Speaker 1: Keep going riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop
Speaker 1: weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am still
Speaker 1: your host, Ramsey's.
Speaker 2: JA, he said, still as if that'll ever change. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it ever does, there will be two new voices
Speaker 2: on these microphonees. So as long as he is still
Speaker 2: Ramsey's JA, I will remain q Ward young brother.
Speaker 3: Right there.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you that you guys are tuned in
Speaker 2: to Civic Cipher once.
Speaker 3: Again and we got a lot more free to stick
Speaker 3: around for it. Please do.
Speaker 1: We are going to be discussing some questions that come
Speaker 1: up around Black history, Monk, for most of which, of course,
Speaker 1: is why is there not a white history one. We
Speaker 1: recognize that on your quest to become a better ally,
Speaker 1: you might encounter questions like this, or you might.
Speaker 3: Have asked questions like this yourself. It's okay.
Speaker 1: We take all comers over here, and we don't start
Speaker 1: the conversations with anger or anything like that. So we're
Speaker 1: going to get into that in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, let us discuss ba Ba
Speaker 1: becoming a better ally. Boba that is baba A sponsored
Speaker 1: by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: the free voter wallet from Fltmglobal dot com to support
Speaker 1: black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an
Speaker 1: impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal dot Com. I
Speaker 1: want you to demand Snoop Cereal and boycott post All right,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the whole thing. I'll read rapper Snoop
Speaker 1: Dogg and Master Pierre Sewing Walmart and food manufacturer manufacturer
Speaker 1: Post Consumer Brands, arguing that both companies intentionally left their
Speaker 1: cereal product off shehelves and hidden in stock rooms in
Speaker 1: an attempt to sabotage the brand. In the thirty four
Speaker 1: page a lawsuit filed, attorneys representing the rappers outline at
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg born Calvin Brought Us and Master p Born
Speaker 1: Percy Miller created Brought Us Foods in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: with the goal of adding diversity to the food industry
Speaker 1: while quote inspiring and creating opportunities for minority own products
Speaker 1: and brands. The suit argues that when the two rappers
Speaker 1: approached Post Consumer brands to get support for one of
Speaker 1: the cereals, Snoop cereal, the food manufacturer attempted to outrite
Speaker 1: by the brand the Rapper. The Rappers declined the offer,
Speaker 1: saying they believed it would quote destroy the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of leading the company to their families. Posts then suggested
Speaker 1: and entered a partnership with promotion agreement with brought US
Speaker 1: Foods to manufacture, market, and distribute and sell Snoop Cereal
Speaker 1: in December of twenty twenty two, in which they would
Speaker 1: split the.
Speaker 3: Profits with Broughtest Foods. The lawsuit says.
Speaker 1: However, the Rappers argued the Post did not honor their
Speaker 1: original agreement, citing the manufacturer quote pretended to be on
Speaker 1: board with the duo's goals and did not treat the
Speaker 1: cereal like one of their own brands. Quote, Post entered
Speaker 1: into a false arrangement where they could choke Brought US
Speaker 1: Foods out of the market, thereby preventing Snoop Cereal from
Speaker 1: being sold or produced by any competitor, Quote.
Speaker 3: The lawsuit says.
Speaker 1: Months after Snoop Cereal launched last July, the lawsuit argues
Speaker 1: that customers were no longer able to find the cereal,
Speaker 1: and many Walmart shelves across the US, unlike other posts foods.
Speaker 3: So shout out to Snoop Dog and Master.
Speaker 2: P said that things remain the same.
Speaker 3: All right, So let's talk.
Speaker 1: Why is there a Black History Month but not a
Speaker 1: White History Month. Well, you know, we came across a
Speaker 1: video that we're going to share with you. This person speaking,
Speaker 1: her name is Brittany Cooper, and I believe her channel.
Speaker 1: She states her channel on this, so I'll let her
Speaker 1: say her own piece, but we're going to start the
Speaker 1: conversation here, so let's play this video.
Speaker 4: Will feel like they own time and control history. And
Speaker 4: there's a way that even if you go back to
Speaker 4: the early Western philosophers that everybody love. My least favorite
Speaker 4: is George Hagel, who said, you know, Africa is no
Speaker 4: historic part of the world. So in the seventeen hundred
Speaker 4: and eighteen hundreds, various groups of white European men got
Speaker 4: together and just decided that Africa didn't matter in the
Speaker 4: span of world history. I mean, talk about having some
Speaker 4: kahonas time has a history, and so do black people.
Speaker 4: In part of the reason that we have, for instance,
Speaker 4: Black History Month in this country is because we literally
Speaker 4: have to make the argument that black people have actually
Speaker 4: done things that are significant to the creation of the
Speaker 4: nation state. And it turns out that if we didn't
Speaker 4: have things like Black History Month, apparently people would not
Speaker 4: believe that black people were actually significant historical actors. We
Speaker 4: keep on relitigating, basically the eighteen sixties. In this country.
Speaker 4: We have racial animists the likes of which we have
Speaker 4: not seen in my lifetime, of resurgence of law enforcement
Speaker 4: engaging black folks in ways that are often deadly and
Speaker 4: often with impunity. White people dictate the pace of social inclusion,
Speaker 4: and they do so by saying we'll get there while
Speaker 4: we're trying to push.
Speaker 2: Us so fast.
Speaker 4: That kind of pushing back the clock, which is a
Speaker 4: phrase that we use all the time, is a way
Speaker 4: in which those in power like to say to those
Speaker 4: of us who don't have power, we're going to determine
Speaker 4: not only what you get, but when you get it.
Speaker 4: And that is the critical difference between young activists who
Speaker 4: are in the streets saying change it now, change it today.
Speaker 4: We don't want your gradualism. They remind me of the
Speaker 4: debates over slavery in this country and ending slavery in
Speaker 4: the eighteen hundreds. There were gradualists who said we're going
Speaker 4: to end slavery, but we want to do it in steps,
Speaker 4: so we'll free you, but you know, can you work
Speaker 4: ten years? Can we sort of gradually phase you out
Speaker 4: of slavery? And there were others who said, we're going
Speaker 4: to pass this amendment and at that moment you will
Speaker 4: be free. And for those of us who continue to
Speaker 4: struggle with a white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal power structure, immediate
Speaker 4: freedom is what we want. Gradualism does not serve us.
Speaker 4: There is a truth telling that happens at that nexus
Speaker 4: of blackness and feminism, at that space of having to
Speaker 4: work twice as hard to get half as far, which
Speaker 4: is a black faverb and at that space of knowing
Speaker 4: that so often you can be the dopest chicken room
Speaker 4: and they'll give it to the mediocre white man in
Speaker 4: the room. Putting those things together gives you a clarity
Speaker 4: and a vision about where we can go if we
Speaker 4: stop oppressing black folks and women and gender knock performing folk.
Speaker 4: And so black feminism taught me that, and I.
Speaker 3: Think it can teach you that too.
Speaker 4: I am Brittany Cooper and this is my brief but
Speaker 4: spectacular take on my eloquent rage.
Speaker 1: All right, So first off, listen to black women and
Speaker 1: we're going to give you another baba, another action item.
Speaker 1: She can be founded Brittany sorry, YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: brief but spectacular. Her name is Brittany Cooper once again.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot of times when you know,
Speaker 1: the short answer to that question, why is there a
Speaker 1: Black History Month and not a White History Month? The
Speaker 1: short answer is, well, because there have been people who
Speaker 1: have erased us from history, right intentionally, Yeah, but they're
Speaker 1: to a person that to where that is inconceivable that
Speaker 1: didn't really happen. You guys are always the victims. You
Speaker 1: guys are just saying that who would erase you from history?
Speaker 1: Nobody does that.
Speaker 3: I think that she makes a case.
Speaker 1: That flies in the face of those people who would
Speaker 1: dismiss a statement like that that we've been a raised
Speaker 1: from history, those people that would dismiss that as being
Speaker 1: just kind of imagining us, imagining that this might have
Speaker 1: happened at some point in the past. She mentioned a name,
Speaker 1: George Hagel, And as we do on this show, because
Speaker 1: we have to, we researched George Hagel.
Speaker 3: Right, So.
Speaker 1: With George Hagel, I'm gonna share a bit from his
Speaker 1: He's the person that said Africa has no history. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna share a bit from from what I've researched about him.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel He was born in seventeen seventy and
Speaker 1: died in eighteen thirty one. He was a German philosopher
Speaker 1: and one of the most influential figures of German idealism
Speaker 1: in nineteenth century philosophy. As influence extends across the entire
Speaker 1: range of contemporary philosophical topics, from metaphysical issues and e
Speaker 1: epistemology ontology to political philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophy
Speaker 1: of art, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.
Speaker 1: And he is quoted as saying Africa has no history
Speaker 1: and did not contribute to anything that mankind enjoyed. There's
Speaker 1: a separate quote here that says is effectually a continuation,
Speaker 1: but it's a separate quote. Is no historical part of
Speaker 1: the world. It has no movement or development to exhibit. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I want to tie two things together here. One
Speaker 1: of the most influential figures of German idealism in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds right now. The population in this country in
Speaker 1: the early years of this country was heavily German.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, the reason we don't have a national language
Speaker 1: is because at the time they were deciding that more
Speaker 1: people spoke German in the United States than spoke English.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason we don't have English as a
Speaker 1: national language here in this country. So German people have
Speaker 1: been here since the founding. And this influential German figure
Speaker 1: suggesting that you know, he was like the man in
Speaker 1: his day.
Speaker 3: He was the.
Speaker 1: Intellectual for him to suggest that Africa has no history.
Speaker 1: Let me let me read his quote again. Africa has
Speaker 1: no history and did not contribute to anything mankind enjoyed.
Speaker 3: My son was born from a C section. Do you
Speaker 3: know the first people to invent see sections?
Speaker 2: Please educate us.
Speaker 1: Those are African people. I could go on, but it's
Speaker 1: a Black History month. You need to teach yourselves. Learn everything. Okay,
Speaker 1: But when we say that our history was suppressed, it's
Speaker 1: this person and figures like him. You know already throughout slavery,
Speaker 1: at least in this country, that our contributions to what
Speaker 1: has made this country what it is have been suppressed.
Speaker 1: And there are many that we will never know. You know,
Speaker 1: for those that listen to the first half of the show,
Speaker 1: you know that we discussed for our Way Black History
Speaker 1: Fact the true origin story of Jack daniels whiskey and
Speaker 1: how it has its roots in slavery, because indeed, a
Speaker 1: slave was the person who taught Jack Daniels. I know,
Speaker 1: Jack Daniel how to make the whiskey that he's made
Speaker 1: that becomes so popular.
Speaker 5: I notice while listening to you deliver that Way Black
Speaker 5: History Fact, that there was no mention of Jasper Daniels
Speaker 5: freeing his distiller or his family that he also brought
Speaker 5: to work for him.
Speaker 1: It wasn't wasn't until after the Emancipation Proclamation, So he
Speaker 1: was a slave until he wasn't. Right, But you can
Speaker 1: imagine that all of these sorts of things matter to
Speaker 1: people who have been stripped of their identity, you know,
Speaker 1: for those of for those of you, I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk specifically to our white listeners today. Everything I will
Speaker 1: always say to you will be conveyed in the spirit
Speaker 1: of love, and I'm asking for you to follow me
Speaker 1: on this. If you trace back your history, your lineage,
Speaker 1: I don't want to feel bad. This is just factual,
Speaker 1: right If you trace back your history, you conceivably could
Speaker 1: trace it back to I don't know, some ship, some
Speaker 1: immigrant story, or maybe you can trace it back to
Speaker 1: the Mayflower or some village or kingdom or something in
Speaker 1: Scotland or whatever. Right, and if you go back far enough,
Speaker 1: you can find somebody to be proud of, to know
Speaker 1: what you're capable of, to know what you can aspire to,
Speaker 1: to know that you come from greatness, great thinkers, brilliant minds,
Speaker 1: people who have contributed meaningful things to society. And that
Speaker 1: is empowering. And you may not know it. If you
Speaker 1: think that everybody gets that, you may not know how
Speaker 1: empowering that is. Now, I want you to imagine for
Speaker 1: a second that if you trace your history back, you
Speaker 1: would only go as far as a slave and the
Speaker 1: man who raped her.
Speaker 3: And think about how hurtful that is. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. You can see me,
Speaker 1: so I'm not like sad or upset or anything. Obviously
Speaker 1: this is something that I know. But how how do you?
Speaker 2: How do you?
Speaker 1: The only thing we can be proud of is the
Speaker 1: fact that we are doing better. We can't be proud
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: I mean the idea that we've survived it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say. Somehow that should be the
Speaker 2: source of our pride.
Speaker 3: So let me let me take it a step further,
Speaker 3: and I'll turn it over to you.
Speaker 1: If you can only go back to a slave and
Speaker 1: the man that raped her, and that is that is
Speaker 1: what caused you to exist, that plus the people after
Speaker 1: that generation, the people after that generation, and then you
Speaker 1: if it if indeed, it's that far back that you
Speaker 1: can go. There's not a lot of dignity. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of empowering facts. Oh, I come from these
Speaker 1: great thinkers, these great you know, you don't even this
Speaker 1: lady couldn't read. She never had the chance to become
Speaker 1: what she was capable of becoming. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm capable. Of course, I look around my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I'm from Compton, famously, look around my neighborhood. Everybody here
Speaker 1: is black, and everybody here is poor. And when I
Speaker 1: watch TV, everybody's white and everybody's rich. And so this
Speaker 1: is just the way that it is. Why do we
Speaker 1: need a black history money so that we know that
Speaker 1: we are more than what we've become. So that we
Speaker 1: know that we have things that we can be proud of,
Speaker 1: so that we know that we are more than the
Speaker 1: product of a and raping a slave, and we know
Speaker 1: what we can aspire to, We know what we can
Speaker 1: be proud of, we know what we can stand on,
Speaker 1: we know what we can accomplish. And if you don't
Speaker 1: need that, then you should not ask me why there
Speaker 1: is no blacky, why there is no white history months.
Speaker 1: I learned about white history eleven other months out of
Speaker 1: the year. And we focus on black history for this
Speaker 1: reason and for other reasons, because black people have contributed
Speaker 1: valuable elements to society, and it is too easy for
Speaker 1: black people to be dismissed to the margins, relegated to
Speaker 1: the margins. And so any celebration of blackness, be a
Speaker 1: Black History Month, be it m okay, they be a
Speaker 1: June team, be at whatever banza you name. It is
Speaker 1: a celebration of our humanity and affirmation of our humanity,
Speaker 1: and a celebration of our contributions and our value in
Speaker 1: this place.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing we can be proud of. All right,
Speaker 3: go ahead, enjoy.
Speaker 2: Extremely Will said, there has been a blatant and successful
Speaker 2: attempt to erase large segments of our history and our
Speaker 2: contributions to society. One of the reasons why ideology like
Speaker 2: this was so damning and so damaging is that when
Speaker 2: you relegate us to our origins being slavery and a
Speaker 2: lot of cases the rape of a slave that gave us,
Speaker 2: you know, lack Americans whose skin looks more like mine,
Speaker 2: a bit more fair. If you will, you create the
Speaker 2: types of people who feel like we benefit from having
Speaker 2: been brought here. You create the ideas that somehow being
Speaker 2: brought from Africa, where we throughout the history of Earth
Speaker 2: never contributed anything to society.
Speaker 1: At least, according to George Wilhelm Frederick Hegel, were brought
Speaker 1: here and taught language, and given God and giving, and
Speaker 1: been given skills to be able to participate in agriculture
Speaker 1: and architecture and all these things that we were taught
Speaker 1: and learned because we were brought here and made slaves.
Speaker 2: So when you can get rid of our pre and
Speaker 2: post slavery contributions to society at large, you can make
Speaker 2: children and their parents think, wow, look how well off
Speaker 2: they are from having been brought here. And hey, yes
Speaker 2: we agree that slavery was rough, but look how far
Speaker 2: you've come. You're not in a tree in Africa. Okay, listen,
Speaker 2: lit's lean into this. I want to play a video
Speaker 2: from chairman o'mali yes she tella, and I want you
Speaker 2: to hear his his take on Africa.
Speaker 6: Eighty four eighty five Europeans sat out a table in Berlin, Germany,
Speaker 6: and not a single African there and carved up Africa
Speaker 6: into the territories that we now sometimes called countries and
Speaker 6: illogically referred to as nations. Africans didn't do that. It
Speaker 6: was Europe that did that. It was Europe and in
Speaker 6: perilansm that required Africa to be Africa to be divided,
Speaker 6: so that the resources of Africa, both human and material,
Speaker 6: could come and pave the streets in London and go
Speaker 6: the buildings in Amsterdam and bring clean water to New York,
Speaker 6: while the streets and Sierra Leon are not paid, and
Speaker 6: the people in Sierra Leone do not have clean water,
Speaker 6: and there's there's no national electric grid there. It is
Speaker 6: necessary to keep Africa divided by European imperialism and by
Speaker 6: all the imperialism in order to continue to subt the
Speaker 6: resources from Africa. You have to be able to break
Speaker 6: out of this. But it's going to take revolution in
Speaker 6: order to do this African revolution. In order to do
Speaker 6: this African revolution that destroy imperialism and the world economy
Speaker 6: that's responsible for the growing in the serration of the
Speaker 6: masses of people around the world.
Speaker 3: Hudu Europeans about that when you notice that.
Speaker 1: The history of Africa has been The reason for that
Speaker 1: is now because Africans are not capable of governing themselves
Speaker 1: because of whatever. The reason for that is because imperialism
Speaker 1: made its way to Africa alongside gunpowder and disease, and
Speaker 1: that coupled with immoral inhuman leaders who are power hungry
Speaker 1: and so forth, you end up with the legacy of
Speaker 1: colonialism in Africa. Okay, but black people had brilliant civilizations
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia and of course in Egypt and all over
Speaker 1: Africa for eons.
Speaker 3: Before white people even existed.
Speaker 1: But I needed you to know that because that question
Speaker 1: does come up quite a bit, certainly during Black History Month,
Speaker 1: and I want you to keep this same energy. We
Speaker 1: don't have time, of course, but keep the same energy
Speaker 1: when people ask why is b et not racist or
Speaker 1: Ebony or Essence magazine or why is there not a
Speaker 1: white equivalent to these things. And I do want you
Speaker 1: to know that if you wanted a white entertainment television
Speaker 1: that would be problematic. If you wanted an Irish entertainment
Speaker 1: television that would not be That's fine because now we're
Speaker 1: talking about a culture Whiteness only exists, and indeed was
Speaker 1: only conceived to delineate a slave class from a non
Speaker 1: slave class. So to call yourself white does not have
Speaker 1: any real identity associated with it outside of that we
Speaker 1: are not them. To be Irish means that we have
Speaker 1: pride and culture and history that comes from a place,
Speaker 1: and we can celebrate that collectively. So if you want
Speaker 1: White History Month, call it Irish History Month, and you'll
Speaker 1: soon realize that there's a lot of white people who
Speaker 1: are not Irish. And this also helps for people that
Speaker 1: feel like, why is black power racist? Or why is
Speaker 1: white power racist? And black power are not racist? It's
Speaker 1: all the same there. White power is rooted in the
Speaker 1: oppression of others. Black powers is of course famously an
Speaker 1: affirmation of our strength.
Speaker 3: And so with that in mind, we will leave that
Speaker 3: right there.
Speaker 1: The show always runs out way too soon, real quick,
Speaker 1: before we go, I want to give a shout out
Speaker 1: to NPR.
Speaker 3: That's where we got the Snoop Dogg Master p.
Speaker 1: Baba from, so I want to make sure we credit
Speaker 1: them for their journalism and thank you as always for
Speaker 1: tuning into the show. Once again, I've been your host
Speaker 1: Rams this job.
Speaker 2: He is rams' jah. I am q Ward. You can
Speaker 2: find us everywhere. Just type Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: No why C I V I C c I p
Speaker 1: h e R. Please subscribe to us on YouTube. We
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Speaker 3: Send us a kind word.
Speaker 1: And if you forget any of this, of course, you
Speaker 1: can download this show and get all this information at
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Speaker 3: And until next week, y'all peace, peace,