Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode
Speaker 1: of Civic Cipher. I am your host, Ramsey's job. Big
Speaker 1: shout out to my man q Ward, who is in
Speaker 1: Detroit today. Actually, but that's all right because he's handling
Speaker 1: business and we're still taking care of business out here.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff has happened, obviously, we got to
Speaker 1: talk about it, you know, as we do every week,
Speaker 1: and today I have a couple of very special guests
Speaker 1: in the building. One uh, frequent contributor. She she helps
Speaker 1: us see you know, from a different vantage point, you know,
Speaker 1: she helps she helps provide a lens you know to
Speaker 1: a lot of the yeah, yeah, that we're not able
Speaker 1: to really see. And she's kind of able to, you know,
Speaker 1: participate from time to time. So we're always happy when
Speaker 1: she she comes up and hangs out, Uh, Tessa ferols
Speaker 1: with us. How you doing good? Thank you? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming by. And then a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine. You know, the stars are among us now, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and that just shows the growth that we're experiencing.
Speaker 1: That shows the necessity of these types of conversations, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're always grateful I'm always especially grateful when
Speaker 1: you're in town. But uh, the one and only Elijah Banks.
Speaker 2: Man, I appreciate you. Man. You know it's love. Anytime
Speaker 2: we sit down, there's nothing but love.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. So you know, I know that you come.
Speaker 1: You know we're based in Phoenix. I know that you
Speaker 1: come to Phoenix from time to time. But you know
Speaker 1: the show is broadcast, you know, pretty widely, so you know,
Speaker 1: let everybody know a little bit about your background before
Speaker 1: we get to the to the meat and potatoes.
Speaker 2: I go by the name of Elijah Banks. You spell
Speaker 2: Banks with the X no ks. I'm a pop artist
Speaker 2: from Long Beach, California. I'm signed to radio legend Big
Speaker 2: Boy from Big Boys Neighborhood. So you know they calling
Speaker 2: me Prince of La right now. Yeah, I seen the
Speaker 2: Woman Crushed Wednesday record, the Loan record. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. You just be on the lookout for me.
Speaker 2: You're gonna hear a lot more, a lot more coming
Speaker 2: out this year.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. And as I stated, I've been fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be able to sit down interview Elijah Banks a
Speaker 1: couple of times in twenty nineteen. Now, right, that was wow.
Speaker 1: And you know we had a chance to hang out
Speaker 1: a few times, and it just so happened to line
Speaker 1: up that he was in town, and you know, we
Speaker 1: got some stuff to talk about. And of course Tessa
Speaker 1: has been out in the streets, you know, and really
Speaker 1: helping chip away at this mountain of white supremacy along
Speaker 1: with the rest of us, so very much. Someone who
Speaker 1: is empathetic and sympathetic to the black and brown and
Speaker 1: people's agenda. Someone who recognized if I don't I don't
Speaker 1: speak for you, but from my estimations, who recognizes that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a necessity and in terms of rising
Speaker 1: and solidarity, and so absolutely today's episode, we want to
Speaker 1: talk about something that we didn't get to talk about
Speaker 1: because you know the way, you know, these things time out.
Speaker 1: But you know, the attack on the US Capitol building,
Speaker 1: so you know, just straight out the blocks banks. What's
Speaker 1: your thoughts?
Speaker 2: Crazy, insane, Like I've never seen anything like that. I
Speaker 2: really am still trying to kind of wrap my head
Speaker 2: around what they were thinking. Yeah, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: Like when and where did they think that that was okay?
Speaker 2: And and the people that allowed them to do it
Speaker 2: and get away with them, what were their thoughts. I'm
Speaker 2: still trying to process everything.
Speaker 1: Absolutely your initial reactions, I.
Speaker 3: Mean probably that, but really fundamentally, I feel like I
Speaker 3: know that that's all just a sense of entitlement and
Speaker 3: righteousness that white people believe that they have. That they
Speaker 3: didn't need an explanation or justification or reason. It was
Speaker 3: just this is.
Speaker 1: What we want.
Speaker 3: We're not getting it. We've gotten what we wanted our
Speaker 3: entire lives within that system of privilege, and now we're
Speaker 3: mad about it, and so we're going to show the
Speaker 3: world we're mad. So in some ways it wasn't surprising
Speaker 3: at all and also met with continued levels of audacity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I want to say something real quick. So
Speaker 1: one thing, I mean, you know, on radio or if
Speaker 1: you're listening to the podcast, which, by the way, you
Speaker 1: can download this in all previous episodes of Civic Cipher
Speaker 1: if you visit the website Civiccipher dot com. It's available
Speaker 1: on your favorite podcasting platform. But if you're just listening
Speaker 1: to our voices and not watching this on YouTube or
Speaker 1: wherever it's broadcast, you might not be able to tell.
Speaker 1: But Tessa, the fiery speaker that she is, is in
Speaker 1: fact white as a ghost. Casper to friendly one. So
Speaker 1: when she's talking, you know, I just want that to
Speaker 1: you know, to understand that this is the way the
Speaker 1: world looks through the eyes of a woman who has
Speaker 1: lived her whole life with whiteness at that wind at
Speaker 1: her back, and so the way she challenges it might
Speaker 1: sound a little different from the way someone who didn't
Speaker 1: have that experience growing up might challenge it. Now, my
Speaker 1: initial reactions were that I wasn't really surprised. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: I was like concerned, you know, but it was just
Speaker 1: kind of like watching history being written. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not like anything that you know, when you see the
Speaker 1: guy dressed up in the Viking hat on the podium,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like that checks out. You know, you
Speaker 1: see the Confederate flags waving and there, it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of used to it. And you know,
Speaker 1: the boldness, the audacity, you know, on and on and
Speaker 1: on has never really not been the norm. You know,
Speaker 1: this is really, uh something that a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, people will use this sort of stuff to
Speaker 1: intimidate and suppress black and brown folks, and you know,
Speaker 1: their plight toward you know, accomplishing whatever because of that
Speaker 1: entitled confidence that white folks have. Often some white folks
Speaker 1: have oftentimes because they are aware of the fact that
Speaker 1: the police work for them, look like them, represent their interests.
Speaker 1: It emboldens, at least, in my experience, has emboldened many
Speaker 1: white folks over throughout the course of my life that
Speaker 1: I've seen to move in such a way that a
Speaker 1: normal person who really values their own safety or at
Speaker 1: least is, you know, partially aware of the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, anything could happen at any time, I would
Speaker 1: reasonably try to avoid, you know. Recently I shared an example,
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to follow me. We Q and
Speaker 1: I had a conversation about someone named Andre Hill who
Speaker 1: was shot in his garage recently while he was working
Speaker 1: on his car. I think, or I don't even know
Speaker 1: what he's doing, because I couldn't even read into the story.
Speaker 1: But the police pulled up shot him in his garage. Right,
Speaker 1: I have a garage in my house. Right. This was
Speaker 1: some years ago. But I was doing something to one
Speaker 1: of my trucks in the garage and one of my
Speaker 1: neighbors came out and had some sort of complaint about
Speaker 1: me working in my garage and took exception to me
Speaker 1: doing that. Now, I wasn't harming anybody, wasn't bothering, wasn't
Speaker 1: making any noise. He just didn't like my garage door
Speaker 1: open and my truck partially you know, out of out
Speaker 1: of the garage where I could get a little sunlight.
Speaker 1: So I think I was like changing your head light
Speaker 1: bulb or something like this, something simple, But he just
Speaker 1: took exception to it and came across and proceeded to
Speaker 1: get in my face and sort of you know, I'm
Speaker 1: putting it mildly, but it was basically challenging me working
Speaker 1: on my own vehicle on my property. And you know,
Speaker 1: the boldness that it takes to do that is largely stemming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes from one type of person, and usually it's
Speaker 1: toward other types of people who don't look like that.
Speaker 1: It's like they feel like they have dominion over it.
Speaker 1: I don't like this truck partially parked in the garage,
Speaker 1: so move it because I say so. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure his situation, but I don't have a mortgage on
Speaker 1: my house, you know, so I live here, This is
Speaker 1: my this is my land. Nobody's you know, kicking me
Speaker 1: off of it. I'm not sure if his circumstances. And
Speaker 1: then he starts to you know, well, I do this
Speaker 1: for a living. And you know, he said something like,
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer, to which I responded, I pay lawyers.
Speaker 1: You know, that doesn't impress me, you know, so you know,
Speaker 1: the only thing a lawyer can do is work for me.
Speaker 1: And you know, we have our little back and forth,
Speaker 1: our little exchange. But the one thing that I recognize
Speaker 1: this man was a lot older than me, and physically
Speaker 1: I'm in a lot better shape than he is. And
Speaker 1: so the one thing that he said to me that
Speaker 1: gave me pause, and I think that he knew that,
Speaker 1: was that he was going to call the police on me.
Speaker 1: And in that moment, you know, the optic shift entirely
Speaker 1: because he could get punched in the mouth. But the
Speaker 1: police will come and decide whatever they want to decide.
Speaker 1: He probably will not be wrong. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: and so that relationship between these emboldened people, oftentimes white,
Speaker 1: because of the fact that that they're they feel the
Speaker 1: police works for them kind of That's why this capital
Speaker 1: attack hasn't surprised me at all. So, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the things I've seen, some of the memes going
Speaker 1: around and you know, just pointing out the fact, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously some of them are funny, but pointing out the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, in short, that if black folks
Speaker 1: had done a fraction of this.
Speaker 2: Even jogged past the capital too fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about it, man. So you know, and you've
Speaker 1: you've taken place, taken part in a lot of the
Speaker 1: protests in.
Speaker 2: La right, Yeah, for whenever I am in town. Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I know I've seen some of that on
Speaker 1: on social media. So what's the climate, Like, what was
Speaker 1: the climate like out there when.
Speaker 2: That was Oh man, it was it was tense. It
Speaker 2: was definitely tense. Just I like, I I one thing
Speaker 2: I did, I can't say it brought the people together. Sure,
Speaker 2: I love that part, but when it came to like
Speaker 2: the people versus the police, and it just felt a
Speaker 2: little retro like it was something that like I've seen
Speaker 2: in movies, you know what I'm saying, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Nothing I've personally been able to experience in this lifetime
Speaker 2: that type of distension between the police and people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And growing up in Long Beach, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: you have your own stories with the police.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And it's crazy good and bad. Like I
Speaker 2: know some great cops, I know some some bad cops,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like all the way from
Speaker 2: Long Beach to lapd Like it's it's crazy how history
Speaker 2: kind of repeats itself. Sure, how we're going through the
Speaker 2: same things that you know you or your father had
Speaker 2: to go through, you know what I'm saying, because we're
Speaker 2: different ages. Yeah, where it's constantly repeating itself.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So you know, the the thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was I was born in Compton. When I
Speaker 1: was born it was the eight so I grew up
Speaker 1: in Compton eighties Compton, so crack was hitting hard and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And you know, I've said this
Speaker 1: before on the show. That has very much shaped my
Speaker 1: view of the police. The police have never been the
Speaker 1: good guys, you know, as a whole, They've never been
Speaker 1: a yeah, in my book, the police have always been
Speaker 1: you know, not dissimilar to gangs, which in a lot sure, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And having seen police behave in a way that's not
Speaker 1: so much protecting and serving but more like bullying and terrorized,
Speaker 1: terrorizing communities and this is this has lived experience. This
Speaker 1: isn't you know, hearsay I've actually seen these things happen again,
Speaker 1: they very much shape my view of it. When we
Speaker 1: get to the point where we're watching protests. I saw
Speaker 1: the whole thing unfold. I spent the whole day watching
Speaker 1: these Trump supporters stand outside of the United States Capitol Building,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were talking about explosive device, they
Speaker 1: were talking about everything. You know, these these people might
Speaker 1: be armed and they're just standing there. No one is
Speaker 1: taking aggressive action, you know, against them or anything like that,
Speaker 1: which is fine, But I recognize that had they been
Speaker 1: had there been Black Lives Matter banners instead of confiscated.
Speaker 2: Disconnect, I can see it plain, like loud and clear,
Speaker 2: like you feel me, like for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know the part that really again it
Speaker 1: didn't surprise me. The part that really stuck with me though,
Speaker 1: is that they they these people represent so much more
Speaker 1: of a threat. But the perceived threat, you know, they
Speaker 1: represent an actual threat, but the perceived threat when you
Speaker 1: have black skin is so much greater. It's so much
Speaker 1: more intense. Like black people are somehow scarier unarmed black people,
Speaker 1: as we've seen over and over again, then armed white
Speaker 1: men and women in this case, and they're Trump supporters
Speaker 1: they're they're you know, described as being patriotic, and their.
Speaker 2: Their behavior is just like malicious. You can, you know,
Speaker 2: like you could just feel the energy within them, Like
Speaker 2: look at the way they they they're trying to make
Speaker 2: their point. Look at the way that we're trying to
Speaker 2: make our point. Totally different attitudes, different energies, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. So I don't understand why they weren't
Speaker 2: really as forceful, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think even just the point they're
Speaker 3: trying to make, like, right, well, you're saying lives matter,
Speaker 3: and they're out saying we wanted someone to win an election.
Speaker 3: Now we're mad that, you know, you're contesting otherwise, Like
Speaker 3: the even the point they're trying to.
Speaker 1: Make is is wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in comparison to how people fighting for life are
Speaker 3: being treated.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I have to assume
Speaker 1: is that a good number of those people believe. They
Speaker 1: have to believe that if this man has lost an
Speaker 1: election and all the news media outlets are calling the election,
Speaker 1: and then this man challenges the states to recount the ballots,
Speaker 1: and then all the states recount the ballots, and then
Speaker 1: he challenges the states at the state level or the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and all this sort of stuff. Every single
Speaker 1: one of them gets shot down. I think everyone said,
Speaker 1: every single one except for one. And it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been enough to overturn even the results in that one state.
Speaker 1: And that might even have been like some fraudulent activity
Speaker 1: that benefited him or something like that. That's the only
Speaker 1: one that they found of. You know, So these people
Speaker 1: in front of this Capitol building are armed with all
Speaker 1: of that information, and you know, I would call it delusion.
Speaker 2: It was definitely a delusion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's also has there also has to be
Speaker 1: a good number of those folks who are just there
Speaker 1: for their last hurrah if there's a way, like you know,
Speaker 1: and I would never do anything like that, but follow
Speaker 1: me for a second. If Obama could have run and
Speaker 1: won for a third term, would it not have been
Speaker 1: worth it to go and support him. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: run up in the Capitol building, but you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So I could see people saying, like, listen,
Speaker 1: let's go, let's you know, say that we we know
Speaker 1: that our guy can't do this, but let's just go
Speaker 1: stand there with him, because that's the guy we believe
Speaker 1: and that's our champion. The point that it gets from
Speaker 1: you know, patriotic and you know, standing by your candidate
Speaker 1: or his ideas or whatever. You know, a display, if
Speaker 1: you will, to embarrassing this country on the world stage
Speaker 1: is rushing and the police opening the barricades people, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So that's the part where it's like, man, America,
Speaker 1: your privilege is showing. You know, you might want to
Speaker 1: you know, put your you know, put put your clothes on, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because normally this is is
Speaker 1: buttoned up a little bit. But you know, for those
Speaker 1: of us who have walked in the streets, all three
Speaker 1: of us here have and have you know, been subjected
Speaker 1: to tear gas and rubber bullets. I haven't personally been
Speaker 1: shot with the rubber bullet let. Me not put that
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, but you know, every you know, I've
Speaker 1: been with people who you know what I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: and the terror still grips your heart just the same
Speaker 1: when you're running and.
Speaker 2: Watch it just even yeah, just even watch it go down.
Speaker 1: And then and you know, again, I live in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: That's Washington, d C. That's perhaps one of the most
Speaker 1: protected places on Earth, and these people not only did
Speaker 1: they breach the perimid, but they went inside. Now, Tessa,
Speaker 1: I want you to talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: you saw happen when they actually were running around inside
Speaker 1: the capital buildy.
Speaker 3: What I saw happened by way, like.
Speaker 1: You told me that you saw people carrying stuff and
Speaker 1: you made a comparison to like looters or something like that.
Speaker 1: Love the way you put that. See if I can
Speaker 1: do it twice.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it's just you know, we watched
Speaker 3: how many people, even people that came out saying that
Speaker 3: they support Black Lives Matter, but they don't support looting
Speaker 3: or they don't support, you know, support property destruction. That
Speaker 3: was you know, like a really big rhetoric for a while, like, well, no,
Speaker 3: I support black lives, but you know, I think looting's wrong,
Speaker 3: and you know, destroying businesses like it doesn't serve the purpose.
Speaker 3: And now we're watching both people that said that in
Speaker 3: support of Black Lives Matter and people that obviously have
Speaker 3: sat on their platform the entire time saying we don't
Speaker 3: care about black lives, we care about property. We care
Speaker 3: about you know, our our stores, our businesses, consumerism. You know,
Speaker 3: are now invading a building, taking what is you know,
Speaker 3: federal property. They're invading federal property, taking federal property, stealing
Speaker 3: male you know, breaking apart buildings, taking the podium. It just,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just where just the hypocrisy of all
Speaker 3: of it. I guess it's just in some respects. I
Speaker 3: don't want to say amusing, as if it's like anecdotal somehow,
Speaker 3: but you can just tell none of it means anything,
Speaker 3: you know, none of it, None of it means anything
Speaker 3: what people are trying to communicate, whatever their arguments were. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, I've read several things saying too like, obviously
Speaker 3: these people were never about I don't want to say
Speaker 3: these people. I think it's really important to not disassociate
Speaker 3: myself too much from people that were there, because I'm
Speaker 3: still a product of that very same system. I think
Speaker 3: it's really important for white people not to disassociate from
Speaker 3: what we're seeing on TV for what we were witnessing,
Speaker 3: because it's really easy to be like, well, I'm not
Speaker 3: one of them. I would never do that. But the
Speaker 3: reality is is that we all benefit. We all white
Speaker 3: people benefit from that system, and it manifests the aspects
Speaker 3: of our lives that may not look as drastic as
Speaker 3: that moment did, but still as.
Speaker 1: Very real.
Speaker 3: And so I don't want to say them, but I
Speaker 3: lost my train, I thought altogether, but just oh, it
Speaker 3: was about the police. They were saying. You know, all
Speaker 3: of these people have again been on their pedestals saying
Speaker 3: black lives matter, yet they were, you know, antagonizing cops.
Speaker 3: A cop has died, you know, so the point is
Speaker 3: they never cared about or blue lives matter. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: but you know they've been saying blue lives matter this
Speaker 3: whole time, and now a cop has been killed, they
Speaker 3: were still antagonized police, you know, threatening police. They came
Speaker 3: in with chemical warfare. You know, they were saying that
Speaker 3: they had chemicals and all these things. So they didn't
Speaker 3: care about blue lives anymore than they cared about black lives.
Speaker 3: It just, you know, was an angle to further their agenda. Sure,
Speaker 3: the agenda of white supremacy and white power.
Speaker 1: Anyways, I know that something. I'm glad you said that too,
Speaker 1: because I remember something that happened a while agough this
Speaker 1: was in two thousand and five, so you guys were
Speaker 1: still babies. I'm sorry that was a cheap shot. I
Speaker 1: had to take it though. That's all right, though, it's
Speaker 1: okay to be the og in the room. But no,
Speaker 1: this happened in two thousand and five. I remember I
Speaker 1: was working at Power ninety two in Phoenix, Arizona, and
Speaker 1: we were watching on TV the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. There
Speaker 1: was this television program, it might have been on MTV
Speaker 1: or something like that, and they were doing fundraising to
Speaker 1: help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina. For those of
Speaker 1: you old enough to remember, you know what it is.
Speaker 1: But if you don't, Hurricane Katrina was basically a huge hurricane.
Speaker 1: We lost a major US city. Basically it was underwater
Speaker 1: and lots of people died and everyone else had to evacuate.
Speaker 1: No homes, no nothing, everything you thought was gone. Imagine
Speaker 1: waking up and everything that you own has gone. It's
Speaker 1: swept away in the water. So and it still hasn't
Speaker 1: been rebuilt. Oh yeah, that part.
Speaker 3: Resources still not been allocated.
Speaker 1: So what happens is Mike Myers is an actor. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of bigger roles back then, but we
Speaker 1: knew him as like the Austin Powers guy. He was
Speaker 1: doing an interview a live taping with none other than
Speaker 1: Kanye West, and say what you will about Kanye West,
Speaker 1: Once upon a time, this man spoke the truth and
Speaker 1: he said, I'll never forget it. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: the news is reported, mind you, this is live TV.
Speaker 1: Kanye says, the news when they see a white family
Speaker 1: go into a store and grabs supplies, they say just
Speaker 1: that this white family is or they don't say white
Speaker 1: family on the news, but they say this family is
Speaker 1: going in and trying to get supplies so that they
Speaker 1: can you know, take care of themselves because you know,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and they get they gave it a
Speaker 1: bit of a story background. People could empathize with the
Speaker 1: family and you know, build they could build a narrative
Speaker 1: around those those this white family being a victim. And
Speaker 1: then Kanye says, but when it's a black family that
Speaker 1: goes in and does the same thing, the news refers
Speaker 1: to them as looters and they're doing the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that by itself speaks to how backness
Speaker 1: is treated and what black people have been saying for
Speaker 1: hundreds of years that yes, okay, we can use the
Speaker 1: same bathroom, now we can drink from the same water fountain.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the optics, when it comes
Speaker 1: to the moral divide, when it comes to anything, there
Speaker 1: is much more in the way of opportunity on the
Speaker 1: white side, or at the least, there is much less
Speaker 1: in the way of opportunity, fairness balance on the black side.
Speaker 1: And you know, even the words white and black, look
Speaker 1: them up. The words have been given so much condition.
Speaker 1: You know, we're all brown. You know, we all have
Speaker 1: varying degrees of melanin, which makes us brown. But you know,
Speaker 1: the language in and of itself is it creates this
Speaker 1: disconnect from our humanity. Know that we're all here, we all,
Speaker 1: you know, are doing this together, and we all want
Speaker 1: the same things. We want our offspring to do better
Speaker 1: than we have. And then you know it's it's examples
Speaker 1: like this one where these folks get to run up
Speaker 1: in the building, largely leave with their lives. I do
Speaker 1: want to mention that one woman was killed. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what she was doing, but a police officer shot
Speaker 1: one woman there. But the point is that they we're
Speaker 1: making is that with that many people, we know, it
Speaker 1: would have been not even a gunfighter, would have been
Speaker 1: a slaughter.
Speaker 2: Slaughter exactly and hundreds of arrest whoever they felt that
Speaker 2: it was they couldn't kill. They would just be like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, got to.
Speaker 1: Arrest you easily. And so you know, Kanye is saying
Speaker 1: that in two thousand and five, fifteen years ago. Yeah, yeah, sixteen,
Speaker 1: it was absolutely a precursor to what we saw today.
Speaker 1: Something that really That's why what I saw didn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: That's the same broadcast where Kanye said George Bush doesn't
Speaker 1: care about black people. What I thought she was, Oh no,
Speaker 1: I remember that for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that but that just before he said that,
Speaker 1: he described what the media was portraying, and he was
Speaker 1: asking people to donate. And so because I got to
Speaker 1: see that in real time as it happened, I understood
Speaker 1: the context in which, you know, he said that. He's like, listen,
Speaker 1: we have to donate. These people need us, My people
Speaker 1: need us. We have to do something. The news is
Speaker 1: not helping. They're you know, they're creating a narrative that's
Speaker 1: just not true and it's not fair. And George Bush, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's saying, and George Bush doesn't care about black people.
Speaker 1: So we need to do something. We we care. We MTV,
Speaker 1: we the people that play this music. We the people
Speaker 1: that love this culture and these people that created we
Speaker 1: need to do something. Low Wayne lives there, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is this is sort of what Kanye was
Speaker 1: was talking about how to get see yeah. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: you know, then the sound the SoundBite that comes out
Speaker 1: of it is George Bush doesn't care about black people.
Speaker 1: That's the only SoundBite that people cared about. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to pretend like it wasn't profound. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: and or that it was, you know, something that you know,
Speaker 1: you would naturally pull out of an interview like that,
Speaker 1: because that's the one that's going to get you the
Speaker 1: most attention. But and I don't think Kanye regrets saying it,
Speaker 1: you know, or if he does.
Speaker 2: Kanye doesn't regret saying anything.
Speaker 1: There you go. But again, the point there is that
Speaker 1: Kanye knew in two thousand and five, and I've known
Speaker 1: my whole life. I'm born in nineteen eighty two that
Speaker 1: the world treats white folks and black folks differently, and
Speaker 1: the world much less than America. The United States. The
Speaker 1: United States really treats black folks and and white folks differently.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell another story. I was sitting down with
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine once upon a time, and
Speaker 1: we were talking about a mod Aubrey, I believe that's name.
Speaker 1: He was jogging in his neighborhood, and the way the
Speaker 1: story goes is that he stopped in an abandoned house,
Speaker 1: had to look around, came out, kept it pushing right.
Speaker 1: And my friend, who is someone who associates with black people,
Speaker 1: he's a very kind man, he's a good person. He
Speaker 1: and I had to have a very very intense human
Speaker 1: moment because he said to me, He's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have been in that house. Why did he
Speaker 1: go in that house in the first place. Of course
Speaker 1: he's going to look suspicious if he's in that house
Speaker 1: and those people are defending that property even though it's
Speaker 1: not their property. Like he just he was asking for it.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that that's exactly what he said,
Speaker 1: because he might be listening, but that was kind of
Speaker 1: what he was suggesting. And my response to that was, Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's remove a mod Aubrey from the equation and
Speaker 1: let's put Tessa into that scenario. So, now Tessa, if
Speaker 1: you can't see Tessa, she's a beautiful blonde hair, uh,
Speaker 1: blue eyed, something like that, but.
Speaker 3: Uh eurocentric standards of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a good looking woman, younger look, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, attractive most people would you kind of
Speaker 1: have a look like what's a girl from the Batman
Speaker 1: movie with the Joker, the Joker's wife. That's what you
Speaker 1: look like. You look just like that girl. So that
Speaker 1: was a good thing. I hope you think that she's
Speaker 1: a good looking person too. But anyway, so yeah, let's
Speaker 1: put her into that scenario, and let's remove a odd
Speaker 1: from the scenario.
Speaker 3: I mean, not to interrupt you, but there were white
Speaker 3: people going into that house. They said that later, right,
Speaker 3: the white were.
Speaker 1: Coming in exactly interesting. So watch what happens now, a
Speaker 1: young white woman with blonde hair and green eyes, you know,
Speaker 1: it's jogging down the street. She sees it a house,
Speaker 1: you know, halfway built. It's interesting. She might want to see,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever she wants to see. Maybe she's thinking
Speaker 1: of buying a house on her own. Maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I had a house built before. I went and visited
Speaker 1: that house once twice a week, just to check on
Speaker 1: the progress and the daydream. What am I going to?
Speaker 1: Where's the couch going to go? You know that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, And I would look at other people's houses
Speaker 1: was a new development, I would look at their houses too,
Speaker 1: to see what they have houses going to affect property values?
Speaker 1: Is it's a four bedroom with you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean?
Speaker 1: So, uh, you know, snooping around in a you know,
Speaker 1: an empty lot with some sticks in it, you know,
Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of half built structure is
Speaker 1: not unusual at least, you know, And it's certainly not
Speaker 1: something and that you should lose your life over, especially
Speaker 1: if you're if you look like Tessa. So let's play
Speaker 1: this scenario back Tessa's jogging, She goes into the house,
Speaker 1: has a look around, sees all this cool stuff, and leaves.
Speaker 3: Makes friendly conversation with the neighbors while no one asks
Speaker 3: any questions.
Speaker 1: Sure exactly, And because my friend had told me, he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, that guy, he could have been in there
Speaker 1: stealing stuff, He could have been doing anything, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, So you assuming that him being
Speaker 1: there is sinister suggests that you're associating that sinister behavior
Speaker 1: with his blackness. Because the only thing that we've changed
Speaker 1: is the fact that now this is a twenty six
Speaker 1: year old white female and all of a sudden, she's
Speaker 1: not in there stealing. How could she be and she's
Speaker 1: not up to no good? How could she be? Right?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And what you have to come to terms within this
Speaker 1: moment is are we all human here? Or do some
Speaker 1: humans get treated better than others? Do some humans get
Speaker 1: consideration that others.
Speaker 3: Don't valued differently?
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly? And this is the thrust of the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter movement, And this is how we're able to
Speaker 1: see what we saw at the Capitol Building and not
Speaker 1: have as intense of a reaction as someone like Testamitis
Speaker 1: assume that we should, because we're kind of used to it.
Speaker 1: You know, we grew up in a world very much
Speaker 1: shaped by well, I'm black, so I can't do that.
Speaker 1: You could do it, but I know I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: right here, you know, you know, don't talk back to
Speaker 1: the police, don't you know, like just certain things that
Speaker 1: like my neighbor did.
Speaker 2: It's so crazy that you said that. It even goes
Speaker 2: down to like just like, you know, I had a
Speaker 2: white best friend and he would talk back to his
Speaker 2: dad and I would look at him like, bro, you crazy,
Speaker 2: Like what are you doing? And his dad would never
Speaker 2: like like do anything about it. And it's just like,
Speaker 2: I know for a fact, I couldn't do that at
Speaker 2: my house, you know what I'm saying, I'd be put
Speaker 2: through the wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's like even they the comparison of something so simple. Sure,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, I can as I get older,
Speaker 2: I can understand it.
Speaker 1: So you know, you you very much can can see that.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously, like you said, a lot of that's cultural,
Speaker 1: but that absolutely spills out onto the streets into the
Speaker 1: real world where you know, certain people move with impunity,
Speaker 1: they move with this sense of entitlement. To see that
Speaker 1: man walk out of that Capitol building with the podium,
Speaker 1: you know, for anyone to look at that and tell
Speaker 1: themselves that's not a slap in the face of the
Speaker 1: entire country of the of the United States of America,
Speaker 1: they're kidding themselves. In my heart, they're making excuses for that,
Speaker 1: you know, because all you have to do is swap
Speaker 1: that person for a black person. Now he's he's he's
Speaker 1: you know, a twenty nine year old blackmail you know
Speaker 1: from Baltimore walking out of the the Capitol Building with
Speaker 1: the you know, then it's it's in a an attack
Speaker 1: on the.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, walking out that assumes he
Speaker 3: even got in. Yeah, that wouldn't have happened either.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to take anything away from the
Speaker 1: folks that really have called it what it is, which
Speaker 1: is an attack on democracy and attack on the country,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in waving those Confederate flags, which kind.
Speaker 2: Of scares me as well, because I feel like, like
Speaker 2: you said, usually we're as as the United States were
Speaker 2: usually buttoned up, you know what I'm saying. I feel
Speaker 2: like a lot of other countries already don't like our
Speaker 2: sense of entitlement, I guess sure. And I just feel
Speaker 2: like that showed them like, oh, we can go you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, even their own people can walk
Speaker 2: into their capital with listen, and for other countries to
Speaker 2: think that that's dangerous, that's super Listen.
Speaker 1: The craziest part about it is I started watching the
Speaker 1: t TV show not too long ago called Designated Survivor
Speaker 1: Follow Me Here. So this show, you know about all
Speaker 1: the time I watched the whole time. That's how it
Speaker 1: felt like that. So in this show, basically what happens is,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone goes into the to the Capitol Building,
Speaker 1: and then someone sets off an explosion in the Capitol
Speaker 1: Building and the Secretary of how Housing and Urban Development
Speaker 1: is listed as the designated survivor. So if the President,
Speaker 1: the Vice President, the Secretary of State, all these people
Speaker 1: end up dying, that's the They all can't be in
Speaker 1: the same building together. One person has to stay away
Speaker 1: and they deem that person a designated survivor. So when
Speaker 1: when the Capitol Building gets attacked, you know, this guy
Speaker 1: becomes the president and he's like the last person he
Speaker 1: expected to me, and all of a sudden, he's got
Speaker 1: a country to run. So and it's another show. It's
Speaker 1: a TV show, and it's on the hills of a
Speaker 1: national tragedy. So he's got to assume power. He gets
Speaker 1: sworn in in the hallway, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he's the president. They're like, okay, what do we do
Speaker 1: so show? If you want to watch it, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: check it out. The first episode. I remember watching it
Speaker 1: and you see the Capitol Building it blows up, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody in their dies, and I remember just thinking like,
Speaker 1: huh man, that's a great special effect. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just so unreal. It's like watching a movie like a
Speaker 1: White House Down and you know, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: that movie scared me.
Speaker 2: They they had everything you're talking about, the actual movie, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they had the whole white House down, and within ten minutes,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, this ever happens, it's bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, there's something, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: oh that could never happen in real life. Yeah, these
Speaker 1: buildings are the most protected buildings in the planet. You know,
Speaker 1: this would never actually happen. And you know what we saw.
Speaker 1: We saw regular people, not even a lot of them go.
Speaker 1: They passed through a thin line of security because you know,
Speaker 1: DC didn't really deem them a threat. You know, the
Speaker 1: Secret Service, you know, there's military there. I was just
Speaker 1: in DC and it might have been August, just didn't
Speaker 1: really see see these people as a threat. So they're
Speaker 1: at like, you know, moderate security threat, you know, and
Speaker 1: these are people, you know, gun owners for Trump. I
Speaker 1: remember seeing that flag, you know, Second Amendment rights and
Speaker 1: don't tread on me flags and you know, of course
Speaker 1: the people in camouflage and like.
Speaker 2: They're yeah, what was the call of duty office for us?
Speaker 1: Like that?
Speaker 2: That makes me as if I'm outside and I'm a
Speaker 2: cop and I see you come up with camouflage, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna assume you're packing, because why are you coming
Speaker 2: equipped for war?
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly my point. And the thing is, have a
Speaker 1: little white skin and they won't see it that way,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, I'd be scared, but dig this though.
Speaker 1: What happens is those people are supported often or what's
Speaker 1: infinitely worse, are also among the ranks of the police officers.
Speaker 1: So the police officer looking at the guy in camouflage
Speaker 1: gear for the hunting rifles sees a comrade, sees one
Speaker 1: of his own, and both of them look at someone
Speaker 1: like you and me and think, oh, we're the enemy.
Speaker 1: We're the thugs. We're you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: that's the crazy thing about it, because it's just it's
Speaker 1: the furthest thing from the truth. What we saw was
Speaker 1: thugs run into the Capitol building, they looted the building.
Speaker 1: They you know, uh, disrespected the police. They did all
Speaker 1: these sorts of things, you know what I mean, And somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, when it's us and we're trying to make
Speaker 1: a point, we end up looking we end up getting villainized,
Speaker 1: and really what we're asking for is in all of
Speaker 1: our protests and marches and things like this, This wasn't
Speaker 1: to you know, anything that we've ever done wasn't to
Speaker 1: overturn an election because we never never disturb of trouble.
Speaker 1: But we asked for basic decency. We ask for uh,
Speaker 1: human rights. We ask for arrest somebody before you want
Speaker 1: to kill them. Thank you, you know, giving everybody their
Speaker 1: day in court, you know what I mean. Don't execute
Speaker 1: human beings. We have a little bit more value than that.
Speaker 1: Hence Black Lives Matter. These people were upset about the election.
Speaker 2: Result election something like I'm not saying it's the same thing,
Speaker 2: but a winning or losing you that you can compare
Speaker 2: that to a basketball game or something like that. It's
Speaker 2: just winning or losing. You guys lost and you're mad
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Oh and the crazy part about it is you guys
Speaker 1: lost probably like seventeen times in a row.
Speaker 2: We watched it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like y'all still don't want it. But anyway, ay, right, right,
Speaker 1: real quick. If you're just tuning in to Civic Sacherami
Speaker 1: host rams this job. My guest today Tessa Ferrell and
Speaker 1: Elijah Banks all the way from LA. Once again, I
Speaker 1: appreciate both of you guys can stop on by Man especially,
Speaker 1: I know you came a long way, you looked out
Speaker 1: for you and did my little show with me. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that anytime. Of course, you know, what we're talking
Speaker 1: about is the attack on the Capitol, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you know Trump said something he got on
Speaker 1: there before the attack on the Capitol.
Speaker 2: Well, first off, came out the Proudboys, Uh stand by.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no no no. This was after that, you know,
Speaker 2: but I think they stood by.
Speaker 1: They was waiting, Yeah, exactly, that's what that's, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly so, but he was tweeting something like, you know,
Speaker 1: let's get you know, ready for I forgot what it
Speaker 1: was because I don't read this guy's tweets, which he
Speaker 1: lost his Twitter account, thank god. But then after these
Speaker 1: guys show up at the Capitol and they start the
Speaker 1: preceding start where they you know, tally up the votes
Speaker 1: or whatever, and they certified Joe Biden as the next president.
Speaker 1: When the when the House got rushed, Trump finally came
Speaker 1: out after Joe Biden said something. Trump comes out and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we know we lost or we we won this election,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, but this is not the right way
Speaker 1: to do it. And he's still like pouring gas on
Speaker 1: the fire. He's trying to like work the media angles
Speaker 1: because he's worried about his legacy, so he has to
Speaker 1: say something, but he has to hold the line too
Speaker 1: because those people are there. Because he thinks that he
Speaker 1: was cheated out of the election, so he again says, yes,
Speaker 1: this election was stolen from us, but this is not
Speaker 1: the right way to you know whatever. And then afterwards,
Speaker 1: after everything had blown over a little bit, he puts
Speaker 1: out a two minute video saying, you know, we'll make
Speaker 1: a peaceful transition to the new administration. That the attack
Speaker 1: on the Capitol was a heinous and I condemned those
Speaker 1: actions and blah blah. And he did his best to
Speaker 1: separate those people, like I'd say maybe like sixty seventy
Speaker 1: of them had Trump hats on the rest of them
Speaker 1: had flags, and somehow or other, he's trying to like
Speaker 1: distance himself from his actual supporters that he asked to
Speaker 1: come there and do that exact thing. And and then Juliani
Speaker 1: was said, let's have a trial by combat or something.
Speaker 1: He's really flagrant this language that he's used throughout his presidency.
Speaker 2: Combat We had that weird. Yeah, it sounds like you
Speaker 2: want to get down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but twenty four hours before he was calling them lovely,
Speaker 3: thanking them for their arrival, go home safely, rest. We'll
Speaker 3: tackle this again tomorrow. And now the language is very
Speaker 3: different of peace and.
Speaker 1: And I condemn those actions. Yeah, you know, like the
Speaker 1: rest of the long and the short of it is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen this person play this game on
Speaker 1: on the scale of an entire country for four years
Speaker 1: now you've seen isn't that crazy? And it just feels
Speaker 1: like we've lived under a dark cloud. And then twenty
Speaker 1: twenty just that's when the thunder started.
Speaker 2: It was a storm. Yeah, like yeah, the build up
Speaker 2: it was like great clouds, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it was just like, nah, we're going to open
Speaker 1: up the gates right there, listen, and it's it's the
Speaker 1: wildest thing. And this guy and then and then to
Speaker 1: talk about his Twitter, I think Facebook blocked him as
Speaker 1: well from using his account.
Speaker 3: I think he's on like a couple of weeks suspensions
Speaker 3: on each of them as it sits right now.
Speaker 2: So like, how do how do you feel to be
Speaker 2: the president and and have a social media and be like, look,
Speaker 2: you're becoming dangerous for this potform.
Speaker 1: I think we have to shut him down. I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason why he decided to come
Speaker 1: out with that that that speech after the Factory, he
Speaker 1: finally acknowledged that he lost the election and that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden would be certified as the next president or would
Speaker 1: be elected as the next president because of the election
Speaker 1: had been certified. So when everybody's pulling away from him
Speaker 1: and he's the last man standing, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he's got nowhere else to go. And that is like
Speaker 1: textbook narcissism. You know, he loses him losing that election,
Speaker 1: he's got to be the winner all the time he's
Speaker 1: got he's like sick. Narcissism is definitely meant health issue,
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely absolutely. And the worst part about it is
Speaker 1: there's no cure.
Speaker 2: If you're a narcissists, you really start believing the stuff
Speaker 2: that you put out there answer the universe.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you are a narcissist. When they bury you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go away. It's just it's like a It
Speaker 1: may as well be like cerebral palsy or something some
Speaker 1: other durable ailment. But that's why he's willing to fight
Speaker 1: that fight to the bitter end. It's a bruised ego
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want to go down. As you know,
Speaker 1: like all the presidents that we've had, none of them
Speaker 1: have said, I want to be on Mount Rushmore. Let's
Speaker 1: look into.
Speaker 2: That, you know.
Speaker 1: And obviously we haven't, especially in modern times. I don't
Speaker 1: think ever seen a president go this far to contest
Speaker 1: the results ever. Yeah, because as we staid earlier in
Speaker 1: the show, that the initial results came out and then
Speaker 1: the recounts, and then the state lost by so much
Speaker 1: you should have just listened.
Speaker 2: Now. If it was close, I understand and recount, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. But it was such a large gap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, there's millions of people. And then he spun
Speaker 1: together all these well, if all six of these states
Speaker 1: changed their minds, then we're gonna win. And fraud happened
Speaker 1: in all these states together. And that's how we know, man.
Speaker 2: And you know what like, and I didn't even know
Speaker 2: this part, but what you said earlier, you know what's
Speaker 2: embarrassing is, yeah, there was some fraud and it helped you.
Speaker 2: You still lost, Like what are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Man? So, uh, you know, it really does feel like
Speaker 1: we're kind of getting toward the end of such a
Speaker 1: strange thing. But what will ultimately be left behind is
Speaker 1: people like those that storm that Capitol building. And what
Speaker 1: will be left with the legacy his legacy will be
Speaker 1: the divisiveness, and his legacy will be the lack of
Speaker 1: empathy and the and the complete and utter selfish selfishness.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that they that they did what they did
Speaker 2: because now so he gets to go out with a
Speaker 2: boom and like a boom that like you can't rewrite
Speaker 2: or you can't erase that. Oh yeah, this is the
Speaker 2: behavior yeah, for a whole people on the Capitol.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were his people.
Speaker 2: And they were his people like in your uniform.
Speaker 1: Oh listen top to bottom waving a Confederate Listen, pre
Speaker 1: anyone listening to my voice. If you don't know the
Speaker 1: history of this country. Uh, Once upon a time there
Speaker 1: was a war called the Civil War, and the Civil
Speaker 1: War was over slavery. Basically, the South wanted to keep
Speaker 1: their slaves and the North wanted to abolish slavery because
Speaker 1: slavery was making so much money. At the time, most
Speaker 1: of the wealth in the country was concentrated in the South,
Speaker 1: and now it's you know, New York places like that.
Speaker 1: But at that time, all the wealth was down in
Speaker 1: the South. We were doing you know, cotton and sugar
Speaker 1: and whatever else we could do. So slavery was making money,
Speaker 1: and the South decided that, you know, we have the land,
Speaker 1: we have the people, we need to you know, keep
Speaker 1: this institution going. But all the lawmakers and the politicians
Speaker 1: lived up north, and so that's how we ended up
Speaker 1: with the North versus the South, basically a country at
Speaker 1: war with itself. The South adopted a new flag because
Speaker 1: they tried to leave the United States and form the
Speaker 1: Confederate States of America. Right, this is a cliffs Notes
Speaker 1: version of it. And if I'm wrong on any of this,
Speaker 1: I know I'm not with.
Speaker 2: You know, the way they re down is very very key.
Speaker 1: So okay, So the Confederate States of America is something
Speaker 1: that lasted I think two to three years something like that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a long time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: There's you know, bands that last longer than that. There's
Speaker 1: you know, I got t shirts older than that, you know.
Speaker 1: So the Confederate States of America was an actual thing,
Speaker 1: and they had a flag and it's the Confederate flag, right,
Speaker 1: and people that wield that flag are people that claim
Speaker 1: that that flag is their heritage. At the same time,
Speaker 1: those people wave the American flag because they're proud Americans,
Speaker 1: right right. And the thing is, uh, there's you know,
Speaker 1: America fought against the United States of America, fought against
Speaker 1: the Confederate States of America. And one, so the Confederate
Speaker 1: flag is the flag of losers. That's your legacy, and
Speaker 1: you want to hold on to it by all means,
Speaker 1: you know. But know what, we see the way that
Speaker 1: you just put that listen, But on top of that
Speaker 1: that should have to make that water market to the
Speaker 1: flag of the losers, absolutely is. And so it's the
Speaker 1: Nazi flag because you know nazis run with those guys.
Speaker 1: Just the same there are people that got beaten because
Speaker 1: their ideas are worse. They don't they don't support the
Speaker 1: best of what humanity is.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: These are people that are large, Yeah, exactly. But these
Speaker 1: people claim that it's their heritage or whatever it is
Speaker 1: that they do. And obviously, for us, we see it
Speaker 1: as a symbol of slavery, of the desire for slavery
Speaker 1: to continue. We see it as a time a relic
Speaker 1: of a time when black people weren't really treated so good,
Speaker 1: and it's a symbol to embolden that group of people
Speaker 1: against black people specifically, all of those things all the time.
Speaker 1: It's never anything else. And so to see this Confederate
Speaker 1: States of America relic in the Capitol Building of the
Speaker 1: actual United States of America, that's a former enemy that
Speaker 1: has been crushed out of existence, brought back into the
Speaker 1: to the actual capital building, as though it has somehow
Speaker 1: been anchored by the South, is asmine. That is an
Speaker 1: active treason if you ask me, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: just I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Think in that we're operating though, as if that is
Speaker 3: really what happened in that that ever went away, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I think to say, like, how could this
Speaker 3: Confederate flag be in the Capitol Building is assuming that
Speaker 3: it ever went away and the philosophy is the ideals
Speaker 3: behind it, when really that's still very much the entirety
Speaker 3: of how our nation.
Speaker 1: Operates, you know, and identified right, it's along these lines,
Speaker 1: you know, for a long time, folks have been saying
Speaker 1: things like, oh, you know, racism is getting better and
Speaker 1: the old the old racists are dying out, and you know,
Speaker 1: on and on, and it's just I mean, it's been
Speaker 1: hundreds of years, literally hundreds of years, and I saw
Speaker 1: that flag getting waved around inside the Capitol building.
Speaker 2: Just because old races they pass they pass it on
Speaker 2: the energy absolutely teaching.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, even if they don't
Speaker 1: pass it on. There are one thing that that I
Speaker 1: will be fair about. There are groups of younger white
Speaker 1: men who find a sense of community with other young
Speaker 1: white men online. These people tend to be involuntarily celibate.
Speaker 2: In other words, they.
Speaker 1: Like women, but women don't like them back. These are
Speaker 1: the these are the type of people that really would
Speaker 1: have a problem with me and you banks, because you know,
Speaker 1: we represent uh uh social mobility that they don't get.
Speaker 1: We you know, we we probably have access to women
Speaker 1: in ways that they don't. You know, I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: kind of how they would look at it. I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those people, but they would look at me
Speaker 1: and deduce that socially awkward. Oh yeah, absolutely. And they
Speaker 1: play video games and they you know, just sit back
Speaker 1: and they point their fingers at the whole world about
Speaker 1: their condition, and they wish and they don't believe in
Speaker 1: white privilege because one thing they said to itself is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had some of this white privilege, and
Speaker 1: I wish I had my million dollars when I was born,
Speaker 1: like everybody thinks I get and I wish I had,
Speaker 1: you know, And in their minds and in their worlds,
Speaker 1: that's a real thing. They feel like the world doesn't
Speaker 1: pay attention to them, the world doesn't care about them,
Speaker 1: women don't like them, you know, and so and then
Speaker 1: they grow up very much isolated, and they only find
Speaker 1: a sense of community and these online forums and these
Speaker 1: video game forms and so forth, where they're free to
Speaker 1: vent their frustration with the world, and their frustration with
Speaker 1: the world. At least they tell themselves the story that
Speaker 1: their frustration stems from, or the source of their rather
Speaker 1: is immigrants, black people, you know, criminals, black lives matter, basically,
Speaker 1: anything that's not you know, a viking is the source
Speaker 1: of their you know, discomfort in life. And they feel
Speaker 1: like they should have more than what they do and
Speaker 1: have more access to whatever, and more mobility and so forth,
Speaker 1: and yet and still they're very much stuck in their
Speaker 1: room playing the same video games over and over again.
Speaker 1: And those people grow up not necessarily influenced by their parents,
Speaker 1: but influenced by each other, and they're looking for someone
Speaker 1: to blame. And you know, that's it's really tough to
Speaker 1: blame nature because if you blame nature for your you know,
Speaker 1: inverted penis problem or whatever it is that you're dealing with.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be funny, but whatever it is,
Speaker 1: your issue is that you know, is keeping you from
Speaker 1: becoming a little bit more mobile socially. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's just easier to blame other people, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's easier to vent that frustration. And you know, like
Speaker 1: we've seen with you know, Proud Boys and all these
Speaker 1: other guys. Proud Boys might be a little different, but
Speaker 1: you know we've seen them kind of get recruited into
Speaker 1: groups like Proud Boys and the Trump you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the Trump train will call it where they find a
Speaker 1: sense of okay, well, these are white folks. These these
Speaker 1: folks recognize that the world is not treating them as
Speaker 1: good as they as it could. And you know, this
Speaker 1: used to be our country and you know, life was
Speaker 1: better and the eighteen hundreds of scho or the nineteen
Speaker 1: fig whatever they think, as I say.
Speaker 2: When when was America great? I still want to know.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe for them any.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for them, I really want to know for them.
Speaker 1: For them, it's I mean, it's still pretty good. I
Speaker 1: don't don't. It's not that great for me. I can't
Speaker 1: even fix my headlight in my garage. That was crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. That was crazy.
Speaker 1: It's a real thing.
Speaker 2: You have. You have a lot more soken not do. Brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Actually, you know that story ended up working out.
Speaker 1: You know, he and I ended up talking again later.
Speaker 1: I believe that, you know, no matter what, there should
Speaker 1: always be a little bit of forgiveness built into the narrative.
Speaker 1: Because even though my neighbor will call him a fifty
Speaker 1: six year old, bald white man who's certainly a lot
Speaker 1: more frail than I am, came across and you know,
Speaker 1: did whatever, he's still a human being. He's endowed with
Speaker 1: consciousness from the same creator whoever created me, created him.
Speaker 1: Whatever you believe that to be, he's he's It's okay
Speaker 1: if he makes a mistake, because I'll make mistakes too,
Speaker 1: And if I leave a little bit of room for forgiveness,
Speaker 1: then you know, when the time comes, we can still talk.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean run upon me because like I said,
Speaker 1: I am from Compton. I don't play that, you know.
Speaker 1: But in his case, you know, we ended up talking,
Speaker 1: and you know, I let him know how I felt
Speaker 1: when he when he approached me like that, and he
Speaker 1: basically apologized, you reckon, that he was in the wrong
Speaker 1: and that it didn't make it right. But I understood
Speaker 1: that my role in that scenario was to make sure
Speaker 1: that I didn't devolve beyond a certain point. I had
Speaker 1: to kind of keep my composure because moving forward now
Speaker 1: that man is to call him an ally would be
Speaker 1: a little too strong. But I can say that I
Speaker 1: helped him to grow up a little bit and then
Speaker 1: he won't take anger and spew it out elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the world. Now he has a little bit more like
Speaker 1: a measured response because he saw the error in his
Speaker 1: ways and I was able to forgive him. And when
Speaker 1: you do these sorts of things and you are able
Speaker 1: to say, listen, you were wrong, You're absolutely wrong, but
Speaker 1: here's the right thing to do. And if you do this,
Speaker 1: everything's going to be okay. All is forgiven. Then you know,
Speaker 1: instead of making a permanent enemy out of someone you
Speaker 1: have the potential or create the capacity, rather to you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you've been making year leaders. Some people just they
Speaker 1: have to get a little closer to the to the
Speaker 1: source to see the light. And you know, as long
Speaker 1: as you allow for that, then you know you might
Speaker 1: make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, Nah man, you be speaking them for sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, absolutely, Well. I want to thank both of
Speaker 1: y'all for coming up and hanging out with me on
Speaker 1: the show today. Uh, you know, Banks, let them know
Speaker 1: what's going on with you, how to keep up with you, what's.
Speaker 2: Next for you? Man? Everything is Elijah Banks, E, L I, J, H, B,
Speaker 2: A n X, even down the PlayStation. Man, if you
Speaker 2: want to get whooped on in two kges ill have me.
Speaker 2: I got a lot I'm working on, man, talk about it.
Speaker 2: Me and me and Twizzy got an album that we're
Speaker 2: working on. I got my album that I'm finally about
Speaker 2: to come out with. We're working on a deluxe version.
Speaker 2: I got a country album that I'm working on. Yeah
Speaker 2: do that, yeah man. So I'm all over the place.
Speaker 2: I just did a rock R and B song the
Speaker 2: other night. So yeah, man, I'm excited for this year.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful for Quarantine because it slowed me down because
Speaker 2: I was I was running around I was on tour
Speaker 2: with Tory and all that. Yeah, Tory Lanez, and it
Speaker 2: slowed us down to the point where now I'm creating
Speaker 2: in a better space. Bro, I love it and I'm
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect, Okay. Test to let them know where they
Speaker 1: can keep up with you if.
Speaker 2: You so choose.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, Yeah, I think it's a TESTA for realist
Speaker 3: is my Instagram handle, and that's about anything I'm on.
Speaker 3: I'm not on Twitter, I'm not on Snapchat. I'm not
Speaker 3: out here dancing.
Speaker 1: That's good enough for Realist. That'll work a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of potent content there as well. And of course,
Speaker 1: please be sure to keep up with the show. If
Speaker 1: you want to download this episode or any of our
Speaker 1: previous episodes, visit the website civiccipher dot com, submit all
Speaker 1: your questions show topics. Please donate the show is supported
Speaker 1: by you, and follow all the social media once again
Speaker 1: at Civic Cipher or civiccipher dot com Until next week, y'all, Peace,