Speaker 1: And now go my mic back.
Speaker 2: You're like that.
Speaker 3: Time we can strikes with waters from headquarters behind him
Speaker 3: and the line the borders.
Speaker 2: If you're just tuned in the civic cipher, I am
Speaker 2: your host, Ramsey's job. He has always been Ramsey's job
Speaker 2: most of the time. I'm Q or give or take.
Speaker 2: I think a couple of wins to the last. The
Speaker 2: third Thursday got to carry the one man anyway, Uh,
Speaker 2: be sure to stick around.
Speaker 1: We got a lot more show in store for you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about American history that has been
Speaker 1: rebranded as critical race theory. It's a very important thing
Speaker 1: that we need to talk about, and we're going to
Speaker 1: use an example that is pretty close to home for us,
Speaker 1: but we feel like you'll find it in other parts
Speaker 1: of the country as well. And we're also going to
Speaker 1: share a way black history fact about a gentleman by
Speaker 1: the name of Philip A. Peyton Junior who is known
Speaker 1: as the Father of Harlem. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we talk about on the show from time
Speaker 1: to time housing discrimination, and we're going to help paint
Speaker 1: a picture of what that could look like. And of course,
Speaker 1: one of the stories of how you know Harlem became
Speaker 1: one of the places where black people are okay to
Speaker 1: be so first and foremost, So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about how to become a better ally b a Ba Baba.
Speaker 1: So Today's Baba is sponsored by Major Threads Men'swear. If
Speaker 1: you want to check it out, hit majorthreads dot com
Speaker 1: for some quality menswear. All right, Today's Baba is a
Speaker 1: bit self serving, I admit, but we decided together that
Speaker 1: we should let you know at length exactly how you
Speaker 1: can support us. It's sort of weird to ask you
Speaker 1: to support us because I don't know. It just feels weird.
Speaker 2: I have an idea. The genesis of our show and
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Speaker 2: we're coming out asking for people to direct this report us,
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Speaker 2: get paid a salary to do this.
Speaker 1: We won't we paid anything process.
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Speaker 1: So we want to remind you that you can donate
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Speaker 1: That goes a long way. It's just a little bit
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Speaker 1: follow all that stuff our social media. We are at
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher on all platforms. Your support goes a long way,
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Speaker 1: we appreciate you, even if it's just to listen and
Speaker 1: help impact the world.
Speaker 2: All right, subscribe, like, share, follow all that's free. All
Speaker 2: that's free, critical race theory. Okay, got the boogiey man?
Speaker 1: Yeah man? All right, so what I'm gonna do. Today's
Speaker 1: reading comes from an article in Azy Central. Full disclosure,
Speaker 1: we are based in Arizona, and this gentleman is in Arizona,
Speaker 1: and you know, normally we don't do that type of show.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a place where you don't live or
Speaker 1: may not live. We do have a couple of stations
Speaker 1: in Arizona. Shout out to ninety eight three, both of them.
Speaker 1: But we feel like this story is relevant no matter
Speaker 1: where you live, because this gives insight into exactly why
Speaker 1: what has become known as critical race theory is under
Speaker 1: attack and how those attacks can exist. Because if you
Speaker 1: are of the thinking of me and Q, you might
Speaker 1: think American history is necessary to explain how we got here,
Speaker 1: why we are where we are, and what we can
Speaker 1: do in the future, what we can avoid in the future,
Speaker 1: how we can move in the future to create the
Speaker 1: reality that we want. We feel like that education is
Speaker 1: necessary and people that have arguments to the contrary sound
Speaker 1: just like this one. And so when I read this,
Speaker 1: I got surprised and I really felt strongly about sharing
Speaker 1: it with you. So forgive the fact that it's feels
Speaker 1: a little localized. I promise it's not and it's not
Speaker 1: intended to sound that way, but I'll read. The guy
Speaker 1: got elected here. His name is Tom Horne, and he's
Speaker 1: elected to the Superintendent of schooling. So he's in charge
Speaker 1: of the churance well not mine and not cues, but
Speaker 1: you know, in general, and he has you know, a
Speaker 1: plan of how he plans on changing things to you know,
Speaker 1: create successful students. And some of them sound very sensible.
Speaker 1: You know, he wants to you know, put an emphasis
Speaker 1: on math, and you know, all these sorts of you know,
Speaker 1: neat ideas. But when he got to topic five, he
Speaker 1: had quite a bit to say. So this is copy
Speaker 1: paste from him through the as central article that I read.
Speaker 1: Number five eliminate critical race theory. Okay, so we're just
Speaker 1: going to read and break it up, you know, and
Speaker 1: react to it. All right, He says, I believe we
Speaker 1: are all individuals, brothers and sisters under the skin, entitled
Speaker 1: to be judged by what we know, what we can do,
Speaker 1: our character, ability to appreciate beauty, and so on. Race
Speaker 1: is irrelevant to anything. Critical race theory teaches the opposite
Speaker 1: that race is primary. They divide students into oppressors and
Speaker 1: oppressed based on what race they were born into, which
Speaker 1: is not their fault. Here's a direct quote of what
Speaker 1: the Tucson District talks students before I put a stop
Speaker 1: to it in twenty ten. I got it directly from
Speaker 1: their curriculum quote. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism
Speaker 1: and step by step progress, critical race theory addresses the
Speaker 1: very foundation of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning,
Speaker 1: Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. I'll just
Speaker 1: finish reading this and we'll go back wherever I go.
Speaker 1: I ask liberals why the critical race theory movement would
Speaker 1: be against enlightenment, rationalism or any of the other concepts
Speaker 1: listed in the quote. No one knew. I believe this
Speaker 1: was the biggest philosophical divide of any statewide race. Are
Speaker 1: we individuals or are we exemplars of what race we
Speaker 1: happen to have been born into. Some say critical race
Speaker 1: theory is a graduate study not taught in K through
Speaker 1: twelve schools. False. I have a list of two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty Arizona teachers who signed a shocking statement promoted
Speaker 1: by the National Teachers' Union that if critical race theory
Speaker 1: were banned, they would defy the law. They would not
Speaker 1: have signed it if they were not already teaching it.
Speaker 1: They come from twenty five school districts, including the largest ones.
Speaker 1: Teachers must teach. Academics not use their power over a
Speaker 1: captive audience to promote their personal ideology. That is unprofessional conduct. Now,
Speaker 1: if you had never heard anything else except that, if
Speaker 1: you didn't know anything else except that, that might sound measured,
Speaker 1: That might sound diplomatic, That might sound like he is
Speaker 1: taking time with both sides of that argument and is
Speaker 1: landed in a place that is fair, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: that it's based in a shared reality, and so forth.
Speaker 1: But if you're like Ramses, or like you who's holding
Speaker 1: his head with his eyes closed right now, you realize
Speaker 1: that that is the Those are the words of a
Speaker 1: person who is If I were to put it kindly,
Speaker 1: I would have to say, this man is ignorant.
Speaker 2: Except he's absolutely not. And then this is kind of
Speaker 2: where I end up angry. Talk to me, with so
Speaker 2: many of our discussions with regardless to topics like these,
Speaker 2: I wish he was ignorant, because I'd be way less mad.
Speaker 2: Except he uses the language that he uses very intentionally,
Speaker 2: because he's absolutely aware of the truth, right, the emphasis
Speaker 2: on academics, math and science and these truths that don't exist,
Speaker 2: like there's nothing different about us under the skin. Sure,
Speaker 2: you and I have made the arguments multiple times on
Speaker 2: this show and our discussions with people in person, that
Speaker 2: there are far more things that we have in common
Speaker 2: than that divide us. However, there are very very obvious
Speaker 2: truths to the differences that come with this skin.
Speaker 1: We just talked about it in the first half of
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about that. So pretending that they don't exist
Speaker 2: so that you can push your ideology is just as
Speaker 2: unprofessional as you would accuse. Our teachers are being like that,
Speaker 2: And what our teachers are striking back against is not that, hey,
Speaker 2: we're already teaching this stuff that don't take it away.
Speaker 2: It's no, you guys are using that to take make
Speaker 2: away true American history from our student that way, and
Speaker 2: that's what we're going to define because critical race theory,
Speaker 2: as expressed by him is a postgraduate study, right, but
Speaker 2: his party is using that very very They're using a
Speaker 2: term that people aren't familiar with so they can define
Speaker 2: it when they can define what this means to you,
Speaker 2: and it's your first time ever hearing it, then you
Speaker 2: can wholesale buy into it and stand next to them
Speaker 2: opposed to something that's just on its face not true. Right,
Speaker 2: And a lot of us our means to do scholastic research.
Speaker 2: It's not that it doesn't exist, but why would we
Speaker 2: when we can just click on this thing that this
Speaker 2: guy said, believe it, and then feel the way he
Speaker 2: feels and he counts on that. Right. So, anytime you
Speaker 2: have people that use very, very measured language like this,
Speaker 2: they purposely try to sound reasonable and not extreme so
Speaker 2: that it's easy to buy into their rhetoric. The idea
Speaker 2: he's ignorant, though it would be us being willfully ignorant.
Speaker 1: Because we know that. I'll take you that.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, there's no way that this guy doesn't
Speaker 2: know what he's doing.
Speaker 1: So I want to add on there, all right, So
Speaker 1: let me go back to the top here eliminate critical
Speaker 1: race theory. He starts this by saying, I believe we
Speaker 1: are all individuals, brothers and sisters under the skin, entitled
Speaker 1: to be judged by what we know, what we can do,
Speaker 1: our characters and ability to appreciate beauty and so on.
Speaker 2: He has is what he wants us to believe. Sure,
Speaker 2: And then there's next sentence. I think that this is
Speaker 2: important to race is irrelevant to anything. Okay, let me
Speaker 2: stop right here in what world?
Speaker 1: So? So okay, this is important? Okay because even if
Speaker 1: they're even if we know that they are just saying
Speaker 1: stuff that they know is unfounded to appeal to a
Speaker 1: base that they themselves have stirred up, this boogeyman, this
Speaker 1: fear inside of you know what I mean. They made
Speaker 1: them afraid, then they gave them the solution. Right, we
Speaker 1: have to still deal with that, even though it's not real. Right,
Speaker 1: So I want to do that right now, Tom Horn,
Speaker 1: you are describing your reality. I don't believe that. But
Speaker 1: for the sake of argument, you're describing your reality. The
Speaker 1: rest of us don't have that reality. Race is very
Speaker 1: relevant to everything, Okay, Tom, You believe that we are
Speaker 1: all individuals, brothers and sisters under the skin. I love
Speaker 1: how that sounds.
Speaker 2: No, you don't, well, hang on, let me, let me,
Speaker 2: let me, let me have a moment with them.
Speaker 1: Let me have a moment with them. I love how
Speaker 1: that sounds, But I wish I felt that way. That
Speaker 1: we are brothers and sisters. We come from the same creator.
Speaker 1: We have the same agency, we have the same opportunities,
Speaker 1: you know, we have the same mobility, the same resources. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're brothers and sisters in your mind in the real
Speaker 1: world where we live. For the sake of argument, in
Speaker 1: your mind, I know, in the real world where we live,
Speaker 1: that's not true. That is your reality. And American history,
Speaker 1: the way I remember it, gave everyone, myself included an
Speaker 1: increased capacity to empathize, gave us more insight into the
Speaker 1: wise questions that are very profound for a young child
Speaker 1: to be asking himself, a young child in Compton, California,
Speaker 1: to be asking himself, why do all the people on
Speaker 1: TV look like this? Why all the poor people look
Speaker 1: like that? And why the police are always doing this
Speaker 1: to these people and they're always friendly to those people,
Speaker 1: And why our outcomes more like this over here and
Speaker 1: less like that over there. Nobody taught me anything about
Speaker 1: critical race theory or American history in kindergarten. When I
Speaker 1: went to school, I knew full well white people had
Speaker 1: it better than black people, as illustrated by the fact
Speaker 1: that at that time I remember vividly wishing I had
Speaker 1: been born white instead of being born black. What in
Speaker 1: the world is this. This is hard, this sucks, this
Speaker 1: is scary. Okay. So whatever you think you're trying to
Speaker 1: protect people from by educating them, I think that you
Speaker 1: are creating the monster that you're trying to avoid with
Speaker 1: this type of ideology. Because once I learned the whyse
Speaker 1: once I understood okay, this led to this, and this
Speaker 1: led to this, and then this led to this, and
Speaker 1: then here we are. Oh, okay, God doesn't hate us.
Speaker 1: We weren't just born to die. We weren't just born
Speaker 1: to do the work for these people. We can have
Speaker 1: nice things too. We just have different battles to fight,
Speaker 1: we have different paths to walk. That changes a lot.
Speaker 1: That's inspiring. I can't change the color of my skin.
Speaker 1: I can't change the culture of my people. I can't
Speaker 1: change our history. But if I know where I came
Speaker 1: from and I know why I'm at where I am,
Speaker 1: then I can see the progress and I can see
Speaker 1: that progress as possible. This is my perspective, okay, And
Speaker 1: what happened to me I learned that. In addition to that,
Speaker 1: I learned how to empathize with other people as well.
Speaker 1: Because I had to learn about Cesar Chaves, right, I
Speaker 1: had to learn about. When I came to Arizona, when
Speaker 1: I was young, I had to learn about all the
Speaker 1: Native tribes, not just the ones in the Southwest, but
Speaker 1: all over the country. Okay, that's American history. I learned
Speaker 1: about how all those treaties were broken, how this country
Speaker 1: was stolen, how right now we are sitting on unseated
Speaker 1: ancestral lands of the Akima and Oadam peoples. Right now
Speaker 1: you're hearing my voice come from those people's lands. I
Speaker 1: learned that. I learned that Native American people aren't just
Speaker 1: a part of history, that they're still alive right now,
Speaker 1: still suffering from the things that happen, and that is
Speaker 1: not their natural state. I needed to learn that because
Speaker 1: without context, you just see what you have. You don't
Speaker 1: know why they're there you and if in a young
Speaker 1: mind you might think that's just the way it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be, because that's the way it is. So you're
Speaker 1: skipping over all of these things under this thin veneer
Speaker 1: of you know what you what you say is protecting children. Right,
Speaker 1: there's there's a point here where you say, uh. Critical
Speaker 1: race theory teaches the opposite that race is important, race
Speaker 1: is important, divide students into oppressors and oppressed. No, at
Speaker 1: no point when I learned American history, or indeed when
Speaker 1: I got into college and actually started to touch on
Speaker 1: things that would be considered critical race theory, were was
Speaker 1: anything ever categorized as oppressors and oppressed. From what I recall,
Speaker 1: it was just facts. This group of people had the
Speaker 1: legal right to own this group of people, and everybody
Speaker 1: in the country who looked like this was owned at
Speaker 1: a point, and then later they could be free, and
Speaker 1: they could also be caught and sold right back in
Speaker 1: this slavery. And then when we learned you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about the Willie Lynch letter a few episodes ago.
Speaker 1: Learning getting that historical context, I watched Roots when I
Speaker 1: was in the fourth grade and Missus Bomb's class at
Speaker 1: Solano Elementary School. That really happened. And then I realized, Wow,
Speaker 1: you can't speak your language, none of this stuff. And
Speaker 1: this was in the early nineties. So there's Africa, you know,
Speaker 1: the medallions, there was leather ropes or whatever. I started
Speaker 1: to get it. I started to make sense, there's something
Speaker 1: to be proud of. We're not you know now days
Speaker 1: when you see people searching for something to latch onto,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Q, jump in right here.
Speaker 2: It's it's unfortunate. I think I've told this story before.
Speaker 2: I once upon a time lived abroad, and at dinner
Speaker 2: with friends one night, was asked where I was from.
Speaker 2: And if you've ever met me, you know the answer
Speaker 2: to that question. I'm very, very proud voter to be
Speaker 2: from Detroit, Michigan. This person seemed confused, but then thinking
Speaker 2: I misunderstood the question, reposition the question, oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: where are your parents from, to which I answered, my
Speaker 2: father Detroit, my mother making Georgia. The look on the
Speaker 2: gentleman's face was even more confused, because he's like, in
Speaker 2: his mind he has to be wondering, why doesn't this
Speaker 2: guy understand that I'm asking him where he's from, not
Speaker 2: where he was born. And someone else at the table
Speaker 2: lifted their arm because they were also melanated, and rubbed
Speaker 2: their skin, like, no, brother, where is this from? And
Speaker 2: in that moment, I was embarrassed because I now understood
Speaker 2: what he was asking me and knew that I had
Speaker 2: no idea how to answer him. And that is the
Speaker 2: truth for all of us, of millions of black Americans,
Speaker 2: you know whose lineage traces back to slavery and slat country.
Speaker 2: Having been denied our proper ancestry, our proper ethnicity, and
Speaker 2: our proper culture. There are tens of millions of us
Speaker 2: that are now looking for something that feels more regal,
Speaker 2: that feels more dignified, and that's more to be proud
Speaker 2: of than just being the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and
Speaker 2: great great great grandchildren of slaves. And it's why a
Speaker 2: lot of this really really empty rhetoric is being appropriated
Speaker 2: so quickly. Anything that makes us out to be something more,
Speaker 2: we're just grabbing on to it and a need to
Speaker 2: feel more proud about where we're from and to put
Speaker 2: ourselves in a better position when it comes to the
Speaker 2: hierarchy in this place, where we have been for large
Speaker 2: portions of the country's history oppressed. You know, far more
Speaker 2: years our people were owned and did the labor of
Speaker 2: building this country then we've been free, quote unquote free
Speaker 2: because even that freedom didn't come with anything that would
Speaker 2: make you have the liberties and the autonomies of a
Speaker 2: free person. No land, no money, no animals to farm,
Speaker 2: no animals to help farmland that you did get, like
Speaker 2: nothing that was supposed to come with freedom, No forty acres,
Speaker 2: no mule, no money, no capital. And then if you
Speaker 2: were able to try to get a little bit of that,
Speaker 2: we're going to restrict what you can do with it.
Speaker 2: Where you can go, where you can eat, where you
Speaker 2: can use the restaurant, all of these seemingly normal and
Speaker 2: benign things. Now that we get the pain as progress
Speaker 2: were once denied of us. Right, So it put us
Speaker 2: in a really really troubling position of forever looking for
Speaker 2: a history that we were not allowed to learn, right
Speaker 2: because the victors get to propagate their own story or
Speaker 2: not tell it at all, or mister, it's not tell
Speaker 2: it at all. They've always been the heroes in this story, right,
Speaker 2: we celebrated the Pilgrims. They're just trying to as we did.
Speaker 2: We dressed up as Pilgrims and presented this story that
Speaker 2: was blatantly false because the people that wrote that story
Speaker 2: again get to be the heroes in the story. They
Speaker 2: get to be the good guy. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's always been a dangerous and kind of listen,
Speaker 2: it'scouraging place to be in, but here we are. It's
Speaker 2: definitely a way of indoctrinating children intentionally, and one side
Speaker 2: of this is we want to tell kids the truth.
Speaker 2: The other side is we don't want to tell kids anything,
Speaker 2: And well it's we want to tell kids the opposite
Speaker 2: of the truth, a whitewashed version of the truth, or
Speaker 2: you know, something like that.
Speaker 1: But listen, I needed to learn about housing discrimination. I
Speaker 1: needed to learn about redlining. I needed to learn about
Speaker 1: the War on drugs. I needed to learn about the
Speaker 1: way the GI Bill was not given to black vets
Speaker 1: when they came back from war. I needed to learn
Speaker 1: about environmental racism. I needed to learn about judicial sentencing.
Speaker 1: I needed to learn about unfair policing. I needed to
Speaker 1: learn about all that stuff we and everybody else needs
Speaker 1: to learn about Tulsa, about black walls, that thing that
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks expressed that he was pissed that he didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. He was an adult, and for a
Speaker 1: man like this to come in and say, Nope, we
Speaker 1: don't want to make kids feel bad, I think that's
Speaker 1: an insult to kids and an insult to everyone else,
Speaker 1: and an insult to our future. But it's important you
Speaker 1: know that so you know how to deal with it. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's move on. It's not for the way black history
Speaker 1: fact today's way black History fact comes to you courtesy
Speaker 1: of the Black Information Network Daily Podcast. Check out more
Speaker 1: at binnews dot com. Again, we're talking about Philip A.
Speaker 1: Payton Junior, aka the Father of Harlem. Start us off
Speaker 1: with a quote. Human lives honeycombed with little woombs, thick
Speaker 1: with human beings. That is how a white journalist and
Speaker 1: co founder of the NAACP, Mary White Ovington, described the
Speaker 1: filthy tenements that black New Yorkers were relegated to at
Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century. As more rural Southerners
Speaker 1: arrived in the city, the teeming Manhattan slums in which
Speaker 1: African Americans are living, had become the most densely populated
Speaker 1: streets in the city, nearly five thousand people per block,
Speaker 1: according to one count as landlords rendered almost exclusively to
Speaker 1: white tenants. At the same time, construction had started on
Speaker 1: the subway line from Lower Manhattan to one hundred forty
Speaker 1: fifth Street in Harlem, a neighborhood where an enterprising black
Speaker 1: businessman named Philip A. Payton Junior would send the same
Speaker 1: slum dwellers, saving them from places where they faced discrimination
Speaker 1: and police brutality. The circumstances were dire, as noted by
Speaker 1: Jacob Breese, the chronicler of urban poverty. He wrote in
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred in a Ten Years War, an account of
Speaker 1: the battle with the slum of New York, that perpetual
Speaker 1: eviction is their destiny. In the years that followed, Peyton
Speaker 1: steered black New Yorkers to the area the subway opened up.
Speaker 1: Harlem was white and home to wide boulevards and brownstones
Speaker 1: and rowhouses. It would become the nexus of a community
Speaker 1: whose cultural output helped shape twentieth century America. Little in
Speaker 1: Peyton's early life I pointed toward a career as a
Speaker 1: real estate mobil. Born on February twenty seventh, eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: in Westfield, Massachusetts, he dropped out of college and went
Speaker 1: to work in his father's barbershop along with his two brothers.
Speaker 1: They did so over the objections of their mother, a hairdresser,
Speaker 1: who argued that it would make lazy men of them,
Speaker 1: as Philip Payton told the author and educator Booker T.
Speaker 1: Washington for his nineteen oh seven book The Negro in Business.
Speaker 1: While Peyton's two brothers graduated from Yale and their sister
Speaker 1: earned a college degree at what would become Westfield State University.
Speaker 1: His ambitions took him in eighteen ninety nine to New
Speaker 1: York City, where he worked as a barber before getting
Speaker 1: a job as a janitor in a Manhattan real estate office.
Speaker 1: Shortly after he married, Peyton opened a Midtown real estate
Speaker 1: office with a partner. In the fall of nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: When the business flopped after a few months, he struck
Speaker 1: out on his own, sustained by the sewing work of
Speaker 1: his wife, Maggie, The couple moved to Harlem, where there
Speaker 1: was a high vacancy rate in the many new brownstone buildings.
Speaker 1: White landlords found an answer to their financial woes and
Speaker 1: black tenants with ads that read colored tenants Welcome. Colored
Speaker 1: man makes a specialty of managing color tenements, Peyton positioned
Speaker 1: himself to guide black tenants from Midtown to new homes. Quote.
Speaker 1: My first opportunity came as a result of a dispute
Speaker 1: between two landlords and West one thirty fourth Street, he
Speaker 1: recalled in an interview with The New York Age, a
Speaker 1: black newspaper. He goes on to say, to get even
Speaker 1: one of them turned his house over to me to
Speaker 1: fill with colored tenants. I was successful in renting and
Speaker 1: managing this house. After a time, I was able to
Speaker 1: induce other landlords to give me their houses to manage.
Speaker 1: The landlord believed that having a building filled with black
Speaker 1: residents would complicate his rival's leasing efforts.
Speaker 2: That's foul, but you know, sad but true.
Speaker 1: As more black citizens arrived, white ones fled, depressing property
Speaker 1: values and creating more opportunities. Soon Peyton became a building
Speaker 1: owner himself, and by nineteen oh four, the year the
Speaker 1: subway reached Harlem, he incorporated the Afro American Realty Company
Speaker 1: to help remake Harlem as a home for black citizens
Speaker 1: who face discrimination in housing. He told black investors, today
Speaker 1: is the time to buy if you want to be
Speaker 1: numbered among those of the race who are doing something
Speaker 1: toward trying to solve the so called race problem. The
Speaker 1: company's brochure stated that race prejudice is a luxury, and
Speaker 1: like all other luxuries, can be made very expensive. In
Speaker 1: New York City, the very prejudice which has heretofore worked
Speaker 1: against us can be turned and used to our profit.
Speaker 1: At its zenith, Afro American Realty was leasing or mortgaging
Speaker 1: about two dozen buildings, turning Harlem into a magnet for
Speaker 1: black families throughout the city and the rural south, and
Speaker 1: even recent immigrants from from the Caribbean. But the company
Speaker 1: promised ten percent profit to its investors and was unable
Speaker 1: to deliver so much so soon a few dozen holders
Speaker 1: successfully suit in nineteen oh six, and while Peyton was
Speaker 1: still able to pay his first dividend the next year,
Speaker 1: he shut down in nineteen oh eight. Peyton found success
Speaker 1: in his third act, the Philip A. Peyton Junior Company.
Speaker 1: He closed his biggest deal in July nineteen seventeen, buying
Speaker 1: six apartment houses worth more than a million dollars. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of money back then, but he died a
Speaker 1: month later of liver cancer at his summer home in Allenhurst,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Even in recent decades, Philip Peyton has been
Speaker 1: remembered as the father of Harlem. Before he arrived, most
Speaker 1: of its black residents were servants in wealthy white households.
Speaker 1: His own ambition, along with racism in the housing market
Speaker 1: and the glut of unsold homes in Harlem, pushed three
Speaker 1: quarters of New York City's black population there by the
Speaker 1: end of his life, including those who would usher in
Speaker 1: the Harlem Renaissance in the nineteen twenties. We should probably
Speaker 1: do the Harlem Renaissance because people don't.
Speaker 2: Know about that as we should.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyway, you know, we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: housing discrimination, and you know, today's way black history fact
Speaker 1: puts us, you know, over a hundred years ago in
Speaker 1: the past. But that's still a thing.
Speaker 2: Said.
Speaker 1: Check out Airbnb. Airbnb has come under fire many times
Speaker 1: because it's hard to if you're black, to get a
Speaker 1: house because people it exists.
Speaker 2: I tried to book a staycation for my family here.
Speaker 1: Oh, is this happened to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And once they saw my picture, because you have
Speaker 2: a picture on your profile, their response to me was, no,
Speaker 2: we're not allowing people to rent homes for parties. Nope,
Speaker 2: just me, my lady and our kids renting an Airbnb
Speaker 2: to get out of our own home and.
Speaker 1: Change the scenery.
Speaker 2: Needless is said, was not allowed to rent the home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did not do a staycation. Well, not just Airbnb,
Speaker 1: but this is still a thing that people are actively
Speaker 1: working on. In fact, I spoke with a woman whose
Speaker 1: name escapes me right now, but on the Black Information
Speaker 1: Network who actually works in New York on fair housing
Speaker 1: for black and brown citizens in New York City. So
Speaker 1: still very real thing. Like all the things that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier when we were talking about why teaching American
Speaker 1: history is important, I want to call it American history
Speaker 1: because again, critical race theory technically is the academic level.
Speaker 2: Critical race theory is something different. You can just say that.
Speaker 1: Planning, but teach American history, all of it, and teach
Speaker 1: it with compassion. We don't want anybody to be hurt.
Speaker 1: We don't want anybody to have their feelings hurt. But
Speaker 1: we do realize the importance of explaining the whys.
Speaker 2: And we're supposed to be disappointed. Yeah, we're supposed to
Speaker 2: want to do better in that part of our country's history.
Speaker 2: To do better. Yeah, yeah all the time. Even if
Speaker 2: it was great, we should still want to do better.
Speaker 2: That's my personal philosophy. Anyway, it was just do's name again.
Speaker 2: I want to say it, Tom Horne Stopp being a coward.
Speaker 1: Dude, come see me. We both in Arizona. Anyway, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for us here on Civic Cipher. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, ramseys.
Speaker 2: Jah, he is Rams's Jah. I am q Ward. You
Speaker 2: guys have been listening to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, todays show is producers by our producer Maggabe Noan.
Speaker 1: Hit the website Civiccipher dot com. Submit any questions, any
Speaker 1: topics that you have. Once again want to remind you
Speaker 1: to make a donation. Those donations really do go a
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Speaker 1: Follow us on social media at Civic Cipher and of
Speaker 1: course download this in any other episode through our podcast.
Speaker 1: Again if you can share the content, like the content,
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Speaker 1: but truth is, we appreciate all the support you've given
Speaker 1: us so far. Right until next week, y'all y'all.
Speaker 3: Like yo, we handled it. These brothers a fabulous our
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Speaker 1: We bring it to you as it happens the streets,
Speaker 1: love popping from music.
Speaker 3: You're wrapping the street, comparing the slash we expander. You're
Speaker 3: gonna fight the slander with the proper propaganda. What's happening,
Speaker 3: It's happen.
Speaker 1: You've got any questions to ask if Deduce is just
Speaker 1: a TV show? You're passing?
Speaker 3: And this from a wife wartime journalist headlines wait God,
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