Speaker 1: Yes, yes, y'all, welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Ramses Job.
Speaker 2: They called me q Ward and that just so happens
Speaker 2: to be my real name, Ramses Job.
Speaker 1: What's up everything in the world, many, I've been waiting
Speaker 1: on this one.
Speaker 3: We been waiting on this.
Speaker 4: We've been waiting on this one.
Speaker 3: I mean, y'all, y'all like it's like on time but everything.
Speaker 3: And then he jumped in and I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: here too.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which man, the man of the hour, the
Speaker 1: man who has decided to come off of the mountain
Speaker 1: of greatness and join us. He goes by the name
Speaker 1: of fresh Maker DJ fresh Maker, Yes, and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite people in the world.
Speaker 2: I got to get him a more than just a
Speaker 2: DJ shirt though, because the resume is extensive.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, No, I'm gonna let this great idea.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let him lay it all out.
Speaker 3: It's a great idea.
Speaker 1: But affectionately, we call them fresh and just a pillar
Speaker 1: in the community, Black community, especially, way more than an entertainer.
Speaker 1: And so my hope, our hope is that he will
Speaker 1: join us from time to time on the show, just
Speaker 1: to kind of keep us abreast of things that are
Speaker 1: going on. But today it was meaningful for us to
Speaker 1: discuss the concept behind the brainchild behind the hashtag circulate
Speaker 1: the bag. And so we're gonna get to that in
Speaker 1: just a second. But you know, fresh I need you
Speaker 1: to I need you to introduce yourself to the people
Speaker 1: who might not be I don't know who wouldn't know
Speaker 1: who you are.
Speaker 3: Soon it's gonna be a very very niche group of people.
Speaker 4: Let's assume that some folks just.
Speaker 3: Uh well, I go by the name of fresh Maker.
Speaker 3: Government is Josan e Manuel godparents' names Jay and Sondra,
Speaker 3: Jay meaning j birds, Sondra meaning caretaker. So I always
Speaker 3: envisioned myself as somebody that flied over and took care
Speaker 3: of people. But I mean, I love music, and so
Speaker 3: my father actually was a DJ, and I didn't know
Speaker 3: it until I actually was deep into DJ and so
Speaker 3: it was kind of in the blood. But what was
Speaker 3: also in the blood was just you know, looking out
Speaker 3: for folks, especially when in a position of power or privilege.
Speaker 3: And I feel like whenever you put yourself into a
Speaker 3: economically agile position, it's your you know, it's your privilege
Speaker 3: and your priority to try and put other people into
Speaker 3: the same position. So naturally, once I was able to
Speaker 3: catch a foothold into the entertainment world and be able
Speaker 3: to sustain myself financially, I wanted to branch out and
Speaker 3: create you know, my own mini economy, and in doing so,
Speaker 3: I would create jobs or invest into other black businesses
Speaker 3: that maybe didn't have the capital. And so from that,
Speaker 3: I've been able to develop barbershops and salons and tax
Speaker 3: offices in the Phoenix metro area, and it, you know,
Speaker 3: supplied other people with jobs or the insight to be
Speaker 3: able to open their own. After doing so, I found
Speaker 3: myself not really you know, feeling a whole lot of
Speaker 3: fulfillment or purpose, and I was looking for something to
Speaker 3: be a part of and I ran into what's called
Speaker 3: the Archwood Exchange and it was just basically a black
Speaker 3: business expo where there were smaller black businesses that were
Speaker 3: all in one space. And I met a great group
Speaker 3: of people that's a part of the Phoenix Local Organizing
Speaker 3: Committee and I kind of just stayed there and didn't
Speaker 3: want to leave, and so they allowed me to become
Speaker 3: a part of their group. They welcome in with open
Speaker 3: arms and basically serving the community through being able to
Speaker 3: tell people about black businesses and be a part of
Speaker 3: them and to intentionally buy from them has been kind
Speaker 3: of a purpose of mind.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly why it was meaningful for you to
Speaker 1: come up here today. Now I want to paint a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a picture because I think it's
Speaker 1: important that we kind of lean into this part of
Speaker 1: the conversation while we're here.
Speaker 4: So, you are a DJ.
Speaker 1: At many nightclubs in the city, but as Q mentioned,
Speaker 1: that is a very limited view or description.
Speaker 4: Of who you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that along with DJ, event host
Speaker 1: is another tool in your tool belt because a lot
Speaker 1: of folks might just know you for just keeping a
Speaker 1: party live and keeping the club moving. And there's a
Speaker 1: huge part of a NIST in the city where we
Speaker 1: live in Phoenix, the black community, because it's very small
Speaker 1: community in the city, huge part of it that goes
Speaker 1: through your your events wherever they may be. So there's
Speaker 1: lots of people who have maybe seen you on a microphone,
Speaker 1: don't know that you DJ, or maybe seen you DJ
Speaker 1: and don't know that you're want to mind. But also,
Speaker 1: as you stated, your business man, I know you to
Speaker 1: be a entrepreneur I know you to be an activist.
Speaker 4: I know you to be a.
Speaker 3: What's the word I'm thinking about, philanthropist.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the word.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say that. Thank you, brother. I'm glad
Speaker 3: we all the line. Oh no, no, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: We got to talk about that. That's what I was
Speaker 1: looking for, among other things, and just a presence. And
Speaker 1: I think it's important to mention all those things because
Speaker 1: when we talk about these it's school based initiatives. It's
Speaker 1: important to know that a person like you, who has
Speaker 1: achieved a degree of fiscal success or independence, for you
Speaker 1: to come back and try to empower people who have
Speaker 1: not reached that place, not by handing out money, but
Speaker 1: by teaching and by leading example and by championing a
Speaker 1: philosophy that is based around unity, black empowerment, which is
Speaker 1: very important, and independence. That is something that a lot
Speaker 1: of people who've achieved the type of success that you've achieved,
Speaker 1: they never come back and do it innovative.
Speaker 4: They don't do it that way.
Speaker 1: They might give their cousins, you know, ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to start a car wash or something like that, but
Speaker 1: in terms of like really, like I said, championing and
Speaker 1: a new philosophy. I think it makes it gives a
Speaker 1: gravity to this conversation that I think is very important.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know, there's a hundred reasons
Speaker 1: that you know you belong on that microphone on this show,
Speaker 1: sharing your vision with these cities. But for people to
Speaker 1: know exactly who you are and where you come from,
Speaker 1: I think that again, it gives it a little bit
Speaker 1: more gravity. So with that said, I want you to
Speaker 1: talk more about circulate the bag.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I mean it's it's a bunch of different
Speaker 3: places that you can start, but I feel like.
Speaker 4: Well, let's start here.
Speaker 1: Let's start with where did the idea come from? I
Speaker 1: know it to be a hashtag and a concept, but
Speaker 1: where did that Where was that born?
Speaker 3: I would say the the anger of our communities, addiction
Speaker 3: to consumerism speak on it, and the anger at not
Speaker 3: being taught the historical lesson of Black Wall Street in school.
Speaker 3: So you notice that there's a lot of things like
Speaker 3: once you're an adult, you're like, damn, y'all didn't tell
Speaker 3: me that, and or you have to relearn something or
Speaker 3: a story was told to you as a child in
Speaker 3: order for you to be able to grasp it or
Speaker 3: to keep your innocence right. So obviously the story of
Speaker 3: Black Wall Street is just it's a beautiful story until,
Speaker 3: of course, the massacre, and then it's just like something
Speaker 3: that you wouldn't want to have to tell a child,
Speaker 3: but not being taught that in grade school and then
Speaker 3: learning about it, you know, as an adult after thirty,
Speaker 3: you're like, the idea comes along that it has always
Speaker 3: been possible for us to be together and to focus
Speaker 3: solely on passing each other the ball and scoring. I
Speaker 3: feel as far as just a couple of parallels or
Speaker 3: comparisons when it comes to our community and spending money. Oftentimes,
Speaker 3: if spending money is like being in a basketball game.
Speaker 3: We get the ball and we barely dribble past half
Speaker 3: court before we pass it to another community, you know,
Speaker 3: so like we never pass the ball to ourselves in
Speaker 3: order for us to score and then cut another community
Speaker 3: off as if to say, hey, we have something for
Speaker 3: you to buy, buy it from us, get the ball again,
Speaker 3: and then score again and scoring, meaning like reinvesting back
Speaker 3: into our community. Right, So that and then one more
Speaker 3: parallel would be like basically in hunter gatherer days, right,
Speaker 3: you would have a tribe that would follow their food
Speaker 3: source right wherever the herd went. I feel like often
Speaker 3: as Black people, we are the food source for a
Speaker 3: lot of other communities. They basically follow to where we are,
Speaker 3: set up shop and hunt us through gouging us for dollars.
Speaker 3: So I feel like culture exactly. So I feel like
Speaker 3: if we were our own hunter, if we were our
Speaker 3: own offense and defense, you know, we would be able
Speaker 3: to put ourselves in a position to where we could fortify,
Speaker 3: end uplift, basically continuously reinvest. Obviously, through our love for
Speaker 3: consumerism and our lack of wealth knowledge or just having wealth,
Speaker 3: sometimes you have to incrementally go through the mistakes of
Speaker 3: having wealth for the first time. And so I feel
Speaker 3: like many of us have had that experience or watch
Speaker 3: somebody have that experience. So since we've gone through that,
Speaker 3: then the only other thing to do instead of continuously
Speaker 3: make the same mistake is to spend money with one
Speaker 3: another intentionally with the intent that it will build us
Speaker 3: up to where we are not so reliant elsewhere, because
Speaker 3: we really basically, obviously in this country, we're going to
Speaker 3: have to leverage our power. We don't have power to
Speaker 3: leverage unless we're constantly making each other stronger. And you
Speaker 3: can't make each other stronger unless you invest in one another.
Speaker 3: So that's the reason that I preach circulating the bag,
Speaker 3: like continuously intentionally spend money with black owned businesses, even
Speaker 3: if it may be less convenient, because a black business
Speaker 3: may not have the infrastructure as another business will because
Speaker 3: historically you have less. So the biggest there are two
Speaker 3: factors in it that are really big. One is the
Speaker 3: intent to seek out, you know, a product from a
Speaker 3: black owned business. If there's something that you want see,
Speaker 3: if somebody black has it, buy it from. If it
Speaker 3: takes you two weeks to get it as opposed to
Speaker 3: one week from Macy's, so be it. You know, you
Speaker 3: kept another business alive for another transaction. And the second
Speaker 3: part is the experience that you have from that business,
Speaker 3: whether it be good or bad. You must say that
Speaker 3: to that business. You have to give them their review.
Speaker 3: Whether it be personal or whether it be public, is
Speaker 3: very important. If we're going to act as if each
Speaker 3: other is family, even in business, we have to treat
Speaker 3: each other as family. Whereas we would say honestly, because
Speaker 3: honesty is love, we would say to our family, I
Speaker 3: didn't like this about this transaction or I didn't like
Speaker 3: this about this product. What you do is you offer
Speaker 3: a reality check to that business to not necessarily have
Speaker 3: a miscas conception about how they are perceived and how
Speaker 3: they actually are doing business. And it allows for us
Speaker 3: to level up as far as customer service and customer retention.
Speaker 3: So it's not only a responsibility on the business to serve,
Speaker 3: but because we are a family working together, it's a
Speaker 3: responsibility on the consumer to report absolutely.
Speaker 4: Okay. You know what I like about it, though, is
Speaker 4: that there is.
Speaker 1: Intention behind the philosophy. In other words, it's simple to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna support black owned businesses. Here's a cool you know, hashtag,
Speaker 1: or there's a cool way of saying it. Circulate the
Speaker 1: bag and leave it there. But I like the second
Speaker 1: part where you say, Okay, no matter what positive or negative,
Speaker 1: we're going to give back feedback so that we can
Speaker 1: actually grow and learn. And I think the education and
Speaker 1: the experience that we're able to draw from enriches the
Speaker 1: businesses in a in a parallel capacity. And so it's
Speaker 1: not just fiscal, it's also educational. And that's something that
Speaker 1: you know, a place like Macy's if we're going to
Speaker 1: use that example. They have a wealth of transactions to
Speaker 1: draw from, they have buying power, they have you.
Speaker 3: Know, marketing dollars exactly, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So a smaller business, the way that they're going to
Speaker 1: you know, keep the fight and to survive is with
Speaker 1: information about their customers, what their customer base likes, and
Speaker 1: then super serve their customers until they get to the
Speaker 1: point where they are a Macy's, or until they get
Speaker 1: to the point where they are a you know, Walmart
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and can play and on equal footing.
Speaker 1: But even then, I think it might still be necessary
Speaker 1: to support black businesses, not just financially, but also with
Speaker 1: your feedback. You know, any chance there's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: teach somebody, to pull someone aside, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: case is, or just just to support somebody. I think
Speaker 1: that's important. And while we're on the subject of supporting,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm gonna switch gears here.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, Q.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, fresh I'm gonna switch gears here. Please do
Speaker 1: yourself a favor. You know, I tell you to follow me.
Speaker 1: I tell you to follow you every week, follow fresh
Speaker 1: Maker's social media. It's at the DJ Freshmaker put a
Speaker 1: post up and while we're talking about supporting and.
Speaker 4: I forget what the post was.
Speaker 1: What it was, it was, I think the police were
Speaker 1: involved with somebody, and uh, there was a man kind
Speaker 1: of just filming the encounter.
Speaker 4: With the police.
Speaker 1: Police are like, hey, why are you filming us? There's
Speaker 1: nothing going on here, and the guys like, man, I'm
Speaker 1: just mine of my business. I'm filming it. I don't
Speaker 1: know who that is, but he's black and I'm black,
Speaker 1: and we don't know you. So we're just going to
Speaker 1: film this exactly, film this just to make sure everything's
Speaker 1: on the up and up. And then the police took
Speaker 1: issue with it. You know, the whole thing devolved, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately the police on handcuffed the guy, let him
Speaker 1: go on about his business, and then you know, I
Speaker 1: was right with the world.
Speaker 4: But it was the the.
Speaker 1: Intent, the intention there, which was to just look, I
Speaker 1: don't know you, but I see that you're black, and
Speaker 1: I recognize that this is a this could potentially be
Speaker 1: a lacke and death situation. So I'm going to stay
Speaker 1: here and watch you. And I had a similar experience
Speaker 1: and I get a chance to tell you about it,
Speaker 1: but I want to tell you about it on the
Speaker 1: air so that people understand that supporting black businesses goes
Speaker 1: There's many levels to it. It's not just spend your
Speaker 1: dollars right, come turn up at the club or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you think is you know, supporting it. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's a great way to say it. This happened to
Speaker 1: me the other day walking with my son at it
Speaker 1: was a shopping plaza, and I see a security guard
Speaker 1: pull up on a golf cart in front of a
Speaker 1: black man. He's an older guy, beard, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole thing. He had a couple of backpacks with him.
Speaker 1: And as I'm walking and it's a small corridor that
Speaker 1: I'm walking through, so it's just a security guard in
Speaker 1: this man and then me and my six year old,
Speaker 1: and I'm overhearing the conversation because there's no one else around,
Speaker 1: and he's like, he's like, the guy's like, why are
Speaker 1: you bothering me? Man? I just left the store. I
Speaker 1: spent fifteen dollars in the store and I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: and I'm eating right now. The guy didn't look he
Speaker 1: looked like a normal man. He just happened to have
Speaker 1: two backpacks and a beard, right right, But I think
Speaker 1: that what happened is there's probably a Karen or a
Speaker 1: Kevin that saw him with two backpacks. It's probably like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy's probably homeless, he's transient, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: case is.
Speaker 4: Me call the police on him, or let me call
Speaker 4: the authorities on him, or whatever the case is. So
Speaker 4: I hear these guys.
Speaker 1: Talking, and then you know, at first it didn't register.
Speaker 1: So I walked into the store I was going, and
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, I'm like, wait a minute, I
Speaker 1: should probably go back out there because even though I
Speaker 1: know that obviously there's no this guy's just sitting in
Speaker 1: a golf cart. It's not engaging, there's nothing going on
Speaker 1: like that. I should probably go out there and make
Speaker 1: sure that they're okay.
Speaker 4: Walk back outside.
Speaker 1: Sorry, story's taking so long, but trust me, there's a
Speaker 1: way to support black people. Walk outside. A guy's still
Speaker 1: in his golf cart and the man's on the other
Speaker 1: side of him. So I'm behind the golf cart. The
Speaker 1: guard is looking away from me toward the man, and
Speaker 1: I put my thumb up like this so as to
Speaker 1: ask like you're doing okay, like you got it here,
Speaker 1: and the guy looks at me and he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't know what the thumbs up means.
Speaker 1: And now the security guard turns around looks at me,
Speaker 1: So now you know I'm here now.
Speaker 4: So I'm just say it like it is.
Speaker 3: You see me.
Speaker 1: Listen, man, I see you over there. I know you're
Speaker 1: sitting there eating your food. I overheard you say you
Speaker 1: spent money, and my understanding is that you're getting harassed
Speaker 1: for sitting here and enjoying your food in the shade.
Speaker 1: So I'm just here to make sure that you're okay,
Speaker 1: and if you're not okay, I'm here to be your
Speaker 1: support and changing the narrative and framing the security guard
Speaker 1: as the aggressor of that situation because you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times non black folks will see black skin
Speaker 1: as being criminal, aggressive, et cetera. It's important that I
Speaker 1: took the time to do that because once I got involved,
Speaker 1: the officer then directed his line of inquiry towards me,
Speaker 1: and that's something that I'm great at handling.
Speaker 4: So anyway, quick story I wanted to share.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's lots more ways to support black people,
Speaker 1: and there's lots of levels to it. But don't ignore
Speaker 1: the fiscal component. And I feel like I should take
Speaker 1: a moment to say that if you like what you
Speaker 1: hear on Civic Cipher, you can support the show.
Speaker 4: You can go to.
Speaker 1: Civiccipher dot com. There's plenty of ways for you to
Speaker 1: donate and keep the show on the air. We love
Speaker 1: to hear from you, and of course we can circulate
Speaker 1: the bag in this direction. Absolutely, it can provide a
Speaker 1: forum to discuss things like this, So.
Speaker 3: I think real quickly in that situation, what we can
Speaker 3: take from that is the like again, the parallel of
Speaker 3: like being in the wilderness, like or just being in
Speaker 3: your home. If we say to ourselves that our community
Speaker 3: is our home, and normally those whom police us don't
Speaker 3: live in our home. If they are harassing somebody in
Speaker 3: our home, it is almost our obligation to just double
Speaker 3: check exactly because you're in my home, this is my community.
Speaker 3: You don't live here, you just work here, so you're
Speaker 3: not gonna really care what happens to this person. You
Speaker 3: could put this person in you know, jail for a
Speaker 3: couple of nights, and they have another bad experience compounds
Speaker 3: onto that. It's it's too bad that I have to
Speaker 3: think about that, but you certainly don't. There you go,
Speaker 3: so technically you are in my family's house acting up.
Speaker 3: I got to make sure you don't get too crazy.
Speaker 1: You and I were talking about that not too long ago.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the Panthers and the way the panthers,
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers, originally their original call to action was
Speaker 1: to police the police, because police brutality is I think
Speaker 1: Will Smith said a bit, it's not new, it's not
Speaker 1: getting worse, it's getting filmed. Yeah, so you know this
Speaker 1: historically has been a problem and for black and brown folks.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's it's always, uh, there's.
Speaker 1: There's always, Like you said, it's a philosophy of lifestyle
Speaker 1: when it comes topporting black people. Now, I do want
Speaker 1: to ask the question just because I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who are allies, White, allies, round allies,
Speaker 1: Native Asian, Muslim, you know, allies of black people, fans
Speaker 1: of black culture, but also allies. They're there when the
Speaker 1: going gets tough, and those people might not really have
Speaker 1: all of the details. They might hear, okay, we should
Speaker 1: support black businesses, but not know the why. And so
Speaker 1: that's something that I think that you can expound upon
Speaker 1: why is black commerce important to the black community.
Speaker 3: Well, not only important to the black community, but important
Speaker 3: to America and the utopia that it tells itself that
Speaker 3: it is very good, so you and that that utopia
Speaker 3: never can actually really exist unless you have equity, equality
Speaker 3: and a narrowing of the racial wealth gap. Right. So,
Speaker 3: if you understand your racial wealth gap is based primarily
Speaker 3: on slave labor and Jim Crow and financially castrating black
Speaker 3: people over maybe one hundred and fifty years after slavery,
Speaker 3: is you know, abolished. Right, If you understand that that
Speaker 3: privilege is there because of that, then as a moral country,
Speaker 3: you would say to yourself, well, I need to I
Speaker 3: need to do something about that because I'm in a
Speaker 3: position of power. However, the question becomes, what do you
Speaker 3: want more, an equal utopia or your privilege? Right? So,
Speaker 3: if you want your and this is where the rever
Speaker 3: mes road, really, if you want your privilege more, it
Speaker 3: will show because there's only a couple of questions that
Speaker 3: need to be asked. And it's like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 3: you like shaking my hand, you like hugging me, and
Speaker 3: all these other things. But if we were to have
Speaker 3: the same opportunity, it would become more more warlike to
Speaker 3: you and so right, so, the importance of supporting black
Speaker 3: business brings you closer to that utopia. It brings you
Speaker 3: closer to the opportunity of black people being able to
Speaker 3: operate not only with the freedom to be in their communities,
Speaker 3: but the liberty to grow outside of them. Right so,
Speaker 3: right now, like black people, basically, if they stay within
Speaker 3: the bounds of certain economics, they're not necessarily questioned. I
Speaker 3: saw a great, great video by a young lady who
Speaker 3: said she just recently bought a Porsche Cayenne and uh,
Speaker 3: did you guys see that? No, we actually somebody got
Speaker 3: a Porsche.
Speaker 2: We had we had a similar experience purchasing the same vehicle,
Speaker 2: so that it was like a trigger. So the young
Speaker 2: lady she bought this car, but she noticed that in
Speaker 2: her interactions with white people it was often how do
Speaker 2: you have that?
Speaker 3: What did you do to get that? And she said
Speaker 3: to herself, this is why supporting black business is so important,
Speaker 3: because you want to get you need to get used
Speaker 3: to living and thriving instead of just living and surviving. Right, So,
Speaker 3: when you live and survive, you expect to have the
Speaker 3: bare minimum. So when you work to get above it
Speaker 3: and people question you about it, you dumb it down
Speaker 3: because you don't really want to deal with the interrogation.
Speaker 3: But what that is, what that really is, and I
Speaker 3: have to battle this within myself. It is your own
Speaker 3: anti blackness. You are dumbing yourself down for the safety
Speaker 3: of somebody else's white fragility. So what you have to
Speaker 3: do is own it, not code switch, and just be
Speaker 3: yourself in the moment, like, yeah, I got this car,
Speaker 3: I work hard. Anything else, we'll take that out and
Speaker 3: oh sorry, and keep it moving, you know, but be unashamed.
Speaker 3: And so's there's another thing that's important about it, because
Speaker 3: if you get into a position of thriving, you need
Speaker 3: to be used to thriving. So then you pass on
Speaker 3: that energy of thriving to either your seed, your neighbor,
Speaker 3: your friends, whatever. It's customary for you to thrive. And
Speaker 3: when somebody asks you how you're thriving only because you
Speaker 3: don't look like them, you rightfully take insult. And when
Speaker 3: you rightfully take insult, you are having a teaching moment
Speaker 3: with them because they're like, oh, I wouldn't have asked
Speaker 3: anybody that looked like me. That question that was a
Speaker 3: little supremacist of me, wasn't it. Yes, it was. But
Speaker 3: it's important for you to know the lesson that you
Speaker 3: have that in your blood. It's inherent, just like I
Speaker 3: have anti blackness in mind. And so the more that
Speaker 3: you can be in the same space understand it, like
Speaker 3: we're gonna be different, You're gonna feel some different things,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna need to let me know whether you
Speaker 3: can deal with that or not, because I'm not changing,
Speaker 3: I'm only gonna grow. But that was a little bit long.
Speaker 3: But back to black and brown allies that need to
Speaker 3: know the importance of it, just the history of it,
Speaker 3: just the realness of it. Prior to nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 3: there's pretty much only white and black people in the country, right, and.
Speaker 4: From a political perspective especially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so Civil Rights Act of sixty four allows
Speaker 3: us to basically be treated more human, right, but again
Speaker 3: more human right.
Speaker 2: Like closer to human, not a human, not not equal,
Speaker 2: but you know, let's let's move just a little bit
Speaker 2: more like people.
Speaker 3: Right. So what that is is black ascension, and normally
Speaker 3: black ascension leads to you know, some people feeling not
Speaker 3: so comfortable about it because it means you are going
Speaker 3: to be closer to me in this socioeconomic totem pole.
Speaker 3: So and it's it's my theory and the theory of
Speaker 3: my mentors that there was never a immigration act to
Speaker 3: bring anybody else or allow anybody else in this country
Speaker 3: until after that happened. So basically, when black people begin
Speaker 3: to ascend, you need a buffer class that's going to
Speaker 3: keep a form of segregation. So now Civil Rights Act
Speaker 3: sixty four, Immigration Acts sixty five, and now you have anybody,
Speaker 3: Now all your immigration acts before in nineteen seventeen, nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four, or only four European countries only, not until
Speaker 3: sixty five, is it like, okay, everybody can come And
Speaker 3: for me to me, what that looks like is you're
Speaker 3: getting close to me. I don't like that. So and
Speaker 3: I wouldn't dare put it past you know, politicians that
Speaker 3: enjoyed a time of Jim Crow to think of doing
Speaker 3: something like that, because if you think about it, anyone
Speaker 3: who's coming from a country that dreams of being in
Speaker 3: the United States when they get here, this is this
Speaker 3: is like a form of heaven, right utopia, right exactly
Speaker 3: made it? This is it? Right? But to me, this
Speaker 3: is a land of demons, So how dare you right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: So for so then you can create the straw man, like,
Speaker 3: why aren't you doing as well as everybody else that
Speaker 3: comes here? Well, everybody else that comes here, you know,
Speaker 3: bless them. This is like heaven to them. And for me,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting in line for my debt. Not only that,
Speaker 3: but I'm also trying to survive the onslaught that comes
Speaker 3: from being threatened by my own ascension. So we're fighting
Speaker 3: on multiple fronts. Your ascension is going to be very incremental.
Speaker 3: So the reason that it's important to pay attention to
Speaker 3: black business because of that is to understand that black
Speaker 3: people are fighting a war on multiple fronts and oftentimes, uh,
Speaker 3: those who have come from other countries are going to
Speaker 3: be more likely to assimilate and be totally okay with that,
Speaker 3: And that's fine. Not only they're going to be able
Speaker 3: to assimilate to American culture, but they will have the
Speaker 3: liberty to preserve their own whereas for us, our own
Speaker 3: culture is a threat unless it is palatable and able
Speaker 3: to be you're able to make money off of it.
Speaker 3: You exploited market and exploded, right, So if somebody else
Speaker 3: is able to make money off of it and we're not,
Speaker 3: because if we do, then we reinvest and become more powerful.
Speaker 3: Then it's okay.
Speaker 1: I think that there's something to be said about that.
Speaker 1: Now the example that you gave, so Q and I
Speaker 1: have been been friends for a long time and Q
Speaker 1: always tells me about Detroit and Detroit there's a lot
Speaker 1: of black.
Speaker 3: Folks in Detroit motown from Chicago too.
Speaker 1: Yes, so Chicago is another city with a huge black population.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Southwest California and Arizona, so there
Speaker 1: are certainly black communities, but in terms of like a
Speaker 1: Detroit where it's a significant amount of the population, that
Speaker 1: it is not. But you know what was life like
Speaker 1: in Detroit when you're from seven Mile you know? So
Speaker 1: what's that like as far as black businesses and black
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship and so forth, Because I think that might kind of.
Speaker 4: At least for black folks, will be a bit of
Speaker 4: a utah.
Speaker 2: So, first of all, there was a fantastic experience, except
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was a unique experience. Gift and
Speaker 2: the curse was that the preparation to go out into
Speaker 2: a world where black people aren't attorneys and doctors and
Speaker 2: business owners, and the pillars of the community were strange.
Speaker 2: You know, my first racist interaction, I was essentially an adult.
Speaker 2: I was well seventeen years old in college for the
Speaker 2: first time that somebody who didn't look like me looked
Speaker 2: at me like I was strange and looked down on me,
Speaker 2: and not in the way where they felt sorry, but
Speaker 2: in a way where they felt I was beneath them.
Speaker 2: And you know, that may be a story for another time,
Speaker 2: but you have to know, like my older brother, all
Speaker 2: of his friends owned all of the businesses in our neighborhood,
Speaker 2: the barbershop, the beauty salon, the beauty supply store, the
Speaker 2: record store, the liquor store, even the national franchises. My
Speaker 2: brother went to high school with the people that owned them.
Speaker 2: So the KFC, the churches, the Little Caesars, whatever it was.
Speaker 3: Those people.
Speaker 2: You know, I could call them by name when I
Speaker 2: stepped into their establishment. And you know, and as my
Speaker 2: brother's little brother, be treated like I was family. So
Speaker 2: all of my teachers, all of my classmates looked like me.
Speaker 2: And that was the experience growing up in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until I left Detroit went to College in
Speaker 2: Bowling Green, Ohio, my first day on campus with students
Speaker 2: there because I played football, so we were there a
Speaker 2: few months before everybody else arrived. But when the student
Speaker 2: body arrived, I remember getting on the shuttle to ride
Speaker 2: from the stadium back to the quad, and a group
Speaker 2: of young ladies got on the shuttle and there were
Speaker 2: four of them, and there were four seats left, and
Speaker 2: one of them was next to me, and one of
Speaker 2: them decided she'd rather stand than have to sit next
Speaker 2: to me, and one of her friends was kind of
Speaker 2: ashamed that she reacted that way, so she sat next
Speaker 2: to me like taking one for the team, and the
Speaker 2: rest of the girls treated her like she was taking
Speaker 2: one for the team for having to sit me. And
Speaker 2: the coolest thing that happened is that she didn't care.
Speaker 2: She wasn't embarrassed on their behalf, She didn't try to
Speaker 2: feed into what they were doing and act like she
Speaker 2: felt the same way. She looked me right in my face,
Speaker 2: told me that they were stupid, and she was legitimately
Speaker 2: upset that they were behaving the way that they were,
Speaker 2: but caught off guard by that, I didn't even realize
Speaker 2: that I was supposed to be angry in response.
Speaker 3: Right, you know what I mean, Like I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't have any built up animosity for that treatment
Speaker 2: or that experience because I had never been through it.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is the first time I went back
Speaker 2: home after that, and I remember this because it was
Speaker 2: a Martin Luther King day and I was home and
Speaker 2: I got pulled over for looking at a white police officer.
Speaker 2: Pulled over, pulled out the car, face on the hood,
Speaker 2: and handcuffed, put in the back of his car.
Speaker 4: The crime was looking at him.
Speaker 2: Oh of course, Now he didn't say this, but I
Speaker 2: know this because I was driving to on Wiolward Avenue
Speaker 2: shout out Detroit. I looked at him. He got in
Speaker 2: his car, busted U turn, pulled me over, and everything
Speaker 2: I just described to you happened. And then, of course,
Speaker 2: you know, put my name into his computer. So I
Speaker 2: had no warrants, no arrest, no priors. Let me out
Speaker 2: of the handcuffs, out of the backseat of his car,
Speaker 2: and back into my car. You know, have a good day.
Speaker 2: But that happening on mlkday in Detroit. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: eighteen now, and this was so foreign to be going
Speaker 2: through something like that. For absolutely no reason. And I've
Speaker 2: had sadly plenty of experiences like that since then. But
Speaker 2: you know, you started off asking me about childhood. I
Speaker 2: grew up in a city that was all black as
Speaker 2: far as I was concerned, and maybe it was the
Speaker 2: high eighty percent, maybe it was ninety percent, but all black,
Speaker 2: because that's all I ever saw.
Speaker 1: So I want to jump in here because speaking of
Speaker 1: the Porsche, that Qbot.
Speaker 4: It's an interesting show where doing so there's a story
Speaker 4: behind that.
Speaker 3: You got it from a black salesman.
Speaker 4: We went to uh, Florida to pick that up.
Speaker 1: We went, we went to go buy the car there
Speaker 1: and drive it back and he asked me to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you want.
Speaker 4: To go on a road trip, like, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1: When got the car, we went to after leaving Florida,
Speaker 1: we went to Atlanta and I had never been to
Speaker 1: Atlanta before. And you know the example that you gave
Speaker 1: where you know, people are so wowed by black people
Speaker 1: who have accomplished something, and how that shouldn't be normal,
Speaker 1: that should be common and you have to kind of
Speaker 1: deal with your own anti blackness in moments like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you said it that way because I've
Speaker 1: lived through that myself. Cute knows full well. We went
Speaker 1: to his cousin's house, and house is not the right word.
Speaker 4: It's not the that was.
Speaker 3: There was not a single house in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Oh No, those were mansions, gotcha. And you know, the
Speaker 1: houses might get built a little bigger on that side
Speaker 1: of the country or in that particular city or whatever.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's to construct maybe whatever. But the cars don't lie.
Speaker 1: So if it's Ferrari's and you know, if I just
Speaker 1: think it's a big no, those are bona fide mansions,
Speaker 1: you know, there's and and everybody had nice car.
Speaker 4: The house was gorgeous, everything was beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Porsche didn't stand out at all.
Speaker 4: No, no, not at all. And it's like we'll just
Speaker 4: park it on the street like it's fine.
Speaker 3: That's how it was there.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was very, very much eye opening,
Speaker 1: especially when he told me what a kicker.
Speaker 4: Tell me, tell me what he told me.
Speaker 3: Every one of his neighbors is black.
Speaker 4: Never seen anything like it.
Speaker 2: And I mean it's a subdivision. Every house said, in
Speaker 2: the entire neighborhood.
Speaker 3: The people look like us.
Speaker 1: And so in a place like that where obviously there's
Speaker 1: because of the population. You know, there's a significant amount
Speaker 1: of money that moves from black hands to black businesses.
Speaker 1: I've been able to have a glimpse, so to speak,
Speaker 1: into what that what the long term effects of the circulate,
Speaker 1: the bag velocity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, it's a different yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and that's not the only place. We ended up
Speaker 1: going to Dallas on that same road trip. We went
Speaker 1: love Dallas. He is, I think your frat brother, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's his name? I want to say, is jareded And
Speaker 1: and your cousin's name too, Joey, Joey. Okay, Joey and Jared.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of both
Speaker 1: of them. I got a chance to tell Joey, but
Speaker 1: Jared's house was not a house. And the difference in
Speaker 1: Dallas was that he said something similar, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: the same. He said about in his subdivision again, all mansions,
Speaker 1: all nice cars, he said, I think six it was.
Speaker 3: It was a lot more diverse. Yeah, but in all
Speaker 3: white community.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was. It was the most majority black community.
Speaker 1: But then there were Asian folks, and there was like
Speaker 1: East Indian doctors, and you know this and that and
Speaker 1: the third So again, uh, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that what we what we would all like is just
Speaker 1: something that reflects the population in the way the population
Speaker 1: has distributed, you know, something that you know, let's say
Speaker 1: there's fifteen percent black people, just to pick a nice
Speaker 1: round number, fifteen percent Hispanic people, and and so forth
Speaker 1: and so on, that the amount of mansions would reflect
Speaker 1: those right, our mansion ownership and that utopia. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's it's too far off, and it's too far
Speaker 1: too it's too difficult for us to get there. I
Speaker 1: think that's something that we absolutely can do. I want
Speaker 1: to I.
Speaker 2: Want to ask fresh before we moved on. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you were going to pivot or not. And
Speaker 2: I want to use sports as a metaphor again because
Speaker 2: you did that earlier and a lot of people have
Speaker 2: an easier time processing or.
Speaker 3: If I could. The beautiful thing about those neighborhoods, if
Speaker 3: we're able to continuously replicate, is again, people get used
Speaker 3: to thriving, right, But those are tax dollars that are
Speaker 3: put into the schools that are neighborhoods that predominantly black
Speaker 3: children go to, and they get used to being in
Speaker 3: the schools where it's like, yeah, I'm supposed to have
Speaker 3: of the latest and greatest in technology, the latest books,
Speaker 3: and I may not feel the urge to have to
Speaker 3: go to a prestigious p WI unless it serves what
Speaker 3: I want as a passion. I may not need to
Speaker 3: go elsewhere. I may really just want to solidify where
Speaker 3: I am or another community that's like it a lot
Speaker 3: of times because we are in our neighborhoods and they
Speaker 3: may have some energy that we want to get away from.
Speaker 3: We practice escapism through either going to the suburbs or
Speaker 3: going to a PWI, and then we get a little
Speaker 3: bit further away from what it is that made us
Speaker 3: what we are.
Speaker 1: All Right, I don't know everything. I'm just doing the
Speaker 1: best that I can. Someone ask this question PWI.
Speaker 3: Deperately white institution institution.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It was something like that when you mentioned that as
Speaker 1: an alternative right.
Speaker 4: Schooling or whatever. But just want to make sure and.
Speaker 2: That's why we got to celebrate. You know, we can.
Speaker 2: We can nitpick all we want, and we can point
Speaker 2: to flaws all we want, but that's why you got
Speaker 2: to celebrate. Celebrate When Howard University makes it to the
Speaker 2: White House to celebrate that, and we can poke holes
Speaker 2: and all we want, and of course we can find
Speaker 2: the flaws and point to why this person is or
Speaker 2: isn't perfect, but certain things must be celebrated. As you
Speaker 2: don't have to go to Harvard. Typically the Ivy League
Speaker 2: sits in those chairs. Yeah, it's not there's no use.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say it's not a bunch, but there's
Speaker 2: none prior to now HBCUs in those positions, so that
Speaker 2: that that's something that needs to be celebrated.
Speaker 1: Speaking of celebrating, I want to take a moment to
Speaker 1: shout out someone who's very special to me. If you're
Speaker 1: in Phoenix and you're hearing this on Power ninety eight
Speaker 1: point three FM.
Speaker 4: She's a young lady.
Speaker 1: That I met there years ago, and she has a
Speaker 1: black owned business. It's black owned business. It's called the
Speaker 1: black Box. And she actually sent me a black box
Speaker 1: and it's full of creams and candles and soaps and
Speaker 1: and just affects. I'm not even sure what all this
Speaker 1: is because I don't really reckon myself a beautiful person,
Speaker 1: although she is, and I implore you to check out
Speaker 1: her social media. I think it's the black Box dot
Speaker 1: us or get the black Box, the Black Box.
Speaker 4: And her name is Talay Hornback, that's t A. L. E. I.
Speaker 2: And she's incredible as a human being, by the way,
Speaker 2: not just black.
Speaker 1: Yes, but she is another one that really is Galvani
Speaker 1: and black businesses together and trying to offer that at
Speaker 1: least in her way and with the things that she's
Speaker 1: been able to do, and so far she's been incredibly successful.
Speaker 4: Which brings me to.
Speaker 1: You, Fresh, What are some of the businesses that you've
Speaker 1: been working with that you can shout out that you
Speaker 1: can say these are black businesses are doing black things
Speaker 1: and these are ways that you can support if you're
Speaker 1: black or a black ally oh Man.
Speaker 3: And as you can think of zero eight twenty candle
Speaker 3: and you can find that on Instagram. Just like that
Speaker 3: zero eight twenty candle. They actually sent me a box.
Speaker 3: I didn't have to pay for it. They saw the
Speaker 3: work in the community and they sent me a box
Speaker 3: of candles and they smell delicious. They even have one
Speaker 3: called p Valley the whole word word and I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: then I know you're all right cool. There's also oh
Speaker 3: Fulani Malik Fulani f U l A n I Malik
Speaker 3: has some of the best handmade jewelry that you've ever seen.
Speaker 3: And it's normally uh, copper infused with crystals and uh,
Speaker 3: I've seen you wear that, Yeah, and then thank you
Speaker 3: the gentleman pretty much he makes jewelry on the spot,
Speaker 3: like whenever he's doing the expo, and he will employ you,
Speaker 3: employ you to read about the crystals that you're picking
Speaker 3: up or looking at so you can learn more about them.
Speaker 3: Star Dust and Sage is a holistic healing space that
Speaker 3: just moved downtown and they're gonna have yoga upstairs and
Speaker 3: crystals downstairs. Straw and Wool Hat Company. They are actually
Speaker 3: just some brothers that I'm extremely proud of because in
Speaker 3: the Field area, they had an idea that there wasn't
Speaker 3: really a lot of hat stores that catered to that
Speaker 3: particular style basically straw or wool hats. You couldn't find
Speaker 3: them often. And so they opened up a space, a
Speaker 3: small suite, and within I want to say, three weeks,
Speaker 3: they had to take over the suite next door because
Speaker 3: their business grew so much. Now I want to say,
Speaker 3: maybe no more than three months later, they're moving to
Speaker 3: an apartment slash business suite downtown on Roosevelt row So
Speaker 3: and that it costs money to be down there. But
Speaker 3: because they saw something in the market, they exploited it.
Speaker 3: And they're doing the practice of buy black cell to everybody,
Speaker 3: which is really.
Speaker 4: Where need to be.
Speaker 3: You need to be, Like buying black is great, but
Speaker 3: you also have to participate in the market with everybody
Speaker 3: else to be able to diversify you know what's coming in.
Speaker 3: So they're doing a great job. So all of those
Speaker 3: stardustn't Sage Straw and will Fulani Malik and zero eight
Speaker 3: to zero Candle Company.
Speaker 1: There's some some black businesses that I know that you
Speaker 1: want to shout out Q as well.
Speaker 2: But before I do that, I did cut you off.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, don't because this is important. I can't
Speaker 2: even let you leave without bringing this up. And I
Speaker 2: want both of you to speak to you know why
Speaker 2: this is so. And like I said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: use a sports metaphor because you did that earlier and
Speaker 2: it helps people understand and digest what we're saying a
Speaker 2: little bit better when you use something that's familiar to them.
Speaker 2: Lamar Jackson quarterback Baltimore Ravens plays football a little different
Speaker 2: than the traditions would say. And because of this, people
Speaker 2: are hyper critical of him. So if he has a
Speaker 2: bad game, it's because the way he plays football is
Speaker 2: not the right way to do it. It won't lack,
Speaker 2: it's a gimmick. It's you know what I mean that
Speaker 2: they're prepared for him to fail, whereas someone like let's
Speaker 2: say Tom Brady can have a bad month and in
Speaker 2: their mind it's just he's just off. He's eventually he's
Speaker 2: going to get back to his level. He was just
Speaker 2: having a bad few weeks, but he's.
Speaker 3: Going to be okay, okay.
Speaker 2: The hyper critical nature of us, of everyone to us,
Speaker 2: but us to us. And I'm bringing this up because
Speaker 2: you spoke about the way that we treat our family
Speaker 2: when we support their business, give them that that real feedback.
Speaker 2: Don't just say hey, this was great, be specific. Let
Speaker 2: him know how you were served, what you loved, and
Speaker 2: where they can improve. Typically and all of us have
Speaker 2: heard it. It only takes a bad experience for us
Speaker 2: to completely give up on our own businesses. Where we'll
Speaker 2: give Macy's and you know I can it's a laundry
Speaker 2: list of companies that we support that allowed to disappoint
Speaker 2: us over and over again.
Speaker 4: I'm not even gonna say no name, so I was
Speaker 4: about to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I almost wish you would have. Why do
Speaker 2: you think, or maybe it's just my imagination, why do
Speaker 2: you think that level of hyper critical feedback exists with
Speaker 2: us where we're so ready to give up on and
Speaker 2: and and and shut down each other for the smallest
Speaker 2: of infractions, where we'll continue to patronize and forgive and
Speaker 2: understand when it's not us.
Speaker 3: Uh. The convenience of somebody else already having an infrastructure
Speaker 3: to serve you easily allows for you to practice your
Speaker 3: inherent escapism. Yeah, so you it's essentially just escapism, like
Speaker 3: but like you could compare it to you know, being
Speaker 3: like being in a relationship to black people in relationship,
Speaker 3: they're going to have certain struggles that everybody else won't
Speaker 3: have with them together, and it's it's important for them
Speaker 3: to realize, like, you're not a white man, you're not
Speaker 3: a white woman, you're not a white business. Things are
Speaker 3: going to be different, and it's okay for you to
Speaker 3: hold on to that and understand that. And when it
Speaker 3: comes to people giving up on black business, like I said,
Speaker 3: it's escapism, but the responsibility is to understand that that
Speaker 3: business is lifeblood for your community. When you give up
Speaker 3: on them, you're essentially saying, you know, I could give
Speaker 3: a damn, you know, if you're still here or not.
Speaker 3: At least I got Macy's. So you're definitely practicing anti
Speaker 3: blackness when you give up on you know, on just
Speaker 3: practicing you know, circulating the bag. When you give up
Speaker 3: on it, it's like, well, it doesn't it's not that
Speaker 3: really much a big deal. You're in the trenches right now.
Speaker 3: It's not normal for us to constantly intentionally buy, support
Speaker 3: and review and rinse and repeat and say I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do this as a lifestyle. It's not normal. Until it's normal,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be hard. So you have to keep practicing,
Speaker 3: just like going to the gym every day, until it's
Speaker 3: like breathing. You have to keep doing it because this
Speaker 3: is a practice that you need to pass down. If
Speaker 3: you give up on it now, you're basically passing down
Speaker 3: the generational curse eve anti blackness in business.
Speaker 1: There, it is there, it is. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to know that, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody starts somewhere. You know, when them people hopped off
Speaker 1: of the Mayflower and they tried to set up shop
Speaker 1: or whatever and selling beaver tails and whatever. It was
Speaker 1: just as ghetto as you can imagine. And after eons
Speaker 1: of you know, figuring out what works but versus what
Speaker 1: doesn't work, you know, you might have a little bit
Speaker 1: more polished to it and understanding that a lot of times,
Speaker 1: a lot of communities, especially black communities, are kind of
Speaker 1: just starting these initiatives. It takes a little bit of
Speaker 1: time in some community support, but basically we're all getting
Speaker 1: behind each other, especially those champions in these various communities,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to cause them to do better. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody's getting rich. The goal is for them to ultimately
Speaker 1: get rich. But when you're first starting out, usually people
Speaker 1: are very very much broke, and you know that's not
Speaker 1: an excuse for poor quality or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: it is a teachable moment. And if you are inclined
Speaker 1: to love your fellow man, if you're not black, or
Speaker 1: to love your you know, people that share your that
Speaker 1: melan and that you have and share your culture with,
Speaker 1: then you know, support is the name of the game.
Speaker 1: And if it's still difficult for you to wrap your
Speaker 1: head around that. Then you really need to kind of
Speaker 1: really figure out where your morals are and where you stand.
Speaker 1: I do want to say this though, because we're this
Speaker 1: show always goes by too quick. I do want to
Speaker 1: shout out to other black businesses. One is a clothing company.
Speaker 1: It's called Unlucky Weirdos and a Q you know a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that, I want you to shout
Speaker 1: out the website and the social media for those guys.
Speaker 2: Yes, Unlucky Dashweirdos dot com and Unlucky Weirdos on your
Speaker 2: social media's Instagram. More specifically, it's where a lot of
Speaker 2: time and resources are spent. Another company that this pandemic
Speaker 2: has really taxed, but pretty confident they're going to have
Speaker 2: a nice bounce back here pretty soon. I want to
Speaker 2: shout out the shop by Lefties, A gentleman that went
Speaker 2: to Arizona State University, a member of Kapa Alpha PSI fraternity.
Speaker 2: Dwayne is a great brother, always looking to help other
Speaker 2: brothers as well, and watching him thrive is something that
Speaker 2: makes me really really proud. So definitely shout out to
Speaker 2: the shop. You guys both spoke about something before before
Speaker 2: we get out of here, the importance of what we
Speaker 2: saw in Atlanta, that community where those big houses and
Speaker 2: those nice cars, and those doctors and those lawyers and all.
Speaker 3: Those people look like us.
Speaker 2: I want Ramses to talk about his experience with the
Speaker 2: security officer that patrolled that neighborhood, because it was way different.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, it should be way normal, but it
Speaker 2: was way different.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm accustomed to security guards rolling up on me
Speaker 1: and feeling very much out of place and having to
Speaker 1: justify my being there. I was just taking a walk
Speaker 1: through the neighborhood just because I was enjoying it, taking
Speaker 1: it all, and I'd never seen the many trees.
Speaker 4: Security guard rolls up on.
Speaker 1: Me and he says, hey, how you doing today, And
Speaker 1: you know, normally they start off, you know, exchanging pleasantries
Speaker 1: because they're there to shake you down. And I says,
Speaker 1: I'm doing fine. I'm just you know, here taking a walk.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's a great day for it. You've never
Speaker 1: seen me before, you know. But the thing was he
Speaker 1: was black. I was black, and he didn't see me
Speaker 1: as a threat. I thought that was very special.
Speaker 2: The coolest thing ever. Absolutely, he was not there to
Speaker 2: ask him anything except how you doing? And let me
Speaker 2: reassure you that I'm having a good day too. Man,
Speaker 2: keep having it and it just bounced. Not where you're from,
Speaker 2: not who you with, not why you hear. It's almost
Speaker 2: like a different universe. Oh my goodness. Man, all right,
Speaker 2: real quick.
Speaker 1: Before we get out of here, I do want to
Speaker 1: shout out Missus White's. I want to shout out Lolos Restaurants,
Speaker 1: Boom Boom Room, of course, Monarch Theater in Barsmith, all
Speaker 1: black owned businesses. I do want to shout out Major
Speaker 1: Threads if you need clothing that is more athletic based,
Speaker 1: and of course the Change Society, which is a nonprofit
Speaker 1: that we all work with as black owned as well.
Speaker 1: But that's going to do it for us today. Please
Speaker 1: hit the websites CIVI, excite for dot com to submit
Speaker 1: your questions any show topics, of course, to donate and
Speaker 1: follow all of us social media at Civic Cipher And
Speaker 1: until next week, y'all take care of yourself