Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Speaker 1: Weekly Studios.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams's jah, I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned in the Civic Cipher and.
Speaker 1: We want you to stay tuned because we got more
Speaker 1: to talk to you about. On the show, we make
Speaker 1: a case for allyship. That is kind of the point
Speaker 1: of the show, and for some people that is a
Speaker 1: much further.
Speaker 3: Journey than it is for others. We on the show
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 1: Profess to be allies to people who don't look like
Speaker 1: us when they need us, and we believe that our
Speaker 1: listenership are people who sometimes don't look like us but
Speaker 1: also feel kind of a similar spirit. And so we're
Speaker 1: going to revisit a conversation that we had last week
Speaker 1: that will grant you an even wider aperture toward that end.
Speaker 1: So that and much more to stick around for. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we are going to discuss a becoming
Speaker 1: a better ally ba BA and today's bibby was sponsored
Speaker 1: by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: the free voter while from fotmglobal dot com just for
Speaker 1: black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an
Speaker 1: impact with your spending. Again, that's fotmglobal dot com. Quill
Speaker 1: you want to take it?
Speaker 3: Sure? This is from the Daily? Is that Koser cost side?
Speaker 3: Maybe I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania's Central Bucks School District was one of the places
Speaker 2: where Moms for Liberty lost big in the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three elections, with the right wing school board majority swept
Speaker 2: out and replaced with Democrats. On Monday night, Karen Smith,
Speaker 2: who had been serving on the board in a Democratic
Speaker 2: minority prior to this election, was sworn in as school
Speaker 2: board president, part of the wave of change from the
Speaker 2: anti LGBTQ oh book banning board voted out in November.
Speaker 2: She made a powerful symbolic choice when it came to
Speaker 2: what book she'd be sworn in on or another religious book,
Speaker 2: but a stack of frequently banned books. Nice At the
Speaker 2: top of Smith's pile of books was Ellie Weisel's Holocaust
Speaker 2: survival memoir Knight, a choice with particular local residents. In January,
Speaker 2: after the board band staff from advocating on partisan, political
Speaker 2: or social policy issues, a Central Bucks librarian was told
Speaker 2: to remove the Wisel quote. I swore never to be silent.
Speaker 2: Whenever and wherever human beings endorse suffering and humiliation, we
Speaker 2: must always take side. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Speaker 2: Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented. The other books
Speaker 2: Smith chose or Tony Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Donna Gefferts,
Speaker 2: Lily and Duncan, which has a transgender main character, George M.
Speaker 2: Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue and Memoir about Growing Up
Speaker 2: Black and LGBTQ, Mike Curedo's graphic novel Flamer, and Susan
Speaker 2: Cochland's Beyond Magenta.
Speaker 1: Nice That is Allyship if I ever saw it, shout
Speaker 1: out to my favorite Karen Karen Smith.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to read.
Speaker 1: A letter to you, but first i want to explain
Speaker 1: something to that we talked about last week. So if
Speaker 1: you've heard this already, forgive us, but I'll try to
Speaker 1: be as brief as I can. Last week we explained
Speaker 1: kind of a hypothetical situation, a hypothetical monopoly situation, So.
Speaker 3: Follow us.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar, imagine we're all going to play Monopoly, okay,
Speaker 1: And that's the only game we're playing, and you have
Speaker 1: to play because you can't play anything else, can't do
Speaker 1: anything else. So in this game, you know that you
Speaker 1: and I are going to go first. We're going to
Speaker 1: just play amongst ourselves. We're going to spin the dice,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, circle the board six or eight times.
Speaker 1: We're going to get houses and property and all that, right,
Speaker 1: And after we've circled the board that amount of time,
Speaker 1: then we're going to allow you to play the game.
Speaker 1: And when you first start playing the game, you're only
Speaker 1: able to roll one dice, okay, and we're going to
Speaker 1: call that.
Speaker 3: Jim Crow. Ok And then.
Speaker 1: For your first couple of laps, you cannot buy any
Speaker 1: houses or collect two hundred dollars or collect two hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: and we're going to call that. We'll call it like
Speaker 1: a land theft or you know, new deal exemptions or
Speaker 1: the unfair distribution of the GI.
Speaker 2: Bill or segregations lining or well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and for the first few rounds, you have
Speaker 1: these strikes against you, right, and I want you to
Speaker 1: have these strikes in your mind as real things that
Speaker 1: have happened in this country, as policy.
Speaker 3: They were the rules in this country, okay, and then
Speaker 3: after a while.
Speaker 1: Of all of these things, you have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: gain some ground. But by then we own I think,
Speaker 1: I said, like eighty percent of the houses we own.
Speaker 1: The wealth is ours, you know, everything like that, And
Speaker 1: we're comparing you to us. Why are community, Why are
Speaker 1: the rates of this in your community so low? Why
Speaker 1: are the rates of this in your community so high?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Which I believe to be very unfair, because obviously you
Speaker 1: didn't start when we started, So it's like us picking
Speaker 1: on you and not giving you the same opportunities. Right now,
Speaker 1: let's say you having played this game, because that's the
Speaker 1: only game you can play, now have to choose between
Speaker 1: two paths forward. One path represents equality and the other
Speaker 1: path represents equity. Okay, now, equality says to you, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what. Now you can roll both dice. Now
Speaker 1: you can collect on community chest. Now you can buy houses,
Speaker 1: and now you can collect two hundred dollars. Now you
Speaker 1: can collect two hundred dollars when you pass go. So
Speaker 1: now all of us can collect two hundred dollars, all
Speaker 1: of us can buy houses. All of us are playing
Speaker 1: by the same rules. That is equality by definition. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you want equality or do you want equity? Equity
Speaker 1: says you know what, We're going to give you four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for passing go. We're going to put together
Speaker 1: some programs where you can get some houses. It's easier
Speaker 1: for you to get there. They're especially for you. You
Speaker 1: and I can't take advantage of those, okay, but you can.
Speaker 1: We don't need any more houses right now. Again, we're
Speaker 1: dealing not with individuals. We're dealing with as the system
Speaker 1: of monopoly. Okay, But these systems are in place so
Speaker 1: that you can have a bit of equity, so that
Speaker 1: you have a sporting chance of improving your status in
Speaker 1: the game. Now, my question to you is which path
Speaker 1: is better for you. I don't need your answer because
Speaker 1: I know that your answer is equity. So there have
Speaker 1: recently been attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in
Speaker 1: this country. In fact, you and I have to talk
Speaker 1: about this all the time, and so I was very
Speaker 1: excited when I got a letter from a longtime listener
Speaker 1: of our show named Philip C. I don't want anybody
Speaker 1: to pick on Philip, because, believe it or not, Philip's
Speaker 1: that's my guy.
Speaker 3: I rock with Philip.
Speaker 1: Philip points out a lot of blind spots in our conversations.
Speaker 1: He has some very different views of the world world
Speaker 1: from me, and I think that's okay. We talk the
Speaker 1: emails and I talk on the show often enough, but
Speaker 1: I believe that we strengthen each other's viewpoints. He points
Speaker 1: out blind spots over here, and I hope that I
Speaker 1: do the same over there, right, And so he wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to us, and I'm gonna share with you
Speaker 1: now kind of pointing out some blind spots that I'm
Speaker 1: so happy he did because now I get to speak
Speaker 1: to them, because I'm sure there's other people who feel
Speaker 1: that way. So allow me to read and thank you.
Speaker 1: And I sincerely mean this to Philip and anyone else.
Speaker 1: If you're going to write a letter, not a comment
Speaker 1: on social media, write a letter and really make your point,
Speaker 1: I'd be happy to read that. Ramses, I heard your
Speaker 1: monopoly comparison. Unfortunately, what you are going for will never work.
Speaker 1: Forget about all the illegals here. If tomorrow we took
Speaker 1: all the wealth and land and spit it, split it
Speaker 1: evenly with the three hundred and thirty million US citizens.
Speaker 1: I think it's more than that now, But I get
Speaker 1: your point. What do we do with the new births
Speaker 1: from January fourth and on? What do we do with
Speaker 1: the legal migrants? Anyway, it was already tried back when
Speaker 1: Bradford was governor of Massachusetts. In the beginning, they tried
Speaker 1: splitting everything equally, and what they found out was there
Speaker 1: were people who were more productive and people who were
Speaker 1: less productive. Resentment built. They switched to a more capitalist
Speaker 1: way by keeping what they produced and then trading and bartering,
Speaker 1: and then they prospered. I think this is supposed to
Speaker 1: be any time or any new people that came to
Speaker 1: Plymouth and beyond joined in and, like you pointed out,
Speaker 1: started out behind but were able to make a life.
Speaker 1: Some of them never caught up, some did catch up,
Speaker 1: and some surpassed. But this way of life worked and
Speaker 1: everyone prospered. Maybe not to the same level, but they
Speaker 1: were free from a king and better off than if
Speaker 1: they stayed in their birth country.
Speaker 3: Philip, So.
Speaker 1: Again some blind spots like you know what I see you, Philip.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. So let me go through this, and
Speaker 1: I realized that this is it's it's not the same,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've done this with Phillips letters before
Speaker 1: on the show.
Speaker 3: And this is not me picking on Philip again. That's
Speaker 3: my brother.
Speaker 1: And if he writes another letter and it works, we
Speaker 1: will read it again. Right, it's not me picking on
Speaker 1: Philip at all. But I've said his piece and I
Speaker 1: get to say mine now. So So the one thing
Speaker 1: that I never suggested was that we take everything away
Speaker 1: from everybody and split it up evenly with everyone else. Okay,
Speaker 1: black people have never asked that of white people in
Speaker 1: this country. I didn't ask that in the monopoly experiment example.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, hey, you know what, Q and I,
Speaker 1: we're going to give up all of our wealth and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And you know I never said that.
Speaker 1: So that's I think that that it kind of lies
Speaker 1: beyond the analogy that I was painting. So I really
Speaker 1: can't speak to that because nobody has really floated that
Speaker 1: as an idea. But right here, when he says that
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts they tried splitting everything found out that it
Speaker 1: was more productive. People were more PRODUCTI people were less productive.
Speaker 1: That is very true. Capitalism, unfettered capitalism has its positives.
Speaker 1: It's not the system that I would prefer to see
Speaker 1: us as human beings lean into.
Speaker 3: But it does have its positives.
Speaker 1: It does reward people who are innovative, and does reward
Speaker 1: innovation and so forth. These are things that are true
Speaker 1: that you also find in other economic models. But out credit,
Speaker 1: whereas do capitalism does allow for that. In this country,
Speaker 1: we often don't have unfettered capitalism. We have chrony capitalism. Right,
Speaker 1: And so that breaks down here too because as technical as.
Speaker 2: I want to get, but you also have renamed socialism, right, sure, Tony,
Speaker 2: capitalism is socialism, sure those that whole rich people for
Speaker 2: those that have, and unfettered capitalism for those that don't.
Speaker 2: So those that don't, you know, the bootstraps thing that
Speaker 2: they say, and for those that do, we will forgive
Speaker 2: and we will amend, and we will change, and we
Speaker 2: will divest, and we will do all these things to
Speaker 2: make sure that you remain where you are and that
Speaker 2: those who don't don't even have a chance to catch up.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: Sure, And again I'm not talking about your outliers. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about your Jordan's and your Oprah's and your
Speaker 1: you know, Obama's. In these immensely talented, brilliant minded people
Speaker 1: who have born with this charisma, And so I'm talking.
Speaker 2: About data, what do the data support? And even the
Speaker 2: Massachusetts example that them starting at the same point does
Speaker 2: not prevent those who are more productive and work harder
Speaker 2: from excelling. It doesn't that the idea that it didn't
Speaker 2: work because and then the reason being because some were
Speaker 2: more productive than others, as if there was some barrier
Speaker 2: to success for those who were more productive. That's not
Speaker 2: the case. So I don't know, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: context missing from the letter at for.
Speaker 1: Me, but I think I can feel in a good
Speaker 1: amount of that right here. So if you know someone
Speaker 1: in your life as a listener of this show who
Speaker 1: feels like, hey, there's.
Speaker 3: Some holes in this liberal agenda, it'll never work, blah
Speaker 3: blah blah.
Speaker 1: The people that are just kind of dead set on
Speaker 1: let's keep doing the current thing that doesn't work instead
Speaker 1: of trying the thing that I don't feel has the
Speaker 1: potential to work out as well for me, if you
Speaker 1: have people like this in your life, hear what I'm
Speaker 1: about to tell you. Okay, So often enough on this
Speaker 1: show we talk about white privilege, and this is something
Speaker 1: that a lot of white people, especially white men push
Speaker 1: back against particularly so when they're dealing with some sort
Speaker 1: of financial hardship that they don't feel should be.
Speaker 3: Happening to them.
Speaker 1: Okay, why isn't my life gone the way that I
Speaker 1: wanted it to go? Why am I not a movie
Speaker 1: star or a professional baseball player or a rock star
Speaker 1: an astronaut like the American dream told me I was
Speaker 1: going to be. I've been lied to. Oh it must
Speaker 1: be these Mexican people, these black people, blah blah blah. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a group of people that feel this way. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you suggest that these people have white privilege, they'll
Speaker 1: push back and say, man, I really wish I had
Speaker 1: some white privilege because it sucks out here for me,
Speaker 1: and from their perspective, that's how it feels.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Not knocking anybody, but allow me to paint this picture
Speaker 1: because I think that it helps further illuminate the point
Speaker 1: we're trying to make with this monopoly analogy. So, when
Speaker 1: I was in high school, I went to a place
Speaker 1: it called Untown, and it was basically a camp where
Speaker 1: they invited all the kids from all different races and
Speaker 1: backgrounds and socioeconomic places and whatever. We all went to
Speaker 1: this campground, and there was an exercise that we did
Speaker 1: on the campground. He said, I don't want all the
Speaker 1: students to stand in a line, okay, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to rehash that same experiment for the benefit of our listeners,
Speaker 1: because the only change being that they outlined people's privilege
Speaker 1: by having them take a step forward. What I'm going
Speaker 1: to do is turn that on its head. People that
Speaker 1: don't have this privilege have to take a step backwards.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So we're all starting at the start line, okay, Me, U, Q, everybody.
Speaker 3: We're all at the same line.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then there's a finish line in front of us,
Speaker 1: and that finish line. If you cross that finish line,
Speaker 1: you get you know, the American Dream, three wishes, a
Speaker 1: million dollar, whatever goal you want to put there. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you what white privilege looks like,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people think it's an advantage. White
Speaker 1: privilege is the benefit of getting the started zero. Just
Speaker 1: like the monopoly experiment. If you're on this starting line
Speaker 1: with me and Q and everybody else, I want you
Speaker 1: to take a You're going to move back one yard.
Speaker 3: That's three feet. If you or people.
Speaker 1: In your family have had to deal with the effects,
Speaker 1: the after effects of slavery. So that's me and Q
Speaker 1: taking some steps back. Really, everybody black taking some steps back.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean to cover the three yards? Okay,
Speaker 1: take another three steps back, yard back if you're dealing
Speaker 1: with the residual effects of the Black Codes, meaning that
Speaker 1: the economic advancement that could have turned into some success,
Speaker 1: early success.
Speaker 3: For your lineage, never made its way to you.
Speaker 1: If you know people have been imprisoned unfairly based on rules,
Speaker 1: people didn't get to vote and shape the political climate
Speaker 1: of their day to have a ripple effect, to have
Speaker 1: more representation for you at every different point in society,
Speaker 1: if the ripple effects of the Black Codes have reached you,
Speaker 1: step back another yard. Okay, that includes me in Q,
Speaker 1: and then everybody that looks like us, our children, our
Speaker 1: grandma's and everybody in our families.
Speaker 3: Another three steps back.
Speaker 1: If Jim Crow, you know you have ancestors from the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow South that didn't get a chance to represent
Speaker 1: positive representations of you and your people in society, that
Speaker 1: allowed a race sist society to perpetuate, and then those
Speaker 1: people's children and children and children. And then you also
Speaker 1: live in a climate where a lot of that still exists.
Speaker 3: Take three steps back.
Speaker 1: If your people have ever been subjected to large scale
Speaker 1: land theft.
Speaker 3: Take three steps back.
Speaker 1: Okay, that includes our Native American brothers and sisters, you know,
Speaker 1: on and on right. If your people were exempt from
Speaker 1: the New Deal, take three steps back. You if your
Speaker 1: people were treated unfairly with the distribution of GI benefits
Speaker 1: World War one, World War.
Speaker 3: Two, take three steps back.
Speaker 1: If your people were subjected to bank theft, white people
Speaker 1: stealing money from black people. We talked about that on
Speaker 1: this show. We can talk about it again if you want.
Speaker 1: If you think I'm making any of this up, trust me.
Speaker 1: We know now. We've been done more history studies now
Speaker 1: than we've ever done before. For okay, but if that
Speaker 1: ever happened to your people in mass, large scale that
Speaker 1: prevented advancement, take three steps back. I'm not even close
Speaker 1: to done. You mentioned redlining. If redlining has affected the
Speaker 1: schools that your children can go to, the schools that
Speaker 1: you were able to go to, If the ripple effects
Speaker 1: of redlining have affected your community, take three more steps back.
Speaker 1: If the attitudes that have shaped all of these outcomes
Speaker 1: have infiltrated their way into the criminal justice system. Let's
Speaker 1: say policing, for instance, take three steps back. If the
Speaker 1: police treat you unfairly, I personally Ramsa's job, Rudy King, Tayleb.
Speaker 1: The second knows based on my personal lived experience, because
Speaker 1: these eyes have seen it time and again, that that
Speaker 1: is true. I got to take three more steps back
Speaker 1: to you. I know the same is true for you.
Speaker 1: We don't even have to stop there. We can talk
Speaker 1: about judicial sentencing. Indeed, the entirety of the car soool system,
Speaker 1: the criminal realization of drugs. Drugs is not a health issue.
Speaker 1: If you're black, it's a health issue if you're white. Oh,
Speaker 1: let's get him in the rehab, let's get him somewhere.
Speaker 1: But the war on drugs, the crack epidemic, Nope, that's
Speaker 1: a criminal issue. These are criminals. We're going to put
Speaker 1: them in prison, not going to help them. They're black.
Speaker 1: Three steps back. I'm from Compton in the eighties. I've
Speaker 1: seen it. Three more steps back. No war on poverty
Speaker 1: or war on drugs. Housing discrimination, I'm not just talking
Speaker 1: about the valuation of your house. I'm talking about can
Speaker 1: you rent a house to have an address, to have
Speaker 1: a job, Does this affect your community or you personally,
Speaker 1: take three steps back, and granted not all of these
Speaker 1: things are going to.
Speaker 2: Affect all black people. I think everything you said so
Speaker 2: far would okay.
Speaker 1: Well, then allow you to allow me to continue, because
Speaker 1: this next one does, or this next one has a
Speaker 1: better chance of that environmental racism. Environment racism means that
Speaker 1: businesses can pollute on this side of town, but they
Speaker 1: can't pollute on that side of town.
Speaker 3: That's the long and the short of it. And that's
Speaker 3: a real thing. Google it.
Speaker 1: I don't have time to explain it because I only
Speaker 1: have a few more seconds. But if that affects your
Speaker 1: people in your community, healthcare outcomes, et cetera, take three
Speaker 1: more steps back. Now we all get to run forward
Speaker 1: that finish line, but there's a lot of us that
Speaker 1: are way back there trying to run for that finish line.
Speaker 1: And let's say only a handful of people will make it, right,
Speaker 1: A lot of people got to run a lot harder,
Speaker 1: and they'll never make it. And this, I hope better
Speaker 1: illuminates the concept of Dee and I and why it's necessary,
Speaker 1: the concept of white privilege and helps further cement, at
Speaker 1: least in Philip's mind what I was trying to make
Speaker 1: as a point for the monopoly experiment. But that's it
Speaker 1: for us. Thank you Phil every time for you know,
Speaker 1: keeping us on our toes man. We appreciate it. But
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for us.
Speaker 2: Here on Civic Cyphers. So once again, I'm your host,
Speaker 2: ramses Job. He is ramses Jah, I am q Ward.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys. It's twenty twenty four, man, Welcome
Speaker 2: to the new year, New year, same us, new year's
Speaker 2: same us, same stories, same trauma, same nonsense.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things that I know
Speaker 1: to be true is that we've lessered of two evils,
Speaker 1: our way to a less evil society in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four than it would have been in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 3: And I'll take that. So let's keep moving. Help us out.
Speaker 1: Hit us on social media at Civic Cipher, leave as
Speaker 1: a comment, follow us, donate on our website civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 3: Shoot us some.
Speaker 1: Love, download any previous episodes, send us some shop.
Speaker 3: There, subscriber like, and do all that. And until next week, y'all, peace, love, gotcha,