Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Zacher. I'm your host
Speaker 1: ramses Jah all right today, and we'll forever go by
Speaker 1: the name Q Wore. This indeed got an interesting show
Speaker 1: for you to stick around for a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: going on in the media about the January sixth insurrection
Speaker 1: and the trial and the January sixth Committee and their
Speaker 1: plan to prove Trump's culpability is responsibility for the attack
Speaker 1: on our nation's capital, and as a result, it's appropriate
Speaker 1: and timely for us to weigh in with our take
Speaker 1: because you know, you may not get a sense of
Speaker 1: black people really having a dog in that fight, but
Speaker 1: I can assure you with great certainty that black and
Speaker 1: brown and indigenous, native and everyone does have a place
Speaker 1: in that conversation. And so we will take some time
Speaker 1: to talk about that. A little bit later in the show,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about reparations. This has been something
Speaker 1: that has been a long time coming on this show.
Speaker 1: We kind of allude to it here and there, but
Speaker 1: we're going to kind of peel back some layers and
Speaker 1: really break that down because usually when folks get to
Speaker 1: talking about reparations, the conversation kind of begins and ends
Speaker 1: in the same session, and there's hardly ever any real progress,
Speaker 1: So we wanted to take a moment to just kind
Speaker 1: of start that conversation, at least in this forum. In
Speaker 1: our way black history fact. We just passed June twelfth,
Speaker 1: which is loving day, the day when interracial marriage finally
Speaker 1: became legal in the US. So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about that because that is a way black history fact indeed.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost, we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: some ebony excellence. How does that sound cute? I think
Speaker 1: that sounds incredible? Shall we we shall? So? Do you
Speaker 1: know what an egot is?
Speaker 2: I have heard that term before in relation to another
Speaker 2: one of our favorite people, mister Jamie FOXX.
Speaker 1: Yeah, E goot For those that don't know, it's spelled
Speaker 1: sort of weird. I think it should be g O
Speaker 1: t E, which you could say phonetically goat right, and
Speaker 1: goat is a term that we use, you know, in
Speaker 1: popular renacturi. But they've they've organized it in this way.
Speaker 1: Egot stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony right, and very
Speaker 1: few people who work in that space actually get all
Speaker 1: of those accolades. Well, besides Woopy Goldberg, another black woman
Speaker 1: has earned her Egot status. This is among the greatest
Speaker 1: of the greats. She goes by the name of Jennifer Hudson.
Speaker 1: This comes from Rolling Stone. The respect Star joined the
Speaker 1: elite Egot Club on Sunday Night after she was awarded
Speaker 1: for her work as a producer on Michael R. Jackson's
Speaker 1: Best Musical, winning a Strange Loop in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two Oscar Awards and Egott is an artist again who
Speaker 1: has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony Award
Speaker 1: in their career, winning her Oscar for her role in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six is dream Girls. Hudson's Grammy Award
Speaker 1: came in two thousand and nine, winning Best R and
Speaker 1: B Album for her album title titled Jennifer Hudson, and
Speaker 1: following with an additional Grammy win in twenty seventeen for
Speaker 1: her work on the musical theater album The Color Purple.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, Hudson gained a Daytime Emmy Award
Speaker 1: for Babba Yaga, which won Outstanding Interactive Media for a
Speaker 1: Daytime Program, and with this Latey's Tony Award, completing her
Speaker 1: Egot punch card. Jennifer Hudson is the seventeenth person in
Speaker 1: history to achieve that designation and officially the third black
Speaker 1: e Goot winner, the fifth woman to achieve the acclaimed
Speaker 1: award status and briefly she rose to fame. This from
Speaker 1: Maggie b. Knowing. She rose to fame in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four as the finalist season three of the American
Speaker 1: Idol TV show and made her film debut as Fie
Speaker 1: White and the musical dream Girls in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: She's an excellent reminder that no matter who you are,
Speaker 1: where you're from, if you have a dream determination and
Speaker 1: you put your hard work in, you can achieve it.
Speaker 1: So some have any excellence to start things off? Now,
Speaker 1: have you been que paying attention to these committee hearings?
Speaker 1: They feel like a trial? But got any of that?
Speaker 1: I have? I've when it was live, I followed it
Speaker 1: by the minute.
Speaker 2: I've never refreshed my feed more feverishly, yeah.
Speaker 1: Than that night.
Speaker 2: And I was not even aware that it was going
Speaker 2: to be live. So another shout to Maggie be Knowing
Speaker 2: for sending me that link and letting me know that
Speaker 2: that was live so that I could pay attention, so
Speaker 2: that I could tune in. And I mean as you
Speaker 2: could imagine, you know, me, I spent a lot of
Speaker 2: that evening upset.
Speaker 1: You know, it was information that I already knew.
Speaker 2: Seeing it with such color and such context really painted
Speaker 2: the picture that we all knew was true. But a
Speaker 2: certain sector of our population needed to see that way,
Speaker 2: and some of them, of course, still deny it. So
Speaker 2: this is kind of what I wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: that we talk about. This is why I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: in the show that you know, minorities are definitely a
Speaker 2: part of this conversation. Now, for those that know, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure everyone knows.
Speaker 1: There was a mob that breeched the Capitol, all Trump
Speaker 1: supporters at his instruction for the most part, and the
Speaker 1: group was largely white folks. They're broken and committed all
Speaker 1: all kinds of crazy acts. We'll get into the story
Speaker 1: in just a second, but just a brief overview, and
Speaker 1: I want to frame this for you. At that time
Speaker 1: in the country, we were still sort of reeling from
Speaker 1: what we had to come to terms with in terms
Speaker 1: of race relations from twenty twenty. You know, all the
Speaker 1: protests about George Floyd, about Breonna Taylor, about you know,
Speaker 1: there was a slew of shootings just in that year
Speaker 1: police shootings killing unarmed black man. I remember Rishard Brooks,
Speaker 1: I think his name is in Atlanta, Georgia. That one
Speaker 1: troubled me deeply because he was shot in the back
Speaker 1: and that happened before we were able to start this show.
Speaker 1: But that was one of the things that kind of
Speaker 1: kept me up at night because it was like the
Speaker 1: fifth one and I don't know how many weeks and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, you know this, like we knew it happened,
Speaker 1: but you know, now the country's seeing it happen and
Speaker 1: nobody's doing anything anyway. All these protests were happening in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and and for those that know, or for
Speaker 1: those that don't know, rather, I should say this show
Speaker 1: that you're listening to right now was born out of
Speaker 1: a lack of representation for our political interests, our being
Speaker 1: black people, specifically political interests in the spaces in which
Speaker 1: you are hearing our voice now. So this could be
Speaker 1: a hip hop station, you know, And you got to
Speaker 1: think about that for a second, because there's lots of
Speaker 1: hip hop stations around this country that are they may
Speaker 1: not be black owned spaces. The ownership of these hip
Speaker 1: hop stations may not have thought about what it would
Speaker 1: be like to have a moment in time where there's
Speaker 1: not rappers and singers and dancers on the radio that Okay,
Speaker 1: these are people with a culture and they need to
Speaker 1: protect themselves from distant information and misinformation and empower themselves
Speaker 1: amongst themselves using their own voices and so forth. And
Speaker 1: because of that lack of representation, this show was born.
Speaker 2: And can I add, not just our political voice, but
Speaker 2: there was a lack of empathy for our's general livelihood. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it wasn't just about politics just I mean the phrase
Speaker 2: is black lives matter? Of course that is a controversial
Speaker 2: statement in this country. Sure, there is a lack of
Speaker 2: empathy for us existing and just having basic decency in
Speaker 2: human rights and just being able to exist.
Speaker 1: So very much. You'll notice, if you're alive in this
Speaker 1: country right now, that the all Lives Matter cry has
Speaker 1: died down significantly. The Black Lives Matter cry has died down,
Speaker 1: of course, because you know, that moment of racial reckoning
Speaker 1: has dissipated a bit, but it's still very prominent. BLM
Speaker 1: is still in a news black lives matter is still
Speaker 1: a phrase that you hear. But the all lives matter
Speaker 1: response to it.
Speaker 3: Has decreased dramatically, right, And we said on this show
Speaker 3: we knew before and will know forever more that it
Speaker 3: was just in response to us affirming that our lives
Speaker 3: are valuable and that we should not be shot in
Speaker 3: the back.
Speaker 1: For doing what comes natural, you know, running away from
Speaker 1: something you're afraid of or whatever, you know, these sorts
Speaker 1: of things. Anyway, it was a long road for us
Speaker 1: to get on as many radio stations. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, whoever, whatever radio station you're
Speaker 1: listening to us on right now, there was a person
Speaker 1: they're more than likely a white man that we had
Speaker 1: to talk to. And this white man more often than not, said,
Speaker 1: I recognize that this program needs to be on these
Speaker 1: airwaves because this is something missing from my radio station. Right,
Speaker 1: but belong And the short of it is that there
Speaker 1: was a time in this country where the media was
Speaker 1: grossly misrepresenting those protests that we took part in in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Right, They were saying that we were rioting
Speaker 1: when we were not rioting. They were saying that we
Speaker 1: were setting up, you know, like bricks on corners and
Speaker 1: all kinds of outlandish things. Right when we found later
Speaker 1: that it was in fact the police and far right
Speaker 1: movements and things like that trying to sabotage peaceful protests. Right,
Speaker 1: So this show was born out of the fact that
Speaker 1: there was so much misrepresentation for we'll call it our
Speaker 1: moment of racial reckoning in this country. And then when
Speaker 1: you see this insurrection and you recognize that that how
Speaker 1: they were trying to paint us, it feels like we
Speaker 1: need to say something about that here on this show
Speaker 1: that has been since been created to talk about that.
Speaker 1: So I want you all to imagine for a second
Speaker 1: that those that group of protesters were largely black. Imagine
Speaker 1: how it would have looked. Imagine the police response, the
Speaker 1: National Guard response, the military response.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't really have to imagine it. We saw
Speaker 2: the military and police response to peaceful Black Lives Matter protests.
Speaker 2: The presence of police in riot gear and gross numbers,
Speaker 2: ready and willing to cause as much harm as possible
Speaker 2: to people who came with no aggressive intentions at all.
Speaker 2: These people set out loud what they were going to
Speaker 2: do the win and the war. There was no such response.
Speaker 1: Wat these peoples. Reason I don't want to discount that.
Speaker 1: So in this hypothetical experiment. I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: that mostly black and brown people went to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: For what it was we were protesting, which was to
Speaker 1: affirm our lives, lives beating heart consciousness, pretty much a
Speaker 1: full stop right. Not because our guide didn't win, you know,
Speaker 1: we're lied and told to that our guid didn't win whatever.
Speaker 1: Not because of that, but because we see systematically that
Speaker 1: we're being murdered and that there is no accountability, even
Speaker 1: the potential for accountability for those murders. And then the
Speaker 1: deaths of our children and our brothers, our and our
Speaker 1: community members feel so hollow, how frustrating, and how hurtful
Speaker 1: that would be. So imagine in this hypothetical experiment that
Speaker 1: mostly black and brown people go to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Right for reasons that I believe to be far more
Speaker 1: valid and based in logic and human motivation. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's not because our team didn't win,
Speaker 1: but it's because we are literally dying. We're literally having
Speaker 1: to witness it, We're having to feel the pain. It's
Speaker 1: to share trauma that echoes through our community. There's less
Speaker 1: of us than there are of the majority. By definition,
Speaker 1: we're a minority, yes, so we're there, and then you know,
Speaker 1: we decide that you know what they're they're in there,
Speaker 1: not voting on or finalizing the ballot account on an election.
Speaker 1: But let's say we're there because they don't want to
Speaker 1: pass the uh, the John Lewis Policing Reform Actor or
Speaker 1: whatever whatever whatever piece of legislation that would address our
Speaker 1: issues again, life and death issues. Not you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to be sad for four years, but no, we're
Speaker 1: literally dying and there's no account ability for it, not
Speaker 1: even the potential. And let's say we started the capitol, right,
Speaker 1: how many of us would be dead? You know most? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: dead did like dead bodies, body bags, right, there was
Speaker 1: and in their minds, justifiably right, they shouldn't have reached
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean.
Speaker 1: So I want to read now because I want to
Speaker 1: turn the tables just a bit. Now, let's talk about
Speaker 1: what actually happened. Okay. The headline reads the January sixth
Speaker 1: Committee's planned to prove Trump's culpability. This comes by Axios.
Speaker 1: The January sixth Community Committee hearing on Thursday promised to
Speaker 1: prove former President Trump was responsible for the capital attack.
Speaker 1: On January sixth, President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob,
Speaker 1: and lit the flame. Vice chair Liz Cheney, the Republican
Speaker 1: from Wyoming, set before laying out a seven point plan
Speaker 1: for how the panel will publicly show Trump tried to
Speaker 1: overturn the twenty twenty election and prevent the t transition
Speaker 1: of power to President elect Biden. The last hearing, likely
Speaker 1: to be the most explosive, is going to center on
Speaker 1: Trump's specific actions as the violence was underway. Okay, now
Speaker 1: there's another note here. It's in intentional that Cheney delivered
Speaker 1: the most damning evidence against former President Trump. The committee
Speaker 1: wants Americans to see not only a Republican, but the
Speaker 1: daughter of a former Republican vice president, detailing Trump's involvement
Speaker 1: and directly connecting him to the capital attack. All right, now,
Speaker 1: They showed lots of video, okay, of what was happening.
Speaker 1: They had a timeline of the events, right, of course,
Speaker 1: they had direct testimony from Trump's main people who was
Speaker 1: around at the time, the people we saw in the news,
Speaker 1: including his daughter, including his daughter, right, and his daughter
Speaker 1: didn't say much, but she did say something that was noteworthy.
Speaker 1: She said that she trusted the president's I believe Attorney
Speaker 1: General Bill Barr or something like that, or attorney some
Speaker 1: sort of attorney. I paid just enough attention to these
Speaker 1: people anyway, So she said that she had accepted what
Speaker 1: he had said. And it later came out that Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 1: which was the president's lawyer and again one of his
Speaker 1: close advisers at the time, suggested that Trump, out of
Speaker 1: the blue, despite everyone else recognizing and Fox News recognizing, Okay,
Speaker 1: this election has chosen Joe Biden, Rudy Giuliani said to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, just say that the election was rigged and
Speaker 1: stolen from you. And Trump kind of leaned into that
Speaker 1: plan and went ahead. And then, you know, as some
Speaker 1: months had passed, and they kept kind of saying that
Speaker 1: the election was rigged and stolen and if you have evidence,
Speaker 1: you know, blah blah blah. When January January sixth came about,
Speaker 1: he had kind of a massed this group in DC
Speaker 1: to speak to them and then of course directed them
Speaker 1: to the capitol where they were about to do the
Speaker 1: final count of the state's votes, and the Vice president
Speaker 1: at the time, Mike Pence, was supposed to certify that election.
Speaker 1: This is a process that happens for every presidential election.
Speaker 1: Mike Pence, of course, famously decided that he was sane
Speaker 1: and competent and uh going to do the right then.
Speaker 1: You know, So I don't necessarily want to pat him
Speaker 1: on the back, but I kind of do because that's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. I kind of want to pat
Speaker 1: him on the back, and we don't typically. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: my extra credit for doing what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: However, circumstance when you're the only person, yeah, Dennis, when
Speaker 2: it's very very.
Speaker 1: Unpopular to do so, then I got to give you
Speaker 1: credit for that. And there's a mob outside with a
Speaker 1: what is that thing where to hang people like a noose? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so anyway, this frames all that. Now, again, these
Speaker 1: are problems that exist in a different reality from a
Speaker 1: lot of black and brown people in this country. This
Speaker 1: is a separate problem. We got that guy out of
Speaker 1: the office. Maybe we got the guy we wanted. Maybe
Speaker 1: we didn't get the guy we wanted, but we got
Speaker 1: that guy out right.
Speaker 2: I don't know that there was a person that we
Speaker 2: wanted to steal, sure at that point, sure, but it
Speaker 2: was very clear what we did not want there.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I'm trying to say, so those were
Speaker 1: our problems. This January sixth thing was a bit beyond
Speaker 1: most people's like day to day, It wasn't really that
Speaker 1: big of it as big of a deal as some
Speaker 1: of the other things that we had endured COVID. You know,
Speaker 1: the election, of course, and the distresses that come with that,
Speaker 1: of course, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, etc.
Speaker 1: And all the protesting and so forth, and the affirming
Speaker 1: of our lives in twenty twenty. So again, let's flip
Speaker 1: this on its head. One of our talking points. This
Speaker 1: is what Maggie wanted us to ponder on this show,
Speaker 1: and so we're asking you to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Would the proper teaching of American history have made a
Speaker 1: difference in that moment? In other words, if people really
Speaker 1: knew more about American history, racial history, right, Because we
Speaker 1: understand on this program, Q and I both that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's election this is our reality. It might not be yours,
Speaker 1: but this is our reality. Donald Trump's election was the
Speaker 1: result of racism, a racist backlash to Barack Obama. He
Speaker 1: got out there, he started singing white people's greatest hits.
Speaker 1: The reason that your life is bad is because of
Speaker 1: people in Mexico. The reason that your life is bad
Speaker 1: is because of immigrants, and you know, people from these
Speaker 1: s whole countries and blah blah blah. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's lots of people he started singing racist white people's
Speaker 1: greatest hit, racist white people's great not white people. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's because thank you for heart, we know is not
Speaker 1: thank you for correcting me there. And we also recognized
Speaker 1: there was a huge response to Donald Trump. It wasn't
Speaker 1: enough to make it happen, but you know, he did
Speaker 1: lose the popular vote. Donald Trump did, so we do
Speaker 1: recognize that there were a lot of folks that you know,
Speaker 1: felt that way.
Speaker 2: But we also can I speak to the question that
Speaker 2: you asked, sure, please, would the proper teaching of American
Speaker 2: history had made a difference the proper teaching of American
Speaker 2: history maybe twenty years ago. Absolutely, Okay, at that point,
Speaker 2: probably not. And here's why, once upon a time, left
Speaker 2: and right still had to agree on what facts were. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that world no longer exists, right, So, even if the
Speaker 2: proper history had been taught, when you have a voice
Speaker 2: that loud, that can just stand up and literally say
Speaker 2: as a child, would fake news and have fifty million
Speaker 2: people agree with them, then you question, are we beyond
Speaker 2: saving at this picture? Is there a world that exists
Speaker 2: where proper history could be taught and accepted as fact
Speaker 2: and not just partisan.
Speaker 1: Propaganda if you will. So that's exactly where I was going,
Speaker 1: because I think that that makes for a good defense
Speaker 1: of critical race theory, or more properly American history, right,
Speaker 1: because critical race theory, again is more of an academic discipline.
Speaker 1: It's not meant for grade school children, and not everyone
Speaker 1: gets to the point where they're able to be in
Speaker 1: an environment where critical race theory is taught. Right, But
Speaker 1: American history and the attack on American history in schools
Speaker 1: has led to sort of where we are now, and
Speaker 1: I think continues to erode at our capacity to understand
Speaker 1: and relate to each other and understand our predicament, and
Speaker 1: we're susceptible as a society to Charlatan's like the former president.
Speaker 1: I'll continue. Another interesting point for you to ponder is
Speaker 1: whether or not President Obama would have nearly as much
Speaker 1: leniency if he was the person in office and the
Speaker 1: BLM mob in our hypothetical scenario had breached the Capitol
Speaker 1: and done all these atrocious things. Even if there the
Speaker 1: purpose of them breaching the capital was well founded, like
Speaker 1: we're here to affirm our lives and get some legislation passed.
Speaker 1: Would Obama have as nearly as much leniency.
Speaker 2: Even if he had not been as directly responsible for
Speaker 2: the outcome as former President Idiot was. He definitely would
Speaker 2: have been held accountable for. They would have absolutely made
Speaker 2: it his fault and he'd likely be in prison now.
Speaker 1: So that brings me to the next point. The right
Speaker 1: wing pundits are minimizing the trial. So these are people
Speaker 1: that you know in your communities. These are people that
Speaker 1: never switched the channel from Fox News. Right. Fox News
Speaker 1: didn't even show the first day of the trial, which
Speaker 1: laid out everything right, and you know, this was a
Speaker 1: prime time trial, so most Americans could listen. The ratings were,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who makes big dollar ratings, The ratings
Speaker 1: were through the roof. And then, of course, I want
Speaker 1: you to ponder that all of Trump's loyalists sought pardons
Speaker 1: preemptively for their roles in this right now, I want
Speaker 1: to read this because this was kind of included as
Speaker 1: well from our producer. So the NAAC highlights the big
Speaker 1: lie that fueled the insurrection was never about stopping voter fraud.
Speaker 1: It was a coordinated effort to disenfranchise millions of black
Speaker 1: voters by overturning the results of an election in which
Speaker 1: black communities had a record turnout. The NAACP's warning, well,
Speaker 1: the insurrection may not have been successful, the blow to
Speaker 1: black voters political power was huge. Since the January sixth attack,
Speaker 1: dozens of states have legitimized the far rights big Lie
Speaker 1: by enacting over forty laws restricting black voters access to
Speaker 1: the ballot box. Now, this is why we need to
Speaker 1: be concerned about this specific political issue in the country
Speaker 1: and for everyone that is listening to our voices right now. Again,
Speaker 1: is very important that you pay attention and that you
Speaker 1: ponder these things, and it may help illustrate how, in
Speaker 1: fact we do live in two different Americas.