker 1: that word is a word for black people. And you
Speaker 1: know what that word means. He's like, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm black too. He's like, well, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you. I'm like, but that's a
Speaker 1: word that if you say it, it's it's it's It's
Speaker 1: a word that as a race has been very hurtful
Speaker 1: to us. And if you use it, you can't pick
Speaker 1: and choose. You know, you can't just say, Okay, this
Speaker 1: person is, but these people aren't. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. You know, this is a condemnation of
Speaker 1: a race of people. This is how the word was used,
Speaker 1: This is how the word was instilled. Look at the literature,
Speaker 1: go back. You could see for yourself. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it because we're on the radio on
Speaker 1: the FCC kind of police is what we say. But
Speaker 1: you know, you can see all the documents in words
Speaker 1: for sale, you know bucks, you know that that you
Speaker 1: know you could go and purchase. You know, this is
Speaker 1: the way that it was used. So you can't then
Speaker 1: go and say, well, Shaq is one, but you're not,
Speaker 1: because that's not the way the word was intended. So
Speaker 1: if you're going to use this word, to understand the
Speaker 1: gravity of it, understand that this is something that you're
Speaker 1: that is going to affect everybody who is black, and
Speaker 1: they're going to hear it and have some visceral reaction
Speaker 1: to it. It's a very hurtful thing to hear.
Speaker 2: And that's without you even pushing back on the idea
Speaker 2: that what he was saying was false on his face.
Speaker 2: Sure of course that shacks not just some stupid in word.
Speaker 1: No that at no point is that word ever necessary
Speaker 1: to describe a human being's behavior. And if you do,
Speaker 1: you describe that specific human being, you don't use the
Speaker 1: word that's ascribed to a race of people. That's like
Speaker 1: me saying okay, well this one person is Native American,
Speaker 1: but you know, like somehow that there's only one No,
Speaker 1: that's a word that has been historically used to describe
Speaker 1: a race of people in a very unflattering way, with
Speaker 1: specific emphasis on our cognition.
Speaker 2: And that's his use of that word is everything we
Speaker 2: need to know about why he thought Shack was stupid.
Speaker 1: There's no, he didn't have any evidence to point to them.
Speaker 2: That's it's how he feels about how he feels about.
Speaker 1: One thing that Shaquille O'Dell did in his life that
Speaker 1: upset him, and he thought that that was a go too,
Speaker 1: and so much like this lady in North Carolina, you
Speaker 1: know when she reaches for it. You know people that
Speaker 1: look at the video and are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: why would you even like, just let this old lady
Speaker 1: go home and die somewhere. Well, no, it's not that simple.
Speaker 1: I wish it was, because I look at it and
Speaker 1: my first mind is, okay, how does this look too? White? Allies?
Speaker 1: Because I have to talk about it on the radio,
Speaker 1: I have to feel it for me and for you
Speaker 1: if you're listening. And I have to feel it for
Speaker 1: my children. I have black children, have black sons. I
Speaker 1: have to feel it for my family. I have to
Speaker 1: feel it for our listeners who are not white. I
Speaker 1: have to feel for our listeners who are Hispanic and
Speaker 1: so forth, and really try to process it the best
Speaker 1: I can based on my limit. I'm not a Hispanic
Speaker 1: sixteen year old woman, so I don't know what the
Speaker 1: world looks like to her. But I have to try
Speaker 1: to imagine how to explain this to that person and
Speaker 1: everyone else, and so, you know, just some perspective, and
Speaker 1: I do think that it's it's very important that if
Speaker 1: you're out in the world, then you're you come across
Speaker 1: someone who thinks that jokes are funny and they want
Speaker 1: to use this or that, or they want to get
Speaker 1: stuff like that off. It's it's okay to challenge that.
Speaker 1: And if you're a non confrontational person, it's okay to
Speaker 1: challenge a person with a little bit of love in
Speaker 1: your voice. I try to do that, and I'm probably successful,
Speaker 1: maybe eight times out of ten them. Last two times
Speaker 1: I'm bringing that smoke, you know, because I got that too.
Speaker 1: But it's there, you know, and you know again, together
Speaker 1: we're going to help stomp this out and keep it
Speaker 1: stomped out. You know, in my belief, we're moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction. You know, you constantly reminds me that
Speaker 1: we have a long way to go. But is this progress?
Speaker 1: And you know we're doing our part here. So moving on,
Speaker 1: athletes banned from wearing BLM apparel or taking a knee
Speaker 1: or raising a fist at the Tokyo Olympics. Q. How
Speaker 1: do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: I pause sometimes and forget that our listeners aren't looking
Speaker 2: at us, because if they could see my face, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, like it's my facial expression is
Speaker 2: saying a lot.
Speaker 1: They could have.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is what I think sure happens now
Speaker 2: moving forward from their statement and their stance on this,
Speaker 2: they've made villains out of anyone who would take a
Speaker 2: knee or raise a fist, or simply say or wear
Speaker 2: a T shirt or wristband or a headband or a
Speaker 2: hat or anything that black lives matter.
Speaker 1: The IOC would have been better off just not saying anything.
Speaker 1: What's IOC. I don't want to say this incorrectly. Let
Speaker 1: me make sure that I'm.
Speaker 2: Is that like a something to do with the Olympic
Speaker 2: International Olympic Committee. Okay, because now you've put a person
Speaker 2: in a position to feel they have to push back
Speaker 2: rights as a person representing this country, especially a black person,
Speaker 2: be it as an Olympic athlete or a member of
Speaker 2: our military. There has always been this idea that I'm
Speaker 2: going to go out here and fight for and or
Speaker 2: compete for this country that does not love me. And
Speaker 2: somehow you're look that funny when you're the person making
Speaker 2: that statement, not all the people that prove.
Speaker 1: It to be true.
Speaker 2: So you can come home wearing the stars and stripes
Speaker 2: and a gold medal and a military uniform, all of it,
Speaker 2: and people are still going to see first and foremost
Speaker 2: your skin color.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw that officer get pulled out of his
Speaker 3: You got pepper sprayed. The dog got pepper sprayed. He
Speaker 3: got pulled out of his brand new GEEP. That might
Speaker 3: have been three four weeks ago. It was in full
Speaker 3: military get ups.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: You're now putting these people in the they are already
Speaker 2: You're already in a position when you're black and you're
Speaker 2: representing the United States on a world stage. Now you
Speaker 2: have the IOC saying, don't you dare come here with
Speaker 2: that black people deserve to exist stuff?
Speaker 1: Don't you dare?
Speaker 2: And now as an athlete or an all, as a
Speaker 2: black athlete or an ally even if you're not from
Speaker 2: this country, you have to arrive at the Olympics with
Speaker 2: tension that's now extra that wouldn't have been right. There's
Speaker 2: a certain amount of attention that exists period if you
Speaker 2: look like us. But now they've gone out in front
Speaker 2: of everyone and said, don't you dare again come here
Speaker 2: with that black people deserve to exist nonsense. And our athletes,
Speaker 2: who are already competing on behalf of a country that
Speaker 2: does not love them, have to go there essentially being
Speaker 2: told to shut up about how they feel about the
Speaker 2: things that are going on in this country and around
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that they would make a move to
Speaker 1: silence a movement that has been what I in my estimation,
Speaker 1: very fruitful.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a you know, I always I always
Speaker 2: speak to the statement because people try to find a
Speaker 2: way to make the movement something political or negative. Even
Speaker 2: if it is political. The idea that black people should
Speaker 2: be able to not get murdered for just being black
Speaker 2: should not be controversial, even if you do consider it political. Right,
Speaker 2: But the idea that you're gonna make your stance that
Speaker 2: you better not say show anything with regards to that
Speaker 2: puts people in a really rough position, and I'm curious
Speaker 2: to see if they're going to get some pushback from
Speaker 2: athletes that they probably wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was thinking. I love stuff like this.
Speaker 1: I don't love it, but like I know me and
Speaker 1: I know that I would rise to the occasion. I
Speaker 1: would go there and just do it anyway, and they
Speaker 1: would have to strip me up my medals, and I
Speaker 1: would do it in front of everybody and then and
Speaker 1: I got all the interviews afterward. I would let everyone
Speaker 1: know how hypocritical they were, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that's that would be the play I
Speaker 1: would make, at least. So I'm hoping that the athletes,
Speaker 1: especially the black athletes, but all athletes out so non
Speaker 1: black that really says it's about time. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: that's another thing. A lot of a lot of white folks,
Speaker 1: a lot of Spanish folks, Native folks, et cetera. Whenever
Speaker 1: y'all stand up for black folks, it it looks and
Speaker 1: feels very special. And that's why we know what that's like,
Speaker 1: and we try to reciprocate as often as we can. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta switch gears here for a second. So if
Speaker 1: you just tune in the civic sipher Amy host rams as.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they call me q Ward, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: like an abbreviation of my full name, quintin Ward, So
Speaker 2: it's kind of you know, cooler, shorter, easier to say,
Speaker 2: that's that's how we got there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you haven't heard something that came across
Speaker 1: our desk, and forgive me, I forgot who sent this
Speaker 1: our way, but I'm sure it was a listener. But
Speaker 1: you know, another thing worth talking about, at least worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of folks that say, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a post racist society. You know, we have
Speaker 1: a vice president woman who is you know, and then
Speaker 1: we have we had a black president. You know, let's
Speaker 1: not you know, and I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: those folks don't recognize that, you know, cultural insensitivities is
Speaker 1: another part of or it's it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for, it's a byproduct of racism.
Speaker 1: You know, people can be racist and not know, but
Speaker 1: it could be deep down on the inside and they
Speaker 1: just harbor prejudices and without critical examination of their own selves,
Speaker 1: they'll never know it because they're like, well, I never
Speaker 1: I would never hurt anybody just because they didn't they
Speaker 1: look different from me, and they think that's it. They
Speaker 1: don't recognize that they're a part of a system that
Speaker 1: their apathy serves, where they don't recognize that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are some benefits, or at least some disadvantages for
Speaker 1: not being white, you know, and you know, for them
Speaker 1: to view the world as it is and think that
Speaker 1: everything is okay because well I don't do that, so
Speaker 1: everything is fine, is enough for them to tell themselves
Speaker 1: that they're not racist. But to those people, I have
Speaker 1: an example here that I think illustrates to another degree
Speaker 1: that very we're not in a post racial society and
Speaker 1: that cultural sensitivities definitely are worth considering when you're trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, draw those sorts of conclusions. Minnesota, let me
Speaker 1: take you there again. We need to get in an
Speaker 1: apartment there. Son, really so there's a high school uh senior,
Speaker 1: he's uh wanting to go to prom and you know
Speaker 1: there's these really grand prom gestures. I don't want to
Speaker 1: spend a whole lot of time talking about this. I
Speaker 1: just thought it was worth mentioning. But you know, the
Speaker 1: high school seniors. They it's like a marriage proposal, but
Speaker 1: they get to have fun with it, and they're in
Speaker 1: high school, so it's really you know, all bets are off,
Speaker 1: you know, and then in the TikTok generation, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody gets to do everything it hopes that it goes viral. Well,
Speaker 1: this kid went viral for probably some reasons that his
Speaker 1: parents or maybe his parents do agree with, who knows.
Speaker 1: But what he did was he wrote a sign for
Speaker 1: his prom date, and the sign read, and I quote,
Speaker 1: if I was black, I'd be picking cotton, but I'm white,
Speaker 1: So I'm picking you for prom. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: that you have to consider again when thinking of that.
Speaker 1: You know, we haven't even begun to talk about systemic racism.
Speaker 1: We haven't begun to talk about real disparities and political
Speaker 1: representation in terms of you know, the judicial system and
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system and those outcomes and so forth.
Speaker 1: We're talking about teasing and words and things like this, right,
Speaker 1: because a lot of times that's easier for people to understand. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's just a very thin, surface level representative layer,
Speaker 1: if you will, of everything that is below it. But
Speaker 1: this is worth mentioning because there Again, there are people
Speaker 1: who would say, well, it's harmless if you don't feed
Speaker 1: into it. It's just a kid. He did a stupid thing.
Speaker 1: He thought he was making a joke, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But to me, I look at a society, I look
Speaker 1: at a family, I look at a group of friends,
Speaker 1: and I look at a culture. Granted this is Minnesota,
Speaker 1: but you know there's a culture that exists there in
Speaker 1: the sided at large that is really more exclusive to
Speaker 1: white folks than anyone where stuff like this is totally fine,
Speaker 1: which is why this child was able to live I'm
Speaker 1: assuming seventeen eighteen years and think that this was not
Speaker 1: only okay but funny, and they don't recognize how exceptionally
Speaker 1: offensive it is. They don't recognize the human cost of
Speaker 1: that joke, that there were people their whole lives.
Speaker 2: I don't want to cut you off, good, but the
Speaker 2: sad part is to that kid, there is no human cost, right,
Speaker 2: there's no educor doesn't have friends that look like us,
Speaker 2: clearly not actual friends. He might have classmates, he might
Speaker 2: even have kids that he hangs out with and plays
Speaker 2: basketball or whatever, but he doesn't have friends like us.
Speaker 2: So there's no one that he cares about, that will
Speaker 2: be hurt by that. And it's not an off the
Speaker 2: cuff thing he said without thinking, he wrote, he made
Speaker 2: a sign colors, and he designed a sign, put it
Speaker 2: in a car or on a bike, and took it
Speaker 2: somewhere for this person to see it, and then presented
Speaker 2: it to them. There's so many moments where this could
Speaker 2: have been lied not this isn't a good idea. Mine
Speaker 2: never went there. And his mind, it was absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 1: We'll get this.
Speaker 2: Off and when he gets it off, everyone's going to
Speaker 2: talk about how funny he is.
Speaker 1: So I think that what we have here is more
Speaker 1: a reflection of let's start with education, because you know,
Speaker 1: when the previous administration was in office, there was this
Speaker 1: big push to dilute education. I know this is true.
Speaker 1: In Texas, they teach slavery, since that's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about picking cotton. They teach slavery. Now as workers were
Speaker 1: brought over from Africa as opposed to slaves, were brought
Speaker 1: to you know, work and kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and then
Speaker 1: because of the economics of it, then it ended up
Speaker 1: you know, really taking its toll. And then you know
Speaker 1: we've studied this that the people in Africa that did
Speaker 1: participate in the slave trade had no idea what they
Speaker 1: were selling their country folk into, because the forms of
Speaker 1: slavery that existed in Africa were very different. You could
Speaker 1: conquer a tribe and then you incorporate them into your
Speaker 1: tribe and that's that, you know, but they work, and
Speaker 1: then after a while they're like, it's like in densured
Speaker 1: servitude or something like you can pay for your freedom
Speaker 1: eventually or whatever. But there was nothing like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna change your name, we're gonna take your language, you
Speaker 1: can't practice your religion. We're gonna beat you. We're going
Speaker 1: to bear you and rip you apart by horses to race,
Speaker 1: subjugate you, We're going, yeah, we're rape under yeah, all
Speaker 1: these sorts of things. And then we're going to systemically
Speaker 1: oppress you and economically, uh, make sure that your disadvantaged
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years thereafter, so that you have no
Speaker 1: real chance it self determination. That's a whole different thing
Speaker 1: that no one knew about. But anyway, I digress. When
Speaker 1: you take education out of schools and you don't really
Speaker 1: give people what it is they need, which is again
Speaker 1: a reflection of a racist society, a society that doesn't
Speaker 1: want to deal with it because either a they think
Speaker 1: it's fine or b they don't want to face it,
Speaker 1: which I think that are both. To see all of
Speaker 1: the above exactly, so we're not in a post racial society,
Speaker 1: especially if we haven't dealt with the racism that we're
Speaker 1: still dealing with. Right, But when you when when you
Speaker 1: don't teach these people this, when you take it out
Speaker 1: of school. I think in Arizona, where a Q and
Speaker 1: I live, there's uh some legislation that's being voted on
Speaker 1: now where if they teach one side of history that
Speaker 1: now they have to teach the other side. It's of
Speaker 1: course a Republican initiative because that those people tend to
Speaker 1: be the people that don't really want to come to
Speaker 1: terms with their past and their role in society by
Speaker 1: and large and shaping modern society. So that means that
Speaker 1: if they teach the Holocaust that you know, the Jews
Speaker 1: were murdered by the millions by the Germans, they also
Speaker 1: have to teach the other side of the Holocaust, which
Speaker 1: somehow is the why I love to hear what there
Speaker 1: is and that's but the thing is this this These
Speaker 1: rules weren't written for the Holocaust. They were written so
Speaker 1: that you could teach two sides to slavery. The Holocaust
Speaker 1: is the big hang up because everybody agrees across the
Speaker 1: board that, yeah, the Holocaust was bad. But in this country,
Speaker 1: we don't mind dealing with what happened in Germany. We
Speaker 1: don't want to deal with what happened here. So they
Speaker 1: wanted to teach slavery like well, you know, you know slaves,
Speaker 1: some of the slaves love their masters physically or whatever.
Speaker 1: Sorry that might have been too graphic, but you know,
Speaker 1: they want to teach it like that.
Speaker 2: In addition to Stockholm syndrome, if you google Stockholm, you'll
Speaker 2: see where that term came from, where it was born,
Speaker 2: and apply that same rhetoric to what happened two slaves
Speaker 2: who did, in some cases end up loving their captors.
Speaker 1: We call that Uncle Tom, we call that. We called
Speaker 1: that a lot of stuff. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: there is no two sides. We're very well informed as
Speaker 1: to what happened. But this initiative is to deny the
Speaker 1: youth of you know, that knowledge, so that in their
Speaker 1: belief that if they don't know what happened, then everybody
Speaker 1: gets along better, you know. And the truth is, I
Speaker 1: think that by coming to terms that we can really
Speaker 1: understand where we are and why we're at different places
Speaker 1: in society, and that we stop blaming each other in
Speaker 1: terms of like our character. We stop blaming, you know,
Speaker 1: we stop using excuses like well, you should pull up
Speaker 1: yourselves by your bootsteps, and we really start examining critically
Speaker 1: the systems that are built in the place that reinforce
Speaker 1: white supremacy in today's society. And it starts with all
Speaker 1: of the sins that America has committed. Shouts to capitalism.
Speaker 2: I always have to shout capitalism out for the role
Speaker 2: it plays in sustaining a system built on the foundation
Speaker 2: of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's enough about that Minnesota stuff. Now now
Speaker 1: we can talk about some stuff that sucks. I was
Speaker 1: waiting to see if there was a colloquialism for that,
Speaker 1: and it just sucks. Sucks, really hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head. So another publication that we read around here
Speaker 1: is The Atlanta Black Star. It's a publication that's really
Speaker 1: dedicated to you know, black news, sharing stories that you
Speaker 1: know might not be carried on your CNNs and you
Speaker 1: know that, you know, Fox News of course wouldn't carry
Speaker 1: anything on any Atlanta Black Star, but just critical examination
Speaker 1: of things that happened around the country that really affect
Speaker 1: black folks and so that we understand what's going on
Speaker 1: in black America. And a lot of these stories, of course, they,
Speaker 1: like I said, they won't make it to the news
Speaker 1: cycle that you're accustomed to seeing and your weekly, yar
Speaker 1: daily newsfeed. So this story is about a Baton Rouge
Speaker 1: police officer named Jeremiah are Doin, I believe. So it's
Speaker 1: a story about police corruption. By the way, So Jeremiah
Speaker 1: are Doin is a black officer again Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Speaker 1: Police Department. That's a big city in the United States.
Speaker 1: He worked in the narcotics division and ultimately he became
Speaker 1: a whistleblower. Now I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that
Speaker 1: if you're a police officer, there's this blue wall of
Speaker 1: silence where you don't tell on other police officers when
Speaker 1: they don't do their job correctly. Right, you don't tell
Speaker 1: on other police officers when they break the law. You mean,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean? Okay, yes, but sometimes I stutter,
Speaker 1: So I didn't no, no, no, you got right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they just if they see something, they just
Speaker 1: protect them. They protect each other, right, which is why
Speaker 1: a lot of these officers when they do ultimately have
Speaker 1: to Like the Derek Chavin trial, the person who murdered
Speaker 1: George Floyd, he believe he had like nineteen complaints filed
Speaker 1: against him in I think eighteen years or something or
Speaker 1: something ridiculous, which they were all able to submit in
Speaker 1: court to show that this officer was consistently operating beyond
Speaker 1: the scope of his his job description, you know, and
Speaker 1: causing harm to people, and so much so to where
Speaker 1: they would complain about him, which suggests that there's probably
Speaker 1: hundreds that didn't even get to that point, right just
Speaker 1: to you know whatever. But you know, we never hear
Speaker 1: about it, because these police protect themselves and they protect
Speaker 1: each other. So this guy decides that he's not going
Speaker 1: to stand for it. This Jeremiah are doin, this black officer,
Speaker 1: and he blows the whistle about a corrupt narcotics division
Speaker 1: again which he worked for, and his whistle blowing. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: there's two stories happening simultaneously here. But the whistleblowing part
Speaker 1: of this ultimately resulted in seven hundred criminal cases getting
Speaker 1: thrown out. Could you imagine I didn't say seven, I
Speaker 1: didn't say one hundred, I said seven hundred. And then
Speaker 1: they said, I think there's an estimated sixteen hundred more
Speaker 1: potentially that can get thrown out. And there's hundreds more
Speaker 1: cases that have been tainted because these people would plant
Speaker 1: drugs on people, they would falsify documents, they would lie to,
Speaker 1: you know, with each other, to put people on the sea.
Speaker 1: They would do all kinds of stuff to you know,
Speaker 1: either trump up charges or get folks who had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it wrapped up in some nonsense or whatever.
Speaker 1: The case is hundreds of times, and if everything ends
Speaker 1: up panning out, it'll be literally thousands of times. And
Speaker 1: of course we are aware that the war on drugs
Speaker 1: was launched initially to criminalize black people, specifically the Black
Speaker 1: Power movement, sick black people too, and hippies. Right, So,
Speaker 1: my belief is that this narcotics division in Baton Rouge,
Speaker 1: Louisiana overwhelmingly interacted with and convicted black people by an
Speaker 1: order of magnitude I would imagine right now, I don't
Speaker 1: have hard numbers on that that speculation, but I mean,
Speaker 1: it's safe to assume. Again, this is Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and it's a narcotics division, you know, and I know
Speaker 1: the country I live in, and I've been to Baton Rouge,
Speaker 1: actually we both have, so we know what we're talking
Speaker 1: about there. Anyway, and then ultimately, because he was the whistleblower,
Speaker 1: they set him up. And you want to hear the
Speaker 1: way they set him up, please, you're gonna love this.
Speaker 1: So he someone reached out to him saying, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to buy some electronics for a really cheap price,
Speaker 1: like a TV and whatever. I'm selling a TV and
Speaker 1: then a video camera something like that. He's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: of course that cheap, let me buy it, right, goes
Speaker 1: to meet the person buys it. Turns out it's stolen. Boom,
Speaker 1: they arrest him. He's like, yo, I had no idea
Speaker 1: was stolen because he knew it was stolen. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he's like, clearly it's a setup. So now this
Speaker 1: officer is in jail for buying stuff. So he's in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system now because of that, and now
Speaker 1: the police can exact their revenge from their former narcotics partner.
Speaker 1: So to everyone that still supports, you know, the police
Speaker 1: need our support, their heroes and this, that and the other.
Speaker 1: And granted this is one example, but I'm from Compton, California.
Speaker 1: I've interacted with the LAPD. That's another example. I've interacted
Speaker 1: with the Phoenix Police Department. The only time in my
Speaker 1: life I've ever had a gun pulled on me, look
Speaker 1: down a barrel of a gun, actually lots of guns.
Speaker 1: Phoenix Police Department least have never been the heroes in
Speaker 1: my story.
Speaker 2: And do you know how overwhelmingly obvious the evidence had
Speaker 2: to be against those officers in the case is to
Speaker 2: actually get thrown out right right and overturned. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: were anybody to even be convicted of anything and be
Speaker 2: told that they're either losing their job or for there
Speaker 2: to be any type of repudiation, the evidence had to
Speaker 2: be so overwhelming against them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And that's why I say that it's such
Speaker 1: an an interesting thing that, you know, Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: when when people have this idea, you know, police are
Speaker 1: are heroes. They keep us safe from this and that
Speaker 1: and the other. And I get it, I do get it.
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't know any better, if you
Speaker 1: read the you know, if you've been fed this propaganda
Speaker 1: your whole life, and you've watched every movie and so forth,
Speaker 1: you know that's what you're taught to believe, right, But
Speaker 1: I know better. I know that they're public servants. I
Speaker 1: called the police. How about this? I called the police
Speaker 1: the other day. Excuse me. I was in a hit
Speaker 1: and run accident. Right, someone ran into the back of
Speaker 1: my car and then took off. Right, got his license plate,
Speaker 1: so boom, I'm calling the police. I can almost guess
Speaker 1: what the police said to you when they arrived. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was cool. It was cool. It was it was
Speaker 1: It was totally cool. But now I'm nervous. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm like, shoot, let me get somewhere, let me park,
Speaker 1: Let me make sure that the door is open, and
Speaker 1: I'm visible at you know, clearly, you know whatever officers
Speaker 1: showed up, officer was super cool, right, But what he
Speaker 1: did was he showed up took my story. I was
Speaker 1: on the phone when nine one one first, because I
Speaker 1: was following the person to hit my car. I'm like, yoh,
Speaker 1: he just ran into me. Described him as like a
Speaker 1: ninety year old white male driving a Honda and in
Speaker 1: my car. Speaking of which farmer's insurance. I want my money.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, the officer shows up. They told me
Speaker 1: not to follow the guy who ran into my car.
Speaker 1: They says, pull over, don't follow him. So I pull
Speaker 1: over and they're like, we're gonna send a unit out.
Speaker 1: Officer shows up. Officer takes my statement, shows me an iPad,
Speaker 1: says this the guy that ran into you. I says, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: that's the guy ran into me. He's like cool, gives
Speaker 1: him his paperwork. He's like, all right, here you go.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to his house and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: This's none to the other. And that's it. No heroes there.
Speaker 1: He did a job, same as a bus driver, same,
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: When you elevate and I'm not saying I'm not saying
Speaker 1: when I say I've never the police have never been
Speaker 1: a hero in my story, I'm not saying they've always
Speaker 1: been the bad guy. I'm just saying that when we
Speaker 1: elevate them to heroes or to gods or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that we're obsessed with doing in this country, or
Speaker 1: at least half of the country is obsessed with doing,
Speaker 1: then it really leaves no room for them to be
Speaker 1: exactly what they are, which is a product of a
Speaker 1: flawed system. And granted there is a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are really taking advantage of that, and some people
Speaker 1: who are just victims of it. They want to do
Speaker 1: a good job, they want to they look, man, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of people that are like, you know what.
Speaker 1: The reason I was born is to be a police officer.
Speaker 1: People will little kids, I want to go to the NBA,
Speaker 1: want to be astronautic. Usually police officer is a little
Speaker 1: bit lower down on your list, right, it's a job.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I tried to be a police officer. Did you three times? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Talk to me.
Speaker 2: Gotten the best physical condition of my life. Took a
Speaker 2: physical took a written exam, and then they have this
Speaker 2: thing called an oral board review where you sit in
Speaker 2: a room of officers. They present you with scenarios. You
Speaker 2: explain how you think you would respond because you haven't
Speaker 2: been trained, so you really have no idea, and then
Speaker 2: based off of that they decide whether or not they're
Speaker 2: going to allow you to go to police academy. Now,
Speaker 2: our listeners don't know me, but you do. I was
Speaker 2: not able to become a police officer through the process
Speaker 2: you have to go through to become a police officer,
Speaker 2: with three separate departments in three different cities. Me, I
Speaker 2: was not qualified. So imagine what the level of scrutiny
Speaker 2: should be if me intelligent and educated. Because those are
Speaker 2: not one and the same fit sound kind empathetic. I
Speaker 2: can say these things straight faced about myself. When I
Speaker 2: sat in a room of a fellow of officers, not
Speaker 2: fellow officers, because I'm not one, I was deemed and
Speaker 2: then they don't explain to you why you don't get
Speaker 2: like a, hey, go work on this. No they you
Speaker 2: just never hear back and you understand. Okay, they passed
Speaker 2: on me, didn't. I went and tried it again. One
Speaker 2: department I tested twice, two separate departments. I tested once
Speaker 2: and was not able to become a cadet at an academy.
Speaker 1: Thank god.
Speaker 2: I bring that up because I've met officers that Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say that because there's no nice
Speaker 2: way to say it. I'll just say this. The level
Speaker 2: of scrutiny for our officers is much lower than it
Speaker 2: probably should be. I want you people to imagine if
Speaker 2: twenty five times a year we found out that there
Speaker 2: were members of the fire department starting the fires every year.
Speaker 2: So let's say two stories a month, a member of
Speaker 2: the fire department sets an apartment building on fire, several
Speaker 2: people die. How we would look at the members of
Speaker 2: our fire department, especially if they tried to cover it
Speaker 2: up for each other. No, I'm talking about yeah, of course, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's way more than twenty five fires. But we've seen
Speaker 2: on video every year them setting twenty five buildings on
Speaker 2: fire and someone dies in each building. How we would
Speaker 2: react and how we would scrutinize and treat and view
Speaker 2: our firefighters our police officers get a pass for what
Speaker 2: is relatively the same thing.
Speaker 1: Just food for thought. Well, one thing that I can say, though,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I get that it's a tough job.
Speaker 1: I get that it's a job. It's also no one's
Speaker 1: getting rich. It's also voluntary. Yeah that too, And I
Speaker 1: get that you know, these people are not getting rich.
Speaker 1: So a lot of folks they're like, look, man, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to take care of my family, and this is
Speaker 1: what I can do. You know I was able to
Speaker 1: do it, so I'm trying to do it right. But really,
Speaker 1: and really, what we've been critical of on the show
Speaker 1: is the system surrounding it. So I want that to
Speaker 1: be the primary takeaway from this. So yeah, with that said,
Speaker 1: if you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your
Speaker 1: host Rams's job. They call me q Ward, and we
Speaker 1: want to talk about something that brought a little bit
Speaker 1: of joy into our lives or my life. I'll talk
Speaker 1: about specifically. You know, there was for those that have
Speaker 1: HBO Max, Michael cha who is the He's the anchor
Speaker 1: on Saturday Night Lives Weekend Update.
Speaker 2: He's a writer, comedian and cast member on Saturday Night
Speaker 2: Live and yes, the anchor on the Weekend Update.
Speaker 1: So Michael Chay put out, I think it might have
Speaker 1: been six series episode on HBO Max, and I took
Speaker 1: an afternoon and watched all six of them and I
Speaker 1: loved it. It was so funny, and I this is
Speaker 1: this is I'll say this is an endorsement. I became
Speaker 1: a fan of Michael Chay when he said in one
Speaker 1: of his stand ups he said he was being critical
Speaker 1: of the All Lives Matter movement right because he said
Speaker 1: he was basically he said, you know, how is it
Speaker 1: that black lives matter is a controversial statement? Like do
Speaker 1: we not love you to? Do we care? Is like,
Speaker 1: where's the bar do we have? Do black lives exist?
Speaker 1: Can we start there? Do black lives exist? Even like
Speaker 1: can we agree on that we can't agree that they matter?
Speaker 1: Can we agree that they exist? You know, And it's
Speaker 1: just such a refreshing look at it, and it really
Speaker 1: points out some of the hypocrisies in the all Lives
Speaker 1: matter ideology or lack thereof, you know. So that coupled
Speaker 1: with the fact that on Weekend Update, which you know
Speaker 1: I've watched quite a bit of over the past couple
Speaker 1: of years, you know, he is the guy that is
Speaker 1: able to kind of dig a little bit deeper when
Speaker 1: it comes to racial issues, you know, when they're talking
Speaker 1: about Kanye, when they're talking about whatever. You know, he's
Speaker 1: the guy that can kind of dig a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper and get the humor out of it and it
Speaker 1: still be palatable and in line with, you know, the
Speaker 1: culture of the show. Because Saturday Night, my sorry, Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live, in my belief, is liberal leaning show. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I think anybody with a sense
Speaker 1: of humorous a little bit more liberal leaning, and so
Speaker 1: I really have always loved his capacity to be able
Speaker 1: to get that out of there. But in his special
Speaker 1: that he put out or his limited web series, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that he talks about is, of
Speaker 1: course he talks about police, you know, police saying he
Speaker 1: talks about white allies and what it's like interacting with
Speaker 1: with white allies, people who are very apologetic for the
Speaker 1: state of the world and are doing their best to
Speaker 1: try to bring some balance to it, you know. But
Speaker 1: he deals with these things in a humorous way, you know.
Speaker 1: And so for folks that you know, we appreciate you
Speaker 1: listening to our show, and we do recognize that we
Speaker 1: kind of have a serious tone here, but these are
Speaker 1: serious topics often. But you know, if if you want
Speaker 1: to get some additional perspective and also have some fun
Speaker 1: with some you know, late night entertainment value to it,
Speaker 1: you know, I highly recommend the show. And one thing
Speaker 1: that really stood out to me, and it's interesting that
Speaker 1: we were just talking about this with the uh you know,
Speaker 1: what we were talking about, like policing as an institution,
Speaker 1: is that he really has to in a couple of
Speaker 1: his you know skits or short you know whatever, short
Speaker 1: skits I think they're called, he has to talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that his brother is a police officer, and
Speaker 1: that really presents an interesting dynamic to what's happening on
Speaker 1: the show. And you know, you have to think about that.
Speaker 1: There's a group of there's a there's a school of
Speaker 1: thought in you know, the more radical liberal way of thinking,
Speaker 1: which states, absolutely, abolish the police entirely, right, we need
Speaker 1: to burn it down. We need to rethink what policing
Speaker 1: means in community safety, and we need to build it
Speaker 1: from the ground up, right. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say one way or another the merits of that. I
Speaker 1: would rather whoever is more informed about that come up
Speaker 1: and say that, but I will acknowledge that that line
Speaker 1: of thinking absolutely exists. And then on the other side
Speaker 1: of it, there's people who say, well, we need the police,
Speaker 1: Let's give them all the money in the world because
Speaker 1: they're keeping us safe, as illustrated by the fact that
Speaker 1: I Karen am not dead yet, right. So, you know,
Speaker 1: and usually with things like this we find that, you know,
Speaker 1: the truth is or really the path forward, whether or
Speaker 1: not it's the truth, the path forward is somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle. It's based on a compromise. Everybody gives a
Speaker 1: little bit right, and then that's how we move forward.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: If I was a betting man, I would bet that
Speaker 1: police are going to be with us, you know, moving
Speaker 1: into the future, which isn't something that is necessarily a
Speaker 1: bad thing, provided that we rethink what that means. You know,
Speaker 1: do we need a human being who's having a mental
Speaker 1: breakdown to be engaged by another person with a gun
Speaker 1: and the license to kill him, or how do we
Speaker 1: rethink what that looks like or do we you know,
Speaker 1: with the defunding the police, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I really like about that, at least when you get
Speaker 1: past the term defund the police, one of the things
Speaker 1: I like about the ideas is, well, let's take some
Speaker 1: of these funds from fortifying police departments and put those
Speaker 1: funds into the communities so that we stop the crime
Speaker 1: from happening in the first place. If a lot of
Speaker 1: the crime comes from the homeless population, let's try to
Speaker 1: treat this like it's a separate thing. We don't need
Speaker 1: more police to control the homeless. We need less homeless,
Speaker 1: you know, which is on its face makes the most
Speaker 1: sense in the world. But because we're so trained and
Speaker 1: it's so ingrained in our society, that we need police
Speaker 1: that you know, it's just the norm, and I think
Speaker 1: our impulse is to continue to fortify those institutions.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: The thing I love about Michael Chay is it forces us,
Speaker 1: the viewer of his show, to live in a world
Speaker 1: where there are police officers and we are tied to
Speaker 1: the outcomes of those police officers work day. Do they
Speaker 1: come home safe at the end of the day, because
Speaker 1: you know, this is his brother. He wants his brother
Speaker 1: to be safe. But also he has to recognize that, okay, well,
Speaker 1: policing as an institution overall is very harmful to us,
Speaker 1: even though there are black police officers, and that we
Speaker 1: don't we don't believe all cops are. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a term aca B look it up. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get in trouble with the FCC. But you know,
Speaker 1: he would he would argue that, well, you might think
Speaker 1: all of them are, but I'm not going to call
Speaker 1: my brother that, you know, And again, it just makes
Speaker 1: it makes you stop and take a list, a look
Speaker 1: critically at you know, what are we really doing, what
Speaker 1: do we really want as an outcome, and what's realistic
Speaker 1: in terms of those outcomes? Because again, more than likely
Speaker 1: our path forward is somewhere in the middle, you know,
Speaker 1: of those two extremes, And so that doesn't sound like,
Speaker 1: you know, good news, but I thought it was really
Speaker 1: great and I really implore all of you to to
Speaker 1: check it out because if you're like me and you
Speaker 1: want a better tomorrow for your your self and your
Speaker 1: family and your future and your brothers and sisters that
Speaker 1: don't look like you, then you know it helps to
Speaker 1: you know, continue to engage, but also to not overwhelm yourself.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1: And so with that in mind, that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for us here on Civic Cipher today. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: once again, i'm your host rams' Jah and I am Quentin, yes,
Speaker 1: but y'all can call me q absolutely, and we would
Speaker 1: love for you to check out the website Civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 1: On that website, you can submit topics for the show
Speaker 1: if you want us to discuss them. You can also donate.
Speaker 1: The show is growing, growing, growing, and it's your donations
Speaker 1: that are helping us grow, and we would love to
Speaker 1: continue to grow and bring this message to more folks
Speaker 1: and also be sure to plug into all of our
Speaker 1: social media. It's all at Civic Cipher and of course
Speaker 1: you can download this in all previous episodes on civiccipher
Speaker 1: dot com. Just hit the podcast. It's available on odd
Speaker 1: podcasting platforms and until next week. Y'all. Peace, peace,