Speaker 1: And now watching my mic back, you're like that you
Speaker 1: can strike.
Speaker 2: Waters from headquarters behind him and the line.
Speaker 3: If you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm your host,
Speaker 3: ramses Jack.
Speaker 4: I typically say they call me q Ward, but then
Speaker 4: that makes it seem like there's just this segregated me
Speaker 4: over here somewhere that calls me that everybody calls me
Speaker 4: q So it's not even like I can't even say
Speaker 4: they anymore. You know, I'm q Ward. I am q ward.
Speaker 1: That's my Instagram handle too. By the way, listen, then
Speaker 1: give this man to follow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am q Ward. I can't even you know,
Speaker 4: it's not they that called me that. Everyone calls me that,
Speaker 4: including my mom.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.
Speaker 3: Uh But stick around. We got a lot more show
Speaker 3: coming your way. We will be talking about Philadelphia banning
Speaker 3: some traffic stops in hopes of making a more equitable
Speaker 3: police for all folks, and what that might result in
Speaker 3: in our way Black History of Fact, We're going to
Speaker 3: talk about forty acres and a mule.
Speaker 1: But first it's time to become a better ally.
Speaker 3: And today what I want to talk about is another movie.
Speaker 3: You know, in the first half of the show, we
Speaker 3: talked about the harder they fall. Being number one on Netflix,
Speaker 3: will shout out to them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: If we haven't seen it, go see it.
Speaker 1: Please do not a.
Speaker 4: True story, but true characters exactly.
Speaker 3: But in order to become a better ally today, we
Speaker 3: collectively recommend you check out another movie.
Speaker 1: This one is called King Richard.
Speaker 3: We talked about this a bit before, but we're getting
Speaker 3: real close to the actual release date and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of hype around the film.
Speaker 1: And I really think it's important for folks to check
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know, King Richard is about the
Speaker 3: Williams family, Venus and Serena, the famous tennis players, and
Speaker 3: it's really their father's story. Their father is King Richard
Speaker 3: is played by Will Smith in the movie. And you know,
Speaker 3: for for lots of things that folks might not know about.
Speaker 3: You know, there might be folks who've been freshly clicked
Speaker 3: on to what the black experience might be like since
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. You know, you might have heard things like,
Speaker 3: you know, black folks have to be twice as good
Speaker 3: to be good enough, you know, things like that. I
Speaker 3: really feel like this movie is going to touch on
Speaker 3: things like that because for years we've known we didn't
Speaker 3: have to know the Venus and Serena William's story in
Speaker 3: order to.
Speaker 1: Know what they had to go through, dark.
Speaker 3: Skinned black women from Compton and Watts, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean to get to the top of the world
Speaker 3: in their field. So you know, it's there's a ready
Speaker 3: assumption for us. But you know, it's always helpful to
Speaker 3: provide context, you know, and you know, I believe this
Speaker 3: movie will illuminate some of that and you.
Speaker 1: Know, further create.
Speaker 3: Or deepened the empathetic connection that we've kind of started
Speaker 3: cultivating with each other black folks and non black folks.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, in order to become a better ally,
Speaker 3: at least for this week, we recommend you checking out
Speaker 3: King Richard, so you know, put.
Speaker 4: It on your calendars and shout out to Will Smith.
Speaker 1: By the way, in this.
Speaker 4: New world that we live in, movie theaters are not
Speaker 4: thriving in the way that they once did. So Will
Speaker 4: Smith has either negotiated for his co stars or taken
Speaker 4: money from his own salary to make sure that the
Speaker 4: people working on the movie got bonuses that they typically
Speaker 4: would have gotten from movie tickets sales that at least
Speaker 4: don't exist anymore. Because the movie is not just coming
Speaker 4: out in theaters but being streamed simultaneously, and because of that,
Speaker 4: a lot of people just stay home and watch movies now.
Speaker 4: So Will Smith to make a more equitable world for
Speaker 4: his team, co stars and the crew for the movie
Speaker 4: made sure that people got those bonuses. So talk about
Speaker 4: becoming a better ally, He's doing it in a very
Speaker 4: very kinetic way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pay people, we'll get there. We got to talk
Speaker 3: about forty acres and a mual two. But yeah, shout
Speaker 3: out to Will Smith. He's good for that, him and
Speaker 3: jay Z. But for all the stuff that they get online,
Speaker 3: they they put their money where their mouth is. I'll
Speaker 3: say that much, you know, because I don't know what
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I've seen lots of stories and
Speaker 3: lots of examples have been doing just that.
Speaker 1: So now, traffic stops, Q. Have you ever been pulled
Speaker 1: over before?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately in the pitch black in the middle of the
Speaker 4: night in Mississippi and a new Porsche.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that sounds like a fun night.
Speaker 4: In the Southern United States, at the height of one
Speaker 4: of the most polarizing summers in this country's history. Racially,
Speaker 4: I was pulled over.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's a funny story because I was
Speaker 1: pulled over in that same porch with you.
Speaker 3: Well, as it turns out, Uh, it's something that we
Speaker 3: knew for a long time. Uh. We used to call
Speaker 3: this driving while black. Basically, what it means is you
Speaker 3: got pulled over because you were black. There was some minor,
Speaker 3: very minor infraction. You know, maybe I switched lanes and
Speaker 3: I didn't signal, or maybe I whatever just the smallest.
Speaker 5: Of things, right, Maybe I rode too close to the
Speaker 5: dividing line and then it made a cost a vibrating
Speaker 5: noise which then caused a state trooper h and county
Speaker 5: sheriff to pull me.
Speaker 4: Over in a minute of the night and men get
Speaker 4: a dog and then called drug dogs, who has.
Speaker 1: It turned out, smelled drugs in the brand new porch
Speaker 1: that we just picked up in Florida.
Speaker 4: When there was no man Because maybe in the parking
Speaker 4: lot somebody who had drugs on them brushed up against
Speaker 4: the car six hundred miles ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the odors stayed on the car outside of
Speaker 3: the car while we were driving. Yes, maybe that happened.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know, obviously, this is a story
Speaker 3: that Q and I share. This actually happened, and the
Speaker 3: officers actually said that to us after they got the dogs.
Speaker 3: The dogs quote indicated the presence of drugs. They searched
Speaker 3: the brand new car and there was nothing in it.
Speaker 3: And then they told us that that someone might have
Speaker 3: leaned up against the car the last time we got gassed,
Speaker 3: and they might have had a joint in their pocket,
Speaker 3: and that's what the dog's smelling. And we're in the
Speaker 3: middle of no, we're having driven maybe it was about
Speaker 3: four hundred miles by then because we were close to
Speaker 3: the Louisiana Anyway, that's a real story that happened. But
Speaker 3: I digress. Driving while black.
Speaker 1: It's the thing.
Speaker 3: We've known about this for a long time, and it's
Speaker 3: a how do I say this? It's one of the
Speaker 3: primary ways that police can probe into our individual lives.
Speaker 3: They can do a deep search with whatever it is
Speaker 3: that you have on your person. They can find out
Speaker 3: who you are, whether or not you've have been wanted
Speaker 3: for anything, whether or not you've done anything in your past.
Speaker 3: They can find out what's on your person. They can,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever, and if they want to escalate things
Speaker 3: once they have you pulled over for the initial infraction, whatever,
Speaker 3: it may be maybe they can detain you there usually
Speaker 3: until they find something that they want to you know
Speaker 3: him you up on.
Speaker 1: Now, we and this is not just black people. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 3: We don't believe that this happens in the same way
Speaker 3: to we'll say white folks. I can't say non black
Speaker 3: folks because I do from California, so I and I
Speaker 3: live in Arizona, so I'm familiar with the way police
Speaker 3: interact with my Hispanic brothers and sisters, or my LATINX
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, as well as Native folks and you know,
Speaker 3: other melanated types of individuals.
Speaker 1: But we do recognize that.
Speaker 3: The same protocol and practice isn't put in play when
Speaker 3: the driver is a white person as often or with
Speaker 3: as a extreme of an implementation. With that said, traffic
Speaker 3: stops usually end up resulting in something crazy when they do,
Speaker 3: you know, like like the instance we just mentioned, you know,
Speaker 3: getting pulled over. Obviously, you know, we don't have any
Speaker 3: acute Have you ever done a drug in your life?
Speaker 4: Had an ad vial like three days ago because I
Speaker 4: had a splitting headache?
Speaker 3: Well I should I should say this right then? Have
Speaker 3: you ever done an illegal drugs. I guess I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I'd feel as as a name brand profen. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: it's what it's called in the in the medical world.
Speaker 1: Got it, got it. But in any illegal drug ever
Speaker 1: in your life.
Speaker 3: Illegal and or recreational. Never in my life. Perfect, same
Speaker 3: is true with me. And you've never drank alcohol. I've
Speaker 3: never drank alcohol, even so that we could have this kind.
Speaker 4: I have unfortunately tasted alcohol, but I have never had
Speaker 4: a drink.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I've never you know, same pretty much.
Speaker 4: And it's gross.
Speaker 1: It smells like it tastes that. Don't know, it is gross.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's just me. You know, I have a fun
Speaker 3: life without all that. I got a good story here.
Speaker 1: Anyway. It's so crazy that we would get pulled over.
Speaker 3: And almost every time I've gotten pulled over, the line
Speaker 3: of questioning goes to have you been drinking, which, from
Speaker 3: what I understand, is standard practice, especially if you're out
Speaker 3: at two in the morning. You know, Q and I
Speaker 3: are both DJs for those that don't know, and we
Speaker 3: work late. We work weekends, you know, when folks typically
Speaker 3: go out and a lot of folks drink, so that's
Speaker 3: standard practice, no issue there. But you know, getting pulled
Speaker 3: over in the daytime, unless you're doing like some gross
Speaker 3: speeding thing or something like that. The line of questioning
Speaker 3: often goes to do you have weapons or drugs in
Speaker 3: the car that I should know about? Which might be
Speaker 3: standard practice for everybody, for every police department across the country. Again,
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to say what the protocol should or
Speaker 3: shouldn't be. You know, however they get down, that's how
Speaker 3: they get down. But I don't imagine that dogs.
Speaker 1: Get called on everybody.
Speaker 3: You know, only in cases where we think these people
Speaker 3: might be criminals. And the funniest part of the story
Speaker 3: is that, you know, you and I are the furthest
Speaker 3: thing from that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I told a story before when I got pulled over
Speaker 3: near the airport one time. This was in Arizona. I
Speaker 3: got pulled over near the airport and pulled out of
Speaker 3: the car, and I told the officers same thing. I
Speaker 3: just said, I've never done a drug, I've never drank alcohol.
Speaker 3: And they said, oh yeah, well.
Speaker 1: How about this.
Speaker 3: Why don't we pull you out, handcuff you, sit you
Speaker 3: on the side of the freeway, and we're going to
Speaker 3: search the car. You know, after I'd already given them
Speaker 3: permission to do it. I'm like, you're not going to
Speaker 3: find anything in here, And later the officer told me
Speaker 3: that's exactly what someone who does meth would say, and
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, you know what a stretch.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Now again, I need to make my point here, traffic
Speaker 3: stops overwhelmingly target black drivers, especially in densely populated places
Speaker 3: like Philadelphia and rather escalated traffic stops.
Speaker 1: We'll say it that way.
Speaker 3: Or you know you have dogs, you have you know,
Speaker 3: extra more aggressive tactics deployed. I'm gonn handcuff, You'm gonna
Speaker 3: sity on the side of the street. I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: the dogs. I'm gonna call back up. I'm gonna do
Speaker 3: this sort of thing, right, So those things overwhelmingly on
Speaker 3: the other end of it is a black driver. Again,
Speaker 3: we call that driving while black. Well, we've seen how
Speaker 3: policing oftentimes leads to you know, scared police who pull
Speaker 3: their weapon and murder people on the side of the road.
Speaker 3: We've seen how policing disproportionately affects black and over Policing
Speaker 3: disproportionately affects black and brown communities because you know where
Speaker 3: you put the police. That's where the arrests are going
Speaker 3: to be made, you know. And that's not to say
Speaker 3: that crime doesn't happen elsewhere, it's just not policed in.
Speaker 1: The same way.
Speaker 3: Right Philadelphia their city council on in this. A lot
Speaker 3: of these notes come from Channel twenty nine. In Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: they had a city council vote for a driver driving
Speaker 3: Equity Bill, which basically bars police from stopping drivers from
Speaker 3: minor traffic violations.
Speaker 1: I'll read a little bit about it.
Speaker 3: In primary violations, police officers are permitted to conduct traffic
Speaker 3: stops in the name of public safety. In secondary violations,
Speaker 3: the traffic stop would no longer be used for enforcement.
Speaker 3: And these are what are considered secondary violation according to
Speaker 3: their Driving Equity Bill. One is the vehicle is not
Speaker 3: registered within sixty days of the observed infraction. The registration
Speaker 3: plate is not clearly displayed, fastened or visible, single brake light, headlight,
Speaker 3: running light, etc.
Speaker 1: Not illuminated.
Speaker 3: That's another big thing that I've been pulled over before,
Speaker 3: and I've heard lots of times your license plate, light
Speaker 3: bulb is out, you know, and instead of saying, hey,
Speaker 3: your light bulb is out, you might want to get
Speaker 3: that fixed, it's hey, your light bulb is out, where
Speaker 3: you step out of the car. Have you had anything
Speaker 3: to drink? Where you're going, where you're coming from? Do
Speaker 3: you have anything in the cars? You know about any weapons?
Speaker 3: Have you done drugs? You know, like all this sort
Speaker 3: of interrogation sort of the thing, and at best it's harassment.
Speaker 3: At worst it's obviously a death sentence. Minor obstructions. I
Speaker 3: believe that to be like moving instructions, Like I said,
Speaker 3: maybe switching lanes without you know, using a blinker bumper issues,
Speaker 3: operation of vehicle without official certificate of inspection. This might
Speaker 3: be a Philadelphia thing, or unlawful operation without evidence of
Speaker 3: emissions inspection. So these are the things that folks cannot
Speaker 3: be pulled over for. And what I imagine they're doing
Speaker 3: is instead of pulling a person over and pulling them
Speaker 3: out of their car, they're taking the license plate number,
Speaker 3: sending it in and then this person gets a letter
Speaker 3: in the mail saying, hey, we've observed this. You can
Speaker 3: either fix it or pay this fine, right, which minimizes
Speaker 3: the amount of police interaction, which if according to police,
Speaker 3: you know, if these traffic stops are very scary, intense situations,
Speaker 3: should be good for police too, because now they don't
Speaker 3: have to pull out their guns and they don't have
Speaker 3: to be terrified walking up to a car that they
Speaker 3: just pulled over for.
Speaker 1: Quote unquote breaking the law. And you know, everyone should
Speaker 1: be happier in theory. What do you think.
Speaker 4: For those of you who have listened to this program before,
Speaker 4: you realize that every time my brother does this, I interject,
Speaker 4: And it's because he is the far more graceful, gracious,
Speaker 4: and optimistic one of the two gives cops the out
Speaker 4: of being afraid and that it's complete bull crap. They
Speaker 4: use hate and in a lot of times racism, and
Speaker 4: then they cry scared after they murder people while they
Speaker 4: have guns and the people that they murder don't. So
Speaker 4: every time my brother says that these cops are afraid,
Speaker 4: I raise my hand and interject, because maybe one in ten,
Speaker 4: maybe one in fifty of those officers was actually scared
Speaker 4: for his life. But when the people that you shoot
Speaker 4: in the back are running away from you, it is
Speaker 4: very very difficult for me to accept that you did
Speaker 4: that because you were afraid. Officer such and such. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're right, I think it shows that that person was
Speaker 4: afraid if they're running away. I mean, I've unfortunately had
Speaker 4: to run away from a gun before, and I realized
Speaker 4: that bullets go a lot faster than my legs do.
Speaker 4: But it's a scary situation nonetheless. But yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: The thing is, I think that with our show, I
Speaker 4: try to account for a person who might be we'll
Speaker 4: call them a moderate folks that really believe that police
Speaker 4: are doing the best that they can ten times out
Speaker 4: of ten, you know, and don't account for the fact
Speaker 4: that there might actually be a lot more bad apples
Speaker 4: than they they then they're comfortable within their version of
Speaker 4: the story, right, They like that few bad apples.
Speaker 1: Motif if you will.
Speaker 3: And you know, we we recognize there's a long form
Speaker 3: of systemic, you know, institutional oppression on one specific community
Speaker 3: or really a couple of different communities, you know, And
Speaker 3: so in order to speak to that person and to
Speaker 3: allow them their truth, you know, I think that a
Speaker 3: lot of times my approach just doesn't you know, cognitive
Speaker 3: bias exists, and I don't want a person listening to
Speaker 3: us to say, oh, this is another one of those
Speaker 3: people and turn us off, rather to listen a little
Speaker 3: bit further. So I appreciate you interjecting, because you are
Speaker 3: absolutely right. I know that you're right, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: most people that are listening know that you're right. But
Speaker 3: there might be some folks who are you know, they
Speaker 3: might be related to a police art they might you know,
Speaker 3: they from their perspective and their vantage point, they have
Speaker 3: to see the best in what this institution is.
Speaker 1: Please and ladies and gentlemen, what you just listen to
Speaker 1: is another thing that Rams just kind of makes fun
Speaker 1: of me for, and it's that he just made very
Speaker 1: clear that there is a lot of context and nuance
Speaker 1: to both sides of all of the discussions that we have,
Speaker 1: and listening to him explain that made it make complete
Speaker 1: sense why he presents it the way that he does.
Speaker 1: And this is the last show on Civic Cipher. Well,
Speaker 1: I will interject, no, all.
Speaker 4: The fear is nonsense narrative, because what he just says
Speaker 4: is important. It is important for us to get further
Speaker 4: than that part of the message into what could be
Speaker 4: education and solution and reprieve and forgiveness and progress that
Speaker 4: has to come after that. And we still need people
Speaker 4: who don't agree with all of the takes that we
Speaker 4: have and all of the points of view that we
Speaker 4: share to listen and maybe hear something that they wouldn't
Speaker 4: have otherwise. So thank you Ramses for being that even
Speaker 4: kill and that open minded and having the foresight to
Speaker 4: know that we need the people to not turn the
Speaker 4: station as soon as they turn it.
Speaker 1: On, right, right, that's fair.
Speaker 3: But please I digress interject as often as you can.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sure there's a lot of folks where
Speaker 3: this is their first episode.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Fortunately this past week our show has been picked up
Speaker 3: in a few new cities. So to all of our
Speaker 3: new listeners, welcome. Please check out civicsipher dot com and
Speaker 3: download this and any previous episodes, and you know, get
Speaker 3: caught up to speed, and we hope that you'll ride
Speaker 3: with us as we try to make, you know, it
Speaker 3: a little bit easier for us to all be brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters better brothers and sisters to each other on
Speaker 3: this in this country and on this planet. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a much bigger vision, but for now, we live
Speaker 3: in the US, So this is what we're talking about now.
Speaker 3: I do want to read this quote going back to
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia banning the minor traffic stops, and again this
Speaker 3: comes from Channel Channel twenty nine article out of Philadelphia. Quote,
Speaker 3: data and lived experiences showed us the problem, and data
Speaker 3: will likely be key to making sure this is done right,
Speaker 3: said council member Isaiah Thomas.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 3: Data will tell us if we should end more traffic
Speaker 3: stops or amend how this is enforced. Data will also
Speaker 3: tell other cities that Philadelphia is leading on this civil
Speaker 3: rights issue and it can be replicated.
Speaker 1: Quote, so this is based on numbers.
Speaker 3: Philadelphia is obviously a huge city, huge population center in
Speaker 3: this country. And for them to take a step like
Speaker 3: this to try to make things right, you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's one thing, if it's and I want to say
Speaker 3: this to it, and I do want to hear a
Speaker 3: little bit more of your thoughts to you. It's one
Speaker 3: thing to say, you know that all of these crimes
Speaker 3: are the fault of black people breaking the law.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I get that, I understand that. But if we're doing
Speaker 3: this across the board, then what we need is the
Speaker 3: same amount of policing done in all parts of every city.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: That means the same amount of people getting pulled over
Speaker 3: who are non black and you know, non non Latin X,
Speaker 3: non melanated, and then the impact on those people's lives
Speaker 3: and and that the the traffic stops are as intrusive,
Speaker 3: you know, And then if we compare it apples to Apple,
Speaker 3: then we would really see is this a violation of
Speaker 3: you know, your civil liberties, which a lot of folks
Speaker 3: on the right and a lot of folks who are.
Speaker 1: Moderates as well, really want to protect. You know. This
Speaker 1: is why police don't just come into your house.
Speaker 3: Right But if there's a traffic stop, if they can
Speaker 3: have reasonable suspicion or probable cause, and they can get
Speaker 3: a dog that will you know, whatever, then there's ways
Speaker 3: to wiggle in there. And this is why police don't
Speaker 3: cuminate your house and they do go to your car.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But again, if we spread this out evenly across the
Speaker 3: board for all races, then we would see more numbers
Speaker 3: because excuse me again, as the data shows, and we're
Speaker 3: gonna pick on marijuana this time. Obviously marijuana is becoming
Speaker 3: more and more legal as time goes on. But over
Speaker 3: the course of you know, the war on drugs, there's
Speaker 3: I forget the exact numbers, so we I'm gonna have
Speaker 3: to look them up and get back to you. But
Speaker 3: I do know that more black men have been in
Speaker 3: prison for marijuana possession or violations or whatever then white folks.
Speaker 3: But the users are approximately the same, with I think
Speaker 3: the edge being there's slightly more white users, and this
Speaker 3: is proportional to the population, so it would be like
Speaker 3: one in three or something like that, so roughly the
Speaker 3: same numbers, but there are more black people in prison
Speaker 3: for it, despite black people only making up thirteen percent
Speaker 3: approximately of the population of this country. So that goes
Speaker 3: to show you that these traffic stops have had an
Speaker 3: adverse effect and a domino effect on the black community.
Speaker 3: You know, when you have folks that are introduced into
Speaker 3: the system and then now it becomes tougher to get jobs,
Speaker 3: and you're taking black men away from families, things like this.
Speaker 3: Despite how good of Father's black people are according to
Speaker 3: the CDC study in twenty fourteen, black men are excellent
Speaker 3: Father's Q.
Speaker 4: You would agree, right, I'm laughing, because we're the greatest
Speaker 4: of all time.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, that is true according to the CDC look
Speaker 3: at us. But also, you know some of the things
Speaker 3: about some of the stereotypes about black men not being
Speaker 3: in the homes, things like this. You know, a lot
Speaker 3: of these problems you can trace back to this war
Speaker 3: on this misguided war on drugs, and the front facing
Speaker 3: end of this war on drugs is a lot of
Speaker 3: times police traffic stops. So we're gonna have to stop
Speaker 3: it right there and probably have to do a follow
Speaker 3: up with this, But it will be interesting to find
Speaker 3: out how this unfolds in the coming months.
Speaker 1: And years of exactly what the result of this will be.
Speaker 3: But for now, we do have to move on to
Speaker 3: our way black history fact. Today, we're going to talk
Speaker 3: about forty acres and a mule that might have been
Speaker 3: something you might have heard of or maybe come up
Speaker 3: in school or whatever. We're gonna piel back a couple
Speaker 3: of layers. And I was inspired to kind of go
Speaker 3: in this direction today because you and I wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about the.
Speaker 1: The watermelon trope.
Speaker 3: You know that the black folks love watermelons that you know,
Speaker 3: goes all the way back to like, you know, slavery,
Speaker 3: or rather, are watermelons racist?
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: Forty acres in a mule like watermelons, was in theory
Speaker 3: supposed to be a way that black folks, once emancipated,
Speaker 3: could have some sort of economic independence and economic future,
Speaker 3: a way to care for themselves and their posterity. So
Speaker 3: this article comes from PBS dot org. I've kind of
Speaker 3: edited down for time. The author was Henry Lewis Gates Junior,
Speaker 3: and I will begin The promise was the first systemic,
Speaker 3: sorry systematic, attempt to provide a form of reparation to
Speaker 3: newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its
Speaker 3: time pro socialists and its implications. In fact, such a
Speaker 3: policy would be radical in any country today. The federal
Speaker 3: government's massive confiscation of private property some four hundred thousand
Speaker 3: acres formerly owned by Confederate landowners, and its methodical redistribution
Speaker 3: to former black slaves.
Speaker 1: What most of.
Speaker 3: Us haven't heard is that the idea really was generated
Speaker 3: by black leaders themselves. Try to imagine how profoundly different
Speaker 3: the history of race relations in the United States would
Speaker 3: have been had this policy been implemented and enforced, had
Speaker 3: the former slaves actually had the access to the ownership
Speaker 3: of land of property, if they had a chance to
Speaker 3: be self sufficient economically, to build a crew and pass
Speaker 3: on wealth. After all, one of the principal promises of
Speaker 3: America was the possibility of average working people being able
Speaker 3: to own land and all that such ownership entailed. As
Speaker 3: we know all too well, this promise was not to
Speaker 3: be realized for the overwhelming majority of the nation's former slaves,
Speaker 3: who numbered about three point nine million. Today's conversations, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna take a break. Today's conversations about reparations. This is
Speaker 3: the inception of those conversations. So this is how long
Speaker 3: we've been talking about that. And reparations have been paid
Speaker 3: to native folks, to our Asian brothers and sisters. Reparations
Speaker 3: have been paid many times in this country's history to
Speaker 3: bring some sort of balance, economic balance, you know, and
Speaker 3: moral you know. It's a way of saying, we acknowledged this,
Speaker 3: this was wrong, and here's what we're going to do
Speaker 3: about it. And so I do believe that there is
Speaker 3: more conversation we had about reparations, but I'll continue this
Speaker 3: article today. We commonly use the phrase forty acres and
Speaker 3: a mule, but few of us have ever had the
Speaker 3: order itself. Three of its parts are relevant here. Section
Speaker 3: one bears repeating in four the islands from Charleston south,
Speaker 3: the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles
Speaker 3: back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint
Speaker 3: John's River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the
Speaker 3: settlement of the Negroes now made free by the acts
Speaker 3: of war and the proclamation of the President of the
Speaker 3: United States. Section two specifies that these new communities, moreover,
Speaker 3: would be governed entirely by black people themselves on the
Speaker 3: islands and in the settlements hereafter to be established. No
Speaker 3: white person whatsoever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty,
Speaker 3: will be permitted to reside, and the sole and exclusive
Speaker 3: management of affairs will be left to free peoples themselves.
Speaker 3: By the laws of war and orders of the President
Speaker 3: of the United States, the Negro is free and must
Speaker 3: be dealt with as such. This is basically the same
Speaker 3: arrangement that the government has with our indigenous slash Native
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters who live on sovereign land in this
Speaker 3: country still Americans, still voting presidential elections, but have their
Speaker 3: own tribal leaders, tribal governments, and so forth. So another
Speaker 3: way to refer to them as reservations, Indian reservations, those
Speaker 3: sorts of things, same sort of relationship here, all right,
Speaker 3: I'll finish finally. Section three specialize the allocation of land
Speaker 3: each family shall have a plot of not more than
Speaker 3: forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on
Speaker 3: some water channel, will not more than eight hundred feet
Speaker 3: water front in the possession of which land the military
Speaker 3: authorities will afford them protection until such time as they
Speaker 3: can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.
Speaker 3: And what happened to this astonishingly visionary program? I edited
Speaker 3: out the mule park just for time? What happened to
Speaker 3: this astonishingly visionary program which would have fundamentally altered the
Speaker 3: course of American race relations. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor and
Speaker 3: a sympathizer with the South, turn the order in the
Speaker 3: fall of eighteen sixty five, and, as Barton Meyers sadly concludes,
Speaker 3: returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida
Speaker 3: coast to the planters who had originally owned it, to
Speaker 3: the very people who had declared war on the United
Speaker 3: States of America. So this is our way black history.
Speaker 1: Fact. What do you think about that? Q?
Speaker 4: As is the case today, a very large portion of
Speaker 4: our country would shoot themselves in the foot if it
Speaker 4: meant that they could also hold black people back.
Speaker 1: That is a very.
Speaker 4: Clear, very sad, but very very honest truth. There are
Speaker 4: poor people in this country that are not black, that
Speaker 4: vote in every election against their own self interest because
Speaker 4: of the myth of the type of progress and the
Speaker 4: type of equity it would provide for poor black people.
Speaker 4: That is not nothing. That's not something that's new, but
Speaker 4: it is something that is very true and always has
Speaker 4: been since the very foundation of these United States.
Speaker 1: No, I will return.
Speaker 4: We will return in land to people we were just
Speaker 4: at war with before we give land to the black American.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny how much power the president has
Speaker 3: because one thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know is that.
Speaker 3: The Lincoln successor, Andrew Johnson.
Speaker 1: I believe I just said it.
Speaker 3: Where to go Andrew Johnson, yep, that he was the
Speaker 3: person responsible for that. And then therein creating what would
Speaker 3: ultimately become the reparations debate, the great reparations debate that
Speaker 3: has existed in this country one hundreds of years, and
Speaker 3: in doing so has allowed those very same people that
Speaker 3: you mentioned to you exactly what they need to blame
Speaker 3: their problems on black folks, because if black folks had
Speaker 3: reparations and had you know, economic mobility and so forth
Speaker 3: and so on. You know, A, we wouldn't have as
Speaker 3: many distressing facets of our experience in this country, but
Speaker 3: B there might be some advancement, you know, by black
Speaker 3: folks and some more examples of black folks really doing
Speaker 3: well for themselves. And I found, at least in my estimation,
Speaker 3: that it's really important for some folks on the right
Speaker 3: to be able to point out, hey, Mexicans are taking
Speaker 3: your jobs.
Speaker 1: Hey, you know black people are on welfare.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know the reason the country is not what
Speaker 3: has not fulfilled it's American dream quote unquote promise to
Speaker 3: you is because of these groups of people. So I
Speaker 3: have to leave it right there. Once again, I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Rams's joh.
Speaker 4: I am your your host Quentin Ward affectionately referred to
Speaker 4: by many as Q.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, and we want to thank you for tuning
Speaker 3: in the City Cipher once again this week.
Speaker 1: Please if the website civiycipher dot.
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Speaker 1: Bro Until next week, y'all, pace yo.
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Speaker 4: You're like that list too.
Speaker 2: We can strike back a global borders with waters from
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Speaker 1: What's happening? It's You've got a question to ask you.
Speaker 1: The Deuse is just a TV show.
Speaker 2: You're pasting this from my wife wartime journalist headlines. Wait
Speaker 2: go