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 am
Speaker 1: your host, ramses Joah.
Speaker 2: He is ramses Joh, I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned in the Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Indeed you are, and today we are going to be
Speaker 1: talking about the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. Martin
Speaker 1: Luther the King Junior talk to me, Q Listen. We
Speaker 1: are about sick and tired of people who live lives
Speaker 1: that fly in the face of what doctor King stood for,
Speaker 1: using Doctor King's legacy and his image to justify their
Speaker 1: actions or somehow appear as decent people. And so we're
Speaker 1: going to spend the first part of the show talking
Speaker 1: about how doctor King's image and his leg was co
Speaker 1: opted by conservatives, believe it or not, to whitewash an
Speaker 1: agenda that allowed them to appeal to Middle America. And
Speaker 1: we're going to spend the second part of the show
Speaker 1: discussing how doctor King, in his own words, felt about
Speaker 1: some of the hot button issues that are being debated
Speaker 1: today or some of the things that have been stripped
Speaker 1: away in today's society by traditionally traditional conservatives, I should say,
Speaker 1: and these are the same people that kind of invoke
Speaker 1: his name around the holidays or throughout the year, that
Speaker 1: try to suggest that they would have stood with doctor King,
Speaker 1: or doctor King would have stood with him. So we're
Speaker 1: going to again use the second half of the show
Speaker 1: to kind of express doctor King's feelings in his own words.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, we are going to discuss
Speaker 1: some ebony excellence.
Speaker 2: Shall we?
Speaker 1: I think we shall. Today's ebny excellence is brought to
Speaker 1: you by actively black. There's greatness in our DNA. Visit
Speaker 1: actively black dot com. Today I'm going to highlight somebody
Speaker 1: who really deserves some ebony excellence.
Speaker 2: For some reason, this one feels extra special to me, okay.
Speaker 1: Because there's actually two people I want to shout out.
Speaker 1: The first person is q.
Speaker 2: Ward uh oh.
Speaker 1: Q Ward, in case you don't know, is now on
Speaker 1: the radio.
Speaker 2: My name.
Speaker 1: Now he's on the radio. He's talking to hundreds more
Speaker 1: stations around the country. He has done h incredible work
Speaker 1: in standing up for what is right and championing this
Speaker 1: effort known as Civic Cipher across the country. And I'm
Speaker 1: your brother, and if I'm not willing to give you flowers.
Speaker 1: I can't reasonably expect anyone else to do it. You
Speaker 1: have helped me dream the dream. You've stayed the course,
Speaker 1: and here you are on the cusp of something that
Speaker 1: is so monumental and so meaningful. And if no one
Speaker 1: else tells you, I appreciate the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2: God bless you, brother. I appreciate you too.
Speaker 1: There's another person that we want to shout out. She
Speaker 1: goes by the name of Brandy Irvin.
Speaker 2: That's why it felt special to me, not because he
Speaker 2: was about to shout me out.
Speaker 1: And Brandy has been nominated for the YWCA Tribute to
Speaker 1: Leadership Award for her work her work with the Harris
Speaker 1: Campaign and the Democrats, obviously, her work with US here
Speaker 1: on Civic Cipher, and her.
Speaker 2: Social community at large, social.
Speaker 1: Work with the Akas and so forth and so on.
Speaker 1: So she's being recognized for that, and so we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we shout her out as well.
Speaker 1: All right, I hope that didn't feel like too much
Speaker 1: of a pat on the back, but we have a
Speaker 1: segment to highlight something that is very special, and you know,
Speaker 1: I know that I kind of snuck it in there.
Speaker 1: But we've accomplished something that we would have never dreamed,
Speaker 1: and we get to do it while doing good work.
Speaker 1: And so I appreciate everyone giving me a moment to
Speaker 1: be able to acknowledge these amazing people that I get
Speaker 1: to work with. Next time, we'll revert to type and
Speaker 1: shout out, you know people beyond you know these four walls. Here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna share a bit with you from Yes Magazine,
Speaker 1: because there's a couple of times every year when people
Speaker 1: will use doctor King's legacy or they will hand pick,
Speaker 1: cherry pick parts of his speeches to try to suggest
Speaker 1: that doctor King's vision is in alignment with their vision
Speaker 1: for this country.
Speaker 2: In alignment with anything that they think or any reactions
Speaker 2: that they pursue.
Speaker 1: And this is really only problematic. It's it's it's not
Speaker 1: exclusively problematic when it comes to far right conservatives, but
Speaker 1: it is often the most visible and visibly jarring is
Speaker 1: the word I want to use. So it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just like there's such a juxtaposition. You are trying to
Speaker 1: use doctor King's legacy to suggest somehow that he would
Speaker 1: be in alignment with what you're saying, or to suggest
Speaker 1: somehow that the things that you've done in the past
Speaker 1: are not they don't fly in the face of what
Speaker 1: Doctor Kings stood for and the thing every right exactly
Speaker 1: and it's so jarring and it's so strange, but you know,
Speaker 1: someone has to exist in this space to kind of
Speaker 1: push back and to defend doctor King's legacy because he
Speaker 1: was a tremendous figure in terms of the pursuit of
Speaker 1: equity in this country. And if we don't tell our
Speaker 1: stories the way they need to be told, we run
Speaker 1: the risk of losing the narrative. And then Doctor King
Speaker 1: becomes like Santa Claus, free for anyone to use the
Speaker 1: way that they want, right, and this is not what
Speaker 1: the man stood for. Their people right now, I met
Speaker 1: these people, they had to bury this man. I met
Speaker 1: Doctor King's son, Martin Luther King the third likewise, and
Speaker 1: you know, he's a like you can see him as
Speaker 1: a kid in all the photos, but he actually lost
Speaker 1: his father because of the same sort of racist ideology
Speaker 1: behind the people and indeed the party that co opt
Speaker 1: this man's image, that fought against him having a holiday,
Speaker 1: that didn't like love appreciate what he stood for. And
Speaker 1: then as more time passes, they continue to scoop a
Speaker 1: little bit more away from his larger than life status,
Speaker 1: and now that he's gone, to try to get some
Speaker 1: of that sheen on them and their campaigns to look
Speaker 1: less racist, to look less divisive, to look less like
Speaker 1: they're four elites and so forth. So again, this article
Speaker 1: I think sums us up quite well again from Yes Magazine.
Speaker 1: The writer I want to give credit Hajar Yadiza Yazida Yazdiha. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna have a tough time with
Speaker 1: that one, all right. As scholars civil rights activists in
Speaker 1: King's own children have long pointed out uses of King's words,
Speaker 1: especially by right wing conservatives, are too often attempts to
Speaker 1: weaponize his memory against the multicultural democracy of which King
Speaker 1: could only dream. Every Martin Luther King Junior Day years
Speaker 1: on the third Monday in January, politicians across the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: including those who opposed establishing the national holiday in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, issue their heartfelt dedications to King, or quote
Speaker 1: him in their own speeches and in their tweets and
Speaker 1: on their social media. The article continues in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties a sanitized version of
Speaker 1: King was a part of a conservative political strategy for
Speaker 1: swaying white moderates to support President Ronald Reagan's reelection by
Speaker 1: making King's birthday a national holiday. Even after Reagan finally
Speaker 1: signed the King holiday into law in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: he would write letters of assurance to angry political allies
Speaker 1: that only a selective version of King would be commemorated.
Speaker 2: Even as you read it, now, my blood boils because
Speaker 2: we knew this already. Yes, this isn't well, we knew this.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, this isn't a shocker to us. But it
Speaker 2: feels the same.
Speaker 1: It feels like we're getting it for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yes, it doesn't feel like, oh yeah, I knew that already.
Speaker 2: It feels like it's so infuriating.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been doing the show for years and
Speaker 1: for many people who are just coming to the conversation
Speaker 1: or maybe they haven't heard of this show before. A
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff, you know, we know quite well,
Speaker 1: just because we've had to, Like we probably will end
Speaker 1: up with honorary degrees at some point, because we've had
Speaker 1: to do so much research in order to do this
Speaker 1: show and have it and use journalistically credible sources, so
Speaker 1: that it's not just Ramses and Q's Opinion Hour, but
Speaker 1: rather it is civic cipher a conversation that we were
Speaker 1: able to have that's based in a shared reality. It's
Speaker 1: based on facts, it's based on data where we can
Speaker 1: actually make some inroads and give you, our listener, what
Speaker 1: it is you might need to have conversations that will
Speaker 1: lead to impacting people's opinions, because this show only reaches you,
Speaker 1: but you can reach people's lime hearts in a way
Speaker 1: that we cannot. But let me continue this article, all right,
Speaker 1: So only a selected version of King would be commemorated,
Speaker 1: all right. That version was free of not only the
Speaker 1: racial politics that shaped the Civil rights movement, but also
Speaker 1: the vision of systemic change king and vision. In addition,
Speaker 1: Reagan's version left out the views King held against the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Instead, the GOP's sanitized version only comprises King's
Speaker 1: vision of a colorblind society at the expense of the
Speaker 1: deep systemic change King believed was needed to achieve a
Speaker 1: society in which character was more important than race. This
Speaker 1: interpretation of King's memory would become a powerful political tool
Speaker 1: increasingly through the nineteen eighties, right wing social movements from
Speaker 1: the gun rights and family values coalitions to nativists and
Speaker 1: white supremacists deployed King's memory to claim they were the
Speaker 1: new minorities fighting for their own rights. These groups claimed
Speaker 1: that white Christians were the real victims of multicultural democracy
Speaker 1: and in fact where the new black. This false version
Speaker 1: of social reality eventually involved into the Great Replacement theory,
Speaker 1: which the article took some liberties right there, because the
Speaker 1: Great replacement theority theory existed going back to if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, But
Speaker 1: I see the convergence there.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's weaved into the that's.
Speaker 1: The best way to say, yeah, exactly, the far right
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory espoused by public figures like Tucker Carlson that
Speaker 1: white people are being demographically and culturally replaced with non
Speaker 1: white peoples and that white existence is under threat. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that is basically the Great replacement theory in a nutshell.
Speaker 2: And you and I saw racist lawyers and lawmakers use
Speaker 2: civil rights precedents and civil rights legislation to get affirmative
Speaker 2: action removed.
Speaker 1: Right, So this is and that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: more about that on the second half of the show.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's they. They Those are the same people
Speaker 1: that will tweak quotes and share on their social media
Speaker 1: quotes from doctor King whenever it's convenient, whenever their campaigning,
Speaker 1: whenever it's doctor King's birthday, whenever it's Juneteenth, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You know, because doctor King is the great Black in
Speaker 1: their minds or whatever, and they have a version of
Speaker 1: him that they can use to appear less racist in
Speaker 1: their views and less more decent, more decent. That's probably
Speaker 1: a good way to say it to all right, I'll
Speaker 1: finish the article. In these distortions, gun rights activists called
Speaker 1: themselves the new Rosa Parks, anti abortion activists declared themselves
Speaker 1: freedom writers, and anti gay groups claimed themselves protectors of
Speaker 1: King's Christian vision. These disortions of the past were not
Speaker 1: just rhetorical. Over time, these political strategies had powerful effects
Speaker 1: and generated what appears as an alternative social reality that
Speaker 1: for many white Americans began to feel like the only reality.
Speaker 1: Through the making of these alternative histories, right wings stages
Speaker 1: such as Steve Bannon could stir up right wing voters,
Speaker 1: white right wing voters to reclaim and take back America.
Speaker 1: Sound familiar, Yeah, unfortunately. So again to your point, this
Speaker 1: this concerted. You got to imagine, like the political landscape
Speaker 1: of the country in the eighties, right when Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: is coming to power. Ronald Reagan represented a shift in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party that had at that time suffered some
Speaker 1: some losses in terms of what it is that they
Speaker 1: wanted for this country. This country was moving in a
Speaker 1: in a more inclusive and progressive way. And Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: represented two conservatives a way to dare I say, make
Speaker 1: America great again? Right, That's what he represented at the time.
Speaker 1: And they had lost the battle on abortion at that time,
Speaker 1: they had lost some other you know, there were some
Speaker 1: other things that were going on, and they needed to
Speaker 1: reframe a lot of what they stood for politically in
Speaker 1: such a way that it appealed to white moderates Middle America, who, again,
Speaker 1: if you'd taken to account the climate of the country
Speaker 1: at the time, was feeling like, okay, well we have
Speaker 1: seen these black people march. Because you got to think
Speaker 1: in the eighties, the sixties wasn't that long ago for
Speaker 1: the people that were alive in voting in the eighties, right,
Speaker 1: So they saw the dogs get sicked on black people.
Speaker 1: They saw the assassination of doctor King. They saw, you know,
Speaker 1: and when you live through that and you know what happened,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe your heart beats a little differently. Right,
Speaker 1: So it makes political sense for Ronald Reagan to appear decent.
Speaker 1: That's that's the word that you used, Q. Even though
Speaker 1: a lot of what it is that he proposed and
Speaker 1: wove into this country, of what we remember him for everything,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of what we remember, all of what
Speaker 1: we remember worked against the whole country. Right, there is
Speaker 1: no trickle down economics has not worked. It's been forty
Speaker 1: plus years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Reaganomics was never used to work.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but you know all these things that so
Speaker 1: him whitewashing Doctor King allowed him to get all of
Speaker 1: that stuff off, right, because he needed to appeal to
Speaker 1: Middle America, who again at the time, was fresh off
Speaker 1: of this moment where they had seen Doctor King get assassinated.
Speaker 1: His whole push was non violence, and he got shot
Speaker 1: on a balcony. He was a minister, he had children.
Speaker 1: I have a dream he had a family, had you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. He wasn't trying to hurt anybody.
Speaker 1: They were hitting him. They were hitting them. They're putting
Speaker 1: him in jail, left and right, they're putting the hoses
Speaker 1: on the dogs on him, and he got shot. And
Speaker 1: all those people that saw that happen, they saw it
Speaker 1: wasn't a George Floyd moment. It was Doctor King. George Floyd,
Speaker 1: we never heard of him, and we saw him die.
Speaker 1: That was the only thing we know him for. Doctor
Speaker 1: King died after we got to know who he was.
Speaker 1: And again, his whole thing was non violence. How did
Speaker 1: the non violent minister lose his life on a balcony
Speaker 1: like an animal? Right, So again, for a person like
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, he gave the white moderate in the country
Speaker 1: what they needed, which was the appearance of a decent
Speaker 1: administration that was inclusive and so forth. But behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: of course, there was this effort to make sure that
Speaker 1: the version of Doctor King that we celebrate as a
Speaker 1: country is the version that we are choosing. We're already
Speaker 1: past the little black boys and little white girls sitting
Speaker 1: down at a table together. So we'll just use that
Speaker 1: one part of what Doctor King said. We'll give him
Speaker 1: his holiday, and then now hopefully we can appeal to
Speaker 1: some blacks and a huge swap of Middle America.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Imagine the man who made pursuing higher education almost unaffordable. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to make sure that black people didn't get too much
Speaker 2: access to educacation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also giving MLK a holiday to be celebrated in his
Speaker 2: fullness as a vehicle. Yeah, to get himself to power.
Speaker 2: It's really really sick and diabolical. But here we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you know, ah, you know, and the
Speaker 1: craziest part about this whole thing, And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that a lot of people know. And I don't have
Speaker 1: the notes in front of me right now, so you
Speaker 1: have to forgive me if I leave something out. But
Speaker 1: you and I had recently, we had a conversation with
Speaker 1: doctor russ Wiginton, the president and CEO of the National
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Indeed the Lorraine Hotel
Speaker 1: where doctor King was shot, and he was talking to us.
Speaker 1: And of course we know this from having done this
Speaker 1: sort of thing a couple of times, that doctor King
Speaker 1: was starting to appeal to white working class people at
Speaker 1: the time when he was assassinated, Like he went from
Speaker 1: you know, let's use the same bathrooms and the same
Speaker 1: water fountains to okay, here's how I feel about that
Speaker 1: war in Vietnam to ultimately, hey, listen, White America, Middle America,
Speaker 1: they're taking advantage of you, and you being racist and
Speaker 1: you being influenced by these politicians in this near if
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist, is costing you. It's not just we
Speaker 1: have the same oppressor. We have the same there though,
Speaker 1: we have the same oppressor.
Speaker 2: That was the message that was terrifying. Yes, because the
Speaker 2: level of influence that he had. When when Doctor King spoke,
Speaker 2: people listened. Yes, and you know, even you know, the
Speaker 2: newly elected former president uh evoked doctor King's I have
Speaker 2: a dream speech to lift himself up, and they all
Speaker 2: do that falsely pointed out that more people came to
Speaker 2: listen to him speak or to his I remember he
Speaker 2: said that to something that he did in DC, than
Speaker 2: than that attended Doctor Kings. I have a dream speech,
Speaker 2: which we know is a ridiculous thing to say, but
Speaker 2: at all costs. They tried to use him, even to
Speaker 2: prop themselves up, not just like somehow that's the benchmark,
Speaker 2: not just to falsely pretend to be supporters or lovers
Speaker 2: of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to I want to circle back. I
Speaker 1: want to I want to go back just a second though,
Speaker 1: when I was talking about doctor King trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to the white workers that was happening in Memphis in
Speaker 1: Tennessee when he got shot. That's why he was in
Speaker 1: Tennessee was to I think it might have been a
Speaker 1: union or something like that, but it was he was
Speaker 1: talking to white people, and that that was what he
Speaker 1: was on in that moment, creating solidarity across racial lines.
Speaker 1: Because I think you put it so eloquently. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: we have the same oppressor. And that ultimately cost him
Speaker 1: his life. But again, that part of doctor King's story
Speaker 1: you don't hear. All you hear is I have a dream.
Speaker 1: So for many people, you know, and if you're one
Speaker 1: of these people, it's it's totally okay. We welcome all
Speaker 1: commerce here at Civic Cipher. It doesn't matter where you are.
Speaker 1: We try to make sure that it's an inclusive conversation.
Speaker 1: But for many people, they're only awareness of history insofar
Speaker 1: as black people are concerned, is you know, black people
Speaker 1: were in Africa, they came here as slaves, then the
Speaker 1: slaves got free because of Lincoln. Then everybody beat up
Speaker 1: the free black people and it had a tough time
Speaker 1: then Doctor King came along and then everybody could sit
Speaker 1: down at a table together and there was no more segregation. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's the version of history, many peoples and no
Speaker 1: more racism, right. And then Obama got elected. So you know,
Speaker 1: here we are right. So this is for a lot
Speaker 1: of people how they think that American history has gone.
Speaker 1: But for us, we need to color in these details
Speaker 1: because it's through the subtle influence of people in positions
Speaker 1: of power, the subtle influence of people with huge platforms
Speaker 1: or given microphones and audiences to speak to. Often enough,
Speaker 1: these are politicians who need to sway public opinion in
Speaker 1: order to accomplish things. For often enough, a certain facet
Speaker 1: of you know, the population, often the facet that looks
Speaker 1: the most like them, but that's not always true, in
Speaker 1: order to create the changes or revert to the version
Speaker 1: of society that they ultimately want to get to. And
Speaker 1: part of the subtle influence comes from things like whitewashing. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the reality of what doctor King stood for, what he
Speaker 1: spoke against, what he would be voting for now, flies
Speaker 1: in the face of what it is that you vote
Speaker 1: for every single day. And if you're a you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, pick a name, far right politician, you'll
Speaker 1: see them all, you know, tweet and share his image
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff. But the fact is
Speaker 1: is that they they would not be politically aligned or
Speaker 1: ideologically aligned whatsoever. So