Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: rams is Jah.
Speaker 2: They call me q.
Speaker 3: Ward, but it's an abbreviation of my actual name, but
Speaker 3: I'll get into that later. How you doing, Rams, I'm
Speaker 3: good man, had a good week man, having yourself fantastic.
Speaker 2: We got esteemed company today.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed we are joined on this show by the
Speaker 1: one and only Diane Post. How you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing good? But there are actually four Dyane Posts
Speaker 4: in the Phoenix area.
Speaker 1: You know. Something tells me that you would know the
Speaker 1: exact number, and so I'm the only lawyer though we
Speaker 1: have the special one.
Speaker 4: You have the special one exactly.
Speaker 1: Indeed we do. And of course we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about not just the voter suppression initiatives that are being
Speaker 1: drawn up, voted on, and so forth. We're also going
Speaker 1: to talk about a number of other things that are
Speaker 1: beinging brought to vote in the city.
Speaker 4: In the state, in the state and the city too.
Speaker 4: Actually we can talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, But before we go too far past it,
Speaker 1: I want people to know really who you are. So
Speaker 1: let's give everyone a little bit of background about who's
Speaker 1: joining us today on Civicsider.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm an attorney. I've been an attorney since nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty before you parents were probably born. And I did
Speaker 4: eighteen years here in Phoenix representing battered women and molested children,
Speaker 4: and so I did a lot of that and that
Speaker 4: can really burn you right out. From there, I went
Speaker 4: to doing international human rights law and I worked for ABA,
Speaker 4: the State Department Germany, a various variety of different groups,
Speaker 4: and I lived in six different countries Hungary, Russia twice
Speaker 4: in Hungary, Cambodia, Kenya, Algeria, and then I worked in
Speaker 4: fourteen others, so all over the former Soviet Union, and
Speaker 4: then some other Africa countries that I worked in as well.
Speaker 4: So that was all on human rights, primarily related to
Speaker 4: violence against women and children, not solely, but primarily. And
Speaker 4: then I also did the in Hungary, I worked with
Speaker 4: the European Roman Rights Center. Do you know who Roma are?
Speaker 4: They might you might call them gypsies, yes, but the
Speaker 4: proper name is Roma. And so I represented them and
Speaker 4: eventually brought a case against the United Nations. It's an
Speaker 4: m versus unmik because of they placed the Roma refugees
Speaker 4: from the War of the Balkans on lead poison land,
Speaker 4: which they knew was lead poison, and they said it
Speaker 4: was for seven months and it was ten years before
Speaker 4: we got them off of there, So that took out
Speaker 4: a whole generation. I mean, it really destroys the children.
Speaker 4: And the same things happening where Flint, Chicago, Lesbos, Greece,
Speaker 4: Peru in a mining company, top mining town. So this
Speaker 4: is still going on. And I won the case in
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen. I started in twenty six so ten years
Speaker 4: to win that case. Finally won the case in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: M and the United Nations has not paid one dime,
Speaker 4: not one dime. So we're still fighting that, trying to
Speaker 4: get the actual compensation for the people who were injured,
Speaker 4: and also an apology that they were told by the
Speaker 4: court give them an apology. They won't even do that.
Speaker 1: They won't do that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, one of the other things that I did
Speaker 4: when I was there was the Aroma very much look
Speaker 4: at the African American black struggle as a model for them.
Speaker 4: They really view the struggles that have gone on here
Speaker 4: is what they've gone through, and I saw it, and
Speaker 4: I'm old enough to have been in Chicago in nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty three doing marches, and so they are living and
Speaker 4: treated the way that African Americans were treated one hundred
Speaker 4: years ago. Oh third, wow, third women or second their
Speaker 4: third And so they had me bring over the nobles. Oh,
Speaker 4: it's very interesting. They had me bring over noble because
Speaker 4: they wanted to bring the black police officers over to
Speaker 4: talk to them about how they could respond appropriately to
Speaker 4: the hostility the violence from the police in Europe against them.
Speaker 4: So they are the most discriminated against group in Europe. Absolutely. Well,
Speaker 4: we're doing a panel the end of May on this
Speaker 4: and we're going to have the people from Peru, Greece,
Speaker 4: the US. We also have the lawyer who did the
Speaker 4: suit in Haiti. Remember when the UN came and everybody
Speaker 4: got cholera from the UN soldiers that they brought over
Speaker 4: from I forgot where somewhere, Yeah, And so they they
Speaker 4: didn't even get as far as I did, but they
Speaker 4: did sue the UN and again they didn't get fart.
Speaker 4: So part of the whole thing is holding institutions accountable,
Speaker 4: holding institutions accountable.
Speaker 1: And that's something that I've gathered from your action alerts,
Speaker 1: the email that I get. So for those that don't know,
Speaker 1: Diane Post is very involved with the legal goings on
Speaker 1: in the city and the state, and she has an
Speaker 1: email list where she keeps folks like me, I mean,
Speaker 1: as informed as as we can be. And all we
Speaker 1: need to do is just kind of peruse what's what's
Speaker 1: up for vote.
Speaker 4: And most important to you that you want to take
Speaker 4: time to respond on.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, And so we're going to talk about how
Speaker 1: people can plug into that a little bit later on
Speaker 1: in the show, because we want to talk about what's
Speaker 1: on the floor as well. But this is who's joining
Speaker 1: us today. So again, as Q mentioned, an esteemed guest,
Speaker 1: someone that is very much an ally and very much
Speaker 1: obviously someone who's willing to get in the trenches and
Speaker 1: and make some stuff happen. So thank you again for
Speaker 1: joining us today. It's it's really an honor to to
Speaker 1: even be able to stay with you. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that. But there was something that happened this week
Speaker 1: that Q and I decided that we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: So we'll start there. And for those of you who
Speaker 1: have the TMZ app on your phone, for those of you,
Speaker 1: you're I hear you, Q, I hear you signing, OK,
Speaker 1: but you know you might not really understand or you
Speaker 1: might not be able to guess how how I'm going
Speaker 1: to deal with this. But anyway, for those who have
Speaker 1: the TMZ app, you might have seen. For those that
Speaker 1: don't or don't really pay attention to TMZ, there was
Speaker 1: an an uh AN officer last week. He was in
Speaker 1: I want to say it was South Carolina, pulled over
Speaker 1: a twenty year old with no headlights on on his car,
Speaker 1: and you pulled him out of the car at gunpoint
Speaker 1: and it's all red ordered. There's a video of it.
Speaker 1: And the officer, of course, was very firm with the
Speaker 1: young man and obviously, if there's a gun pointed at you,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna fear for your life. And that's
Speaker 1: what the young man ended up saying. His mother, Uh,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, she was able to watch the
Speaker 1: whole thing as it unfolded, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: have been pulled out of a car at gunpoint by
Speaker 1: the police before, and you know, and Q and I
Speaker 1: we talk about these sorts of things all the time,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to go through this on the
Speaker 1: show so that we can really look at it. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna look at it from the side
Speaker 1: of the officer, because if I'm honest, you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a step in the right direction the way
Speaker 1: the officer handled it. So first off, I want to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on on a Q talk to me.
Speaker 3: Ram just pointed out that I there was an audible sigh.
Speaker 3: And when we first sat down and had our first
Speaker 3: conversation about what we thought this platform could and would
Speaker 3: provide to people, we were very, very aware and very
Speaker 3: I don't want to say self conscious, but we were.
Speaker 3: We never wanted it to become an echo chamber, and
Speaker 3: we never wanted to look at each other and say, man,
Speaker 3: are we talking about this again? Yeah, just to not
Speaker 3: exhaust our listeners, you know what I mean, to not
Speaker 3: wear on them, and to have this content that's so
Speaker 3: heavy that it's exhausting to say and exhausting to listen to.
Speaker 3: The audible side was more about us having another one
Speaker 3: of these situations to talk about. Sure this one did
Speaker 3: not play out the way many have. And I think
Speaker 3: we're both kind of you know that SI is more
Speaker 3: relief at that point, and you and I are I
Speaker 3: don't know if the term survivor is proper, but you
Speaker 3: and I, but you and I together are survivors of
Speaker 3: a hostile interaction with law enforcement. So you know, these
Speaker 3: situations for those of you who have not had the
Speaker 3: pleasure of going through them, resonate differently. When you have.
Speaker 3: It's from a it's more more of a first person account,
Speaker 3: and you're kind of reading, watching and hoping when I
Speaker 3: get to the end of this, I hope that this
Speaker 3: young man, or this family, or this young woman that
Speaker 3: they get to go home to their families, and we
Speaker 3: can be upset about things not going the way that
Speaker 3: they should have, but relieved that they didn't go the
Speaker 3: way that they could have.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: So, I'm going to pass the ball back to Ramses.
Speaker 3: But when I forwarded the mess to you, it was
Speaker 3: more of it was more to see how it would
Speaker 3: bounce off of you, right, because we see so many
Speaker 3: of these cases, we see so many examples of things
Speaker 3: that go horribly wrong. There was some nuance to this
Speaker 3: when I thought that you would appreciate it, and I
Speaker 3: thought our audience would as well.
Speaker 1: So let's provide the nuance. In this instance, there had
Speaker 1: just been a shooting, like I believe a house in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. There was a shooting at a house, and
Speaker 1: so the police were already looking for someone who might
Speaker 1: have been moving suspiciously, or might have been trying to
Speaker 1: be conceal themselves or whatever. So from the officer's perspective,
Speaker 1: if you see a car with no headlights, that's probably
Speaker 1: something worth investigating. That's fair. In my opinion, that's fair.
Speaker 1: And when you when you see the interaction, you recognize
Speaker 1: that the officer is again firm, but doesn't really lose
Speaker 1: you know it, you know, hear me out, It doesn't
Speaker 1: really lose it as illustrated by the fact that the
Speaker 1: kids still alive, and you know that we've been having
Speaker 1: these conversations and we have to be fair. We have
Speaker 1: to understand that. Okay, if they say it's a tough
Speaker 1: job to be a police officer, and I've never been
Speaker 1: a police officer, that's something that I can allow. I
Speaker 1: can we can admit that to the to the record.
Speaker 1: That can be a part of this conversation. It's a
Speaker 1: tough job. It might be scary when you're responding to
Speaker 1: a shooting at a house, you know, and you see
Speaker 1: a car with no headlights, because if that's the right person,
Speaker 1: there might be a gun in that car, and I
Speaker 1: might need to move with a degree of caution. That's fair,
Speaker 1: and you know it far be it from me to
Speaker 1: make the case for the police, but I will be
Speaker 1: fair and I expect the same right. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you first get these messages, and when I first
Speaker 1: got the message sent to my phone, it's very alarming.
Speaker 1: And as Q mentioned, this is something that and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, this is something that I've lived through myself
Speaker 1: in brief, and I believe I shared this story once
Speaker 1: before on the show. But in brief, I was nineteen
Speaker 1: years old. I was still in school. I was on
Speaker 1: my way to class, and I had my cousin in
Speaker 1: the car with me, and my cousin had just moved
Speaker 1: to Arizona from California. He was having an asthma attack.
Speaker 1: The climate is different here. He could not breathe. I'm
Speaker 1: only saying this because it's relevant to the story. My
Speaker 1: cousin is six foot six and extra dark skin. I
Speaker 1: think if Shaq and jay Z had a baby, that
Speaker 1: would be my cousin. He's not the sort of person
Speaker 1: that you know, are going to whatever comes to mind.
Speaker 1: You know, if, especially if you're afraid of black skin.
Speaker 1: This is what happened to to my cousin and I.
Speaker 1: So I went to the bank. I was driving a
Speaker 1: bright yellow Dodge Knee. I remember this is around the
Speaker 1: time of Fast and Furious. So I got almost two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars Maco paint jobs, put some eighteen's on my car,
Speaker 1: and I was the man nineteen right, but a bright
Speaker 1: yellow Dodge Knee. It's a very visible car. Went to
Speaker 1: the bank, pulled out money from the ATM. This is
Speaker 1: days before cash app and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: I was gonna buy my cousin in and haler so
Speaker 1: he could breathe while I went to class. As soon
Speaker 1: as I left the bank parking lot, please get behind
Speaker 1: me out of nowhere. And because I'm me and conscious,
Speaker 1: I don't like the police behind me. I know that
Speaker 1: that can lead to bad things. So I immediately turned
Speaker 1: down a neighborhood street to let this officer go on
Speaker 1: his way because I hadn't been on the road long
Speaker 1: enough for him to get behind me. Because I hadn't
Speaker 1: done any there was no moving for me to have
Speaker 1: a moving violation. Turn down the next street I find,
Speaker 1: and the officer follows me. But when I'm looking out
Speaker 1: the rear view, but now I see a second car
Speaker 1: behind him. So I'm like, oh, oh, they are on
Speaker 1: to me. And then they turn on the lights, pull
Speaker 1: me over, and you know, I know the drill at
Speaker 1: this point in my life, so you know, they're on
Speaker 1: the horn and they're telling me what to do. Stick
Speaker 1: your you, throw your keys out the window, stick your
Speaker 1: hands out the window with your left hand, open the door,
Speaker 1: push the door away from you, keep your hands up,
Speaker 1: you know, step out of the car, walk back to
Speaker 1: the sound of my voice, and I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1: If you make any sudden movements, we will kill you. Now.
Speaker 1: We will shoot you, not we will wound.
Speaker 2: You or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it's it's the most terrifying thing that you could
Speaker 1: ever hear. I don't hide my emotions on this show.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I'm a weak person. And if
Speaker 1: I feel something, I I feel it all the way
Speaker 1: through and through. That was one moment in my life
Speaker 1: when I did not cry. I was too afraid to cry.
Speaker 1: I never I'm from Compton, California. I never thought I
Speaker 1: was going to die until that moment. It was the
Speaker 1: wildest thing. I was like, They're going to kill me.
Speaker 1: What did I do? What's wrong? And of course you
Speaker 1: know it's for their protection, but it's so weird because
Speaker 1: there's supposed to protect us, I know, right, anyway, let
Speaker 1: me let me, let me get the story off, because
Speaker 1: I do want to hear I want to hear both
Speaker 1: of your reactions if I can, So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: walking back. And then they asked me to lift my
Speaker 1: shirt up. So I remember I'm facing away from the
Speaker 1: officers are all behind me. I reached down, I lift
Speaker 1: up my shirt. I didn't make any set of movements,
Speaker 1: and so you could see my waist and that I
Speaker 1: didn't have any weapons on my waist or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the point of that. And then
Speaker 1: they asked me to rotate slowly. And when I rotated,
Speaker 1: remember I said there was two police cars. Well now
Speaker 1: there's like eight, and they all have guns like shot
Speaker 1: and handguns, and they're behind doors and this whole thing right,
Speaker 1: And now it's like you know that feeling when the
Speaker 1: blood goes from away from your face and your everything
Speaker 1: is cold and your heart is beating like so hard
Speaker 1: on your chest and and it feels like your heart
Speaker 1: is moving you and everything you think is like I'm
Speaker 1: doing the wrong thing. I'm doing the wrong and it
Speaker 1: you panic. And this is why I know what panic
Speaker 1: looks like, because I was there, and your brain says
Speaker 1: run your Your instincts say hide behind the car. You
Speaker 1: know there's wet there. They can they're gonna take this
Speaker 1: is it. And people say your life lashes before your eyes.
Speaker 1: That is so absolutely true. And it goes like that,
Speaker 1: and it's black and white, and and I remember this feeling.
Speaker 1: That's all I got to do. That's all the life
Speaker 1: I got to live. There was there was more what
Speaker 1: what what happens tomorrow? It's a it's a it's a bear.
Speaker 1: I felt so defeated looking at those weapons pointed at me.
Speaker 1: I was going to school, man, So you know, I'm terrified,
Speaker 1: And somehow I mechanically managed to still cooperate. You know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like out of body. It was
Speaker 1: like I was controlling my own body with a remote control,
Speaker 1: like a remote control car. And I didn't quite understand
Speaker 1: the control. So I'm like watching myself, just try my
Speaker 1: best to cooperate with these orders from this officer. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I get back back far enough. I'm looking away now.
Speaker 1: My heart's beating, you know, I'm backing toward the officers
Speaker 1: they get me and they put me in handcuffs, and
Speaker 1: I remember they were so mean they could like cut
Speaker 1: my arms up and I was bleeding. I remember when
Speaker 1: I went to class, my teacher, doctor Westerberg, she wanted
Speaker 1: to make a report because my hands were all cut
Speaker 1: up and they like grabbed my arms with the with
Speaker 1: the handcuffs.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: But I remember I told you about my cousin six ' six,
Speaker 1: dark skin. They asked him to get out of the car.
Speaker 1: Now he can't breathe still can't breathe. We had we
Speaker 1: had just left the bank to get the money, so.
Speaker 2: He can't believe he can't breathe before before.
Speaker 1: Already having a medical issue, and we're going to go
Speaker 1: to like the drug store or a pharmacy to get
Speaker 1: a hitler. So they pull him, they get him out
Speaker 1: of the car, same thing. They're just talking to him
Speaker 1: and I when when I stood when he stood up
Speaker 1: from the car, I was like, oh my god, cause
Speaker 1: he stands so tall, you know, and beautiful man, you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful to look at, but intimidating if you're taught that
Speaker 1: that's what a criminal looks like, or that's what a
Speaker 1: gang banger looks. My cousin has never been in a gang.
Speaker 1: He plays basketball. He's the funniest person you would ever meet.
Speaker 1: Means no, he's a huge teddy bear. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at him and you're trained to see
Speaker 1: them him as the enemy, and that's exactly they were
Speaker 1: treating him. And I'm like, you guys, don't get it.
Speaker 1: He's not Why are you so mad? You know? And
Speaker 1: he kind of kind of succumbed to those instincts a
Speaker 1: little bit more than I did. He wasn't as composed,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of big and awkward, you know. So
Speaker 1: when they're telling him to pick up his pants, his shirt,
Speaker 1: his shirt is a lot bigger than mine, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, he's he's been down and got
Speaker 1: you know, and he's trung. And when he moves, it's
Speaker 1: there's a grand movements, these la this large figure moving around.
Speaker 1: And so I saw it play out, and I saw
Speaker 1: how much more threatening he could have looked to them all.
Speaker 1: But he couldn't breathe he's trying to cooperate and he's
Speaker 1: awkward already, and so they were so mean to him,
Speaker 1: and I was. I I just remember being helpless, like,
Speaker 1: oh my God, they're going to kill my cousin, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I love him. He's older than me,
Speaker 1: and he's he's always loved me. And I'm just watching
Speaker 1: it happen, and again that feeling of being defeated, like
Speaker 1: there's you just have to watch the rest of this
Speaker 1: play out. So not to be too dramatic, they bring
Speaker 1: him back to the car, a different car, and then
Speaker 1: they go through my car and then they take out
Speaker 1: my backpack and they throw my homework on the ground,
Speaker 1: and then they went through my back seat and you know,
Speaker 1: remember this is all fast and furious times. So I
Speaker 1: have like speakers in my car and I have like,
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever else was in there, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't the cleanest car, but you know, it was my car,
Speaker 1: and they I just remember they took my homework and
Speaker 1: they emptied out my backpack on the on the street
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even the sidewalkers in the street, and
Speaker 1: they were just looking for whatever. And I had twenty
Speaker 1: dollars and they asked me where did I get the
Speaker 1: twenty dollars from? And I said, that's why I went
Speaker 1: to the bank. And I was like I was going
Speaker 1: to buy an inhaler for my cousin because he just
Speaker 1: came here from California. He doesn't have any money, he
Speaker 1: doesn't have a job, and he needs to He can't breathe.
Speaker 1: He couldn't breathe all night. That's why we're up so early.
Speaker 1: And finally they said that, okay, well you fit the
Speaker 1: description of suspicious characters or suspicious persons or something, and
Speaker 1: you can go. And I remember asking, well, can I
Speaker 1: have can somebody give me a note or somebody can
Speaker 1: have your name or something, because my teacher's gonna be
Speaker 1: mad because I'm gonna be late for school and I
Speaker 1: still have to go help my cousin, you know. And
Speaker 1: I remember that gave me the name and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Anyway, when school lived it, lived through it,
Speaker 1: it was fine. But I want to maintain I lived
Speaker 1: in Compden, California in the eighties, never had a gun
Speaker 1: pulled on me. The only time my life I ever
Speaker 1: had a gun pulled on is by the police.
Speaker 2: Isn't that weird?
Speaker 1: They're supposed to help. But this is not a beat
Speaker 1: up on the police a story as much as it
Speaker 1: is to illustrate how interactions often tend to go in
Speaker 1: at least my personal experience, and then of course that
Speaker 1: fits the larger narrative and how we understand the way
Speaker 1: that police tend to interact with black, particularly young black folks.
Speaker 1: But the reason why there's some parallels to this story
Speaker 1: here the one we saw in TMZ, is because they're
Speaker 1: very similar circumstances. The officers are doing their job. In
Speaker 1: the instance with me, they were looking for someone who
Speaker 1: had just robbed the bank, which I thought was very unfair.
Speaker 1: Remember I was driving a bright yellow Dodge Neon, which
Speaker 1: I don't think is the type of getaway car that
Speaker 1: you want when robbing a bank in the daytime, you know.
Speaker 1: And then very early on in the interaction, you can
Speaker 1: tell that we are not the folks that you're looking for.
Speaker 1: In any but once they I think a lot of times,
Speaker 1: once police commit to a direction that they want to
Speaker 1: go in, they're going to see it through to the end.
Speaker 1: And we talked about that last week with the man
Speaker 1: on the side of the road in the U haul
Speaker 1: where they're like, we want to search this U haul
Speaker 1: and he's like, man, I just it's a big truck.
Speaker 1: I did a small change where I thought this was
Speaker 1: right exit or whatever, there's no need to search my truck.
Speaker 1: And then now I have to stay here. Now I'm
Speaker 1: getting arrested. Now I have to call my parents, and
Speaker 1: you bring the dogs out. The dogs indicate that there's
Speaker 1: drugs in the truck where there's no drugs. So now
Speaker 1: that gives you license to search it. Three hours later,
Speaker 1: you've committed to this course of action. Meanwhile, all the
Speaker 1: crime in the world's happening, you know, out there in
Speaker 1: the real world, but you're here picking on me, and
Speaker 1: it feels very like it doesn't like I don't believe
Speaker 1: that the police would have treated me or my cousin
Speaker 1: that way if we were sixty five year old, privileged
Speaker 1: corporate executives who were white. And I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with profiling. And because
Speaker 1: that profiling often brings out the worst type of interactions
Speaker 1: and oftentimes, as we've seen, results in harm, death, false imprisonment,
Speaker 1: you name it, of black and brown bodies, it is
Speaker 1: important for us to continue to speak about these things.
Speaker 1: The reason why this this TMZ story was something that
Speaker 1: I wanted to highlight and Q wanted to highlight this
Speaker 1: week is because for this interaction specifically, I believe the
Speaker 1: officer played it fair. I'm just gonna say, you know,
Speaker 1: if that's the job you have to do, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I need you to sit down. This is what's going on.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone's on the same page, and you know
Speaker 1: I employ you to look it up. We'll put a
Speaker 1: link up on the on the uh Instagram and the
Speaker 1: Facebook for you to check it out yourself. But kudos
Speaker 1: to that officer for it's a tough job. Sure, and
Speaker 1: you did it the way you had to do it. Sure,
Speaker 1: and everybody walked away great and no one's bleeding and
Speaker 1: didn't really feel as unfair as at least my interaction felt,
Speaker 1: and so wanted to make sure I said that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're just tuning in the civic side, fer I'm
Speaker 1: your host Rams's job.
Speaker 2: They call me q Ward.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, and our guest today is be one of
Speaker 1: four Diane Post And you know earlier on, earlier on,
Speaker 1: we got to talk about the action alerts that you
Speaker 1: sent out. So I want you to explain what these
Speaker 1: action alerts are, and then let's talk about everything that
Speaker 1: you do are doing right now. But first I want
Speaker 1: to talk about these action alerts because this is really
Speaker 1: what got me to reach out to you.
Speaker 4: Okay, I started maybe five or six years ago doing
Speaker 4: this for the National Organization for Women. And what I do.
Speaker 4: I'm a lawyer, and so I actually worked at the
Speaker 4: legislature at one point in time, a long time ago.
Speaker 4: So what I do is I when the legislature starts,
Speaker 4: which is in mid January of every year, I read
Speaker 4: or at least look at every single bill that is introduced.
Speaker 4: And this year was a huge amount. Was eighteen hundred
Speaker 4: of them, if you can believe that, Yeah, eighteen hundred
Speaker 4: of them. And because sometimes what's in a bill, non
Speaker 4: lawyers wouldn't notice the way that that bill might be
Speaker 4: able to be used against you or in a negative way,
Speaker 4: and so even some lawyers wouldn't notice that. So I
Speaker 4: read them all, I look at them all and I say, oh, oh,
Speaker 4: this this could be a problem. So I make a
Speaker 4: chart of them, and then I follow them. I'm on
Speaker 4: the website for the state legislature, which sends you, oh,
Speaker 4: it's so much nicer now that it's automated. You can
Speaker 4: put the bills, you're following the numbers of the bills,
Speaker 4: and then every week you'll get an automatic alert from
Speaker 4: the state legislature that this bill is up for some
Speaker 4: kind of a hearing in the committee and the caucus,
Speaker 4: and you know, on the floor wherever. But at least
Speaker 4: then you know which bills are actually going and which
Speaker 4: are not. So then when I know a bill is
Speaker 4: actually going to be heard somewhere, then I will put
Speaker 4: it in my alert and say what happened last week.
Speaker 4: This is what happened last week, Bill X, Y, and
Speaker 4: Z was up, and this is what happened. It passed,
Speaker 4: it didn't pass, it moved on, it was you know,
Speaker 4: voted on. You know, all Republicans voted this way, all
Speaker 4: Democrats voted that way, or it was split or whatever
Speaker 4: the case may be. Then I have a section that
Speaker 4: said what's happening next week? So this is where you
Speaker 4: need to take action. So these bills that I've now enumerated,
Speaker 4: and I have my categories. I do criminal justice bills
Speaker 4: for the NAACP and other groups. I do women's rights
Speaker 4: bills for now well yeah, okay, I do voting rights
Speaker 4: bills because that's everybody out to be concerned about that right.
Speaker 4: And public school funding. I don't follow it that closely
Speaker 4: because a lot of other groups are following public school funding,
Speaker 4: you know, very closely. And I follow the police in
Speaker 4: BLM this year because this is really a focus this
Speaker 4: year which didn't exist before, which is attacking BLM and
Speaker 4: supporting the police, so that those are all on my
Speaker 4: list of bills I'm following. So then I find out
Speaker 4: what's happening next week, and I try to get my
Speaker 4: alert out Saturday morning, because the meetings start on Monday,
Speaker 4: so you have to contact them sometimes twenty four hours
Speaker 4: in advance, so you have to do it Saturday or Sunday.
Speaker 4: Now the meeting might be Wednesday, and you could do
Speaker 4: it Tuesday, obviously, but I try to get it out Saturday,
Speaker 4: maybe Sunday if it's really horrible, so that you have
Speaker 4: time to do it. And then you go through the bills.
Speaker 4: You can do every single one of them. So I
Speaker 4: put the bill with a short what it means, you know,
Speaker 4: a short summary of what it means, what it does,
Speaker 4: and why we should oppose it or support it, or
Speaker 4: that there's mixed parts of it. Sometimes there's mixed you know,
Speaker 4: some people think we should support it for that reason,
Speaker 4: other people think we should oppose it for that reason.
Speaker 4: Read it yourself and figure out what you think.
Speaker 1: Sure I've noticed that, yeah, or.
Speaker 4: I'll say no, that we should oppose this because of that,
Speaker 4: or we should support this because of that. And then
Speaker 4: I'll put in the third column the committee that it's
Speaker 4: going to be in. And if you're on RTS, which
Speaker 4: is the Request to Speak, which is the best thing
Speaker 4: to be on, you can just click the committee and
Speaker 4: then you send the email to everybody. If you're not
Speaker 4: on RTS. I also put in the names of the
Speaker 4: people who are on that committee, and then everybody's email
Speaker 4: down at the Legislature is first initial, last name at
Speaker 4: AZ LG so AZ Legislature LG dot org, so everybody
Speaker 4: just the same. So it's just so I put the
Speaker 4: name in there, and then you can just send them
Speaker 4: emails if you're not on the RTS system, so then
Speaker 4: you know that's for people to take action. And people
Speaker 4: don't have time to read all those bells. I barely
Speaker 4: have time to read all those bells. Sometimes it's taken
Speaker 4: me twenty two hours in a week to prepare this thing.
Speaker 4: That was the worst one. It was twenty two hours
Speaker 4: in one week.
Speaker 1: I kept track.
Speaker 4: And so people don't have time to read all of that,
Speaker 4: and they don't often understand what it means, and well,
Speaker 4: what has this got to do with me? Well, let
Speaker 4: me tell you what it's got to do with you.
Speaker 4: And then oh, yeah, okay, I didn't notice that, you know.
Speaker 4: And then what to do about it? You know, who
Speaker 4: to contact and what to say. I don't tell them
Speaker 4: what to say, but I have enough in the summary
Speaker 4: that you can come up with something right, you know,
Speaker 4: And so then I send that out every week and
Speaker 4: that goes on until the legislature is over with. And
Speaker 4: at this point in time, the committees are over The
Speaker 4: only committees that are meeting are Appropriations which is money,
Speaker 4: and Rules, which is a just a standing committee that's
Speaker 4: required to say it's constitutional. And they don't take testimony,
Speaker 4: they don't listen to their own rules attorneys. There's really
Speaker 4: no point in contacting. But those are the only two
Speaker 4: committees that's required that they go through the Rules Committee
Speaker 4: before they can land on the floor. So now most
Speaker 4: of the bills are you know, contact the Appropriations Committee,
Speaker 4: and there'll be more of that as the budget gets rolling,
Speaker 4: which has got to start pretty soon. And then contact
Speaker 4: your own senator or your own two representatives, because it's
Speaker 4: going to be on the floor. So that's what you know,
Speaker 4: the message is now, and then you choose what you
Speaker 4: want to do, and you do as much as you can.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's fifteen bills, Maybe you can't do fifteen, you
Speaker 4: can do two. Right, do whatever is most appropriate to
Speaker 4: you and what's most tugs at your heart strength.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, and I think that that's something that especially
Speaker 1: this new group who has been motivated to take action
Speaker 1: within the last year of our lives, they're looking for
Speaker 1: a way to parlay you know, their energy and their
Speaker 1: motivation to see some action into something meaningful beyond just
Speaker 1: a display and a protest and you know, marching on
Speaker 1: the streets. And so, you know, I thought that it
Speaker 1: was really meaningful to make this connection because, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how important it is to contact your senator.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how important it is to let your
Speaker 1: could the truth is. For me, at least until recently,
Speaker 1: I never really thought that. I mean I knew it
Speaker 1: because I taking Civics classes and these people work for me.
Speaker 1: I knew that, but I didn't really know it. And
Speaker 1: so when you call, you can have a little bit
Speaker 1: of bass in your voice. Look, you know, these do
Speaker 1: you work for me. This is the community I want
Speaker 1: to see, and I want you to understand that this
Speaker 1: is who I am, this is why, and this is
Speaker 1: how you'll continue to earn my vote. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of people who don't know that.
Speaker 1: But the things that will typically connect you to these
Speaker 1: elected representatives are the way they vote, the things that
Speaker 1: they vote on, the things that come to committee into
Speaker 1: the floor, and so forth, and so again, I thought
Speaker 1: it was very meaningful to have someone like you help
Speaker 1: ridge that gap.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to say something about the people thinking
Speaker 4: that what they do doesn't matter. It really really matters.
Speaker 4: Let me give you an example. It used to be
Speaker 4: well it still is. But the most impactful thing you
Speaker 4: can do is go and meet with them. But of course,
Speaker 4: all during COVID last year, they shut down early and
Speaker 4: we could meet, and this year we're not able to meet.
Speaker 4: So that's been off the table for a couple of years.
Speaker 4: But when we're back and able to do that, the
Speaker 4: most impactful thing is to go to meet with them. Why,
Speaker 4: because they have to look you in the faith, and
Speaker 4: because you've taken the time. It's pretty easy to send
Speaker 4: an email, it's pretty easy to click on the right
Speaker 4: to speak. It takes a little more time to get
Speaker 4: your body down there and actually meet with them. So
Speaker 4: when they don't want to meet with you, they'll never
Speaker 4: give you a meeting. And that's happened with a lot
Speaker 4: of legislators. They just don't Oh, I'm sorry, we don't
Speaker 4: have time. I'm all booked. They're busy meeting with lobbyists
Speaker 4: who give them money for their campaigns. That's who they're
Speaker 4: meeting with. So the second most impactful thing you can
Speaker 4: do is telephone them. Again, it takes more time to
Speaker 4: actually telephone them than it does to just click on
Speaker 4: an email or click on a right to speak. Right,
Speaker 4: those things are valuable. The phone call is the next
Speaker 4: most valuable, since we can't meet with them. They actually
Speaker 4: keep hashmarks. They're required to keep hashmarks of homny calls
Speaker 4: they get on this bill, how many calls they get
Speaker 4: on that bell, and if they get ten or more
Speaker 4: this is down here at Arizona, seventeen hundred West Wash
Speaker 4: If they get ten or more calls on a bill,
Speaker 4: they go, oh my god, this is really people are
Speaker 4: really concerned about this.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ten or more, that's not a lot at all.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely doable, and that will get them, Oh, I
Speaker 4: better pay attention to this. Oftentimes they will go in
Speaker 4: they don't even know what they're voting on. The caucus decides, okay,
Speaker 4: we're supporting these, Okay, we're not supporting these. That's the
Speaker 4: leadership of the party that's telling them what to support
Speaker 4: and what not to support. But when they get ten
Speaker 4: calls from their own constituents, they go, oh, holy mackerel,
Speaker 4: I better pay ten What is this about? I mean,
Speaker 4: I was out of hearing the other night when the
Speaker 4: guy that introduced the bill, he had no idea what
Speaker 4: the bill was about. It was quite complicated, and it's
Speaker 4: one of the most horrible bills there are, and it's
Speaker 4: very long and complicated. He wasn't an attorney, and he
Speaker 4: just came in and he just said, oh, here's a bill,
Speaker 4: and this is what it does. And then when the
Speaker 4: question started and the lawyers started in, and he could
Speaker 4: not answer any questions at all because you didn't know anything.
Speaker 4: He was told undoubtedly by Alec introduced this and boom
Speaker 4: he did. So he called on an attorney from the
Speaker 4: Alliance Defending Freedom, which is one of those names that
Speaker 4: means the opposite of what it says. You know, they're
Speaker 4: not defending freedom at all. So he called on that
Speaker 4: attorney who happened to be there physically and spoke up.
Speaker 4: But then we had our attorneys who were all online.
Speaker 4: And when we started hammer hammer hammer, hammer, bang bang
Speaker 4: bang bang, what does this mean? What does that mean?
Speaker 4: Doesn't that do that? Doesn't that? Doesn't that the cap
Speaker 4: he was ub ub ubbo, and it became perfectly clear
Speaker 4: that this was somebody else's agenda and you were just
Speaker 4: following along. There was a couple of attorneys on the
Speaker 4: committee as well, and we had fed them information ahead
Speaker 4: of time so they could speak very intelligently about it
Speaker 4: and say, well, this is absolutely incredible. Even a non
Speaker 4: lawyer could read this thing and see that this absolutely
Speaker 4: means X y Z, you know, so it is so
Speaker 4: important and ten calls.
Speaker 1: Will get attention. I'm so glad you said that, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think that, at least for me, when
Speaker 1: you launch a phone in campaign, you know, you make
Speaker 1: a phone call and then you think like, okay, well
Speaker 1: I've done my part. I hope that a thousand of
Speaker 1: us meet, you know what I mean. But to know
Speaker 1: that you're one of ten that would you know, change it.
Speaker 1: It makes you feel like, Okay, I'm making an impact
Speaker 1: with my phone.
Speaker 4: The other thing I hear from people that get my
Speaker 4: action alerts say well, I don't know what to say.
Speaker 4: What would I say? I'm not a lawyer, I don't
Speaker 4: know anything. Well number when you haven't written, But they
Speaker 4: don't want you to be a lawyer. They don't care.
Speaker 4: That's not why you should be calling. You call and
Speaker 4: you say, my name is x y Z. I'm a constituent.
Speaker 4: I'm concerned about this bill because my child school doesn't
Speaker 4: have you know, I don't have good internet at home,
Speaker 4: and now my child has to study at home and
Speaker 4: I can't. You know, the child can't often go to
Speaker 4: the Zoom meetings because the internet is and we need
Speaker 4: to have internet be regulated as a utility. You don't
Speaker 4: have to say that because you may not go that far.
Speaker 4: But my child needs good, consistent, fast broadband.
Speaker 1: No, I want to say this now that you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: This is I'm so glad you're here because this whole
Speaker 1: process is something that again is so foreign to wake up.
Speaker 1: They go to work, Yes, they pay their bills, they
Speaker 1: raise their kids for fifteen minutes day, correct, and then
Speaker 1: they try to get a little sleep. But a phone
Speaker 1: call or as you mentioned, if you can get some
Speaker 1: FaceTime with someone, it goes so such a long lean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm learning this right now. So if you're listening to
Speaker 1: our voices, you know, and you're learning something new, understand
Speaker 1: that we got the right one in the studio today.
Speaker 4: There are many places that well. And if you're afraid
Speaker 4: to speak, I mean, you know, the speaking in public
Speaker 4: is often the most scary thing for like the majority
Speaker 4: of people are terrified to speaking in public. So but
Speaker 4: you're not speaking in public, you're just speaking on the phone.
Speaker 4: And maybe you won't even get the particular religious tour.
Speaker 4: You'll get their aid and that's even better because their
Speaker 4: aids are probably a lot nicer than they are. Be
Speaker 4: nice to the aids. Always be nice to the secretaries
Speaker 4: and the aids who can get you in that door,
Speaker 4: the secretary and the aids. That is something women learn
Speaker 4: that early on, and y'all should learn it because that
Speaker 4: who gets you in the door, and if they like you,
Speaker 4: they'll put your appointment ahead of some other people that
Speaker 4: were nasty to them or treated them like you know, well,
Speaker 4: You're just a secretary. You don't know anything, you know,
Speaker 4: And I was secretary when I was going to law
Speaker 4: school and when I was going to college, and that's
Speaker 4: exactly what I did. You want to treat me trash.
Speaker 4: I'll guess what, honey, where's your memo? Bam in the
Speaker 4: trash goes your memo. You know, So don't do that.
Speaker 4: Don't do that. Them are the important people. Those other
Speaker 4: people down there know what they're doing, most of.
Speaker 2: Them, all right.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you this, What are some
Speaker 1: of the issues that are being voted on or gusts
Speaker 1: or whatever that stand out in your mind as things
Speaker 1: that people should really get behind immediately.
Speaker 4: Well, voting rights. We know that nationwide there are tax
Speaker 4: on voting rights. I mean, Georgia is obviously an example,
Speaker 4: but there are here two and I have fifteen voting
Speaker 4: rights bills on my list, but just this morning I
Speaker 4: read somebody that said there's twenty two still moving. So
Speaker 4: I've obviously missed a few. So I get three other
Speaker 4: alerts like this, so that you know, we're all sharing
Speaker 4: with each other. So voting rights is a huge issue,
Speaker 4: and we seem to be at an unable to stop
Speaker 4: Karen Fan at the Senate. But we can stop Deucy,
Speaker 4: And how do you stop Deucy? The business community, the governor,
Speaker 4: The governor and the business community came out today and said,
Speaker 4: don't do these voter voter suppression bills. Don't sign them
Speaker 4: because why who got boycotted Georgia and that Major League
Speaker 4: Baseball League team or whatever it was that didn't happen.
Speaker 4: What's coming up in Phoenix in twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 4: Super Bowl? Oh wow, in Glendale in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: Who boycotted Phoenix and got us Mlkday?
Speaker 2: The NFL?
Speaker 4: That was black folks, and that was the NFL. So
Speaker 4: I've written to him already, and you can go on
Speaker 4: his web page, you know, write him a handwritten letter,
Speaker 4: go on his web page, do whatever, but remind him
Speaker 4: businesses are not going to stand for this. They're not
Speaker 4: going to stand for it. Remember MLK Day, Remember the
Speaker 4: NFL who are set to be here on twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: Don't do this because we will mount a boycott.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's something that's I think it's incredible
Speaker 1: about this sort of thing, because you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: an intersection where corporate interests have to consider cultural interests.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes it comes late.
Speaker 4: In our opinion is yes, well it's like four hundred
Speaker 4: years too.
Speaker 1: Late, just a few years too late, centuries. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: eventually it comes in there and you have to come
Speaker 1: to terms with Okay, do we want to be on
Speaker 1: the right side of this or the wrong side of this?
Speaker 1: And even if you morally don't care, monetarily it'll make sense.
Speaker 1: And so that's now.
Speaker 4: You know that there was a huge number of black
Speaker 4: CEOs that put out a statement saying, don't do this.
Speaker 4: So now there's a big push white CEOs where y'all.
Speaker 1: At, Come on, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: Come on, get up here.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 4: So that's now the push. And like you're saying, this
Speaker 4: is we hope it's happening, but we hoped it was
Speaker 4: happening in nineteen sixty eight too.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm old enough to remember those days and
Speaker 4: have gone through those days and thought we'd achieved something,
Speaker 4: and here we are.
Speaker 1: Well, I implore you, if you're listening to the show to
Speaker 1: speak of which, let's talk about it. How would someone
Speaker 1: receive these action A lists?
Speaker 4: Oh, I just need to get their email. I'll put
Speaker 4: them on the mail Chimp and can they email you?
Speaker 4: Can they send it to your show and then you
Speaker 4: give it to me boom send your email to.
Speaker 1: Send us a direct message. You can find us on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Instagram. Just look for Civic Cipher or you
Speaker 1: can go to civiccipher dot com and then we'll connect.
Speaker 4: You shoot it to me and they're on the list.
Speaker 1: I can do that. Yeah, absolutely. Now, we did talk
Speaker 1: about voter suppression. We've been talking about that quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And then next week's show we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about the stop Asian hate. We're going to have some
Speaker 1: folks from the AAPI community up to talk about that.
Speaker 1: But is there anything beyond voter suppression? Oh yes, that
Speaker 1: you think that we should know about that's happening behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, if you will, Oh yes, we're not aware of.
Speaker 4: One thing is happening two days from now, and I
Speaker 4: hope that the people in Phoenix will get on top
Speaker 4: of this. And that is you know how we've been
Speaker 4: trying to get that Police Advisory Board in Phoenix since
Speaker 4: I moved here in nineteen eighty and we were trying
Speaker 4: to get it then, that is forty one years ago
Speaker 4: and we don't have it yet. So that's that's one thing.
Speaker 4: But the city has now come to a quote agreement
Speaker 4: unquote with Plea. You know, Plea is the police. I
Speaker 4: can't remember what it stands for, but anyway, it's the union.
Speaker 4: It's the police union. So they've come to a quote
Speaker 4: agreement with them. And so if they approve this agreement,
Speaker 4: then they're going to give the police a raise, okay,
Speaker 4: a race. So this meeting, you got it, you heard me,
Speaker 4: I know, shake your head. So this meeting is happening. Well,
Speaker 4: the meetings are. There are these budget hearings going on
Speaker 4: all around the city, so whatever district you're in, you
Speaker 4: need to pay attention to this. So I'm an eight,
Speaker 4: which is Carlos Garcia, and he's having a variety of
Speaker 4: different meanings for different meetings. One in Spanish, three in English.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah. So the one I'm going to is
Speaker 4: the eighth, and I'm going to speak against it because
Speaker 4: of several things. Plea is not giving you anything. Plea
Speaker 4: is giving nothing in this quote agreement. I read it today.
Speaker 4: I just saw it today. I read it today, and
Speaker 4: what they're saying is number one, if you found a
Speaker 4: police complaint through the City of Phoenix Police Department complaint system,
Speaker 4: if anybody ever has. At the bottom, it says filing
Speaker 4: a false report against a police officer is a crime
Speaker 4: and you will be charged. Well, this is done deliberately
Speaker 4: to scare people, right, So they've agreed to remove that
Speaker 4: from their website. Well, guess what. There's a bill in
Speaker 4: the state legislature to make it mandatory to be a
Speaker 4: misdemeanor one to file a false report, and it will
Speaker 4: be required on all police departments around the entire state
Speaker 4: to put on their complaint form. So PLEA gets what
Speaker 4: they gave up through the legislative process. This is Kavanaugh,
Speaker 4: who is an ex transit officer from New Jersey, who
Speaker 4: is the police you know, water carrier, the gopher boy
Speaker 4: that has passed the House, it's passed the Senate Judiciary,
Speaker 4: in the Senate rules. It's only got one step left
Speaker 4: or two steps. One step is being passed on the
Speaker 4: Senate floor and then going to do sye. So PLEA
Speaker 4: will get what they want. Even though they quote agree
Speaker 4: to give it up. The second thing they're agreeing to
Speaker 4: give up is right now, the they have a provision
Speaker 4: in their union agreement that the officer gets told about
Speaker 4: any complaint and has to meet or can meet with
Speaker 4: the union before he has to go to meet with
Speaker 4: the investigator, you know, so they can get their stories straight, right,
Speaker 4: And so they would remove that they that they would
Speaker 4: have to meet with the union before, and also that
Speaker 4: they would create this database of disciplinary officers and they
Speaker 4: could use these disciplines in you know, hiring promotion. Bloody,
Speaker 4: bloody black Well, guess what, there's a bill by Kavanaugh
Speaker 4: at the state legislature. No, it's not by Kavanaugh's Pingarelli
Speaker 4: in pain at the state legislature that does two things.
Speaker 4: It requires officers to get a ten day notice of
Speaker 4: any time you're going to put anything negative about them
Speaker 4: in this database. So in ten days, it doesn't mandate
Speaker 4: they go to the union, But would you go to
Speaker 4: the union to get your story straight?
Speaker 1: You know you would.
Speaker 4: And then the other part of that says that they
Speaker 4: would not that they would be able to use this
Speaker 4: database on the negative things that they would allow that. Well,
Speaker 4: the legislative, the piece of legislature that's up, legislation that
Speaker 4: is up says this database cannot be used in any
Speaker 4: actions against the officer I mean, it's useless database. Why
Speaker 4: would you have a database of what's the point of
Speaker 4: having a database of disciplinary of officers who's received discipline
Speaker 4: that you can't use her anything. You can't even fire them,
Speaker 4: you can't even demote them, you can't even suspect what
Speaker 4: would be the point of even having it. That thing.
Speaker 4: That thing has passed past the House and is also
Speaker 4: in the Senate. It's past Senate Judiciary. Senate rules has
Speaker 4: two steps center floor. Inducing So again PLEA pretends to
Speaker 4: be giving up something in this quote agreement, but they're
Speaker 4: not giving up anything. And the third thing is, oh,
Speaker 4: I tell you that there am oh that please insisted
Speaker 4: that the person who sat on this public advisory committee
Speaker 4: had to be a police officer and we said no,
Speaker 4: and oh it's public advisor committee. And you can't police yourself.
Speaker 4: Nobody can police themselves. Lawyers can't police themselves, doctors can
Speaker 4: Nobody can police themselves because of inherent conflict of interest. Right,
Speaker 4: so they'll give that up.
Speaker 1: Well, guess what.
Speaker 4: Kavanaugh has a bill in the legislature right now, and
Speaker 4: it lays out the requirements, the experience and the training
Speaker 4: that one would have to have to sit on a
Speaker 4: citizen's Advisory Board. The only people who would qualify would
Speaker 4: be cops. So it's past the House, it's past the
Speaker 4: Senate Judiciary, it's past the rules. All it has to
Speaker 4: do is pass the floor and go deducing. So the
Speaker 4: plea is giving nothing and in return they want to race.
Speaker 4: So of course I gave you know, I gave the testimony.
Speaker 4: I sent it in because last time when I tried
Speaker 4: to get on, I couldn't get on the live testimony.
Speaker 4: And I think they know me, so they probably just
Speaker 4: did that. So so that is Thursday if you're in
Speaker 4: a if you're in District eight. But but the other
Speaker 4: thing is on the race. These are two suggestions you
Speaker 4: can do. Number one, the police department, when they lose
Speaker 4: lawsuits against them, the cost of the lawsuit should come
Speaker 4: out of the police budget. That's fair, right, Why should
Speaker 4: we call up more money?
Speaker 2: So currently it comes from the city.
Speaker 4: It comes from the city, not from the well. The
Speaker 4: police budget also comes from the city, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: come out of their direct cash that they got for themselves.
Speaker 2: Understood.
Speaker 4: The second thing that's been going around for ten years
Speaker 4: now is officers should have to buy malpractice insurance.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 4: Lawyers have to, doctors have to. When you behave unreasonably,
Speaker 4: you should pay for your mistakes, not me. Why should
Speaker 4: I pay for your mistake?
Speaker 1: Right? Let me ask you something, you know what I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna. I'm gonna come back and ask the question
Speaker 1: because I want to get your thoughts on where this, what,
Speaker 1: what the thinking behind this? Defend the police initiative in
Speaker 1: response to defund the police initiative? So, oh, I can
Speaker 1: tell you, of course you get if you're just tuning
Speaker 1: in the civic side. Fer I'm your host, Rams's job.
Speaker 2: They called me q Ward and our.
Speaker 1: Guest today is Diane Post And yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: get your thoughts. So defend the police. It seems like
Speaker 1: they are able to get away with murder literally and
Speaker 1: they don't want to be held responsible in the same
Speaker 1: way that a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. And there's this
Speaker 1: push to like, have people been brainwashed in the things
Speaker 1: or is it just that the police serve this community
Speaker 1: and don't serve that community. And because they serve this
Speaker 1: community's interest, there's this push to thee oh, let's keep
Speaker 1: it the way it is. What do you think you.
Speaker 4: Know how police started? Right?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the South, slave patrols to bring back.
Speaker 1: What people's property property.
Speaker 4: And somebody was, you know, yelling at me about this,
Speaker 4: and they and so what was the Pinkerton's in the north,
Speaker 4: you know, private security guards to do what protect people's
Speaker 4: property and beat up the miners and the people who
Speaker 4: were striking, and it's all about protecting property now. So
Speaker 4: so that's they evolved. And so who's surprised that the
Speaker 4: Klan is in the police department? I mean, who's surprised
Speaker 4: about that?
Speaker 2: A lot of people pretend to be.
Speaker 4: People pretend to be You can't really be that stupid,
Speaker 4: can you? But actually I think I think it's possible
Speaker 4: that you can be that stupid. But so that's a
Speaker 4: big thing. So then there's fear.
Speaker 2: There's fear.
Speaker 4: White people have fear and it's not justified, and it's
Speaker 4: been you know, centuries of training white brains to be
Speaker 4: afraid of dark skin.
Speaker 1: Listen, white folks, we are not your enemy. We love you, duh.
Speaker 1: I just want to say that.
Speaker 4: So they're afraid, and they're most afraid too, of losing
Speaker 4: their position.
Speaker 1: I want to say this real quick, because most folks
Speaker 1: listen to us on the radio you are white. I am.
Speaker 1: That's what you told me.
Speaker 4: That's the rumor.
Speaker 1: But you know, folks listening to that, So I think
Speaker 1: it's important to say this because yes, you know, if
Speaker 1: we were to say something like this, it might sound,
Speaker 1: you know, coming from your from your lips, it sounds.
Speaker 4: I can say what you can't say, and you can
Speaker 4: say things I can't say, right, exactly exactly one of
Speaker 4: the I've been reading about this, and I just watched
Speaker 4: a really good seminar today on how your brain learns
Speaker 4: these bad things? How come we're stuck on these stupid
Speaker 4: ideas and bad ideas and we can't get it off,
Speaker 4: and the guys describing it, and both the book and
Speaker 4: the guy today that I listened to, we learn these
Speaker 4: things at a foundational level. We learn them young, and
Speaker 4: we're told certain things when we're young, and that becomes
Speaker 4: the foundation, and we you know, we learn more as
Speaker 4: we get older, and we pile on top of that,
Speaker 4: and we pile on top of that, and we hope.
Speaker 4: You go to college and you pile on top of that,
Speaker 4: and you file on top of that. So you learn
Speaker 4: and you changed your mind because you learn new things
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. But he said, when it's a
Speaker 4: foundational belief, it's hard to throw it out because, for example,
Speaker 4: if I told you, well, you know, the English alphabet
Speaker 4: doesn't really have twenty six letters, and A and C
Speaker 4: really don't look like that, you just she's out of
Speaker 4: her mind, and she says, what you're talking about, right,
Speaker 4: that that can't be. And another example is my own mother.
Speaker 4: I think she was fifty two or fifty four or
Speaker 4: some and i'd gotten around to go with me to
Speaker 4: you know, politic for some woman and all kinds of things,
Speaker 4: and I and we went to get a beer, because
Speaker 4: that's what you do in Wisconsin when you're politic and
Speaker 4: you're going to get a beer. So I said, nah,
Speaker 4: just admit you're a feminist. She got so mad at me.
Speaker 4: She just came on glued and yelled at me and said,
Speaker 4: I'm not a feminist.
Speaker 2: I'm not a feminist.
Speaker 4: I'm not a feminist. I said, mah, you believe everything
Speaker 4: that feminists believe. Do You believe in equality between women
Speaker 4: and men? Of course, you believe in quipee. Of course
Speaker 4: you believe women should have a choice. Oh of course
Speaker 4: you know. So okay, but what about you? Isn't a feminist,
Speaker 4: And she said, and this taught me something that I'll
Speaker 4: never forget. She said, if I admit then I'm a feminist.
Speaker 4: My entire life has been a lie. I've lived my
Speaker 4: entire life as a lie. And I'm not strong enough
Speaker 4: to throw that away. She got you know, she didn't
Speaker 4: want to get married, but she got pregnant, so she
Speaker 4: got married, She had her baby, She stayed home, she
Speaker 4: wanted to work. She wanted to go to college. She
Speaker 4: wanted to go to school so bad that at eighth grade,
Speaker 4: her dad wouldn't let her go to school. So she
Speaker 4: waited two years till they moved to town. And then
Speaker 4: she went to school two years older than everybody else
Speaker 4: because she wanted to go to school so bad. And
Speaker 4: she finished high school. But she wanted to go to
Speaker 4: college and she wasn't never able to go. When I
Speaker 4: tried to get her to go in the fifties and forties,
Speaker 4: she wasn't going.
Speaker 1: To do it.
Speaker 4: But I understood from her then this so attacks is,
Speaker 4: She said, my whole life is a lie. I mean,
Speaker 4: what if I were to say, I don't know what
Speaker 4: could think of to say, I haven't lived my life
Speaker 4: like that. But so for a white person in the
Speaker 4: South who believes that blacks are inferior, all right, to
Speaker 4: say you've been wrong your whole life. You know you're
Speaker 4: wrong your whole life. You know that's absolutely not true. Biologically,
Speaker 4: there is no race. There is only one race in
Speaker 4: the entire universe. There is only one and this is
Speaker 4: none of this is true. They would have to admit
Speaker 4: that they'd live their life as a lie the entire time,
Speaker 4: and that's a fundamental foundational belief of them. And they
Speaker 4: can't pull it out. They can't pull it out and.
Speaker 1: Throw it away.
Speaker 4: So this is how he was explaining, how we get
Speaker 4: these crazy ideas about things and just can't let them go.
Speaker 1: Well, it's unfortunate because we are there's been some masterful
Speaker 1: execution over the years with respect to hitting us against
Speaker 1: each other. Yes, and it's unfortunate that we are on
Speaker 1: this side of it and have to appeal to good
Speaker 1: kind people who can see beyond their own you know,
Speaker 1: four walls, their own front porch, and you know, say
Speaker 1: you know that's not right, you know, like yourself, and
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of folks that have come
Speaker 1: up on the show, and a lot of folks who
Speaker 1: listen to the show every week who might not have
Speaker 1: as much melanin, but they are just as much human
Speaker 1: as our sisters and our brothers, and recognize that in
Speaker 1: a lot of instances that melanin counts against us their
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. And so when it comes to this
Speaker 1: defend defund thing with the police, I think anyone listening
Speaker 1: to that would recognize that the police don't need defending.
Speaker 1: They are literally a runaway trained. But there's still going
Speaker 1: to be these people who push back against I mean,
Speaker 1: it might not be a perfect plan, but it's certainly
Speaker 1: something that is like causing folks to reconsider what it
Speaker 1: takes to keep communities safe. All right, glhead, and we
Speaker 1: got about a minute or so left.
Speaker 4: I've even heard from white people, well you know that
Speaker 4: they they shouldn't be using the word defund because you know,
Speaker 4: it just confuses people. And I say, you have no
Speaker 4: business telling them how to run their own civil right strike,
Speaker 4: so shut up, talk to you know, shut up.
Speaker 1: You know that's why civic sciphers on the radio. Hey listen,
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that so much. And you
Speaker 1: know what that that's just as good as a place
Speaker 1: to wrap this up. So one more time.
Speaker 3: Even though we could talk to her first, I could
Speaker 3: go on for hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to turn the mics off and please
Speaker 1: don't talk a little more, but yes, please please consider
Speaker 1: plugging in with Diane Post. Of course you can reach
Speaker 1: her through our.
Speaker 4: Two ends and Diane, if you look me up on the.
Speaker 1: Internet again, that's Diane Post. You know, get behind her,
Speaker 1: get behind what she's doing. Be active in your communities.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of this stuff affects all of Arizona.
Speaker 1: You can be in Tucson, you can be you can
Speaker 1: be in flag stuff wherever you are, wherever you live,
Speaker 1: these things affect you as well. And of course you
Speaker 1: can reach her through our website, that civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 1: You can. We're gonna have some some stuff up for
Speaker 1: her on our social media as well. That's all at
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher and I think that's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: us today. Once again, I'm your host rams this job
Speaker 1: and special guest, Diane Post. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: hanging out with us. Thank you, and uh don't forget
Speaker 1: to hit the website. Send us your topics download this
Speaker 1: in previous episodes, and as always, your donations are appreciated.
Speaker 1: You know, The show grows with your port and you
Speaker 1: can donate through civicside for dot com until next week.
Speaker 1: Y'alla peace,