Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Czicher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsy's Jah he is Jah, I am q Ward. This
Speaker 1: is Civic Excpheress. It is another great show in store
Speaker 1: for you this week. Be sure to stick around. We
Speaker 1: have a lot to talk about, as per usual, but
Speaker 1: this week we're going to do a bit of a hodgepodge.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of issues and topics come our
Speaker 1: way this week, and so we got a lot to cover.
Speaker 1: You know, we always complain about there not being enough
Speaker 1: show to cover everything that comes our way, so we're
Speaker 1: going to try to address that a bit. We're still
Speaker 1: not going to get to everything, but obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's sort of piled up that we
Speaker 1: haven't been able to get to. So we're going to
Speaker 1: spend the first part of the show talking about in
Speaker 1: the way that we continue to endorse and support systems
Speaker 1: that fail us, particularly systems rooted in white supremacy and
Speaker 1: racism that historically have harmed black and brown people, and
Speaker 1: we're going to you know, go through some examples that
Speaker 1: have been in the news lately, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: you know, we've been wrestling with that question a bit
Speaker 1: around here, But I guess we're going to have a
Speaker 1: more general conversation with you, our listeners and obviously amongst
Speaker 1: ourselves here in the studio. We're also going to talk
Speaker 1: about some real accountability with respect to policing in the
Speaker 1: way that the government looks at policing and the government
Speaker 1: continues to support the institution despite how the numbers paint
Speaker 1: the picture the reality for black and brown people in
Speaker 1: this country. So another thing that we have to deal with.
Speaker 1: And then obviously our producer, Maggie B. Knowing and her
Speaker 1: infinite wisdom and her be known thought that we should
Speaker 1: take a look at the origins of modern day policing
Speaker 1: by taking our way black history fact to these slave patrols.
Speaker 1: So again, a lot to stick around for today's show.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost, we are going to discuss q's
Speaker 1: favorite segment, Ebony Excellence. Shall We We Shall? Today's Ebony
Speaker 1: Excellence is brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Media.
Speaker 1: This article comes via afro Tech and we are going
Speaker 1: to shout out a Shanty. She is our abny excellence
Speaker 1: example for today. The article reads, A Shanty aims to
Speaker 1: promote ownership as the first black female artist to be
Speaker 1: co founder of a Web three company. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: like me and you didn't know or don't know much
Speaker 1: about Web three, get to know about it. It is
Speaker 1: the future. But I'll read twenty years since the world
Speaker 1: has was introduced to the songstress dubbed the Princess of
Speaker 1: Hip hop and R and B, Ashanti is shaking things
Speaker 1: up in the metaverse and proving that there is an
Speaker 1: ever evolving relationship between music and tech. Thanks to a
Speaker 1: partnership with the EQ Exchange, Ashanti is now the first
Speaker 1: black female artist to be a co founder of a
Speaker 1: Web three company. Quote technology has been a blessing and quote,
Speaker 1: she told Afro Tech during the twenty twenty two Essence
Speaker 1: Festival of Culture. Quote everything has pros and cons, but
Speaker 1: I think using it as a tool to empower an
Speaker 1: uplift to learn and research are all beautiful things. I
Speaker 1: want to continue to do things like this and having
Speaker 1: these conversations to continue to spread the narrative, continue to
Speaker 1: use the platform and become the vessel and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: it's so important to own your intellectual property. You know,
Speaker 1: like we come up and we set the trends with
Speaker 1: these dances for TikTok and for Instagram and for these tutorials.
Speaker 1: I feel like creating awareness and understanding that ownership is
Speaker 1: so powerful is essential. And you know, for those who
Speaker 1: don't know, I recently did a talk with a man
Speaker 1: named Rashad Tobacco Walla who is a great thinker in
Speaker 1: this space Web three, Black Folks in Tech. It's on
Speaker 1: the Black Information Network Daily podcast on the iHeartMedia app.
Speaker 1: I employed to check that out if you want to
Speaker 1: learn a bit more about Web three. But again, that
Speaker 1: is the future and we want to shout out Ashanti
Speaker 1: for being a pioneer in that arena. Now moving on,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of a lot of articles pop
Speaker 1: up in our group chat this week. As you may know,
Speaker 1: or if you're new to the show, you may not know,
Speaker 1: we have a group chat. Things that come up on
Speaker 1: social media or our news feed or whatever that we
Speaker 1: feel will be pertinent to this show and to our listeners.
Speaker 1: You know, we discuss them and debate them in our
Speaker 1: group chat before we sit down and we how shout
Speaker 1: a show and then of course our producer kind of
Speaker 1: whittles our conversations down to the essence and then we
Speaker 1: speak to those things. But this week there were so
Speaker 1: many different things that fell under the same umbrella that
Speaker 1: we felt like we might be able to kind of
Speaker 1: give you the listener a glimpse into what our life
Speaker 1: is like in debating what it is we need to
Speaker 1: talk about and what really deserves some attention this week.
Speaker 1: So these are some of the headlines that hit us
Speaker 1: hardest this week. We'll go through them one by one,
Speaker 1: but you know, just to give you a peek behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, and then also ask the question, as we
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, why do we
Speaker 1: continue to endorse and support systems that are failing us,
Speaker 1: systems that are rooted in white supremacy and racism, and
Speaker 1: that actively are harming black and brown people. So we'll
Speaker 1: start with the least of the transgressions. I suppose Q,
Speaker 1: you saw the news or sorry, the weather report there
Speaker 1: where there was a forecast and they used the racial
Speaker 1: slur in there, right, you saw that one. I think
Speaker 1: you might have posted it, right, the racial slur? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that one. So I'll read a bit about it.
Speaker 1: So this one comes by the New York Post. It
Speaker 1: says a racial slur scene in TV weather forecast. Quote,
Speaker 1: apologize to our viewers. End quote. It was a cloudy
Speaker 1: day with the chance of outrage. A graphic during the
Speaker 1: Weather Channel cable Networks Local on the Eights presentation in
Speaker 1: Des Moines last evening included a racial slur. The post read,
Speaker 1: we removed this graphic as soon as we learned a
Speaker 1: bit This did not originate with us, and we're in
Speaker 1: the process of investigating it further. We apologize to our viewers.
Speaker 1: End quote. So the racial slur is the one that
Speaker 1: you're thinking, Yeah, that one, and it said something like,
Speaker 1: you know, get ready for rain, you know, in words,
Speaker 1: something like that, here your weather, inclement weather, Yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that. Word. That was a very good So, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people out there who are like, yo,
Speaker 1: it's just a word. What's it matter. Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this is your weather my in words? Okay, okay, thank
Speaker 1: you now we got it. Okay. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there who might look at this
Speaker 1: and be like, Okay, what does it matter. It's just
Speaker 1: a word. It's the Weather Channel in Desmoin you know,
Speaker 1: on and on, right. But I think there's it's hard
Speaker 1: to know what the ripple effect of these things are.
Speaker 1: If the initial impact doesn't move you in a significant way.
Speaker 1: And for black people obviously, that word moves us in
Speaker 1: a significant way. In my estimation, this is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that is among the height of disrespect where
Speaker 1: someone can jokingly use the ugliest word in the English
Speaker 1: language that only refers to one group of people and
Speaker 1: those people have melanin in their skin, to relegate these
Speaker 1: people to second class citizenship, to relegate these people to
Speaker 1: the margins of society, to insult right. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: what I think a lot of people don't realize is
Speaker 1: that if you insult a person, okay, the person has
Speaker 1: to deal with it, right, But if you insult a
Speaker 1: race of people, it feels a lot heavier. It's hard
Speaker 1: to shed that because at no point can you convince
Speaker 1: this person that you are not that word. Right. It
Speaker 1: just goes with you because you're black and everyone else black,
Speaker 1: and that's it. And for people not to get a
Speaker 1: sense of the gravity of it, to play with it,
Speaker 1: like in the case of des Moines or this weather
Speaker 1: channel in des Moines, and for it to just be broadcast,
Speaker 1: it's very hurtful. But I think more more than that,
Speaker 1: it just suggests that that disrespect still resides at key
Speaker 1: places in society. The uh, the fact that there are
Speaker 1: people who feel like this is either a joke or
Speaker 1: are being deliberate in the way they choose to insult
Speaker 1: one group of people and in my estimation, position themselves
Speaker 1: above that group of people. You know, that is the text.
Speaker 1: That's textbook white supremacy right there. Because again, this word
Speaker 1: had the er you have the hard r on it,
Speaker 1: you know. Ah, it's just one of those things where
Speaker 1: when you look at it, you're like, shoot, man, we
Speaker 1: it just reminds you of the uphill battle that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with, and it reminds you that that type of thinking,
Speaker 1: that type of disrespect is prevalent in spaces where you
Speaker 1: wouldn't even conceive of it. You know, we talk about
Speaker 1: the police a lot on the show. We never talk
Speaker 1: about the Weather Channel, and yet and still guess what
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Weather Channel and the fact that
Speaker 1: this type of disrespect exists in places like that any thoughts.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn't even call it an uphill battle.
Speaker 2: It's like we're climbing the face of a mountain, a
Speaker 2: sheer cliff, right. Walking uphill is different, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's you know, there's a incline that you have to
Speaker 2: deal with. You had to fight gravity a little bit,
Speaker 2: but you know, anybody able body can make it to
Speaker 2: the top of heel.
Speaker 1: This is different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we got no net, no equipment, and if
Speaker 2: we get too close to the top of that thing,
Speaker 2: somebody will be sure to try to push us back down.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, even the idea that somebody might take it
Speaker 2: as a joke, that's even more. That's worse than the
Speaker 2: person who said it to be mean, the person that
Speaker 2: thinks that it's funny. I mean, I have to think
Speaker 2: about how difficult it is to get a graphic on
Speaker 2: the weather channel something seemingly benign. But we work in
Speaker 2: broadcast media. Yeah, it's not like we couldn't put something
Speaker 2: on Iheart's website ourselves today just because we felt like
Speaker 2: there's so many checks and balances. So it didn't But
Speaker 2: they say it didn't come from us, or it didn't
Speaker 2: originate with us, So what it still made it to television, right,
Speaker 2: So either the person who pushed the button to post
Speaker 2: it thought it was funny, or like you said, really
Speaker 2: wanted to to get that message out there, or they're
Speaker 2: always so incompetent. I can't believe it's the ladder. I can't, yeah,
Speaker 2: because the weather competent people don't make it that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the weather channel is not this new upstart, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? So all right, Well, moving on.
Speaker 1: Another headline that made it its way to us this
Speaker 1: week was this one comes by a black enterprise whold
Speaker 1: North Carolina police department quits due to quote progressively responsible
Speaker 1: and quote town manager. I'll read in protest of newly
Speaker 1: appointed progressively responsible town manager in North Carolina, an entire
Speaker 1: police force has turned in their two weeks notice because
Speaker 1: of their alleged hostile work environment. Jones has nothing but
Speaker 1: a praised career during her years of public service. Jones
Speaker 1: has dedicated her career to public service over the past
Speaker 1: sixteen years, during which she worked in progressively responsible positions
Speaker 1: with local governments in Minnesota, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
Speaker 1: This came by a press release from the town of Kenley. Now,
Speaker 1: the Jones that we're speaking of is a black woman.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that. Grab her first
Speaker 1: name for me. I want to make sure that I
Speaker 1: mentioned that. Now. I know that you know we're reading texts.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that we're giving credit
Speaker 1: where it's due, But in essence, what happened is a
Speaker 1: black woman was hired to manage a town in the
Speaker 1: entire police department with That's what happened. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're this is rather more insight into the reality
Speaker 1: of our current climate. Okay, Justine Jones is the woman's name,
Speaker 1: So we're rather we're taking a more a deeper look
Speaker 1: rather into what we're dealing with here. This is this
Speaker 1: is this week, but this is all the time. These
Speaker 1: are just kind of smaller articles that we just don't
Speaker 1: really need, we don't really get to and we can't
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with death and you know, those sorts
Speaker 1: of things. But imagine the town, the culture of the town,
Speaker 1: imagine the the way the way it feels to be
Speaker 1: a black woman. You know, we we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on this show celebrating Justice Brown Jackson's appointment
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. Do you remember when Joe Biden
Speaker 1: won the presidency? Q. We were we did a whole
Speaker 1: we dedicated a whole segment to Kamala Harris being the
Speaker 1: first black woman vice president, and uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: are big fans of Black Girl magic around here, and
Speaker 1: if we weren't, Maggie b Known would certainly make sure
Speaker 1: that we were because she is is a super fan
Speaker 1: of Black Girl Magic.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we weren't, we wouldn't have the relationship
Speaker 2: that we have with Maggie exactly. So let's start there.
Speaker 2: She I don't think that she would even allow herself
Speaker 2: and the company with people who weren't at the bare
Speaker 2: minimum super fans. Well said what we coin as Black
Speaker 2: Girl Magic. I wanted to say something before we moved on,
Speaker 2: because there's a term there used over and over that's
Speaker 2: kind of ambiguous, progressively responsible, and it's in quotations every
Speaker 2: time that it's used. I wanted to give a more
Speaker 2: plain definition of this. It actually has one. Progressively responsible
Speaker 2: refers to task, job duties, or roles that demonstrate growth
Speaker 2: and or advancement and have a difficult level of responsibility
Speaker 2: five plus years experience, bachelor's degree, et cetera. A very
Speaker 2: very qualified progressive woman. But the progressively responsible I think
Speaker 2: that term is used a vigorously on purpose, Yeah, to
Speaker 2: kind of leave to question what that might mean. Very
Speaker 2: very qualified and intelligent black women, right right.
Speaker 1: So imagine if Justice Brown Jackson was appointed to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and all the rest of the justices quipped right.
Speaker 1: So here we have a black woman being appointed to
Speaker 1: again town manager. The entire police department turns in their resignation.
Speaker 1: So again we're getting a sense of the disrespect the reality.
Speaker 1: You know, these are little stories that are kind of
Speaker 1: in little pockets of the country that deserve to be mentioned.
Speaker 1: But I think that when we take them all in
Speaker 1: a hole, you get a sense of exactly where we
Speaker 1: are as the country. You know, you may listen to
Speaker 1: us in a big city, you know, just depending on you,
Speaker 1: we all are in some smaller cities around the country
Speaker 1: as well, but you know, the majority of our listenership
Speaker 1: is in big cities around the country, and so you
Speaker 1: might not be aware that racism is not just you know,
Speaker 1: the N word and police violence. Racism is really marginalizing
Speaker 1: people and denying people opportunities. How can you provide security
Speaker 1: for a town if your entire police department quits, and
Speaker 1: then what is the town left to do except change
Speaker 1: the police uh, change the town manager if they want
Speaker 1: their police supports. No, the town could very easily hire
Speaker 1: better offices. That's what I was thinking right the way
Speaker 1: where they're going to come from.
Speaker 2: The escapegoders the progressively responsible candidate town manager. But they
Speaker 2: can come from the same town where the progressively responsible
Speaker 2: town manager came from. Right, These people have been in place, underqualified,
Speaker 2: under educated, very very minor in their levels of complexity
Speaker 2: and emotional intelligence. Hire better people. Hire an entire actually
Speaker 2: is a police Hey, so listen, we're hiring.
Speaker 1: This job pays fifty five thousand dollars a year to start,
Speaker 1: and they limited over time. And you can rethink policing
Speaker 1: in the in the in the interim, which we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about because you know, but you know, just
Speaker 1: for her to have to go through that and and
Speaker 1: for us to hear about it and be able to
Speaker 1: share it with you just kind of again gives a
Speaker 1: glimpse into just how far people will go to show
Speaker 1: their hatred and disdain for black people. Certainly, obviously the
Speaker 1: police don't want to work for a black woman. And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's something that we learned. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: in Arizona, we had a cheap of police was a
Speaker 1: black woman, and the people that worked for her gave
Speaker 1: her a very hard time, and the community gave her
Speaker 1: a very hard time. Too, And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say whether or not it was deserved because I was
Speaker 1: following national stories. I just heard about it. But I
Speaker 1: recognized because her husband did come up on the show,
Speaker 1: and Judge Williams came up on the show, and I
Speaker 1: recognize that being a black woman in that position had
Speaker 1: to be tough, no matter which way you cut it.
Speaker 1: So story number two, Story number three. This one comes
Speaker 1: by a CBS or Sorry, NBC News. Cincinnati police officer
Speaker 1: and former reality TV figure caught on camera using racist slur. Rosemalentino,
Speaker 1: a fourteen year veteran appeared on TC's Police Women of Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: has been taking off the streets after she was recorded
Speaker 1: on her own body camera using a racist slur, caught
Speaker 1: saying fing inward ifing hate them as she punched the
Speaker 1: steering wheel of her squad car on April fifth. According
Speaker 1: to an internal fares report, Malentino said she was agitated
Speaker 1: by a crowd of cars lining up to pick up
Speaker 1: students at Western Hills University High School, which didn't move
Speaker 1: when she activated the lights in siren. Now a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the story. She says a student flipped
Speaker 1: her off and then she started punching the steering will
Speaker 1: and saying fing in words I f and hate them.
Speaker 1: It's on camera and I saw that one. So goohead.
Speaker 2: If I was ding driving down the street in my
Speaker 2: squad car and a pickup truck intentionally t boned my
Speaker 2: squad car right, airbags pop out and I survive, nothing
Speaker 2: in my entire consciousness would say fing any group of people,
Speaker 2: I hate them.
Speaker 1: That all of them, you know, that would term for
Speaker 1: all of them. There is no this word individual disrespected me.
Speaker 1: But there is no version that being the natural reaction
Speaker 1: to any group of people, let alone the very pejorative,
Speaker 1: very negative, very insulting, very ignorant term used to in
Speaker 1: the most racist manner ever describe said group of people.
Speaker 1: Hang on, So now let's go to Mississippi, our favorite
Speaker 1: place us today. Mississippi police chief fired after leaked audio
Speaker 1: captured racist rant him bragging about killing thirteen people. Okay.
Speaker 1: Former Lexington Police Department chief Sam Dobbins was fired after
Speaker 1: audio recordings demonstrated him bragging about shooting and killing people
Speaker 1: in the line of duty, including a black man who
Speaker 1: he claimed to have shot more than one hundred times,
Speaker 1: in a racist and homophobic rent about eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the city nearly thirteen hundred people are black, since his
Speaker 1: data shows so this is not just an isolated police incident,
Speaker 1: and this is just this week. Normally we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth to cover this. I still have more
Speaker 1: articles to get to. How about this one. This one
Speaker 1: comes from Yahoo News. A black man beaten, left bloodied
Speaker 1: after alleged stop sign violation in Tennessee. We saw this
Speaker 1: video that was hard to watch. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
Speaker 1: has opened a probe into the brutal arrest of a
Speaker 1: black man who was chased into a home where a
Speaker 1: loved one recorded as he was beaten and shocked with
Speaker 1: a taser after an alleged traffic violation. You know, some
Speaker 1: of this stuff we share on our social media at
Speaker 1: CIVI excipher. If you want to check it out, some
Speaker 1: of the stuff, you're going to have to do a
Speaker 1: little bit of homework because we don't we don't want
Speaker 1: to devolve into sort of like the media enterprise that
Speaker 1: glorifies or benefits from the sensationalism of harm against black
Speaker 1: and brown bodies. So some things will share, some things
Speaker 1: will point you in the direction where if you want
Speaker 1: to actually see it. You can, but we're a radio show.
Speaker 1: We talked through things. But that was an awful, awful,
Speaker 1: awful video to watch. And that you see these people
Speaker 1: chase this man down like an animal and hurt him
Speaker 1: and hurt him and hurt him, and he's screaming and
Speaker 1: they heard him and heard him for a traffic violation,
Speaker 1: and he ran because he was scared. That's it.
Speaker 2: Their only intent was to hurt him, that's it. So
Speaker 2: of course he ran, and once they caught him, their
Speaker 2: intentions were not to subdue, not to arrest, not to handcuffed,
Speaker 2: not to anything. Let's harm this man as much as
Speaker 2: we can, as fast as we can, as aggressively as
Speaker 2: we can, as forceful as we can. The reason why
Speaker 2: does not matter. Your job is to not physically punish
Speaker 2: people that break the law. Yeah, the guns that you
Speaker 2: have are supposed to be to protect people, not to
Speaker 2: aggressively forcefully murder, injure and harm people. That's not what
Speaker 2: you signed up for. I never really understand even in
Speaker 2: traffic stops. I got a speeding ticket recently. The officer
Speaker 2: was so angry at me, and I was so confused
Speaker 2: by it. Right because the speed limit the post it
Speaker 2: number is very arbitrary. I don't know if you people
Speaker 2: drive in real life, and I hate the way you
Speaker 2: people sounds.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone drives in real life at
Speaker 1: the posted speed limit right right, So I'm just going
Speaker 1: faster than you thought I should be going, and that's fine.
Speaker 1: Pulled me over and incite me, that's fine too, But
Speaker 1: why are you angry at me? I did not do
Speaker 1: something to you, sir. Nobody's hard. Everybody's still living.
Speaker 2: And it was funny because the police officer that pulled
Speaker 2: me over was also not just speeding but driving. He
Speaker 2: wasn't posted with a radar, so it even says on
Speaker 2: the ticket the way that he detected that I was
Speaker 2: speeding was by pace.
Speaker 1: This is just his opinion, folks, what a system man. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: despite going through all these headlines, we still have more
Speaker 1: that we can't get to. And that's just the reality
Speaker 1: of it. So we'll leave it right there.