Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Ramses.
Speaker 2: Job is Ramsey's jah. I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned into Civic so.
Speaker 1: Indeed you are, and we have a show that we
Speaker 1: think will be worth you sticking around for First up,
Speaker 1: we are going to be talking about not one, but
Speaker 1: two instances of widespread police corruption and police misconduct in
Speaker 1: police brutality in two major cities in the United States
Speaker 1: of America. And on the show, longtime listeners will know
Speaker 1: that we have been making a case for systemic oppression
Speaker 1: done to black and brown communities in this country and
Speaker 1: marginalized communities in this country at the hands of police.
Speaker 1: And now we have a couple of recent instances of
Speaker 1: these global or national agencies investigating these police departments and
Speaker 1: uncovering what Q and I discuss every week on the
Speaker 1: show and what the data indeed supports in terms of
Speaker 1: the police are biased against black and brown people. And
Speaker 1: that is the tip of the iceberg of indeed the
Speaker 1: entirety of the carceral system in this country and those
Speaker 1: of us that look like me and Q suffer more
Speaker 1: as a result of that. And the second part of
Speaker 1: the show, we're going to talk about what it means
Speaker 1: to be energized and fortified by being around like minded individuals,
Speaker 1: those of us who are activists and those of us
Speaker 1: who want to create change in the world. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: can be a lonely path. Sometimes we don't know who's
Speaker 1: all working with us, and it feels very isolated. But
Speaker 1: Q and I had a recent experience at the National
Speaker 1: Urban League convention in New Orleans, and we're going to
Speaker 1: share all about that and exactly how wonderful that was.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, it is time to discuss
Speaker 1: some ebony. I think you.
Speaker 3: Shall RAMS always thinks I shall. Sports related. This story
Speaker 3: is from Yahoo Sports. I mean the excellence This week
Speaker 3: is sponsored by actively black. There is greatness in our DNA.
Speaker 3: Visit actively black dot com Yahoo Sports. In Paris, Julian
Speaker 3: Alfred awoke at five am on the morning of the
Speaker 3: Olympic one hundred meter final, feeling like she needed some
Speaker 3: extra inspiration. The Saint Lucia sprinter opened her journal and
Speaker 3: wrote the words Julian Alfred Olympic Champion. She also pulled
Speaker 3: up videos of some of you saying boat's Olympic victories.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: I was picturing myself coming across the line and being
Speaker 3: an Olympic champion, Alfred said. Only hours later, Alfred's vision
Speaker 3: became reality. Alfred burst out of the blocks and ran
Speaker 3: away from America's pre race favorite sh Carrie Richardson, was
Speaker 3: startling ease, winning an ablazing ten point seventy two seconds
Speaker 3: to secure her tiny Caribbean nation's first Olympic medal. As
Speaker 3: a smiling out for streak to cross the finish line,
Speaker 3: she ripped off her bib and started pointing at her name.
Speaker 3: It's a name that is now etched in history after
Speaker 3: the twenty three year old ran the eighth fastest women's
Speaker 3: one hundred in history Saturday night on stud de Francis,
Speaker 3: rain soaked purple track. Quote, it means a lot to me,
Speaker 3: Alfred said. I definitely knew the Saint Lucians would be
Speaker 3: watching and hoping they could get their first Olympic medal.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they're celebrating right now. End quote. Their first
Speaker 3: Olympic medal in the history of the nation is gold
Speaker 3: at the one hundred meters, which might be the most
Speaker 3: popular event at the Summer Games. Julian has been an
Speaker 3: incredible sprinter at the University of Texas here in the
Speaker 3: United States, but representing her home nation. She shined bright
Speaker 3: like a diamond on that track. And salute to Americans
Speaker 3: Melissa and Shakerri for winning silver and bronze and that
Speaker 3: podium of beautiful queens now etched and Olympic history.
Speaker 1: Now you see why Q was really good at the
Speaker 1: sports stuff, because he knows little fun facts like that.
Speaker 1: All right, The police are still corrupt. They have been
Speaker 1: since or at least insofar as black people are concerned
Speaker 1: an extension of white supremacy and white supremacist ideals, and
Speaker 1: they're hiring practices support that, and their training practices support that,
Speaker 1: and so forth and so on. Before I even get
Speaker 1: here is a great example.
Speaker 2: Police are.
Speaker 1: One of the priorities of police is to learn how
Speaker 1: to kill someone, you know, So they get a lot
Speaker 1: of training on how to fire their weapon in someone's life, right,
Speaker 1: And of course there are people who make arguments of
Speaker 1: why that's important in this country, and I'm not disputing that.
Speaker 1: That's not the conversation I want to have. But when
Speaker 1: you train someone how to take a life. You don't
Speaker 1: train someone in the way of cultural competencies and understanding
Speaker 1: the populations that they're policing, and so forth, you end
Speaker 1: up with a situation like Sonya Massi's. Because there was
Speaker 1: a recent article that came out where the officer suggested,
Speaker 1: for those that are familiar with Sonya Massey's story, that
Speaker 1: when Sonya told the officer, I rebuke you in the
Speaker 1: name of Jesus, he took that to mean a threat
Speaker 1: on his life. Now, there are people who say that's nonsense.
Speaker 1: I would be inclined to agree with those people that
Speaker 1: is nonsense.
Speaker 2: But I think he looked at me or read my mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but the truth is is that he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to say that, nor would he be able to
Speaker 1: even think that, if he was trained with a degree
Speaker 1: of cultural competency, a degree of interacting with different cultures.
Speaker 1: So rather than prioritizing that type of training, rather than
Speaker 1: having the institution uphold and support and embrace the differences
Speaker 1: cultural differences of the different populations that are being policed,
Speaker 1: what its prioritized and police training is often brutality. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, weapons training, you know that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: not de escalation, not anything like that. And so police
Speaker 1: can hide behind, justifiably, behind their fears, and mount a
Speaker 1: case a defense surrounding this woman.
Speaker 3: Just kitchens justifiably if they're afraid, if they just hate,
Speaker 3: and they're just callous and they lack empathy, they have
Speaker 3: I think they use fear as a shield.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's say justifiable, That's that's a much better
Speaker 1: way to say it. Yeah, absolutely right. But my point
Speaker 1: remains that these institutions were not created to protect and
Speaker 1: serve everyone, and examples of that exist to this day.
Speaker 1: Well today we're going to discuss a couple of examples,
Speaker 1: and you have to forgive me in advance because we
Speaker 1: do a lot of reading. But it's important that you
Speaker 1: don't feel like this is Ramses and Q's opinions, nor
Speaker 1: is this black people's opinions. The first report comes from
Speaker 1: the United Nations and the second one comes from the Department,
Speaker 1: the US Department, sorry, the US Justice Department. So these
Speaker 1: are not based local biased opinions. Yeah, this is just
Speaker 1: things you need to know about that corroborate what we've
Speaker 1: been discussing on the show and what black people have
Speaker 1: been discussing at large for decades. First up from The Guardian,
Speaker 1: a group of United Nations experts is calling on the
Speaker 1: US federal, state, and local authorities to take quote immediate
Speaker 1: and comprehensive action to resolve a long standing scandal where
Speaker 1: people are languishing behind bars after being allegedly tortured by
Speaker 1: Chicago police to extract false confessions. I want to stop
Speaker 1: right here, so now that you know that we're talking
Speaker 1: about Chicago, the third largest city in the United States
Speaker 1: of America, I want you to bear in mind that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who point to Chicago
Speaker 1: to try to suggest political failures from Democrats, to try
Speaker 1: to suggest black people having some sort of predisposition toward
Speaker 1: violence or a violent nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they want to extinguish empathy for black people, so
Speaker 3: they point to Chicago and use it as an example
Speaker 3: of quote black on black crime, and why should we
Speaker 3: care about them if they don't care about themselves.
Speaker 2: As the type of language that they use.
Speaker 3: So you and I tend to bump into Chicago as
Speaker 3: an example far too often for reasons that even statistically
Speaker 3: don't make any sense, because we're talking about populations and
Speaker 3: proximity to one another instead of really intentionally dishonest cultural generalizations,
Speaker 3: if you will.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to share something. There was a thing
Speaker 1: called called I forget what it was called, but effectively
Speaker 1: it was a mass exodus from the South of black
Speaker 1: people into places like Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and Detroit, Michigan. Detroit,
Speaker 1: Michigan because there were opportunities Indianapolis, Indiana, there you go.
Speaker 1: And Chicago was probably the biggest example of that, probably
Speaker 1: followed closely, if not surpassed by Detroit, of destination cities
Speaker 1: for black men seeking work and seeking a life outside
Speaker 1: of the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 3: Yes, in the seventies and eighties, Detroit had a higher
Speaker 3: percentage wise black population than in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, I'd go with that all day, but in
Speaker 1: terms of numbers, not as a percentage of the population,
Speaker 1: but in terms of number of Chicago may I don't
Speaker 1: know this, but the point is is that there was
Speaker 1: a big mass exodus of black people from the South
Speaker 1: two places like Chicago. So I say that this to
Speaker 1: establish Chicago having a a statistically relevant percentage of their
Speaker 1: population being black and overall amount of black people there
Speaker 1: being black. And so that's something that makes it convenient
Speaker 1: on both sides of you know, people trying to criticize
Speaker 1: different facets of society. It makes it a convenient example. However,
Speaker 1: Chicago is it's sort of interesting in that there's been
Speaker 1: black politicians in Chicago and there's been institutions that have
Speaker 1: suppressed black people's.
Speaker 2: Mobility.
Speaker 3: Yes, Chicago is a very interesting example. Rams is because
Speaker 3: being the third largest city in the United States, it
Speaker 3: is the largest or the most segregated big city in
Speaker 3: the country as well. And like hard lines nation outside,
Speaker 3: like what used to be the case, you know, before
Speaker 3: we were born, Chicago still holds on to those you know,
Speaker 3: you people live over there and we stay over here
Speaker 3: kind of rules. So then, you know, you talk about
Speaker 3: places like we've mentioned Gary, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Black people have kind of moved out into the suburbs
Speaker 3: and those cities, and they have in Chicago suburbs as well,
Speaker 3: But the city of Chicago is still very racially segregated.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now let's add to that that Chicago is in
Speaker 1: terms for folks who want to be critical of black populations,
Speaker 1: democratic policies, you name it in this country, Chicago has
Speaker 1: it checks two very important boxes too that we've already mentioned.
Speaker 1: One is that a percentage of the population is statistically
Speaker 1: black and higher than a lot of o there are
Speaker 1: big cities like that. The other is that, again, the
Speaker 1: overall amount of black people in that city is higher.
Speaker 1: So you can pick and choose from which column black
Speaker 1: people's crime rates are statistically higher or black people commit
Speaker 1: more crimes, and either point can be argued based on
Speaker 1: a number of factors that come together in Chicago. But
Speaker 1: I think that this example that will continue to read
Speaker 1: from the Guardian will show that it's not just subjected
Speaker 1: to the criticism, is not just. It should not just
Speaker 1: be viewed through the lens of folks on the hard right,
Speaker 1: because the police indeed are shaping outcomes artificially based on
Speaker 1: the practices we're about to describe in these findings from
Speaker 1: the United Nations. Now, the United Nations doesn't get involved
Speaker 1: unless it's like a crime against humanity, right, So allow
Speaker 1: me to continue. The group of UNS special reporters who
Speaker 1: specialize in addressing the scourges of contemporary racism and torture
Speaker 1: has released a report detailing a long history of brutal
Speaker 1: and racist police misconduct. They became involved at the behest
Speaker 1: of an activist Mother's organization in Chicago that was exasperated
Speaker 1: at what they saw as the patch of response of
Speaker 1: the authorities over the years to shocking injustice. Numerous cases
Speaker 1: are highlighted in the twenty six page report, and there
Speaker 1: are many more regarded as unresolved for decades. The group
Speaker 1: of Special Reporters cited quote information we have received regarding
Speaker 1: historical and continuing allegations of the systemic corruption and use
Speaker 1: of torture are other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials in the Chicago area. The report says
Speaker 1: that such treatment has resulted quote in wrongful convictions and
Speaker 1: unjust incarceration of affected individuals who are disproportionately of African
Speaker 1: and Latino slash Hispanic descent. The names of individual police
Speaker 1: officers accused of mistreatment have been redacted. The six Special
Speaker 1: Reporters from the UN Human Rights Division who produced the
Speaker 1: report are kp Ashweeny, Barbara Reynolds being On Da Costa,
Speaker 1: Telang Mofonging, Claudia Mailer, and Alice Jill Edwards. They said
Speaker 1: they had contacted the US government quote to address these
Speaker 1: allegations and clarify its obligations under international law. Quote and recalling,
Speaker 1: for a quote, further action to remedy racialized police violence
Speaker 1: and his conduct within Chicago's law enforcement and criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: They submitted their report to the US government in May,
Speaker 1: but now have released it publicly. Allegations of injustice stretch
Speaker 1: from the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties to present day,
Speaker 1: with people still in prison whom the UN report says
Speaker 1: signed confessions after allegedly being tortured for hours or even
Speaker 1: days by being beaten and bones broken, kicked and given
Speaker 1: electric shocks, suffocated and burnt, among other violence, and deprived
Speaker 1: of sleep, food, and water, all while racist insults were
Speaker 1: shouted at them. So again, that's not my opinion, that's
Speaker 1: not Que's opinion. These are the findings of the United Nations,
Speaker 1: and you start to see how the data in and
Speaker 1: of itself is part of the story, and then not
Speaker 1: insignificant part of the story. But when you start to
Speaker 1: see where the data comes from, you start to really
Speaker 1: examine the data and not just take it at face value.
Speaker 1: You start to see that some of this data could
Speaker 1: have been artificially skewed one way or the other. Now,
Speaker 1: this is in no way me trying to say that
Speaker 1: Black people have our own problems. Every community has their
Speaker 1: own problems in their own they have to decide what
Speaker 1: paths they want to take. Every society has problems and
Speaker 1: has passed that they need to take to make society better.
Speaker 1: This is the part of the human experience. But to
Speaker 1: be artificial judged without considering the fact that the police
Speaker 1: are playing a role in this is unfair. And we
Speaker 1: have an example now of unbiased reporting that shows one
Speaker 1: of the largest cities, well two of the largest cities
Speaker 1: in the country, and how their policing practices have contributed
Speaker 1: to the data that cast black people in a bad
Speaker 1: light and leads to conversations like well, black culture is
Speaker 1: bad and hip hop is bad and all this other
Speaker 1: nonsense where it's like, well, we got some other things
Speaker 1: to examine.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Well, I think it's important that you called
Speaker 3: out that the data doesn't tell the whole story. You
Speaker 3: and I had a conversation while we were in New
Speaker 3: Orleans recently about polling numbers and a question asked to
Speaker 3: a group regarding how you pay for things at the store,
Speaker 3: and just taking the data would have you believe that
Speaker 3: most of us pay for items in retail by check
Speaker 3: it shows immediately when you read that that there's a
Speaker 3: lot missing from that data.
Speaker 2: The data isn't wrong or false or a lie.
Speaker 1: It's math right.
Speaker 3: It's just not giving you all the context and color
Speaker 3: that you need. There's nuance that's missing. You have to
Speaker 3: figure who's being polled, who's doing the polling right. So
Speaker 3: we're not saying that your numbers are wrong. There's just
Speaker 3: a lot missing. So you spoke on the show before
Speaker 3: several times that you're going to find the most crimes
Speaker 3: being committed where you're policing the most. So if their
Speaker 3: police are only on this side of town, all the
Speaker 3: crime they find will be on this side of town.
Speaker 3: That does not mean there's no crime happening anywhere else,
Speaker 3: or that the only people committing crime are those being policed.
Speaker 1: It's a great example here, real quick. That example that
Speaker 1: you mentioned was a TV station pulling their viewers about
Speaker 1: who pays how people pay at retail places, and when
Speaker 1: the answer came back with checks, they had to look
Speaker 1: at that and say, Okay, this data is skewed. Not
Speaker 1: that the math was wrong, but it's skewed because we're
Speaker 1: not sampling in a statistically accurate cross section of the populations.
Speaker 1: Now here's a great example or a great analogy that
Speaker 1: goes with that. Let's say I'm a mouse catcher, right,
Speaker 1: and I go into a mouse and I put all
Speaker 1: my mouse traps in the living room, and then I
Speaker 1: catch ten mice. And then I come back and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you have a problem with the mice in
Speaker 1: the living room, so you need mouse traps in the
Speaker 1: living room. That data is skewed. Now to your point
Speaker 1: about police only being on one side of town or
Speaker 1: over policing, it would skew the data to suggest that
Speaker 1: these people are committing crimes. No, there are mice all
Speaker 1: over the house. Mice do not know the difference between
Speaker 1: living room anymore than crime knows one population. Crime follows poverty, sure,
Speaker 1: but I mean there's crime everywhere, and.
Speaker 2: Crime also follows opportunity. There you go too.
Speaker 3: So again, yes, if all the traps are in the
Speaker 3: living room, then every mouse that's caught.
Speaker 2: Is going to be a That's great.
Speaker 1: That's a great analogy, all right, now I want to
Speaker 1: share the other part. Also, I'm not reading these whole articles. Again,
Speaker 1: check the Guardian and you can check the Associated Press
Speaker 1: for the full articles.
Speaker 2: But I do need to.
Speaker 1: Get to the second one, because I do want to
Speaker 1: make sure we share This comes from Phoenix, Arizona. Again
Speaker 1: from the AP. Phoenix police discriminate against black, Hispanic and
Speaker 1: Native American people, unlawfully detain homeless people, and use excessive force,
Speaker 1: including unjustified deadly force, according to a sweeping federal civil
Speaker 1: rights investigation of law enforcement in the nation's fifth largest city.
Speaker 1: So now we're talking about the third largest city and
Speaker 1: the fifth largest city. I'd imagine that Houston, the fourth
Speaker 1: largest city, would have something, and of course New York
Speaker 1: and LA first and second, they're going to have something too.
Speaker 2: But here we are.
Speaker 1: The US Justice Department released a report that says investigators
Speaker 1: found stark racial disparities in how officers in the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Police Department and forced certain laws, including low level drug
Speaker 1: and traffic offenses. Investigators found that Phoenix police officers shoot
Speaker 1: at people who do not pose an imminent threat, fire
Speaker 1: their weapons after any threat has been eliminated, and routinely
Speaker 1: delay medical care for people injured in encounters with officers.
Speaker 1: The report does not mention whether the federal government is
Speaker 1: pursuing a court enforced reform plan known as a consent decree,
Speaker 1: an often costly and lengthy process, but a Justice Department
Speaker 1: official told reporters that in similar cases that method has
Speaker 1: been used to carry out reforms. The Justice Department said
Speaker 1: Phoenix police officers enforce certain laws, such as low level
Speaker 1: drug and traffic offenses, loitering and trespassing more harshly against black,
Speaker 1: Hispanic and Native American people than against white people who
Speaker 1: engage in the same conduct. Black people in the city
Speaker 1: are over three point five times more likely than white people,
Speaker 1: for example, to be cited or arrested for not signaling
Speaker 1: before turning. The report says Hispanic drivers are more than
Speaker 1: fifty percent more likely than white drivers to be cited
Speaker 1: or arrested for speeding near school's own cameras, and Native
Speaker 1: American people are more than forty four times more likely
Speaker 1: than white people on a per capita basis to be
Speaker 1: cited or arrested for possessing and consuming alcohol. Officers investigating
Speaker 1: drug related offenses were also twenty seven percent more likely
Speaker 1: to release white people in thirty minutes or less, but
Speaker 1: Native Americans accused of the same offense were detained longer,
Speaker 1: the Department set and Native Americans were fourteen percent more
Speaker 1: likely to be booked for trespass while officers cited or
Speaker 1: released white people accused of the same offense.
Speaker 3: We've heard in recent news a call for complete immunity
Speaker 3: for politicians and police officers. And we'll have to research
Speaker 3: where this quote comes from. Lord acting is where I
Speaker 3: read it most recently. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely, so very
Speaker 3: very important that we don't put people in a position
Speaker 3: do implicit biases or flat overt racism can just go unchecked.
Speaker 3: You know, it's important that article said per capita because
Speaker 3: people would like to argue about how many Native Americans
Speaker 3: live here versus how many white people. And this is
Speaker 3: not about the overall number, it's about the percentages. They
Speaker 3: use percentages very intentionally as articles that you illmins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is.
Speaker 3: Intentional. This is not by mistake. This is a system
Speaker 3: that these officers work inside of, so as Ramsas and
Speaker 3: I have said, we can't count how many times we're
Speaker 3: not talking about the individual police officer that you know
Speaker 3: and love. We are talking about the institution of police
Speaker 3: departments in this country. Their foundation and the very root
Speaker 3: of how they conduct their business is based on a
Speaker 3: very very racist, white supremacist foundation.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody could have said it better than that.