Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Sipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rams is Jah.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call them q war.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call them q war. Hey, I ain't mad
Speaker 1: at that one bit. What's going on, Q? What's going on? Rams?
Speaker 1: Everything in the world. We've got some more stuff to
Speaker 1: talk about today. Some things that have have kind of
Speaker 1: troubled us this week, I think it's safe to say that,
Speaker 1: but some some things that also feel pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of optimism in today's show, which is
Speaker 1: a rarity around here. So you know, we're getting both sides,
Speaker 1: which I think is standard forward for us. So some
Speaker 1: of those things and some reasons to stick around include
Speaker 1: we're definitely gonna talk about some statistics that are often
Speaker 1: skewed and sold to moderates in America to deepen their
Speaker 1: app with the with respect to you know, black people
Speaker 1: and the plight of black and brown individuals in this country.
Speaker 1: We're gonna spend a good amount of time talking about that.
Speaker 1: But you know, it really came about as an idea
Speaker 1: when we came across a video, a TikTok video of
Speaker 1: all places from someone named cap without a Country. So again,
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend some time talking about that. We're also
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Target and how Target became cozy with
Speaker 1: the cops and what that's meant for black and brown neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and you know, the state of the world since then.
Speaker 1: And we also have a quote from Kimberly Jones we're
Speaker 1: gonna check out as well that I think you definitely
Speaker 1: want to stick around for that. I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get into the ebony excellent stuff first, So
Speaker 1: let's do that, q all, no matter what.
Speaker 2: So, we were reading about the smith Sonian and the
Speaker 2: way that they decided to frame our most celebrated art form,
Speaker 2: and I think it's safe to say now the most
Speaker 2: popular and powerful genre of music on earth, and that
Speaker 2: is hip hop. There's a lot of things that were
Speaker 2: in the piece that we shared with each other, but
Speaker 2: the thing that stood out the most to me is
Speaker 2: that the Smithsonian did not decide to take a stance
Speaker 2: of where the experts on this thing, let us present
Speaker 2: it to you. They really relied on the people who
Speaker 2: live the culture and who are a part of it
Speaker 2: to present that story to the masses. And they taken
Speaker 2: a stance similar to the way journalists were treated in
Speaker 2: the wake and even in the process of the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: where the country felt a certain way about it, but
Speaker 2: the journalists and photographers more specifically had to go over
Speaker 2: and cover the worst parts of it and show it
Speaker 2: to the world, the truth of it, so that people
Speaker 2: could be as appalled by it if they needed to be,
Speaker 2: and bring it into what many people thought was an
Speaker 2: unjust war. They used Tupac as an example of the
Speaker 2: violence and the things that are portrayed in hip hop
Speaker 2: that people have always saw as a negative, and Tupac
Speaker 2: was saying well, he used an example of someone knocking
Speaker 2: at your door and not being able to get an answer.
Speaker 2: The longer you knocked with no answer, the harder you knock.
Speaker 2: And by sharing what our truths were with the world,
Speaker 2: Tupac specifically felt that if the world could see the
Speaker 2: worst parts of our life, the true worst parts of
Speaker 2: our life, that they would get the attention that they
Speaker 2: deserved and much liked the Vietnam War, they were being
Speaker 2: a lot of effort made to bring an end to
Speaker 2: those things. Unfortunately, the victims of these very harsh truths
Speaker 2: and hip hop looked like me and you, so it
Speaker 2: was not met with the urgency that I think he
Speaker 2: and people like Public Enemy really hoped and thought they
Speaker 2: would be. But the Smithsonian choosing to display hip hop
Speaker 2: as an art in prison, entering that to the world
Speaker 2: as a space for truth. I appreciate what I read.
Speaker 1: Man well, big shout out to the Smithsonian and doctor
Speaker 1: Dwindlen Reese and uh, I really like that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of pain in in the in
Speaker 1: the black story, in this in this country, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of struggle, but there's also a lot of perseverance,
Speaker 1: a lot of triumph. And you know, for that story
Speaker 1: to be not only a Black story, but an American story,
Speaker 1: and to have it be told for decades by people
Speaker 1: who have created a whole culture around this style of music, dress, talk,
Speaker 1: and so forth, I feel like that is remarkable and
Speaker 1: certainly worthy of Ebony excellence. So very glad that we
Speaker 1: could share that with you today. So moving on Cap
Speaker 1: without Country on TikTok check that out if you have TikTok.
Speaker 1: It occurred to us that we had never done a
Speaker 1: show to really meet with the opposition. If you will,
Speaker 1: what is the opposite of our show? What is the
Speaker 1: very pro white If you will, that sounds weird, but
Speaker 1: trust me, there are shows like that. You recall to
Speaker 1: us driving through I want to say it was Alabama
Speaker 1: or Mississippi. There were They're advertised as pro white radio shows,
Speaker 1: and we actually tuned in and listened to them. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are shows out there that purport certain facts
Speaker 1: or not facts I use the term loosely, but alternative
Speaker 1: facts or statistics or whatever, and they're skewed or misrepresented
Speaker 1: in a way that tells a story to folks who
Speaker 1: really need to feel like they're victims and that black
Speaker 1: people are what's the word I'm looking for, unfairly victimizing ourselves.
Speaker 1: I suppose, you know, or playing the victim role, and
Speaker 1: we're all on welfare and we just think we deserve
Speaker 1: and we want everything free. And there's programs and there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's things on the internet, there's memes, there's
Speaker 1: you know, articles and all the sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: shared that helps sell that idea to people who really
Speaker 1: need that information. They don't need it, of course, but
Speaker 1: they really want it. They want the world to feel
Speaker 1: like everything around them is a result of other people
Speaker 1: taking things from them. And we never created an episode
Speaker 1: where we could talk about some of those statistics, because
Speaker 1: you know, if you're listening to this show, there there
Speaker 1: might be have been a time or two when you've
Speaker 1: come across some statistics that say black people statistically are this,
Speaker 1: that or the other more likely to be doing this,
Speaker 1: that or the other, and you know, your heart might
Speaker 1: go out to it, and you might think in your mind, okay,
Speaker 1: that maybe there's a reason for it, maybe there's more
Speaker 1: to it, and it's really up to us to flesh
Speaker 1: out that full dialogue. And that's what we plan on
Speaker 1: doing today. And again, it occurred to us when we
Speaker 1: were looking at this Cap Without a Country's TikTok page.
Speaker 1: So one of the myths that you know, the host
Speaker 1: of the page mentioned was the thirteen fifty myth for
Speaker 1: the my favorite. Yeah, for those that don't know, Honestly,
Speaker 1: this was new to me. I never heard of the
Speaker 1: thirteen fifty myth. I'd never heard of it. And that's
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's surprising to you, but.
Speaker 2: I think you may have heard of it, you just
Speaker 2: never heard it branded like that. Yeah, it's never it
Speaker 2: was never given a name a name. I have talked
Speaker 2: about those statistics before.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, of course, So for those who don't know
Speaker 1: this thirteen to fifty myth is purported as fact by
Speaker 1: the other side, where the way that it's suggested is
Speaker 1: that half of the violent crime comes from thirteen percent
Speaker 1: of the population or black people, because black people make
Speaker 1: up approximately thirteen percent of the population, and so because
Speaker 1: they're saying half the violent crime in the country comes
Speaker 1: from black people, they're painting with such broad strokes there
Speaker 1: that to a person listening it creates fear of black people.
Speaker 1: It's almost like one in every two black people is
Speaker 1: going to attack you or something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: for people that don't take time to really sit with
Speaker 1: the numbers of the logic or anything like that, it
Speaker 1: sounds very scary. And to the people who really need
Speaker 1: things like this to be true so that they can
Speaker 1: continue to hold up their white supremacist views of the
Speaker 1: world or to continue to live comfortably in a world
Speaker 1: where white supremacy so ports their lifestyle or causes them
Speaker 1: to live more comfortably, these statistics are very much well received,
Speaker 1: but they're flawed. Now, I feel like you might have
Speaker 1: want to jump in there.
Speaker 2: No I do I smile when you said flawed because
Speaker 2: they're like intentionally false, right, right, like more than flawed, Like, okay,
Speaker 2: they're lies exactly almost directly lies.
Speaker 1: Well, so here's you're absolute right, one hundred percent right,
Speaker 1: because a half truth is a lie. Anything that's not
Speaker 1: the full truth is a lie. You know, it's intentionally misleading,
Speaker 1: and it misrepresents the reality of the situation. The reality
Speaker 1: of the situation really uncovers the source of a lot
Speaker 1: of problems that really are at the root of not
Speaker 1: just black people's day to day lives, but poor people's
Speaker 1: day to day lives. Right, And once you actually take
Speaker 1: all of the optics and all of the statistics and
Speaker 1: put them in the same bowl and mix it all together,
Speaker 1: what you have doesn't really support a white supremacist agenda anymore.
Speaker 1: And so this is why people are scared of the
Speaker 1: whole truth and the half truths and the misrepresentation of
Speaker 1: the reality is a little bit more comfortable for them,
Speaker 1: and I'm a little bit more palatable. So allow me
Speaker 1: to explain. So again, there's this thirteen fifty rule, we'll
Speaker 1: call it a myth on our show that says that
Speaker 1: half the violent crime comes from black people. Thirteen percent
Speaker 1: of the population, Black people commits half of the violent
Speaker 1: crime The truth of the matter is that black people
Speaker 1: account for fifty percent of arrests of violent crimes. Now,
Speaker 1: that might not change much so far, but allow me
Speaker 1: to continue again, black people account for fifty percent of
Speaker 1: arrests of violent crimes. Now, when you factor in that
Speaker 1: black people are five times more likely to be arrested,
Speaker 1: six times more likely to be convicted, fifty percent more
Speaker 1: likely to be wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to twenty percent
Speaker 1: longer convictions than white violent criminals, now you begin to
Speaker 1: see things level out a bit more. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we've talked about on this show is over
Speaker 1: policing and this TikTok page, this cap without a Country.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I shout this out because
Speaker 1: if you're into, you know, this sort of stuff, if
Speaker 1: this kind of help empowers your narrative, then you should
Speaker 1: definitely like lock in if you're on TikTok. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that we talk about on the show
Speaker 1: is the way that black people interact with the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system with policing and so forth, and really policing
Speaker 1: in this instance, if let's say there will make an
Speaker 1: imaginary city, I'm going to explain to you how over
Speaker 1: policing works. We'll make an imaginary city, and we'll divide
Speaker 1: the city east and west, and all the black people
Speaker 1: live on the west side, and all the white people
Speaker 1: live on the east side, right, And then there's a
Speaker 1: police force, right that has to patrol this whole city. Now,
Speaker 1: if eighty percent of the police patrol the west side
Speaker 1: and twenty patrol the east side, then you would imagine
Speaker 1: that most of the arrests will be made where there
Speaker 1: are police, where most of the police are, right. And
Speaker 1: so that is a quick and dirty way of illuminating
Speaker 1: what over policing is. The reason for that is it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a self It's like a snake eating
Speaker 1: its own tail. You know. It's a vicious cycle where
Speaker 1: the fear of black people creates this demand for more police,
Speaker 1: and more police creates more arrests without actually dealing with
Speaker 1: the source of a lot of those crimes, right, And
Speaker 1: then what ends up getting married is black people in
Speaker 1: crime in people's minds as opposed to poverty and crime,
Speaker 1: which is really the source of a lot of the
Speaker 1: issues that happen in all cities around the world, but
Speaker 1: in this country it's very much a black and white problem.
Speaker 1: If you follow the money, and so instead of people
Speaker 1: dealing with economic inequalities, we deal with black people and
Speaker 1: white people, which is how this thirteen fifty statistic can
Speaker 1: come about.
Speaker 2: And it's weird, not even weird, it's cruel the way
Speaker 2: they manipulate the numbers, right, because poverty and over policing
Speaker 2: leads to more rest, right, And they use the number
Speaker 2: of rest to justify that there's more crime happening here,
Speaker 2: not that there's more time and money and resources being
Speaker 2: spent on police in this area where the people are
Speaker 2: poor and impovered. And like you said, listening to you
Speaker 2: explain that cycle, I'm so glad you put that simple,
Speaker 2: because it is that easy to understand. If you're putting
Speaker 2: more police in this area where the people are more poor,
Speaker 2: and your police have been conditioned to look at them
Speaker 2: as criminal before they even arrive, they arrest them more,
Speaker 2: thus justifying the over policing, like, hey, we're resting way
Speaker 2: more people here. We might even need to put more police.
Speaker 1: So it is really.
Speaker 2: It's an intentional cycle though, And that's the thing. And
Speaker 2: people can't see me. I'm smiling now. Sometimes I smile
Speaker 2: so I don't curse, or so I don't start pointing stuff.
Speaker 2: It's intentional. Right, Let's make sure that we have more
Speaker 2: police in this area where we think these people are,
Speaker 2: by nature of birth more likely to be criminals, and
Speaker 2: then once we arrest them more we can point to
Speaker 2: that and say, see, look what we were right, There
Speaker 2: are more criminals here. So let's spend more money on
Speaker 2: police in this area next year instead of more money
Speaker 2: on community centers and arts and programs to get kids
Speaker 2: off the street and doing something to feel the void
Speaker 2: or the vacuum that comes with growing up where we
Speaker 2: have so much less and less resources, less money, less opportunity,
Speaker 2: leads to people doing things that are not considered good
Speaker 2: just in order to survive. I don't know, man, I
Speaker 2: talk to you guys a lot, just about the things
Speaker 2: that we share and the things that we see in
Speaker 2: the group in preparation for the show, and you guys
Speaker 2: see me. I'm less encouraged by the day. It seems
Speaker 2: we really have been put in a position where succeeding
Speaker 2: and having our people as a whole move forward feels
Speaker 2: less realistic to me.
Speaker 1: Every week.
Speaker 2: It's becoming really, really, really discouraging, because once upon a
Speaker 2: time it did feel like we were making so much progress.
Speaker 1: Well, hanging there cue. I'm always trying, man, I'm trying there.
Speaker 1: I do think that we'll get there. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all playing our part. You know, we
Speaker 1: obviously didn't just get out on the streets and protest
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. We've made changes and we're continuing to
Speaker 1: have conversations. And you know, we have people who listen
Speaker 1: to our show every week, and you know, they write
Speaker 1: us and they follow our social media and they support
Speaker 1: our posts and our cause. And the show is growing,
Speaker 1: of course, and that's largely due to your efforts and
Speaker 1: so but there's another thing I wanted to point out,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you mentioned it. Remember I said that
Speaker 1: if you take all the facts and you put them
Speaker 1: in the bowl together, you know, the result doesn't really
Speaker 1: support white supremacy anymore. And I think that a great
Speaker 1: point of that is and I think that this story
Speaker 1: tells itself if a person takes a step back and
Speaker 1: looks at it. So watch this. If you put more
Speaker 1: police in the neighborhood, you know the reason for doing
Speaker 1: that is to make the neighborhood safer. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure anyone would agree. I put more police in there
Speaker 1: to make the neighborhood safer, to prevent crime from happening,
Speaker 1: to you know whatever. And what we're seeing is that
Speaker 1: more police make more arrests. More arrests means more violent
Speaker 1: arrests means more you know, black lives lost, black bodies
Speaker 1: being harmed, and so forth. And you know, it's like
Speaker 1: to a man with a hammer, the world is a nail, right,
Speaker 1: More police doesn't mean less crime. Police can only respond
Speaker 1: to crime that has happened. This is something we talk
Speaker 1: about on the show quite a bit. That's all that
Speaker 1: they do. You know, police like in a minuscule fraction
Speaker 1: of a percentage point, actually prevent crime. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of police work is responding to a crime that's already happened.
Speaker 1: And so the real question is how do we prevent
Speaker 1: crime from happening? Because obviously, putting more police in neighborhoods
Speaker 1: doesn't fix the problems. It doesn't fix the economic inequalities,
Speaker 1: it doesn't fix the broken crime justice system that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about a little bit more. And I
Speaker 1: feel like this thirteen fifty rule or myth again as
Speaker 1: we call it on our show. You said it best
Speaker 1: when you said it's a lie. He absolutely nailed that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm more likely, I'm more inclined to say
Speaker 1: that it's a half truth or you know whatever, if
Speaker 1: it is that, you know, people kind of know that
Speaker 1: it's a lie, but I'll call it what it is,
Speaker 1: a half truth. But in this case, you're right, Q,
Speaker 1: it's a lie. It just sells fear. It's Fox News
Speaker 1: all day. That's all that it is. So let's move
Speaker 1: on now. In addition to the statistics I've read before,
Speaker 1: I want to just recap just so that we're all
Speaker 1: on the same page. Okay, So, so far, the thirteen
Speaker 1: to fifty myth uh purports that thirteen percent of the
Speaker 1: population quote, black people account for fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: violent crime that takes place. When the truth is, black
Speaker 1: people account for only fifty percent of the arrests of
Speaker 1: violent crimes. Black people are five times more likely to
Speaker 1: be arrested, six times more likely to be convicted, fifty
Speaker 1: percent more likely to be wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to
Speaker 1: twenty percent longer convictions than white violent criminals. Now I
Speaker 1: want to add some more to that for the same crimes,
Speaker 1: for the same crimes. Absolutely I want to add to that,
Speaker 1: fifty four percent of all violent crimes remain unsolved, including
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of all murders, forty eight percent of
Speaker 1: all assaults, and more than sixty seven percent of all
Speaker 1: reported rapes. We've discussed that black people are overly policed.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we didn't really discuss so
Speaker 1: far we have on the show, but not so far
Speaker 1: with this is the War on drug and we don't
Speaker 1: have time to really go into detail for this segment,
Speaker 1: but we have in the past on the show, and
Speaker 1: of course we will again. But for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: the quick and dirty version of the story is that
Speaker 1: the War on drugs was really enacted to quell the
Speaker 1: hippie movement and the Black power movement in the sixties,
Speaker 1: that was the origins of it, you know, or the
Speaker 1: late sixties, early seventies, and then since nineteen sixty as
Speaker 1: a result of that, there's been a three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty percent increase in black men imprisoned. And because of
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Amendment, there's an economic advantage to having these
Speaker 1: bodies in prison too. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: just make that connection. Well, the Thirteenth Amendment meant that
Speaker 1: slavery never ended, absolutely right, one hundred percent true. But
Speaker 1: there was a long period in time in this country
Speaker 1: between slavery and the sixties when we saw these numbers
Speaker 1: start to really increase, and then the eighties, of course,
Speaker 1: when it really skyrocketed under Reaganomics. But there was a
Speaker 1: long period of time when you know, black people were
Speaker 1: you know, overly incarcerated, but not at such astronomical levels.
Speaker 1: The Thirteenth Amendment was legal all in that period of time,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until recent times when the economics began
Speaker 1: to make sense, and then private money started moving into
Speaker 1: prisons and so forth, and so now we have so
Speaker 1: many black people and brown people and you know, melanated
Speaker 1: people in prisons, and I will say this white people
Speaker 1: as well. And prisons are big business, so it affects everybody.
Speaker 1: But obviously the blacker you are, the more the harsher
Speaker 1: it is. You know, we just kind of know that
Speaker 1: to be true, not to take anything away from anyone else,
Speaker 1: but what that's resulted in is an increase in single
Speaker 1: mother households that has increased to sixty four percent as
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen. Sixty four percent of black households are
Speaker 1: single mother households, and you know, prior to the sixties,
Speaker 1: you know that that wasn't true. You can go back
Speaker 1: and look. You can see all of these opportunities that
Speaker 1: black people took advantage of at different points in history.
Speaker 1: You know, black people weren't always regarded as whatever we're
Speaker 1: regarded as now, you know, by the mostly right leaning
Speaker 1: conservative you know, uneducated and willfully ignorant types. But that's
Speaker 1: hard to ignore sixty four percent single mother households, and
Speaker 1: obviously the result of that is children that come from
Speaker 1: those homes are less likely to graduate high school, less
Speaker 1: likely to attend college. There's economic reasons for that, there's
Speaker 1: you know, social reasons for that. You know, there's it's
Speaker 1: it's a sad reality, and it's it's unfortunate. But you know,
Speaker 1: these statistics that you might hear that really paint black
Speaker 1: people or any people in a bad light often require
Speaker 1: more insight. They need to be illuminated a bit further.
Speaker 1: And that's not saying that black people we don't have
Speaker 1: our own path laid out in front of us, because
Speaker 1: there's lots of things that you know, we have to
Speaker 1: work on, and we do work on and we will
Speaker 1: continue to work on. But to pretend like we were
Speaker 1: just born bad and we commit fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: crimes is definitely something that is inaccurate, and if we're
Speaker 1: able to speak to it on our show, then we.
Speaker 2: Will give them the guy's name again, Rams with the
Speaker 2: TikTok page, I really want people to.
Speaker 1: Check that out. Be sure to follow Cap without a
Speaker 1: Country on TikTok and now watch go my mic back.
Speaker 1: You're like that.
Speaker 3: Strikes head, borders behind and the.
Speaker 1: So moving on. If you're just tuning in to Civic Sipher,
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Rams's job.
Speaker 2: They called me q ward and that's mostly because my
Speaker 2: mother named me Quentin.
Speaker 1: And q okay, I'll explain yes indeed, uh and stick
Speaker 1: around because we've got a lot more to talk about,
Speaker 1: including our way Black History factor checking in with DJ
Speaker 1: Squirrel in a few minutes. Also, we were going to
Speaker 1: spend some time talking about Target and a response that
Speaker 1: we never got to talk about on the show, a
Speaker 1: response from Kimberly Jones that came about sometime last year
Speaker 1: that I really feel is important to speak about and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear her voice again. Every time
Speaker 1: I hear it it's just so energizing, and it's time
Speaker 1: for us to talk about becoming a better ally as well.
Speaker 1: And so, without further ad you, let's get into our
Speaker 1: Bogba segments. So you're familiar with The Wonder Years, right.
Speaker 2: Cube, Yeah, I used to watch that show on television.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as did I. For folks who are too young
Speaker 1: to remember The Wonder Years, it was a show starring
Speaker 1: this guy named Fred Savage, and basically we could hear
Speaker 1: his thoughts. It was about him growing up in Middle America,
Speaker 1: and we could hear his thoughts and that was the
Speaker 1: cool thing about the show. It was just a normal show,
Speaker 1: but everything this kid thought, we could, you know, so
Speaker 1: when he had a crush on a girl, or he
Speaker 1: had got a fight at school, or his parents were
Speaker 1: talking crazy to him, you know. So the Wonder.
Speaker 2: Years show also had a fantastic theme song.
Speaker 1: Yeah I think it was what was his name? Joke?
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it wrong. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say and get it wrong. So anyway, now, if
Speaker 1: you don't, if you've never heard of The Wonder Years
Speaker 1: and haven't heard the show, the person who is wondering
Speaker 1: all these thoughts and that you know, the protagonist in
Speaker 1: the show is probably a white kid.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is TV in America, so naturally it's a white kid.
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't be wrong. Fred Savage is about as
Speaker 1: white as they come, and like so many other things
Speaker 1: in our country, that has just been the way the
Speaker 1: story has gone. Well, the reason we're talking about The
Speaker 1: Wonder Years today is because the show has come back.
Speaker 1: It's a new cast, of course, because those kids all
Speaker 1: grew up from the past, and now this new cast
Speaker 1: is black, right, And I love that it's happened, you know,
Speaker 1: a few different places in society. But I love it
Speaker 1: because it brings a little bit more humanity to black people,
Speaker 1: allows a little bit more you know. This show allows
Speaker 1: you to get into our heads as black men and
Speaker 1: black people in this country, and I think that this
Speaker 1: show will perhaps lean into it the same. And I
Speaker 1: think that the most important thing of all is that
Speaker 1: Fred Savage himself, the star of the original show, is
Speaker 1: the executive producer of The Wonder Years, and he is
Speaker 1: sharing his life's work with Black America and sharing his
Speaker 1: voice and his platform. And I love that, and I
Speaker 1: think that is how to become a better ally.
Speaker 2: So shout out to Fred savage man. That's it might
Speaker 2: seem small to some people, but that's a major thing
Speaker 2: for him To do very very successful show and to
Speaker 2: lend a different lens altogether to a common story shows
Speaker 2: that we have far more in common than the things
Speaker 2: that are being used to divide us. Oh and google
Speaker 2: the original theme song. You'll love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The original theme song is with a little Help from
Speaker 4: My Friends by Joe Cocker.
Speaker 1: Joe Cocker. I was gonna say Crocker, and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to get it wrong. Very that was the right move,
Speaker 1: got it? Okay? All right? Moving on, we got to
Speaker 1: talk about Target, but not just Target. We're gonna say,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start talking about Target now. Now you know,
Speaker 1: I could get on Walmart too. I could. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, why don't I just get on Walmart?
Speaker 1: We hear Walmart is wide out before it listen, as
Speaker 1: a black person with hair, I need to say to Walmart,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, locks up all of their black hair products,
Speaker 1: or they at least they had in the past. Right,
Speaker 1: you can go into a Walmart store, walk up and
Speaker 1: down the shampoo aisles, walk up and down the you know,
Speaker 1: personal hygiene whatever it is. You know the comb aisles,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, you guys know what a Walmart is.
Speaker 1: Once you get to you know, the just for Me
Speaker 1: boxes and the you know, the black hair care products,
Speaker 1: you notice that they're under lock and key.
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's because fifty of the theft and
Speaker 2: shrinkage in all Walmarts it's black people, So by nature
Speaker 2: they have to lock up the stuff that black people. Still,
Speaker 2: I don't understand your problem.
Speaker 1: That that is horribly offensive and at the same time
Speaker 1: humor is It's like, why is everyone so scared? Right,
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it. I just data.
Speaker 2: They're just using numbers. Man, I don't know what you
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 1: Sure, and I get it. I do get it. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone's a victim of a white supremacist society. But when
Speaker 1: you're in a position like that like Walmart, your job
Speaker 1: is to really challenge your prejudices. Your job is to
Speaker 1: really challenge your fears, because you also are a fok
Speaker 1: on that wheel of society, of that white supremacist society,
Speaker 1: and so no one is free from blame. But just
Speaker 1: had to throw a little jab at Walmart real quick
Speaker 1: because I got all this hair on my head. But
Speaker 1: let's get into the meat and potatoes the way we're
Speaker 1: talking about tar Ja. All right, how Target got cozy
Speaker 1: with the cops? Now, I took an article from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, right, and this is an exerpt. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to read this just to kind of lead you
Speaker 1: into where we're going, because I really do want to
Speaker 1: hear from Kimberly Jones and I want to respond to that.
Speaker 1: But again, remember we're talking about Target here, Okay. For decades,
Speaker 1: Target fostered partnerships with law enforcement unlike those of any
Speaker 1: other US corporation. It became one of the most influential
Speaker 1: corporate donors to law enforcement agencies and police foundations, supplying
Speaker 1: money for cutting edge technology and equipment. When it developed
Speaker 1: a network of forensic labs, it made them available to
Speaker 1: police across the US. Starting in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: Target developed a program called Safe City that poured money
Speaker 1: into police and sheriff's departments to install neighborhood surveillance systems
Speaker 1: and fund equipment. In Minneapolis, Target worked with the city
Speaker 1: Attorney's office to have petty criminals banished from the downtown
Speaker 1: business district through what are called geographic restriction orders. Eight
Speaker 1: out of ten people expelled were black or American Indian,
Speaker 1: according to an analysis of city data. In an article
Speaker 1: last summer, Aaron Azura, a professor who teaches courses on
Speaker 1: race and gender at the University of Minnesota, wrote that
Speaker 1: targets deep ties to police made the company an appropriate
Speaker 1: outlet for rage, not unlike Walmart, but way more aggressive.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, now, I gotta be fair. Okay.
Speaker 1: Since last year, Target has distanced themselves from the police.
Speaker 1: They've stricken a lot of their safe program whatever the
Speaker 1: names of these programs were, from their websites, and done
Speaker 1: all this sorts. So I have to tell that I
Speaker 1: have to say this right. And they've hired new people
Speaker 1: and revisited what safety means and what it is they're
Speaker 1: afraid of, and where they need to create distance and
Speaker 1: why they need to create that distance. And so we
Speaker 1: do have to have an obligation to applaud anyone trying
Speaker 1: to make their wrongs right. Okay, but this is an example.
Speaker 1: There's Target is not the only company you know, or store,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever place that people frequent. And I think
Speaker 1: that by examining this we get a little bit more
Speaker 1: insight into that corporate culture that creates the dynamic that
Speaker 1: you and I and Swirl and my children will eventually
Speaker 1: experience where we go into a store and we get
Speaker 1: followed around the store. Right, those are those typically happens
Speaker 1: with smaller stores. But I happen to know that even
Speaker 1: if I go into a store now and I'm not
Speaker 1: followed around, if it's a big enough store, they have
Speaker 1: cameras and they have security people in the back. And
Speaker 1: who are those security people watching? Is it the sixty
Speaker 1: three year old Caucasian grandma doing Christmas shopping? Unlikely? Is
Speaker 1: it the forty five year old, you know, middle manager
Speaker 1: stopping into you know, Walmart or whatever department store to
Speaker 1: pick up some new trainers? Unlikely? Is it any of us? Totally?
Speaker 1: One thousand percent?
Speaker 2: Yep, ramsays, you're so kind, am I, because you always
Speaker 2: make it the old white person, this not being watched,
Speaker 2: as if just being white is not enough. Sure, but
Speaker 2: you know, I like in these stories as the counter example,
Speaker 2: you always say, is it the sixty year old white couple? Like,
Speaker 2: of course not, but they don't have to be old
Speaker 2: and white. Just white, White's fine, You're not wrong. Being
Speaker 2: white is great. Like that's that's enough, full stop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well check this out. You know where that comes from.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of a person named Brian Stevenson.
Speaker 1: He's a lawyer. He's the person behind the Equal Justice initiative.
Speaker 1: Please look up Brian Stevenson. He has a TED talk
Speaker 1: that I used to listen to religiously. It's about twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes and I listened to it over and over
Speaker 1: and over again for weeks. You know. This might have
Speaker 1: been in twenty eleven or something ten years ago. And
Speaker 1: in his TED talk, he's discussing a situation where he
Speaker 1: goes before a judge and he realized is that his
Speaker 1: client that he's defending doesn't have a chance in court
Speaker 1: unless the judge treats his client fairly. Because if the
Speaker 1: judge treats his client fairly, there's really nothing to see here, right.
Speaker 1: So he realizes this, and so instead of asking the
Speaker 1: judge to throw out you know, jurors or you know,
Speaker 1: throw out evidence or whatever it is lawyers do. I
Speaker 1: don't know, he simply asked the judge to try his
Speaker 1: poor young black defendant as a sixty five year old
Speaker 1: privileged corporate executive, white corporate executive. And the shock in
Speaker 1: that request change the atmosphere in the room entirely. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know the conclusion of that story, but I
Speaker 1: remember how vivid that became when he said that to me,
Speaker 1: And so for me, I like to use that exam
Speaker 1: when discussing you know whoever, because justice in this country
Speaker 1: is supposed to be blind, and yet it's not, because
Speaker 1: you and I both know if we saw a sixty
Speaker 1: five year old person, or if anybody saw a sixty
Speaker 1: five year old white person walking through a department store,
Speaker 1: our brains would tell us that's the person least likely
Speaker 1: to steal. You know, if we saw, why knowing, a
Speaker 1: ryder in a store and we didn't know that she
Speaker 1: was a klepto and shoplifts, you know, for sport. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an old story from the nineties and a
Speaker 1: lot of people weren't born yet. But you know, if
Speaker 1: we didn't know that, we wouldn't assume that, you know,
Speaker 1: And it took us growing up to realize that no
Speaker 1: everybody steals people that don't need to steal steal, you know,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of how some people get down and
Speaker 1: then a lot of people that are poor steal because
Speaker 1: they're poor. The rest of the people that steal, do
Speaker 1: it for sport because they're bored, because they want to
Speaker 1: feel a rush. Whatever. You know, there's there's TV episodes
Speaker 1: dedicated to this. You know, white Middle American families. You know,
Speaker 1: ladies going in the store stealing and then it gives
Speaker 1: them a rush, and then they can't wait to get
Speaker 1: home to their husbands and express that. You know.
Speaker 2: So I just I just say that because the people
Speaker 2: who have those built in biases, they're far less about
Speaker 2: how old you are and far more about you being black.
Speaker 1: Fairpoint.
Speaker 2: It's it's not typically because you're not your grandparents' age
Speaker 2: and white. It's because you're not white.
Speaker 1: Fairpoint. So now that we've discussed Target, I want to
Speaker 1: shift gears just a bit. You know, we talked about Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: we talked about Target, and of course the name George
Speaker 1: Floyd is going to live forever in this country, alongside, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: names like Emmitt Teel, names like poor baby I forget
Speaker 1: his name, It'll come to me, uh, Florida neighborhood watch,
Speaker 1: George Zimmerman killed him? Trayvon Martin, Jesus, how did I
Speaker 1: forget that one? Well just lit my mind timporarily. I
Speaker 1: would never forget it, but it will live. You know,
Speaker 1: his name will get it.
Speaker 2: You just have way too many names to inventory through
Speaker 2: when we're talking, and.
Speaker 1: In so many others. But you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: like really popular names that really kind of change the
Speaker 1: way the world worked afterwards, certainly im Mattild belongs there,
Speaker 1: Trayvon Martin, and then of course George Floyd, and you
Speaker 1: know the the innumerable other names that exist as well.
Speaker 1: But there's someone else who has something to say briefly
Speaker 1: about Target. And I want to make this connection because
Speaker 1: you know, once upon a time, before Target decided to
Speaker 1: change their corporate culture, there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were wondering, well, why is it that in Minneapolis
Speaker 1: people are burning the Target in their own neighborhood. Why
Speaker 1: are they looting the target? Why are they you know what,
Speaker 1: these are thugs? These are you know that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: You know, this is not how you get your point across.
Speaker 1: And I understand where that argument comes from. I don't
Speaker 1: agree with it, but I understand where that argument comes from, right,
Speaker 1: Because some people want to see protests done on their terms, right,
Speaker 1: and if they're not participating in the protester or otherwise
Speaker 1: are not affected by it. Then of course everybody gets
Speaker 1: to coach from the sidelines. But there's a woman named
Speaker 1: Kimberly Jones who has something to say, and she mentions
Speaker 1: Target by name. And I think that when you take
Speaker 1: into account this corporate culture that Target had since the
Speaker 1: early two thousands up until you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago last year, you start to get a sense
Speaker 1: of exactly how connected black people felt to organizations like Target,
Speaker 1: like Walmart, the lock of the black hair care products.
Speaker 1: You know, how those corporations tend to represent the same
Speaker 1: sort of white supremacy that policing, the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: the government represents, you know, in a lot of black
Speaker 1: and brown people's minds. This is why there's a lot
Speaker 1: of apprehension to trust in things like the vaccines and
Speaker 1: so forth and so on, because there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of trust there. And I think that this will illuminate that.
Speaker 1: I believe we do have a clip queued up.
Speaker 5: We came to do the agricultural work in the South
Speaker 5: and the textile work in the North. Now, if I
Speaker 5: right now, if I right now decided that I wanted
Speaker 5: to play Monopoly with you, and for four hundred rounds
Speaker 5: of playing monopoly. I didn't allow you to have any money.
Speaker 5: I didn't allow you to have anything on the board.
Speaker 5: I didn't allow for you to have anything. And then
Speaker 5: we played another fifty rounds of monopoly, and everything that
Speaker 5: you gained and you earned while you were playing that
Speaker 5: round of monopoly was taking from you.
Speaker 6: That was Tulsa, that was Rosewood.
Speaker 5: Those are places where we built black economic wealth, where
Speaker 5: we were self sufficient, where we owned our stores, where
Speaker 5: we owned our property, and they burned them to the ground.
Speaker 5: So that's four hundred and fifty years. So for four
Speaker 5: hundred rounds of monopoly, you don't get to play at all.
Speaker 5: Not only do you not get to play, you have
Speaker 5: to play on the behalf of the person that you're
Speaker 5: playing against. You have to play and make money and
Speaker 5: earn wealth for them, and then you have to turn
Speaker 5: it over to them. So then for fifty years, you
Speaker 5: finally get a little bit and you're allowed to play.
Speaker 5: And every time that they don't like the way that
Speaker 5: you're playing, or that you're catching up, or that you're
Speaker 5: doing something to be self sufficient, they burn your game,
Speaker 5: they burn your cards, they burn your monopoly money. And
Speaker 5: then finally at the release and the onset of that,
Speaker 5: they allow you to play, and they say, okay, now
Speaker 5: you catch up. Now this point, the only way you're
Speaker 5: gonna catch up in the game is that the person
Speaker 5: shares the wealth.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 5: But what if every time you see to share the wealth,
Speaker 5: then there's psychological warfare against you to say, oh, you're
Speaker 5: an equal opportunity higher. So if I played four hundred
Speaker 5: rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play
Speaker 5: and give you every down that I made, and then
Speaker 5: for fifty years, every time that I played I if
Speaker 5: you didn't like what I did, you got to burn
Speaker 5: it like they did in Tulsa, and like they did
Speaker 5: in Rosewood. How can you win? How can you win?
Speaker 5: You can't win. The game is fixed. So when they
Speaker 5: say why do you burn down the community, why do
Speaker 5: you burn down your own neighborhood, it's not ours. We
Speaker 5: don't own anything. We don't own anything there is. Trevor
Speaker 5: Noah said it so beautifully last night. There's a social
Speaker 5: contract that we all have that if you steal or
Speaker 5: if I steal, then the person who is the authority
Speaker 5: comes in and they fixed the situation.
Speaker 6: But the person who fixes the situation is killing us.
Speaker 6: So the social contract is broken, and if the social
Speaker 6: contract is broken, what do I give us? It's about
Speaker 6: burning the football hall of fame, about burning target.
Speaker 5: You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets.
Speaker 1: And then give up.
Speaker 6: You broke the contract room for four hundred years, we
Speaker 6: played your game and built your wealth. You broke the
Speaker 6: contract when we built our wealth again on our own,
Speaker 6: by our bootstrap, save Tulsa, and you dropped bombs on
Speaker 6: us when we built it in Rosewood and you came
Speaker 6: in and you slaughtered us. You broke the contract. So
Speaker 6: your target, see your hall of fame. As far as
Speaker 6: I'm concerned, they could burn this gift to the ground
Speaker 6: and it still wouldn't be enough.
Speaker 5: And they are lucky that what black people are looking
Speaker 5: for is a quality and not revenge.
Speaker 1: Well, your thoughts cue hard to follow, right.
Speaker 2: The head start that we've had to spend our entire
Speaker 2: lifetime trying to compensate for. It's really insulting that so
Speaker 2: many people really want to encourage us to just get
Speaker 2: over it and actually almost say it like that out loud,
Speaker 2: you know, as if there's nothing that can be done,
Speaker 2: as if there's justification for it, as if there's been
Speaker 2: enough time in between then and now you guys are okay, right,
Speaker 2: Barack Obama one, you got Michael Jordan, you got Lebron James,
Speaker 2: you got Oprah, Like, what else do you guys want?
Speaker 2: So the frustration that you can hear audibly climbing out
Speaker 2: of her add to that that we're almost and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know this as facts, so people please feel
Speaker 2: free to correct me. We're almost the only group in
Speaker 2: history to be disenfranchised in such a way and then
Speaker 2: told to get over it without reparation. So to have
Speaker 2: corporate industry be out front and out loud a part
Speaker 2: of trying to quench or put out the fire that
Speaker 2: burns within us, the almost rage that if people really
Speaker 2: think about, it's almost impossible to have the history that
Speaker 2: we have and to not be trying to burn the
Speaker 2: place down every day. Like the credit that we should
Speaker 2: as a people should get for that, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, really credit to us, Kudos to us have
Speaker 2: gotten to this place where we're like, man, we just
Speaker 2: want to live. You know, that's like, that's literally, out loud.
Speaker 1: All we're asking for.
Speaker 2: We just don't want to be murdered for being us.
Speaker 2: That's all we don't march or demand reparations. We do
Speaker 2: not beg at this point to even be treated equal anymore.
Speaker 2: Our controversial war cry is black lives matter. Like wow, man,
Speaker 2: So you know, try to think about the centuries of
Speaker 2: I don't even know the right words without sounding so vulgar,
Speaker 2: right like abduction, rape, kidnap, murder, hang like these are
Speaker 2: not I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating like this,
Speaker 2: This is what life was like if you looked like
Speaker 2: us in this country at its foundation, while also asking
Speaker 2: us to build the place. It's tough, man, It's tough
Speaker 2: to know these things that as true and kind of
Speaker 2: be forced to accept and just you know, move on,
Speaker 2: get over it.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing that Kimberly Jones was able to illuminate
Speaker 1: is the lack of an emotional connection to Target. You know,
Speaker 1: she she mentioned Target twice in her her response there
Speaker 1: and didn't really feel like she had a lot of
Speaker 1: love for Target. And you know, any corporate enterprise likes
Speaker 1: to think that they have, you know, a good relationship
Speaker 1: with their customer base, but obviously that's not true in
Speaker 1: this case. And you know, Target is the one that
Speaker 1: created that, and Target is the one that broke the
Speaker 1: social contract. And here we are now discussing Target. But
Speaker 1: I want to maintain that Target has decided to turn
Speaker 1: over a new leaf. They've made some new hires, and
Speaker 1: they certainly appear to be trying to right the wrongs
Speaker 1: of the past. And so I just glad we got
Speaker 1: a chance to discuss that, and no more picking on
Speaker 1: people who burn a store. You know, nobody wants to
Speaker 1: burn a store. It's not fun. People do that to
Speaker 1: get attention. And you know, I think that wasn't Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King that said riot is the the voice of
Speaker 1: the unheard or something like that. You know, when people
Speaker 1: don't feel heard, then they tend to light things up
Speaker 1: a little bit more. That was kind of the gist
Speaker 1: of what was said. Don't hold me to.
Speaker 2: That quote, but don't answer the door. We're going to
Speaker 2: knock harder. Keep not answering, or we might kick it
Speaker 2: off the hinges.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I think that was something something like
Speaker 1: what was what was being said there. So anyway, it's
Speaker 1: time for us to check in with DJ Swirl for
Speaker 1: that way Black History facts where you.
Speaker 4: At Today's way Black History of Fact comes from the
Speaker 4: Atlanta Black Star. The article reads, writing a wrong Black
Speaker 4: cemetery gravestones dumped into Potomac River sixty years ago recovered,
Speaker 4: letting families.
Speaker 1: Recover their history. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4: Thousands of tombstones from a black graveyard established in eighteen
Speaker 4: fifty nine have been lost in the muddy riverbanks of
Speaker 4: the Potomac River after they were dumped decades ago. On Monday,
Speaker 4: August twenty third, politicians from Virginia, Maryland, and d C
Speaker 4: displayed more than fifty of the markers in a ceremony,
Speaker 4: launching a joint effort to reconsecrate the gravestones and help
Speaker 4: descendants connect with ancestors represented by the markers. About fifty
Speaker 4: five stones will be moved to a dignified resting place
Speaker 4: at National Harmony and will be part of a memorial garden. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: the State of Virginia has contracted the nonprofit History, Arts
Speaker 4: and Science Action Network to track down descendants of people
Speaker 4: represented by the gravestones. The stones were rediscovered about four
Speaker 4: years ago when the property was purchased by Virginia State
Speaker 4: Senator Richard Stewart, who, upon exploring the newly purchased its land,
Speaker 4: discovered the stones. Some stones that are illegible because they've
Speaker 4: been worn too smooth, and those that cannot be removed
Speaker 4: from the water will become part of a memorial wall
Speaker 4: along the river bank. Virginia has approved four million dollars
Speaker 4: for the recovery of the stones in creation of a
Speaker 4: memorial in Kaldian State Park. Patricia Howard Chittams was able
Speaker 4: to touch her ancestors headstone for the first time on Monday.
Speaker 4: I don't get angry. I don't get mad, you know,
Speaker 4: because she was here. I'm the sum of her existence,
Speaker 4: which makes it even better, she said.
Speaker 1: And that's from the Atlanta Blackstar. Shout out to a
Speaker 1: black star in Atlanta. No, shout out to Atlanta one time. Man,
Speaker 1: My guy lives there.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the a yeah time.
Speaker 1: So listen. I want to start and end this by
Speaker 1: saying what I said about Target. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think that. I think that A lot of times people
Speaker 1: think that we as black people are so stuck in
Speaker 1: the past, and I don't think that that's true. It's
Speaker 1: certainly not true in the case of me rams as
Speaker 1: the individual man, and I don't believe it to be true.
Speaker 1: For our show here, Civic Cipher We do talk about
Speaker 1: the past, of course, because it's important to talk about
Speaker 1: the It helps frame the present, and I believe it
Speaker 1: helps orient us toward a better future. But we don't
Speaker 1: want to dwell on the past. We have to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: So I want to start end this response by saying, good,
Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to do. You build a memorial,
Speaker 1: You honor those people who were laid to rest at
Speaker 1: in a black cemetery, because I know the story here.
Speaker 1: It was a black cemetery. The land was sold to
Speaker 1: make something in that city, and then they dug up
Speaker 1: the bodies and moved them somewhere else. They left the headstones,
Speaker 1: and then the headstones were sold to a person has
Speaker 1: like rocks that he used to like change the flow
Speaker 1: of like a river in his yard or his backyard,
Speaker 1: something like that. So all these headstones ended up getting
Speaker 1: thrown in this river to help some farmer. Right. And
Speaker 1: years later, people that had nothing to do with this say,
Speaker 1: you know what, that was wrong. We all know it
Speaker 1: was wrong. We can't undo it, but we can acknowledge
Speaker 1: it and we can do something. So let's do that,
Speaker 1: And I think that's good. We talk about becoming a
Speaker 1: better ally. That's how you become a better ally. You
Speaker 1: don't say, why are black people always stuck on the past?
Speaker 1: Those people are no, no, absolutely not. You know what,
Speaker 1: if you're not black, your history starts somewhere, and you
Speaker 1: know you can trace it all the way back to
Speaker 1: whenever your people first came here. You can you know,
Speaker 1: you know, some great person, noblemen or whatever, conqueror conquistador
Speaker 1: or whatever it does you come from. You know, there's
Speaker 1: somebody that you can look back to and say, that
Speaker 1: person's blood flows through my body. I'm made from the
Speaker 1: same same DNA as him or her. Right, you can
Speaker 1: say that. Right, Maybe your family doesn't keep good records,
Speaker 1: you know, but there's somebody, I'm sure of it. If
Speaker 1: you're black in this country, you're gonna go back to
Speaker 1: a slave. Now, we learn to be proud, but that
Speaker 1: in and of itself isn't something that anybody would want.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to tell my sons, Okay, well baby,
Speaker 1: we came from slaves, So get out there and try
Speaker 1: to be somebody that's tough. That's that that that and
Speaker 1: I mean you had to live with that. So we
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge these in the past we have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge what it means. And unless you're black, you don't
Speaker 1: understand the weight of that. Right now, right now, I
Speaker 1: have a son he came from. My body has no
Speaker 1: idea that he is the descendant of slaves. And that's
Speaker 1: as far back as we'll be able to to trace
Speaker 1: his lineage. This is these are the people that you
Speaker 1: came from, right yeah?
Speaker 2: And I had that truth slap me in the face.
Speaker 1: I think I told you that story in Spain, right yeah.
Speaker 2: It slapped me in the face. Man, I I couldn't
Speaker 2: speak to it. You know, the very simple question of
Speaker 2: where you're from, you know, and anybody that knows me,
Speaker 2: I'm very, very proudly told him Detroit, because you know,
Speaker 2: the motor city, That's where I'm from. But as you
Speaker 2: could imagine, the story, the conversation got deeper than that,
Speaker 2: and I was the only person at a very multicultural table,
Speaker 2: dinner table in Europe that could not speak to where
Speaker 2: I was from. And it was embarrassing. And there's no
Speaker 2: there's no pride in that. And Black people in this country,
Speaker 2: different than really anywhere in the world, have had that
Speaker 2: part of our heritage and our history taken away from us.
Speaker 2: So that was difficult then that is difficult for us
Speaker 2: every day. Just thankfully in this country we don't have
Speaker 2: to have that conversation as often. But if you take
Speaker 2: the time to think about it, it hits well.
Speaker 1: Like I said at first, that is the way to
Speaker 1: deal with that. That's how you make the past better.
Speaker 1: You right the wrongs. And so I'm glad we had
Speaker 1: that way Black History fact for today. And if I'm honest,
Speaker 1: I think that is about all the time that we
Speaker 1: have for today's show. So once again, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses Jah.
Speaker 2: Ramses and people of his like call me.
Speaker 4: You Ward.
Speaker 1: Yes indeed, show produced by d J Swirl. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow all of us on social media at ramses job,
Speaker 1: at I am q Ward and at dj Swirl and
Speaker 1: follow the show please at Civic Cipher. Hit the website
Speaker 1: civic cipher dot com. You can make a donation. It
Speaker 1: really helps the show grow. You can become a Patreon,
Speaker 1: that's really how you help the show grow. And download
Speaker 1: this in any previous episode as well. And until next week,
Speaker 1: y'all peace.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah yo, we had the lads, the Fabulus ladies
Speaker 3: showing you will vomb travel. We'll speak to from sunlight
Speaker 3: to the busting on stage like the fight, showing my
Speaker 3: mic back like that,