Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Sacher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's Jah he is Jah, I am q Ward.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Civic Ciphers. Indeed you are great
Speaker 2: show lined up for you.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about some stuff that is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, so a lot to stick around for h
Speaker 1: including some stuff you may have seen in the news
Speaker 1: in recent months. These powerful black people who are effectively
Speaker 1: white supremacists. We're going to discuss that phenomenon because we
Speaker 1: recognize that that can be a very confusing thing if
Speaker 1: you don't interact with a lot of black folks or
Speaker 1: you know, human nature oftentimes is to kind of stereotype
Speaker 1: paint with broad strokes, that sort of thing. You might
Speaker 1: be getting mixed messes, messages if you look at these
Speaker 1: black people who really prot white supremacist ideas and you know,
Speaker 1: stand for just very hard nosed, hypocritical ideologies, and there's
Speaker 1: a black face on him.
Speaker 2: So again, it might be very confusing. But we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about that today. We's gone especially in some
Speaker 2: of these cases in the name of just personal political
Speaker 2: gain and absolutely in parting the politics of the far right.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So we're we're gonna peel all those layers away, and
Speaker 1: this one is going to be a deeper dive. I
Speaker 1: know we've we've talked about this sort of thing before,
Speaker 1: but we're also going to talk about forgiveness in the
Speaker 1: black community. And I really want to pay particular attention
Speaker 1: on today's episode to Will Smith stopping by Trevor Noah's
Speaker 1: show and discussing his upcoming movie, but also discussing the
Speaker 1: Oscars slap of the infamous slap. He offered a lot
Speaker 1: more insight into that, and I think it's worth looking
Speaker 1: into what forgiveness looks like, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: Black men interacting with each other. And so we're going
Speaker 1: to do both of these things on full display for
Speaker 1: all of you to witness. But first and foremost, we
Speaker 1: are going to start off with some Ebny excellence. So
Speaker 1: this week's Eventy Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly magazine.
Speaker 1: For all the latest in hip hop music, check out
Speaker 1: hip Hopweekly dot com. Today's segment comes from Black Enterprise,
Speaker 1: So I'll read from the middleary article here Bob Johnson
Speaker 1: from be ET. This is old news, but it was
Speaker 1: news to us and we thought it was We're celebrating
Speaker 1: Bob Johnson.
Speaker 2: They found specifics of it we're new to us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the overall story we knew already. Right right there, you go,
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So Bob Johnson is the man that founded BEET as
Speaker 1: a black man, I'll read the challenge did well in
Speaker 1: its first years, but didn't turn much revenue until a
Speaker 1: new and exciting form of entertainment came into the picture.
Speaker 1: And there's a quote along the way. Came music videos
Speaker 1: and MTV started playing videos, but they wouldn't play black
Speaker 1: music videos. So I said, this is Bob Johnson speaking.
Speaker 1: I said, there's a chance to play black music videos,
Speaker 1: and that's where we started. And the thing about it
Speaker 1: that may BET such as success was the videos were free.
Speaker 1: So imagine a business where the cable operators pay you
Speaker 1: to carry a program, the record companies give you the
Speaker 1: content for free, and the advertisers pay to speak to
Speaker 1: your audience. So he ended up winning in three different ways.
Speaker 1: So this is how BET rose to prominence. Because MTV,
Speaker 1: I think they would only play Michael Jackson at the time,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't really go any deeper than that. And
Speaker 1: the part of the story that I didn't know that
Speaker 1: we believed to be ebony excellence is in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, again a while ago, but in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, Johnson sold Bet to Viacom, the infamous Viacom
Speaker 1: and BET employees, and in doing so created a large
Speaker 1: number of black millionaires who Johnson gave equity and Bet.
Speaker 1: So he created the largest number of black millionaires at
Speaker 1: one time in American history. And even though that's old news,
Speaker 1: we didn't know it, and we believe that's ebony excellence.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Bob Johnson for that.
Speaker 2: For Bob Johnson.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about black white supremacists. And
Speaker 1: we're not talking about black conservatives. We're talking about something different.
Speaker 1: If you are a black conservative, if you know someone
Speaker 1: who is black and has conservative beliefs, that is normal,
Speaker 1: that is healthy.
Speaker 2: That is okay.
Speaker 1: You know, we recognize that all black people don't feel
Speaker 1: the same way, we don't all espouse the same values and.
Speaker 2: So forth and so on.
Speaker 1: But there is something to be said about those folks
Speaker 1: who really fortify and uphold white supremacist ideals and institutions
Speaker 1: that we really need to discuss because it can be
Speaker 1: very confusing. Uh, And you know, some folks may not
Speaker 1: know may not know what's right unfortunately. So I want
Speaker 1: to start with a phrase that or a saying I
Speaker 1: guess that we use in the black community. Uncle Tom.
Speaker 1: We've talked about Uncle Tom on the show before. The
Speaker 1: actual Uncle Tom person that that name comes from, was
Speaker 1: actually not an Uncle Tom, but his name has been
Speaker 1: co opted in the black community to refer to black people,
Speaker 1: often black men who are not down for their people.
Speaker 1: You know, black men that want to be accepted at
Speaker 1: all costs, you know, to at cost to their dignity,
Speaker 1: to their culture, their people, their family, et cetera. They
Speaker 1: want to be accepted in often enough white circles. Right.
Speaker 1: So I need you to be familiar with an Uncle Tom,
Speaker 1: and that's not to be confused with a person like
Speaker 1: for those familiar with the original Chappelle's show, Clayton Biggsby
Speaker 1: sort of a person, right, Clayton biggsye be sort of
Speaker 1: a person is a person that doesn't wreckonognize his own
Speaker 1: blackness as having value or being even real. There are
Speaker 1: black people that do not wish to identify as black.
Speaker 1: We know that this is a very strange thing to encounter,
Speaker 1: but we have to acknowledge that there are people who
Speaker 1: try to think of the world in different terms, and
Speaker 1: I feel, I personally feel like that's often a desperate move.
Speaker 1: That's a move of a person who hasn't been able
Speaker 1: to connect with his ancestor. It's very sad because no
Speaker 1: one would want that for anybody. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what part of the world you're from. There are
Speaker 1: some parts of your ancestry.
Speaker 2: That are beautiful that you should be able to connect with.
Speaker 1: And to completely turn away from your ancestry, we think
Speaker 1: that's a very sad thing. But there's some other names
Speaker 1: I want you to know. There's a guy named Uncle Ruckus.
Speaker 1: This is another fictional character. It's in a show called
Speaker 1: The Boondock. Shout out to my sister Jamar Taylor. The
Speaker 1: boon Docks is an anime cartoon about two black kids
Speaker 1: that moved to the suburbs. You should definitely check it out.
Speaker 1: But there's a character, Uncle Ruckus, and he's another sort
Speaker 1: of white supremacist type of character very openly and they
Speaker 1: use his character to flesh out concepts in the program.
Speaker 1: So and last, but not least, I'll mention another fictitious character.
Speaker 1: This guy's name is Steven. For those of you familiar
Speaker 1: with Quentin Tarantino films. He had a film called Jangle Unchained.
Speaker 1: Steven is another kind of like Uncle Tom type of
Speaker 1: person Steven was. The character was played by Samuel L.
Speaker 1: Jackson in the movie Jangle Unchained. And for those of
Speaker 1: you familiar with any of these movies or shows or
Speaker 1: anything like that, it kind of gives you an idea
Speaker 1: of basically a black person that hates black people. They
Speaker 1: may not say that out loud, but their actions and
Speaker 1: their their ideas and their their you know whatever, it
Speaker 1: often enough suggests that they don't really think very highly
Speaker 1: of black people and they can get away with it.
Speaker 2: They can.
Speaker 1: They almost always get platforms because they are saying things
Speaker 1: that white supremacists can't say without being canceled or challenged.
Speaker 1: So they end up being.
Speaker 2: The racist or white supremacist, which they like being those things.
Speaker 2: They just don't like being called them right right, And
Speaker 2: if you're black, you can do it.
Speaker 1: And of course I find black and I say, you know,
Speaker 1: black people are awful, and you know, police brutality is
Speaker 1: a myth, and you know, black people, it's it's all
Speaker 1: your fault and that sort of stuff. No one can
Speaker 1: come to me because I'm black and say, well, you're
Speaker 1: being racist, although that's exactly what I'm doing. It is
Speaker 1: possible for people to hate themselves and to hate the
Speaker 1: people that they come from. And this is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today. So I want to talk about a
Speaker 1: name that makes cues I twitch. This is a person
Speaker 1: that is very dangerous. This person gives a black shield
Speaker 1: to white supremacy.
Speaker 2: I like that. I should write that down. I'm black, umbrella,
Speaker 2: a black shield, a black overcoat. There you go.
Speaker 1: This person is intelligent, this person is charismatic and all.
Speaker 1: And this person has also been propped up. This person
Speaker 1: goes by the name of Candice Owens.
Speaker 2: There goes the eye twitch. I see it close. You
Speaker 2: couldn't see the twitch.
Speaker 1: And I want to say something. We've been through recently.
Speaker 1: Q and myself, we've been through some interesting things lately. Rights,
Speaker 1: that's a way to put it. Yeah, yeah, And we
Speaker 1: want to be very careful because we do not and
Speaker 1: we're asking you, our listeners, to hold us to this.
Speaker 1: We do not want to let this show ever devolve
Speaker 1: into the type of program that tears people down. Rather,
Speaker 1: we want to hold people accountable, hold people responsible. We
Speaker 1: want to challenge people and institutions to become better the
Speaker 1: best versions of themselves. And we have to be very
Speaker 1: careful because we have to decide where that line is.
Speaker 1: But we also have to be mindful of the fact
Speaker 1: that our words carry weight, especially now, and so we're
Speaker 1: not trying to tear anyone down. But it's important to
Speaker 1: mention this woman in particular, because this is a woman
Speaker 1: who actually does believe that police brutality is a myth.
Speaker 2: Hold on, wait, you think she believes that? No?
Speaker 1: No, this So I went through, you know, researching today's topic,
Speaker 1: and I gathered my notes from credible sources that talk
Speaker 1: about Candice Owns and who she is and things that
Speaker 1: she said. So I know that this is definitely That's
Speaker 1: why it's first. That's definitely something that she said that's
Speaker 1: a very alarming No, No, we.
Speaker 2: Know that she said it. What I'm asking you is,
Speaker 2: do you think she actually believes that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think this is not I think the
Speaker 2: woman is a con artist. Yeah, and it's faking everybody
Speaker 2: out because of its fiscal implications. No, I can't see me,
Speaker 2: but I just almost touch face. I guess what happy
Speaker 2: that he said that? And I couldn't articulate it properly.
Speaker 2: I don't think she believes that at all, which is
Speaker 2: why I despise her. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, and we're gonna get to that in
Speaker 1: a little bit too. But a fiscal benefit, political influence,
Speaker 1: there's there's lots of reasons that a person might do this,
Speaker 1: But what we look at, you know, I'm talking, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna speak for the general It's hard to say that,
Speaker 1: but most black people in this country, and I think
Speaker 1: most people who are not conservative, would look at this
Speaker 1: woman and realize that her words don't really reflect a
Speaker 1: shared reality among black people.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She is very much a black outlier. But again, what
Speaker 1: she does is gives people who want what she says
Speaker 1: to be their truth a reference point, something that is
Speaker 1: quote unquote credible, that they can lean on when they
Speaker 1: themselves are challenged for there often white supremacist or racist
Speaker 1: beliefs right.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Candice Owns also praised Hitler for his nationalism. You know,
Speaker 1: he wanted everybody to be German. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 1: You know that sort of thing, right, And something that
Speaker 1: you brought up on the show before Q is that
Speaker 1: she made a documentary about the murder of George Floyd
Speaker 1: and did her best to try to make anything else
Speaker 1: the reason for his death other than a police officer
Speaker 1: kneeling on his neck for eight minutes or nearly minutes
Speaker 1: everything else in the world. Try to make that argument
Speaker 1: in this film and then released it on when on
Speaker 1: his birthday. And so it's those little things that go
Speaker 1: a little bit beyond just a conservative black voice, that
Speaker 1: little bit of extra hatred, that little bit of extra
Speaker 1: genesse equa talk about being intentional, right, and this sort
Speaker 1: of thing often takes a person from simply being a
Speaker 1: black conservative voice. We've had black conservative voices on this
Speaker 1: show before. That's not something that we're afraid of. It's
Speaker 1: something that we I admit every every third episode that
Speaker 1: I'm a bleeding heart liberal. It's not my deal, but
Speaker 1: I recognize that.
Speaker 2: Other peopleticians, law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all be above right. But I think that again,
Speaker 1: releasing a movie on his birthday to try to somehow
Speaker 1: make him the bad guy in the story where he died,
Speaker 1: it feels particularly offensive and it's very upsetting for those
Speaker 1: of us who have a beating heart and empathy, right,
Speaker 1: and we all saw a man's life end on a
Speaker 1: video that should be sad to everyone. I'll admit something
Speaker 1: too on the show. I mean, the MIC's on, everything's rolling.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it. The worst person in my lifetime
Speaker 1: that I ever knew about was Osama bin Laden right
Speaker 1: by far, the worst person.
Speaker 2: I'll say it. You know, I recognize that.
Speaker 1: But when the news came back that he was dead
Speaker 1: and I had to go on the radio and share
Speaker 1: that with the city and pretend to be happy about that. Like,
Speaker 1: I was definitely happy that the story had an ending.
Speaker 1: I was definitely happy that it felt like there was
Speaker 1: a little bit more justice in the universe than I
Speaker 1: had anticipated. But I was not happy about a human
Speaker 1: being's life getting ending. Even though I guess the right
Speaker 1: ending to that story, it just didn't feel like worth
Speaker 1: something to celebrate.
Speaker 2: Maybe right in my mind, the right ending. He gets
Speaker 2: captured and or arrested and has to Like even when
Speaker 2: watching movies as a child, the bad guy dying was
Speaker 2: never the outcome I wanted. Like, that's not justice, that's
Speaker 2: just death. Yeah that's yeah, it's a different type of thing.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What I want to do is be fair. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we often say this, especially you, but and I learned
Speaker 1: from you. When you say this a recent Instagram post
Speaker 1: of yours follow him I mq word check him out
Speaker 1: a recent.
Speaker 2: Instagram post of yours.
Speaker 1: You say I'm no one's moral superior or moral guidepost
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Effectually, this is what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I'm just a Stella's son from you know, seven Mile,
Speaker 1: you know, Detroit, Westie, something like that, right, And I
Speaker 1: think that that is kind of the posture I want
Speaker 1: to adopt when talking about the death of a person,
Speaker 1: right and explaining why this thing that Candice Owens did
Speaker 1: is particularly offensive.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell anybody else how to feel about Osama
Speaker 1: bin Laden dying.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You feel how you feel, But it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to be happy about that thing. If justice is served,
Speaker 1: cool happy, you know these people got closure. Cool happy
Speaker 1: a human being, you know, It's just a sad thing
Speaker 1: for me. And I'm that type of person. I recognize
Speaker 1: other people may not be like that. So for me again,
Speaker 1: looking at this documentary that this woman put out and
Speaker 1: recognizing that the angle that she took, the approach that
Speaker 1: she took, is offensive, and then to put it on
Speaker 1: his birthday and frame him as like again, the like
Speaker 1: the bad guy in his own story and he's dead.
Speaker 2: Her levels of malcontent is really hard to understand. The
Speaker 2: whole point of it seems to be, I don't want
Speaker 2: you all to be sad that that man was murdered.
Speaker 1: So here's all the reasons you shouldn't be right, and
Speaker 1: that feels like yo, now let me move on. Oh,
Speaker 1: let me not forget. She wore the White Lives Matter
Speaker 1: shirt next to Kanye West, allright.
Speaker 2: She also, before we move on, announced the NAACP after
Speaker 2: it helped her claimed that white supremacy and racism don't exist,
Speaker 2: except the NAACP helped her win a lawsuit. We sued
Speaker 2: because she was racially discriminated. Except that doesn't exist. So
Speaker 2: we Oh, I'm sorry, No, I just I like to
Speaker 2: say true stuff allowed sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's okay, that's what we're here for, all right.
Speaker 1: Moving on, Justice Clarence Thomas. This is another name that
Speaker 1: you might be familiar with, bless. This is the guy
Speaker 1: that looks so much like Samuel L. Jackson's character in
Speaker 1: Djangle Unchained. He might look more like from your sisters
Speaker 1: either with like a combination of the two.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: He is a Supreme Court justice and a black conservative, right,
Speaker 1: and he wants black people to pull themselves up by
Speaker 1: their bootstraps. Right, Which, for a second, for the record,
Speaker 1: let me say that saying was initially made in jest.
Speaker 1: Think about it. Is it possible for you to pull
Speaker 1: yourself up by your own bootstraps? No, it was a joke,
Speaker 1: especially if you don't have boots to begin with. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the idea meaning that black people are responsible for changing
Speaker 1: our own reality is not something that we don't brush
Speaker 1: up against in our day to day lives. Right, So
Speaker 1: a person feeling that and championing that message isn't the
Speaker 1: worst thing in the world. We recognize that we have
Speaker 1: issues that we need to deal with in our communities,
Speaker 1: just like every other community has issues that are more
Speaker 1: relevant to their actual lives and their actual cultures.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So if that was the end of his story, that
Speaker 1: would be all well and good. But bear in mind
Speaker 1: that this man who is the physical embodiment of the
Speaker 1: phrase all skin folk ain't kinfolk as a black saying
Speaker 1: for those that are uninitiated. This is a man whose
Speaker 1: wife participated in and protected those involved in the January
Speaker 1: sixth insurrection to try to overturn the election results and
Speaker 1: basically overthrow the government proceedings. Right, And this is a
Speaker 1: person he's famously quiet, but if you look at his
Speaker 1: voting record, you recognize that his record is nowhere near
Speaker 1: in alignment with what it is that many black people
Speaker 1: would say that we need in this country. Quite the contrary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's almost intentionally right against And this is a little again,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit more than just a conservative voice.
Speaker 1: This guy's a little bit more like intentional here herschel Walker.
Speaker 1: This man is the embodiment of everything that the right
Speaker 1: supposedly despises about black men in America. My belief is
Speaker 1: that we live in a celebrity culture that kind of
Speaker 1: gave him a head start because of his name, and
Speaker 1: then he's been.
Speaker 2: Managed to ride that wave.
Speaker 1: That's the only way that makes sense to me, because
Speaker 1: if you've heard him talk, If you've.
Speaker 2: Heard him, and that's the thing that troubles me the most,
Speaker 2: you've ever heard him speak about any topic. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter even the topic you think he'd be an expert at,
Speaker 2: which is football. When you hear him talk at length
Speaker 2: about any topic, just how grossly qualified he is to
Speaker 2: be in front of people for any reason. Becomes clear
Speaker 2: the unqualified, and then presenting him as someone who should
Speaker 2: be in a leadership role with regards to our nation's
Speaker 2: government should seem like insanity, except there is a portion
Speaker 2: of our population that have shown that there is no depth.
Speaker 1: Now I will not steep to Okay, now watch this.
Speaker 1: He is more than happy to play that role, which
Speaker 1: is why the people on the right that are really,
Speaker 1: really deeply conservative are pushing so hard to get that
Speaker 1: man elected, knowing full well that he's a complete hypocrite.
Speaker 2: I think completely unqualifies better than saying deeply concervatively racist.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Q, I appreciate you helping me out, all right,
Speaker 1: And then we're going to dedicate a few seconds to
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Kanye West or better said yay, and
Speaker 1: we will recap here. He went from the man that
Speaker 1: we knew saying George Bush doesn't care about black people,
Speaker 1: to the man we know who has the Confederate flags
Speaker 1: sown into his clothes years ago, who said slavery was
Speaker 1: a choice, who said Harriet Tubman never actually freed slaves,
Speaker 1: who of course wore the make America Great Again hat
Speaker 1: and later the White Lives Matter shirt.
Speaker 2: We know a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: And it's now ratternizing with known white supremacists, right, and
Speaker 1: any one of flagrant bigot ways out of sea level
Speaker 1: white supremacists. Absolutely now any one of those things by themselves,
Speaker 1: maybe two things, hey man, maybe he's just on his journey, right,
Speaker 1: but all of them together, let you know full well
Speaker 1: that this is a black white supremacist more than just
Speaker 1: a conservative. And what are the reasons, well, grift, self hatred,
Speaker 1: desire for attention, desire for money, lunacy, the list goes on, right,
Speaker 1: But what we need to do is let you know,
Speaker 1: don't be fooled. As we said, all skin folk ain't kinfolk.
Speaker 1: You need to do a little bit more in the
Speaker 1: way of gaining a consensus before you decide what your truth,
Speaker 1: or rather what other what you believe other people's choose
Speaker 1: to be. So sit with that.