Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses Ja. He is Ramsy's Jaw. I am q Ward.
Speaker 1: You are tuned into Civic Cipher, Yes you are, and
Speaker 1: we want you to stick around because today we are
Speaker 1: going to be having a couple of interesting conversations. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we haven't really been able to
Speaker 1: get to because of the muzzle velocity strategy by the
Speaker 1: current administration is how the rollbacks of DEI initiatives have
Speaker 1: been affecting students on college campuses around the country. And
Speaker 1: today we are going to hear from a couple of
Speaker 1: students who are very much active in trying to fight
Speaker 1: for what is right, fight for the organizations, and fight
Speaker 1: for an inclusive campus. And hearing from them directly, I
Speaker 1: think will give us a lot of insight into what's
Speaker 1: going on. So today we are going to hear from
Speaker 1: DJ who was the president of the Black Student Union
Speaker 1: at the University of Arizona, and we're also going to
Speaker 1: hear from Kaija, who's an activist working closely with the
Speaker 1: Department of African American Student Affairs, and again both organizations
Speaker 1: are actively working against the DEI band. We're also going
Speaker 1: to have a conversation later in the show where we
Speaker 1: try to view this from the other perspective, In other words,
Speaker 1: what are some of the criticisms of DEI initiatives that
Speaker 1: are found on the right. How is this justifiable to them?
Speaker 1: What veneer of truth have they used to dig their
Speaker 1: heels in? And you know, these things we need to know.
Speaker 1: And I say that in jest. You know, there's some
Speaker 1: valid criticisms, of course, but we're going to discuss that
Speaker 1: and so much more on this episode of Saying Cipher.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, it is time for some ebony.
Speaker 2: Excellence, shall we? I think we shall.
Speaker 1: Today's ebony excellence comes from the Atlanta Black Star, and
Speaker 1: I think this is such a cool story, so I
Speaker 1: will share turning down a deal on Shark Tank was
Speaker 1: the best business decision for Tim and Kim Lewis. The
Speaker 1: Curl Mixed founders appeared on the show in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: for season ten, episode fourteen of the show. Their ask
Speaker 1: was four hundred thousand dollars for a ten percent equity
Speaker 1: stake in the Black owned and operated hair system. Their
Speaker 1: pitch to dry Bar Salon proprietor Ali Webb, Mark Cuban,
Speaker 1: Lorie Griner, Kevin.
Speaker 2: O'Leary, and Robert heard Javek.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't really watch the show too often, included
Speaker 1: models demonstrating the efficacy of their flack sea gel that
Speaker 1: promises to define curls of all types.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: The main issue we have now is we cannot keep
Speaker 1: product on the shelf, unquote, said Tim. They projected one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty thousand dollars in profits that year. That declaration,
Speaker 1: couple with the fact that it only cost a couple
Speaker 1: three dollars to produce one bottle of the jail, which
Speaker 1: retails for twenty five dollars, excited the judges. However, Cuban
Speaker 1: was the first to bow out her Javek spoke about
Speaker 1: the brutally competitive competitive market. Still, he was certain, quote
Speaker 1: this is one of the few investments that I think.
Speaker 1: I give you the four hundred thousand dollars, You're definitely
Speaker 1: going to grow and you're going to get bigger. What
Speaker 1: I worry about is the cargoes faster than and then
Speaker 1: hits the wall, hits a wall.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Kim shared that Kroll makes this focus on online sales
Speaker 1: was one of the ways their business differentiated from competitors. Quote,
Speaker 1: you don't have any other choice because you're not going
Speaker 1: to get any retail space. There's no way this business
Speaker 1: is worth four hundred thousand dollars right now. There's nothing proprietary.
Speaker 1: I'm out, interrupted O'Leary.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, the company entered its third year
Speaker 1: of being available for purchase at four hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: ault beauty stores nation Why they are currently valued at
Speaker 1: an estimated thirty eight million dollars.
Speaker 2: You'll love to see it, so.
Speaker 1: Again, shout out to Tim and Kim Lewis or their
Speaker 1: cro mix. All right, it's time to get down to
Speaker 1: brass techs. So first off, I want to welcome the
Speaker 1: two of you to the show. So welcome DJ and
Speaker 1: welcome Kaija. Do us a favor before we get into
Speaker 1: the the conversation, just take a minute or so each
Speaker 1: and just kind of give us a little bit of
Speaker 1: background on both of you. I know that DJ, you're
Speaker 1: the president of the Black student union on your campus,
Speaker 1: so you know just a little bit more so that
Speaker 1: our listeners know who we're talking to today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Soggra. First, I I am the president of BSU.
Speaker 3: That's well known. But what that means for me and
Speaker 3: for a lot of students on campus is regular organization,
Speaker 3: you know, and finding unity in our spaces. This campus
Speaker 3: is very much mixed, and a lot of times there's
Speaker 3: no certain organization for students to feel safe and to
Speaker 3: feel like there's this space that they can go to.
Speaker 3: So my role in what I do on campus a
Speaker 3: lot of times is try to find a way for
Speaker 3: students to organize and to and to feel safe, you know,
Speaker 3: and to talk about the things that they may not
Speaker 3: actually always get to say in their classroom or with
Speaker 3: their friends. So I try to allow those allow time
Speaker 3: and allow spaces for students.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 4: Hi, my name's Kaija.
Speaker 5: I'm I'm the president of MAIA Chapter I Delves signdated,
Speaker 5: so already incorporate here at the University of Arizona.
Speaker 4: I'm also a Biochem major minory and Italian.
Speaker 5: I am also chemistry biochemistry peer mentor and advisor as
Speaker 5: well as a peer information council for the main library
Speaker 5: and research associate for Banner. So my whole thing with
Speaker 5: being on campus and being here and being the most
Speaker 5: senior member as well as are taking in our living
Speaker 5: learning communities, which is an entire dorm full of black students,
Speaker 5: is to allow us to have a space and to
Speaker 5: have the continuance of a space within these pressing times
Speaker 5: at a predominant white institution.
Speaker 6: For those that might not know, what does the Black
Speaker 6: Student Union do and what are the benefits to the
Speaker 6: student body.
Speaker 3: So the Black Student Union, I mean, aside from allowing
Speaker 3: a safe space, of course, you know, we often organize
Speaker 3: we have weekly meetings on Wednesdays where we usually do
Speaker 3: a variety of things. We usually will have things like
Speaker 3: Spades Nights, you know, where kids can come and learn
Speaker 3: how to play spades and have fun and chill. We
Speaker 3: also have had little parties, you know, so things along
Speaker 3: those lines. But BSU at its core, BSU is primarily
Speaker 3: for Black students, of course, but for any student that
Speaker 3: wants to learn about what black culture is like and
Speaker 3: learn how to you know, best assist in representing black
Speaker 3: black culture in the black community, not necessarily how to
Speaker 3: assimilate or how to become a part of the black community,
Speaker 3: but to but to best support it and to best
Speaker 3: learn how learned what what is really a part of
Speaker 3: this rich culture because there's a lot of things that
Speaker 3: people may not know on the service level about what
Speaker 3: the black community is.
Speaker 1: So kayj, you do me a favorite and actually I
Speaker 1: want to hear from both of you, but Kaja, I'd
Speaker 1: like you to go first. How have the the nation,
Speaker 1: the national like attacks on d I and the rollbacks
Speaker 1: on d I have those affected You know your organizations
Speaker 1: and you know their capacity to, you know, deliver these
Speaker 1: services to the students who are requesting a lot of.
Speaker 5: The problems that we have is to make sure that
Speaker 5: the programs that we keep are sustainable. So that's having
Speaker 5: a consistent attendance and audience as well as making sure
Speaker 5: that we have funding for these.
Speaker 4: Programs that we have here. Without DEI, we wouldn't be
Speaker 4: able to have any of that.
Speaker 5: And it comes to small things such as just reserving
Speaker 5: spaces in a building.
Speaker 4: How can we do that if we don't have the building.
Speaker 5: So it's things within that we're fighting against. Other organizations
Speaker 5: on campus that are not marginalized. We do have the
Speaker 5: privilege to go out and have these spaces on a
Speaker 5: consistent basis, whereas now we are trying to find that
Speaker 5: for ourselves and something that we had we already have
Speaker 5: and now.
Speaker 4: It's being taken away.
Speaker 5: Within funding as well, we are given funding through the university.
Speaker 5: This is done due grants and everything else which within
Speaker 5: DEI those no longer exists. Students are losing their scholarships
Speaker 5: and their grants, and organizations on campus are losing their
Speaker 5: grants as well.
Speaker 4: And then there's also advisors for.
Speaker 5: These organizations who are who work for the campus, who
Speaker 5: are considered DEI hires that are unable to have their job,
Speaker 5: which then of course affects their livelihood as well as
Speaker 5: livelihoods of the students on the campus that need their support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything to add DJ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean, like Haier said, these advisors, it's
Speaker 3: it's advisors, faculty staff. We have our own staff here.
Speaker 3: So speaking of which, we're actually doing this call from
Speaker 3: within the MLK building a cultural resource center on campus
Speaker 3: and what and things like this where we are able
Speaker 3: to reserve a room to do a meeting, to have
Speaker 3: our own events and do things along those lines. We
Speaker 3: wouldn't have them with the band of DEI and a
Speaker 3: lot of these faculty instea that we have in these
Speaker 3: centers would lose their jobs and without without even possibilities
Speaker 3: of severance pay or or anything that would allow them
Speaker 3: to find another job within the next few weeks. So
Speaker 3: they would be fired without condition, you.
Speaker 6: Know, thinking of life as a collegiate, you know, formerly
Speaker 6: the national second vice President of the National Paneltic Council,
Speaker 6: the vice president of Phive Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated, the
Speaker 6: Elite Epsilon five Chapter, the vice president of the NAACP
Speaker 6: would County Chapter. I know what it's like to feel
Speaker 6: the inclusion from being a part of these organizations. Kaider,
Speaker 6: from your purview, what are some other organizations besides your
Speaker 6: own that you see affected by these executive orders from
Speaker 6: the current administration?
Speaker 4: Other organizations.
Speaker 5: One of the jobs I have is I work as
Speaker 5: a pure information counselor for the main library in.
Speaker 4: A bunch of the culture resource centers on campus. So
Speaker 4: they all have their clubs.
Speaker 5: Without DEI, they wouldn't, like I said before, they wouldn't
Speaker 5: have their spaces, they wouldn't have their funding. A lot
Speaker 5: of the things they get is support from local businesses.
Speaker 4: And everything else like that.
Speaker 5: But if they are not able to continue having a space,
Speaker 5: if they decide to rally against it, which we have
Speaker 5: been threatened with expulsion and termination and not be able
Speaker 5: to continue our credits, which as.
Speaker 4: A senior here at the university, it's.
Speaker 5: A little daunting, but without it, we wouldn't be able
Speaker 5: to continue. There is its complete erasure of our organizations,
Speaker 5: us as a people, like there is no opportunity for
Speaker 5: us to thrive here.
Speaker 4: There's when you're going to class and you're.
Speaker 5: Seeing people that don't look like you, and you come
Speaker 5: back to a space where everyone is able to relate
Speaker 5: and have fun and we're experiencing black joy.
Speaker 4: It's difficult to be happy somewhere where you're obviously not accepted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, one of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: So to Q's point, you know, I also have the
Speaker 1: experience of being like you did you. I was the
Speaker 1: president of the Black student union on my campus. And
Speaker 1: then you know, further down the line, you know, I
Speaker 1: recall being in those enormous lecture halls. I went to
Speaker 1: the business school and those those lecture halls, and I
Speaker 1: remember being in classrooms where I remember being the only
Speaker 1: black person in a classroom. So that's first, but I
Speaker 1: also remember, you know, sometimes there might be one or
Speaker 1: two other people, but we'd be so far apart that
Speaker 1: there'd be no sense of community, there'd be no sense
Speaker 1: of you know whatever. And the tough part about that,
Speaker 1: at least the way I remember it at a very
Speaker 1: different time than what you guys are living through, is
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes people would say things and they would
Speaker 1: just be wrong, or they would lack perspective, and I
Speaker 1: never felt like there were enough of us in a classroom.
Speaker 1: Certainly when I was the only one in a classroom
Speaker 1: to speak up to say hey, that's not right, or
Speaker 1: hey that is a little offensive or whatever, I just
Speaker 1: kind of had to take those things on the chin.
Speaker 1: There was also this feeling I remember one time I
Speaker 1: was in a finance class, and that feeling of am
Speaker 1: I smart enough?
Speaker 2: It turns out I absolutely was.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're struggling personally, you don't have
Speaker 1: that sense of community where there's someone else to say, hey,
Speaker 1: look I'm going through this too, and you'd be embarrassed
Speaker 1: to go to everyone else who doesn't look like you,
Speaker 1: and you already carried the stigma that's associated with being black,
Speaker 1: like you know, stupid, criminal, all these other things, you know,
Speaker 1: a bad student, all that you don't want to go
Speaker 1: to someone else and then reinforce the stereotype by asking
Speaker 1: for help, right, And so you can be very much
Speaker 1: isolated in you know, a c full of people, because
Speaker 1: it's that cultural tie that often helps you out of
Speaker 1: little things like that. And I named a couple, but
Speaker 1: you know, my whole collegiate experience was filled with them,
Speaker 1: and I was the president of the Black Student Union, right,
Speaker 1: so I know the value full well of community on
Speaker 1: a campus. And what I'm trying to get from you,
Speaker 1: and you're doing an excellent job, is sharing with our
Speaker 1: listeners around the country what that feels like for folks
Speaker 1: who haven't had this experience or haven't had this experience recently. Right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what you've been up to. DJ
Speaker 1: will come to you for this one, and then, of course, Kaija,
Speaker 1: if you have something to add, please, But what has
Speaker 1: been done on campus to combat the ban of d
Speaker 1: I Kaija? I remember you mentioned the risks involved, so
Speaker 1: you know, I know that they could take your credits
Speaker 1: and all this sort of stuff. But what have you
Speaker 1: been trying to do to push back against this erasure
Speaker 1: and these attacks on you know, your the expression of
Speaker 1: your culture and the resources for your culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'll start off because Kaija has been involved
Speaker 3: many things, but from the perspective of Black Student Union
Speaker 3: and everything that I've been trying to work on organizing,
Speaker 3: it's it took a little bit of first analyzing where
Speaker 3: where we stand with the university and really assessing how
Speaker 3: we can best make an impact. But within that, we
Speaker 3: have all a lot of our organizations have released statements
Speaker 3: stating exactly what is happening. You know, Executive one four,
Speaker 3: one five one is not something that we are in
Speaker 3: agreements of, and it is quite literally tearing apart what
Speaker 3: we've come to know. But also on top of that,
Speaker 3: you know, it's packing the resource the resource centers, the
Speaker 3: cultural centers that we have. It's bringing students into these
Speaker 3: spaces and letting them know, hey, you have a safe
Speaker 3: space on campus. You can come here and you can
Speaker 3: always feel like there is somebody else that will understand
Speaker 3: what you're going through. And and so that's that's taken
Speaker 3: form in our organization, how we organize and how we
Speaker 3: go about our organization. You know, before we may organize,
Speaker 3: we have may have a BSU meeting in the library.
Speaker 3: Now it's not unless it's not as much about that
Speaker 3: we want to organize in the MLK Center here. But
Speaker 3: also on top of that, you know, it's petitions, it's
Speaker 3: it's really rallies and and finding different ways to bring
Speaker 3: the community together and and also just raise our voices.
Speaker 3: You know, not with one voice cannot be heard, but
Speaker 3: with many together you can reach as far as you'd.
Speaker 5: Like within that and just going based off Yes, we've
Speaker 5: had rallies on campus, but it's also making sure that
Speaker 5: students are educated and.
Speaker 4: The community is educated.
Speaker 5: We are not to succeed in the way that we
Speaker 5: want to unless everyone is on the same page. There's
Speaker 5: a lot happening. There's a lot of different voices, there's
Speaker 5: a lot of different opinions, but we know what.
Speaker 4: The facts are. So making sure education is.
Speaker 5: The foremost important thing when we're going about radicalizing or
Speaker 5: coming together as marginalized groups. But it's also making sure
Speaker 5: that we are speaking to our administration because at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, they are the ones that are
Speaker 5: going to make the decision. So having these open conversations
Speaker 5: with our data students and the provosts and trying to
Speaker 5: get in contact with the president to see, hey, we
Speaker 5: are students and our funding and well, sorry apologies, your
Speaker 5: funding does not equate to our experiences.
Speaker 4: Or our livelihood on this campus.
Speaker 5: So having those open conversations and making them understand that
Speaker 5: you are in this position because we are students that
Speaker 5: go to your school, because we don't just fit into
Speaker 5: the standard of.
Speaker 4: Being a white on this campus, will also do matter.
Speaker 3: And might I add I didn't mention it earlier. I
Speaker 3: am a second year student. So for me, you know,
Speaker 3: I think, I think with Kaija, it's a lot more
Speaker 3: about making sure that this space is reserved for us
Speaker 3: in the future. For me, it's about it's about having
Speaker 3: somewhere next year, you know, it's about having somewhere that
Speaker 3: I can actually still go to and study and get
Speaker 3: work done and find and build community and make connections
Speaker 3: that cannot be done if we do not have these
Speaker 3: have these resources. You know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 3: that are provided in just having a space, and that's
Speaker 3: not even not even including everything that they've done for
Speaker 3: our community and for our sense of community on campus.
Speaker 6: Now, we've watched organizations and universities capitulate to just the
Speaker 6: influence of the administration, not even the demands, with very
Speaker 6: little resistance, kind of voluntarily what do you say to
Speaker 6: a school where you pay tuition because you're not nonprofit students,
Speaker 6: it's a for profit institution where tens of thousands of
Speaker 6: students paid to attend. What do you say to a
Speaker 6: school when their response as well, we might lose our
Speaker 6: federal funding if we don't capitulate. What's the message as
Speaker 6: a student that pays tuition at an institution where that's
Speaker 6: the case.
Speaker 4: I've said something like this before. I'm glad you asked
Speaker 4: a question.
Speaker 5: I said it was cowardice, because how can you ask
Speaker 5: or provide me a scholarship to attend your campus and
Speaker 5: then turn around and use me as a statistic to
Speaker 5: say that you have marginalized students on this campus, to
Speaker 5: continue to build up your classes and then no longer support.
Speaker 4: Us as the years go on, as the days go on.
Speaker 5: It's cowardice, I think, just because we're not in this
Speaker 5: standard version of what they perceive as academia. Basically, it's unfortunate.
Speaker 5: It's saddening as a whole. We knew coming into this
Speaker 5: university that was a PWI. This wasn't something that was
Speaker 5: guaranteed for a lot of students or a lot of
Speaker 5: people that look like us.
Speaker 4: We are privileged within.
Speaker 5: That sense, so to know that we've made it here,
Speaker 5: we fought to be here, we've done we made sure
Speaker 5: our grades were good in high school and everything else,
Speaker 5: and then to be completely disappointed once again over and
Speaker 5: over by this administration, which in particular here like they've
Speaker 5: taken away our funding on multip occasions, they've fired our directors,
Speaker 5: they have not paid our directors before, which has caused
Speaker 5: them to quit. It's it's something that we have expected
Speaker 5: and that we hope to have changed, which is insanity,
Speaker 5: which the definition of insanity. But it's still once again disappointing,
Speaker 5: and we just try to continue to have hope.
Speaker 4: For it as a home.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the uh, the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is that if it's tough on us, if it's tough
Speaker 1: on us, it can be tough on colleges too, conceivably, right,
Speaker 1: And if this administration is making life hard for us,
Speaker 1: it could be hard for them too, and they could
Speaker 1: stand with us in solidarity and support us, particularly because
Speaker 1: we're paying for it.
Speaker 2: That's just my thoughts, but you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's your it's your story here. Now, I got
Speaker 1: one more question. Just about maybe thirty seconds or so,
Speaker 1: people around the country are listening to you. And then
Speaker 1: and you know, people around the country have colleges in
Speaker 1: their own towns. Right, just again, just in brief, what
Speaker 1: could people do to kind of support campuses or organizations
Speaker 1: on campuses around the country that are suffering because of
Speaker 1: these DEI robacks.
Speaker 3: So, actually, this is a very good question to ask,
Speaker 3: because you know, we're giving examples of what's happening on
Speaker 3: our campus alone. But this isn't to speak to what's
Speaker 3: happened already at you at the University of Ohio, you know,
Speaker 3: where they actually already banned a lot of their DEI
Speaker 3: and diversity related programs. You know, this is this this
Speaker 3: executive order is not something that just affects us. It
Speaker 3: affects all public universities across the nation and any any
Speaker 3: school that has any form of cultural resource centers any
Speaker 3: way for students to organize in marginalized groups. They are
Speaker 3: all at significant risk of being entirely dismantled or remodeled.
Speaker 2: And I know, ten seconds or so.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and so what we've started to do is
Speaker 3: just put out statements, organize, find any way to really
Speaker 3: stand together and unify. Okay, you know, use your voice
Speaker 3: it is, it matters
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well we'll take that