Speaker 1: Yes, yes, y'all.
Speaker 2: This is Civic Cipher and I'm your host, Rams's Jah
Speaker 2: And of course this show exists to empower the community
Speaker 2: and give a voice to the movements, the various movements
Speaker 2: and the struggles even and really to empower us all individually,
Speaker 2: as groups, as cultures, and as far as we relate
Speaker 2: to each other. And today's guest on the show is
Speaker 2: somebody that I don't even know if I want to
Speaker 2: call you a personal hero, but I think I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and say it, just because I've been so
Speaker 2: inspired by you that I've changed the significant amount of
Speaker 2: my life just to make sure that I get a
Speaker 2: chance to interview you. Her name is Zara and she
Speaker 2: is the Minister of Activism with Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1: So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: And thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: So a little bit more about how I got a
Speaker 2: chance to get to know Zara is I went to
Speaker 2: a protest in Timpe. Now i'd seen her before, we
Speaker 2: actually had a chance to talk before. But in the
Speaker 2: wake of the killing of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor
Speaker 2: and Dion Johnson, you know, there were a lot of
Speaker 2: rallies where I live in Phoenix, and I went out
Speaker 2: to a lot of the Black Lives Matter protests. I
Speaker 2: got a chance to see a lot of the organization,
Speaker 2: and I showed up with a bullhorn just because I
Speaker 2: had one, and one of the other people that had
Speaker 2: a bullhorn was Zara, and so I did my best
Speaker 2: to echo sort of what she was saying, because when
Speaker 2: there's a crowd of four or five thousand people, would
Speaker 2: you say something like that, there's a lot of folks
Speaker 2: out there. When a crowd is that big, you in
Speaker 2: up not really reaching everybody with a bullhorn. You know,
Speaker 2: a bullhorn is good for like the first three hundred people.
Speaker 2: When you have three thousand, it's just not going to work.
Speaker 2: So we had to kind of echo the message throughout
Speaker 2: the crowd. And I noticed very early on that what
Speaker 2: she was saying was very potent and very powerful, and
Speaker 2: I really.
Speaker 1: Wanted to make sure that.
Speaker 2: She had a chance to get on the air and
Speaker 2: say some of the things that she was saying that
Speaker 2: energized the crowd and motivated people to take action. And also,
Speaker 2: you know, after those first couple of protests, I would
Speaker 2: come home and I would watch like twelve News and
Speaker 2: some of the other media outlets, and I recognized that
Speaker 2: there was not two sides. There was not a lot
Speaker 2: of balance there. It was, you know, those guys telling
Speaker 2: their version of the story. In other words, to them,
Speaker 2: everyone was a rioter. You know, there were riots and
Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff. And then I was there
Speaker 2: with my children, you know, and it wasn't that. It
Speaker 2: was very much to empower the community. And so I
Speaker 2: felt like, this woman is one of the women who
Speaker 2: needed a platform to say something. And when I saw
Speaker 2: her in Tempe, there was another protest in timp We
Speaker 2: stopped by the courthouse and you stood up with I
Speaker 2: think there was like a like a gate or something
Speaker 2: covering like a water maine or something. You stood on that,
Speaker 2: you got a bullhorn again and you just addressed this
Speaker 2: huge crowd and it was so potent, it was so powerful,
Speaker 2: and it really spoke to what it was that was happening,
Speaker 2: sort of the spirit of the movement. And again that's
Speaker 2: when I decided, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I need to do more than just show up.
Speaker 2: I need to lend as many resources to this as
Speaker 2: I can, specifically to this message. And you happen to
Speaker 2: be the person carrying that message, and it moved me
Speaker 2: and my chop. We talked about that when we went home.
Speaker 2: A lot of the things that you said, and so
Speaker 2: I wanted to say that just so that you understand
Speaker 2: exactly how important this meeting was to me. And of
Speaker 2: course on the show, we're going to have sit down
Speaker 2: conversations with lots of folks who are very active in
Speaker 2: the community, but this one was a long time coming
Speaker 2: and I and again, I appreciate you coming out. So
Speaker 2: I think first things first, tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: about what got you into activism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's a few things that got me into activism.
Speaker 4: I think I was a little bit inclined because my
Speaker 4: mom and my sister were involved in their union. They're
Speaker 4: both nurses, and so kind of through that was able
Speaker 4: to kind of have a consciousness of that things were
Speaker 4: not right, that healthcare should be free, that education should
Speaker 4: be free, and that, you know, just a critical consciousness.
Speaker 4: But really what me out was during occupy and when
Speaker 4: the student.
Speaker 3: Debt hit UH larger than.
Speaker 4: The UH then like home mortgages and it hit like
Speaker 4: one trillion, and I remember that moment and remembering, you know,
Speaker 4: UH that like this the system is rigged in that
Speaker 4: we have you know, a bunch of uh the one
Speaker 4: percent that is oppressing the ninety nine percent.
Speaker 3: And uh, I really got involved then.
Speaker 4: And then continued to uh do active vism, whether it
Speaker 4: was about inequality or environmental justice. Uh, but it really
Speaker 4: got me involved in the activism I'm doing now with
Speaker 4: Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 3: You know, was.
Speaker 4: First uh going to South Africa right before the Trayvon
Speaker 4: Martin shooting and being able to see that white supremacy
Speaker 4: global and that around.
Speaker 3: The world we have.
Speaker 4: We have a system where our lives don't matter simply
Speaker 4: because the color of our skin. And you know, I
Speaker 4: always thought, oh the motherline, everything would be better there.
Speaker 4: And to see black people still as second rate, still
Speaker 4: their lives still don't matter on their indigenous homeland in
Speaker 4: South Africa, and then to come home and see this
Speaker 4: young boy being murdered simply because he was black. It
Speaker 4: really pulled me into the streets and you know, decided
Speaker 4: we're going to do something about this.
Speaker 2: Very good. You know, it's funny. I saw something the
Speaker 2: other day. So we're we're recording this on the heels
Speaker 2: of the shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And something that is
Speaker 2: very telling is that there was a I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: sure everyone knows the story, but there's a young white
Speaker 2: male years old walking down the street with an clearly
Speaker 2: visible assault rifle and he's walking toward the police, and
Speaker 2: he's walking past the police. He's not pointing the gun
Speaker 2: at them. But it's that doesn't matter because I saw
Speaker 2: something last night. The Atlanta Black Star put up a
Speaker 2: clip and this was I want to say September second,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty and Washington, DC, and there was a kid.
Speaker 2: He was on live stream. I think he had just
Speaker 2: turned eighteen. He's on live stream and he's in I
Speaker 2: look like some projects. I'll tell you the story if
Speaker 2: you don't know. He's sitting in the car with some
Speaker 2: of his other friends and he's sort of showing off
Speaker 2: a gun. What happens is the police see the live
Speaker 2: stream and they pull up and they shoot the kid, okay,
Speaker 2: but not before the kid throws the gun as far
Speaker 2: away from the officer as possible. They found the gun
Speaker 2: so far away, and then there's bodycam footage of the
Speaker 2: guy who runs and shoots the kid in the chest.
Speaker 2: So the kid was running away as he threw the gun.
Speaker 2: The officer circled around front of him and shot him
Speaker 2: in the chest, and obviously he died and then went
Speaker 2: to go look for the gun. It took him like
Speaker 2: five minutes to find the gun that was so far away,
Speaker 2: and I think it shows that panic response with the police.
Speaker 2: But I want to say something real quick, just while
Speaker 2: we're here, and to anyone that will listen, now that
Speaker 2: I have a microphone and an audience, having a gun
Speaker 2: is not always a crime. You know, this kid was
Speaker 2: an adult and so forth and so on. But even
Speaker 2: if you wanted to make that argument, I think Zara
Speaker 2: kind of touched on the fact that there are certain
Speaker 2: economic conditions that really lend themselves to black and brown
Speaker 2: folks ending up in environments where, you know, sometimes you
Speaker 2: have to fight for survival, or fight to protect the
Speaker 2: things that you've earned, or you know, anything like that,
Speaker 2: and so a lot of times in those environments you
Speaker 2: do find people that protect themselves in that way. And
Speaker 2: if having a gun is not necessarily a crime, especially
Speaker 2: if it's not pointed at an officer, and it makes
Speaker 2: sense that a lot of people in those really harsh
Speaker 2: environments do have weapons or other means of protecting themselves,
Speaker 2: then to show up and shoot them is more indicative
Speaker 2: of a panic response than it is of just the
Speaker 2: normal state of things.
Speaker 1: With that said, I want to touch on this rallying cry.
Speaker 2: That initially it might sound jarring to people who, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe when they first heard it, or maybe they have
Speaker 2: heard it over and over again and maybe not know
Speaker 2: exactly what it means. But you explained it so well,
Speaker 2: what does defund the police mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's really important for folks to realize
Speaker 4: because when people say defund the police, a lot of
Speaker 4: you know, the white middle class have been like you
Speaker 4: talking about perge, you know, and you know.
Speaker 3: It's not that it's not that.
Speaker 4: It's really important to see that where we're at and
Speaker 4: what public safety means, and when we look at where
Speaker 4: we're at right now, we know that especially in poorer neighborhoods,
Speaker 4: but even in rich white neighborhoods, you call the cops
Speaker 4: after the crime has happened, right, You call the cops
Speaker 4: once they've broken into your house. You call the cops
Speaker 4: after something's been stolen, after harm has been had. So
Speaker 4: if we can agree on that, then we can agree
Speaker 4: that the police aren't keeping us safe. They're they're just
Speaker 4: coming after to try to you know, clean up after
Speaker 4: the mess.
Speaker 3: Has been made.
Speaker 4: What we're calling for is preventative measures. We're calling for
Speaker 4: Why is that person breaking into your house in the
Speaker 4: first place?
Speaker 3: Why what made them? What pushed on that?
Speaker 4: Is it mental health? Is it drug addiction? Is it poverty?
Speaker 4: Those are systemic issues and we can fix those issues.
Speaker 4: So when we call for defunding the police, or we're
Speaker 4: calling for as an investment into communities, an investment into
Speaker 4: mental health, an investment into community services, into being able
Speaker 4: to address systemic poverty, being able to Right now, we
Speaker 4: do not have no social safety net for those who
Speaker 4: have mental health issues, and when we call the police,
Speaker 4: they often end up dead. So what we're calling for
Speaker 4: is a change to that, and I think that's something
Speaker 4: that we can all agree on. Even police, I think
Speaker 4: will agree that they are not and they've said it before,
Speaker 4: they're not able to handle They do not have the skills.
Speaker 3: Or equipped with.
Speaker 4: The tools to be able to handle mental health issues,
Speaker 4: to handle homelessness, to handle drug addiction. And yet those
Speaker 4: are the people who are being called. So when we
Speaker 4: call for defunding the police, we're calling for other people
Speaker 4: to call. Who else can we call to address drug addiction,
Speaker 4: who actually has the skills and the tools and the
Speaker 4: training to be able to help in that situation instead
Speaker 4: of what do police have.
Speaker 3: They had they're armed with only guns.
Speaker 4: And so what ends up happening is people who are
Speaker 4: in crisis then have a cops call on them, and
Speaker 4: then it creates a larger crisis. So when we call
Speaker 4: for defunding the police, we're calling for a reimagination of
Speaker 4: what safety is and the rebuilding and restructuring of the
Speaker 4: social safety net so that these crimes don't happen. And
Speaker 4: that makes us all safer because you know, when we
Speaker 4: strengthen the social safety net, when we make sure we
Speaker 4: leave no one behind, that's how you actually reduce crime.
Speaker 3: It's not by getting more cops on the street.
Speaker 4: It's by preventing people from having to do these crimes
Speaker 4: in the first place, because no one actually wants to
Speaker 4: commit crimes. You know, it's the society that creates the
Speaker 4: structures where causes people to feel like they have no
Speaker 4: other option but to commit these crimes. And so once
Speaker 4: we invest in community, we will we reduce our reliance
Speaker 4: on police. And that doesn't make us less safe, that
Speaker 4: makes us more safe.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what do you say to someone who says, well,
Speaker 2: in recent years there has been an increase in police
Speaker 2: funding and a decrease in the overall crime rate, and
Speaker 2: that correlation cannot be ignored. What do you say to
Speaker 2: a person with an argument like that.
Speaker 4: So crime actually started going down, and under Bill Clinton,
Speaker 4: and despite the fact that crime was going down, which had.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of factors in why that happened.
Speaker 4: But uh, while crime was going down, he actually pushed
Speaker 4: for the Crime Bill, push pushed for further criminalization of
Speaker 4: people and also for further funding of police departments in prisons.
Speaker 4: And so we've created this system based off of this fear.
Speaker 4: And when you look at the type of ads Clinton
Speaker 4: was running to pass the crime Bill, it was criminalization
Speaker 4: and primarily of black men, you know, and the right
Speaker 4: still does this and you know that basically it's scare tactics.
Speaker 4: But when you look at the data, we see that
Speaker 4: crime has been going down regardless, and yet we've put
Speaker 4: all this money into police and what is that done?
Speaker 4: You know, how are we even defining crime because police
Speaker 4: killings have been going up as we've been overfunding these
Speaker 4: police departments, as we've been hiring military people, to treat
Speaker 4: the streets of America like a battleground, and does that
Speaker 4: make it safer? I think we could all agree that
Speaker 4: doesn't make it safer. So I think when we look
Speaker 4: at what's needed and what helps, it's not more funding
Speaker 4: to the police department. Researchers shown a great way to
Speaker 4: decrease crime is actually to fund pre k education. And
Speaker 4: then when you fund pre educate education, all of those
Speaker 4: who get access to that, it reduces the likelihood that
Speaker 4: they will go into be you know, uh, victim of
Speaker 4: the school to prison pipeline, be victim of the whole
Speaker 4: car soural system. And so when we look at how
Speaker 4: much we're spending on police, and then we look at
Speaker 4: how much like a pre K program costs, or how
Speaker 4: much a cost to reduce class sizes so that you know, kids,
Speaker 4: because they're basing how many prisons to build off of
Speaker 4: third grade reading scores.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: We are continuing to divest from education, divest from my
Speaker 4: community resources while we're investing into this militarized, occupying police force.
Speaker 4: So what is that going to create. It's going to
Speaker 4: create like a war. We don't have money for you know, education,
Speaker 4: but we have money for guns.
Speaker 3: Is that the type of that we want to live in.
Speaker 4: That is not a society that we are safer, That's
Speaker 4: not a society where you know, it's a society that
Speaker 4: we're we're all treated like criminals.
Speaker 2: Okay, very good.
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot of activism.
Speaker 2: On the streets, and you know, these are some messages
Speaker 2: that I've I've heard you speak about before, and I've
Speaker 2: heard them echoed in other organizations that work alongside Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter, But Black Lives Matter, the official Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 2: of course, as a as a statement. You know, that's
Speaker 2: a statement that many people can get by, get behind,
Speaker 2: not everyone, because obviously there's the all Lives matter cry
Speaker 2: from some folks, and that also is a true statement
Speaker 2: in and of itself. But obviously the reason for Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter, for those of us that understand it, is
Speaker 2: kind of built into the.
Speaker 1: Narrative already of our lives.
Speaker 2: Even though I know the answer, I have to ask
Speaker 2: the question, does black lives matter condone anarchy and unlawful unlawfulness?
Speaker 4: So one, uh, there's Black Lives Matter like the National
Speaker 4: whom I cannot speak for, and then Black Lives Matter
Speaker 4: Phoenix Metro, you know, and we are not an official
Speaker 4: chapter of Black Lives Matter National. They haven't been accepting
Speaker 4: chapters for uh for five years now. But that being said, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, so I E would feel more comfortable to
Speaker 4: speaking to Black Lives Matter Phoenix, but our lie our
Speaker 4: values are aligned with Black Lives Matter National, So there
Speaker 4: isn't really much of a difference here. As far as
Speaker 4: does Black Lives Matter engage in that anarchy and lawlessness, No,
Speaker 4: But as far as condemning it, we have an understanding
Speaker 4: of it, much like MLK that is the voice of
Speaker 4: the unheard, and we understand that, you know, it's the
Speaker 4: social conditions that cause people to riot. We understand that,
Speaker 4: you know that people engage in that way when they've
Speaker 4: had everything taken from them. And so again, when we
Speaker 4: think about how to make our community safer, if these
Speaker 4: people had something to lose, that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 3: In the first place.
Speaker 4: And so, you know, it's the social conditions that create
Speaker 4: the riots. It's being disenfranchised for so long, it's having
Speaker 4: your community disinvested, everything from the redlining to the disinvestment
Speaker 4: of public transportation, to the disinvestment of even down to
Speaker 4: the side rocks and trees, which we don't have in
Speaker 4: black and brown neighborhoods. We see that our lives don't matter.
Speaker 4: We see that, you know, our government doesn't care about us.
Speaker 4: And for the folks who are mostly disenfranchised and have
Speaker 4: nothing to lose, you know, and after the continual disrespect
Speaker 4: and disregard for our lives, it causes.
Speaker 3: The conditions for riot. And so I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: I don't condone, but I don't engage in that way. However,
Speaker 4: I think it's important to recognize the way to stop
Speaker 4: riots is not bringing martial law like they've been doing.
Speaker 4: It's not to bring in federal police like they did
Speaker 4: in Portland.
Speaker 3: What did that do? It just made people more angry
Speaker 3: because you're adding fuel to the fire.
Speaker 4: The way to stop the riots is to stop unhearing
Speaker 4: the people. Right, if a riot's voice of the unheard.
Speaker 4: If you listen to the people, what the people are saying,
Speaker 4: and actually show that our lives matter and actually address
Speaker 4: these things, then there won't be rights. But as long
Speaker 4: as you treat people like their lives don't matter, you
Speaker 4: disinvest in their community, you disregard their life, you're creating
Speaker 4: the conditions of the riot. So I don't actually blame
Speaker 4: the you know, individual rioters. I blame the societal conditions
Speaker 4: that allowed for that to happen in the first place.
Speaker 4: And if we look on a systemic level, if we
Speaker 4: want to change this, the way that we do it
Speaker 4: is change the societal conditions to prevent rioting.
Speaker 1: So it's funny that you mentioned that I was in.
Speaker 2: Portland maybe two weeks ago, and I was at they
Speaker 2: call it ground zero there where all the the riots
Speaker 2: are happening. And I think it's very important. This conversation
Speaker 2: is important for another reason because a lot of folks,
Speaker 2: I think that if you haven't participated in a riot
Speaker 2: or really in a protest, which I have. I haven't
Speaker 2: been in a riot, you know, but I have been
Speaker 2: to a lot of the protests. So what you have
Speaker 2: is a lot of angry people who, you know, like
Speaker 2: you said, Okay, said it best, they don't feel heard,
Speaker 2: you know, They're they're making very simple demands. I think
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of compromise built into the fact
Speaker 2: that we're protesting and not rioting already. We just want
Speaker 2: to be hurt. So these are people who are willing
Speaker 2: to have a conversation, and they've taken to the streets,
Speaker 2: and they haven't. You know, they're not necessarily anarchists. Of course,
Speaker 2: there might be individuals in the crowd, but for the
Speaker 2: most part, the group is trying to move a social
Speaker 2: agenda forward ive forward.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 2: And when I was in Oregon or in Portland, you
Speaker 2: understand that the people out there, they're not opportunistic. They're
Speaker 2: not trying to break in and steal stuff necessarily. That's
Speaker 2: a function of, you know, people being at their wits end,
Speaker 2: and one person does something and then there's a way
Speaker 2: for people to vent their frustration or otherwise receive some
Speaker 2: form of recompense in that moment. And what I saw
Speaker 2: when I was there is people just frustrated. They're just
Speaker 2: setting fires, not to gain anything, but just because it
Speaker 2: will get attention. And if we do this, then you
Speaker 2: have to hear us now. And that's really what I
Speaker 2: got a sense of when I was out there. Same
Speaker 2: in DC, there wasn't a lot of that going on,
Speaker 2: but just talking to the folks in DC. I was
Speaker 2: in DC maybe three weeks ago, and the same thing
Speaker 2: happened out there. You know, when I was talking to
Speaker 2: people and they were discussing how they were dealing with
Speaker 2: counter protesters and things like that, and I do want
Speaker 2: to share a quick story. Actually know, I'll wait, I'll
Speaker 2: share the story in just a bit. Before we get there,
Speaker 2: let's talk about Marxism for the folks that don't know,
Speaker 2: is Black Lives Matter? Does Black Lives Matter consider itself
Speaker 2: a Marxist organization?
Speaker 4: Black Lives Motternational has said that, one of the co
Speaker 4: founders has said that they're a Marxist organization. But I
Speaker 4: also think it's important what what people understand what that means.
Speaker 4: I think that since the Cold War, there's this hysteria
Speaker 4: when you mentioned Marxism that makes people be like, you know,
Speaker 4: like like you're somehow.
Speaker 1: Like like it's a scary word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so on socialism exactly.
Speaker 4: And so you know, with what they mean when they
Speaker 4: say there are they are Marxists is that they, you know,
Speaker 4: believe in free education, they believe in free health care
Speaker 4: for all. They do not believe in the monopoly that
Speaker 4: we currently reside in where you know, the one percent
Speaker 4: owns ninety nine percent of the wealth. And that's how
Speaker 4: we're set up now. And when we look at you
Speaker 4: know the fact that.
Speaker 3: As of right.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, we have some of the high unemployment
Speaker 4: rates since the Great Depression.
Speaker 3: But the stocks tell us a different story.
Speaker 4: They say the economy is good because the one percent
Speaker 4: is still making money.
Speaker 3: Like you know, Jeff Boso of Amazon, he.
Speaker 4: Has made so much, he's made billions or off of
Speaker 4: our backs while he's paying people minimum wage. If you
Speaker 4: think that's wrong, then you're probably a Marxist too. And
Speaker 4: so while BLM, Phoenix Metro, we are anti capitalists, and
Speaker 4: there's a lot that we draw from Marxism, we also
Speaker 4: believe we draw from a tradition of like the Black
Speaker 4: Panthers and the Zappatista's type of Marxism, which is a
Speaker 4: little bit different because a lot of Marxism, you know,
Speaker 4: was said by an old, white dead man and it
Speaker 4: isn't as relevant to us. But like there are things
Speaker 4: that draw upon that as anti capitalists, which we most
Speaker 4: definitely are, you know, and we definitely see the fact that,
Speaker 4: you know, the system isn't working that when one percent
Speaker 4: of the country owns ninety nine percent.
Speaker 3: Of the wealth, you know, there's a problem here.
Speaker 4: And you know, capitalism likes to, you know, in America,
Speaker 4: likes to give this this.
Speaker 3: Beautiful dream which is that's all it is.
Speaker 4: It's a dream, it's not a manifested reality, which is
Speaker 4: if you work really hard, then you can make it,
Speaker 4: then you can be rich too. And so so many Americans, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, basically hold on to capitalism because they want
Speaker 4: to be rich to one day. But the reality is,
Speaker 4: if you're not born into it, if you don't you know, know,
Speaker 4: the right old white men, you're not getting in. You're
Speaker 4: not gonna make it. It doesn't matter how hard you work.
Speaker 4: It's it's a lie that we've been sold that we
Speaker 4: continue to sell that if you just work hard, you'll
Speaker 4: you'll get rich. And the reality is that this system
Speaker 4: is rigged. And that's what capitalism is. Capitalism is a
Speaker 4: system that ultimately ends up where one person has all
Speaker 4: the money. You know, we've all played monopoly. We know
Speaker 4: how the game ends. That's how capitalism ends. And so
Speaker 4: we are inherently we're against that because the reality is
Speaker 4: that when we look at capitalism and how it started,
Speaker 4: it started off of our backs. When we look at
Speaker 4: Wall Street, the first Wall Street sold slaves. That's what
Speaker 4: it was, an auction block. And we have to look
Speaker 4: at the fact that capitalism would have never existed if
Speaker 4: it wasn't for slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, and
Speaker 4: the theft of entire continents including Africa and South America
Speaker 4: and what we know is America today. All of that
Speaker 4: is how capitalism was created.
Speaker 3: So of course, if you know.
Speaker 4: This system was never built for us, it's not going
Speaker 4: to work for us because the surplus, the Marxist term
Speaker 4: is primitive accumulation, which is all the wealth that was
Speaker 4: accumulated through colonialism.
Speaker 3: That is what how white people have the wealth.
Speaker 4: Even when you look at Chase Bank, when you look
Speaker 4: at all of these rich people today, they got their
Speaker 4: money from slavery. And so we as black people have
Speaker 4: to understand that while they're led a few tokens in
Speaker 4: so that they can say the system isn't racist, so
Speaker 4: that they can say there's a black billionaire, we're never all.
Speaker 4: This system not only wasn't built for us, it was
Speaker 4: built on our backs, and it requires us to be
Speaker 4: in poverty. It requires in order to have a one percent,
Speaker 4: you need the ninety nine percent in poverty. And so
Speaker 4: that's what when we say that we're Marxists are anti capitalists,
Speaker 4: that's what we mean. We say that we're against the inequality.
Speaker 4: We're against minimum wage. That when you can work full
Speaker 4: time and still not be able to afford housing or
Speaker 4: be able to live on your own, and that is
Speaker 4: the system of capitalism, and that is a system of
Speaker 4: inequality and oppression, which we denounce absolutely.
Speaker 2: Now, there were to piggyback off of what we were
Speaker 2: talking about earlier about the voice of the unheard and
Speaker 2: then sort of the wealth gap something, And this is
Speaker 2: part of the story that I wanted to tell earlier,
Speaker 2: so I'll tell it in brief. But do you remember
Speaker 2: there was a day when there's a mall here in Arizona,
Speaker 2: in Scottsdale.
Speaker 1: It's called Fashion Square Mall.
Speaker 2: And this made national headlines and there was a protest
Speaker 2: in front of the mall that quickly turned into a
Speaker 2: looting of the mall. And I got a call from
Speaker 2: my son was staying the night over there on that night,
Speaker 2: and I got a call from the folks that lived
Speaker 2: over there, and they says, hey, you know, there's some
Speaker 2: activity going on at the mall. You might want to
Speaker 2: come grab your son, because they lived right across the
Speaker 2: street from there. So I drove over and I realized, oh,
Speaker 2: there's no riot here. There's nothing going on. These are children,
Speaker 2: and you know, that was that. But I did see
Speaker 2: like droves of police, and the police weren't engaging, fortunately,
Speaker 2: and no one got hurt, to the best of my understanding.
Speaker 2: So I didn't pick up my son. There was nothing
Speaker 2: to see there. But because I saw the police and
Speaker 2: I didn't know that they weren't engaging, and I saw
Speaker 2: all these children, I decided that I was going to
Speaker 2: make sure that the people that were in the mall
Speaker 2: got away from the police without dying or otherwise getting
Speaker 2: beat up and thrown in jail or whatever. And obviously
Speaker 2: I can't save everyone, but I'm there in the truck
Speaker 2: or you know, whatever I was driving that day, I
Speaker 2: invited as many people who wanted to get into my
Speaker 2: car and let me drive you to where you're going
Speaker 2: so you don't have to walk by the police so
Speaker 2: they won't hurt you. And of course some folks jumped
Speaker 2: in the car, and what I heard in the back seat,
Speaker 2: of course, it was children. You know, I'd made three
Speaker 2: or four trips just helping folks out, and no one
Speaker 2: was bragging about a new belt or you know, whatever
Speaker 2: they got. No one was bragging about that. What I heard,
Speaker 2: and this happened in my life, So no one can
Speaker 2: take this experience from me any with an Anyone was
Speaker 2: on the outside looking in. I was there, and I
Speaker 2: was actually talked with the people this night, and then
Speaker 2: got tear gas later downtown, a whole separate city. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the kids that were in my car, all of them
Speaker 2: beginning to end, were explaining just sort of like what
Speaker 2: you said about how there was there's a great deal
Speaker 2: of hops hopelessness in their communities, and now maybe they'll
Speaker 2: listen to us. That was That was a direct quote
Speaker 2: from one of the kids. I don't know these people's
Speaker 2: names or anything. I wasn't there for that. Now maybe
Speaker 2: they'll listen to us. And this is them talking amongst
Speaker 2: themselves in the backseat. I think one person just broke
Speaker 2: a window. He didn't actually leave with anything, but he
Speaker 2: was so happy to see that the activity at the
Speaker 2: mall was going to affect the one percent. It was
Speaker 2: going to have to, you know, rattle them a bit
Speaker 2: to where they understood, Okay.
Speaker 1: You have to deal with the people.
Speaker 3: You have to.
Speaker 1: You can't just take and take and take, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to.
Speaker 2: Actually deal with them. And that was really the underscored
Speaker 2: that night, and so I think that speaks to a
Speaker 2: lot of what you're saying here, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people may not know that when you take a step
Speaker 2: back and you look at the human component and not
Speaker 2: property values or buildings or whatever. I saw a quote
Speaker 2: on the internet the other day and it was something like,
Speaker 2: why does you know a riot justify murder but a
Speaker 2: murder doesn't justify a riot, or something like that, And
Speaker 2: I thought that was a potent sentiment. But in any event,
Speaker 2: I did want to make sure that I mentioned that
Speaker 2: because again, I think that that in a personal experience
Speaker 2: of my own, I think that speaks to what it
Speaker 2: is that we're discussing here now in terms of other
Speaker 2: organizations or ideas rather concepts besides Marxism.
Speaker 1: Do you know if.
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter or would you say rather that Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter is affiliated with Antifa?
Speaker 3: Real quick, I just want to say something.
Speaker 4: You said, you know the youth, and I think that's
Speaker 4: a really important part part. You know, while the youth
Speaker 4: might not identify as Marxists per se, I think that
Speaker 4: the youth understand because they were born into a recession,
Speaker 4: a recession caused by these greedy banks who are then
Speaker 4: bailed out by our government and the people got sold out,
Speaker 4: and this is you know, what they grew up in.
Speaker 4: So most kids these days are anti capitalists because of that.
Speaker 4: They see that the banks are greedy, they see that,
Speaker 4: you know, and they realize, you know, and they've lived
Speaker 4: through now multiple recessions. Right, it's not just the you know,
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight one. Now, it's the one that
Speaker 4: we're currently in. And when we look at why it was,
Speaker 4: it's again the greed of the corporations who decided to
Speaker 4: continue to put people at work to not address this
Speaker 4: the way it should be. And so, yeah, I think
Speaker 4: that is where the youth are at and I think
Speaker 4: that means a lot for our future. But to go
Speaker 4: to your point about antifa, I think I think it's
Speaker 4: a great question because I think a lot of people
Speaker 4: again don't know what antifa is.
Speaker 3: Antifa is anti fascism.
Speaker 4: Right, So if you're not antifa, that would make you
Speaker 4: pro fascism, which would make you a Nazi.
Speaker 3: So I'm pretty sure most people, if.
Speaker 4: You you know, when you put it like that, most
Speaker 4: people are like, no, I'm not pro fascist, then you're
Speaker 4: anti fascist, right that. So, uh, if you don't support Nazis,
Speaker 4: then you're Antifa. So yes, there are, you know, and
Speaker 4: it's really been around Trump who's been kind of acting
Speaker 4: like Antifa's this gang that you know, goes around breaking
Speaker 4: things and all of these things. Really Antifa is about
Speaker 4: being anti fascist. And so there are people who call
Speaker 4: themselves and Antifa who punched Nazis in the face, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: They take that to hold other level.
Speaker 4: But then when you look at in Germany, they've got
Speaker 4: statues of women who've punched women punched Nazis in the face, right,
Speaker 4: so I guess they're Antifa too, And uh so I
Speaker 4: think that that's definitely been uh kind of taken out
Speaker 4: of out of like that now when you say antifa
Speaker 4: on like Fox News and stuff, they think it's like
Speaker 4: this a radical gang that's trying to destroy America, and
Speaker 4: really it's like people who want to, you know, make
Speaker 4: sure that Nazis don't take over our.
Speaker 3: Country so we don't end up like Germany.
Speaker 4: And so uh yeah, as far as I think your
Speaker 4: question was like do.
Speaker 2: We work with them directly with antifa Antifa chapters, and
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: Even know if there's like Antifa chapters per se. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that we work with people who identify as
Speaker 4: anti fascists, and we work with people who agree that
Speaker 4: to defend us from fascists because the police don't defend us.
Speaker 4: I mean, just the other week we got credible death threats.
Speaker 4: We a man show up to one of our offices
Speaker 4: raving a gun around, talking about he wants to kill
Speaker 4: the BLM commies. And it turns out, you know, people
Speaker 4: are like, why didn't you call the cops? The cops
Speaker 4: send him there. It was a police union that gave
Speaker 4: the name of the office, which then got ran up
Speaker 4: by this guy. So when we're in a situation where
Speaker 4: the police are sending people to kill us, sending people
Speaker 4: they know, you know, are a little bit off the
Speaker 4: rocker and that you know, who are unstable, who they know,
Speaker 4: you know, all they have to do is give them
Speaker 4: an address and these people will.
Speaker 3: Show up and have nothing to lose.
Speaker 4: We do have to work with people who are going
Speaker 4: to defend us from that because the police won't. And
Speaker 4: so yeah, anyone that says that they will, you know,
Speaker 4: defend us from Nazis, which makes the man.
Speaker 1: Tifa welcome over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that, all right, So let me ask
Speaker 2: you this. When I was out of the protests, I
Speaker 2: saw we'll call it ten percent black people that might
Speaker 2: be generous. This movement, this moment, this rallying cry, has
Speaker 2: really struck a chord, a human chord, I believe, because
Speaker 2: I've seen people of all colors, from all walks of life,
Speaker 2: people with turbans, people who don't even speak the length.
Speaker 2: Maybe you speak Mandarin, you know, whatever your background is,
Speaker 2: if you are a human, you are our brother and
Speaker 2: our sister, and you showed up right. So I do
Speaker 2: want to take this moment to ask what is it
Speaker 2: that you can do for Black lives matter?
Speaker 1: If you are.
Speaker 2: Let's say, a white ally. You know, we've seen this happen.
Speaker 2: We've seen our white allies.
Speaker 1: Get killed.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember in uh in Virginia.
Speaker 2: I think it was I forget the name of the city,
Speaker 2: but there's there's a at the University of Virginia. There
Speaker 2: was a woman who got hit by a car some
Speaker 2: years back at a at a protest and actually went
Speaker 2: to that campus just to kind of, you know, walk
Speaker 2: around and just take that in because I saw it
Speaker 2: on the side of the road as I was driving
Speaker 2: towards Tennessee and I forget her name and that, you know,
Speaker 2: and then obviously the other day in Wisconsin, you know,
Speaker 2: someone lost his life, a couple of people lost their
Speaker 2: lives actually, and you know they were there in support
Speaker 2: of Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1: So obviously there's.
Speaker 2: A desire to help, specifically to white folks or non
Speaker 2: black people. What would you say is the best way
Speaker 2: to approach helping the movement?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think that the biggest part is helping
Speaker 4: and that that is important because when you mentioned like
Speaker 4: Antifa and like these other groups that come out to support,
Speaker 4: you know, we definitely welcome them as long as they
Speaker 4: like follow our leadership.
Speaker 3: You know, there are times when we do have like.
Speaker 4: White people who will go off script and decide to
Speaker 4: do something that we don't want them to do, or
Speaker 4: not even realize the way that their their privilege. Their
Speaker 4: privilege allows them to yell in a CoP's face and
Speaker 4: it's but then who gets harmed by it's us. And
Speaker 4: so you know, it's not even that we don't want
Speaker 4: you to do that, but don't do that next to
Speaker 4: black people because we're the ones taking the heat. We
Speaker 4: even had an incident where this white guy through a
Speaker 4: water bottle at a cop and they grabbed one of
Speaker 4: our members, you know, black and Latino man, who.
Speaker 3: Was not the person who threw the water bottle. And
Speaker 3: in the court when they took it to court.
Speaker 4: It's said that a white man had thrown this water bottle,
Speaker 4: and so the case got dropped because they're like, clearly,
Speaker 4: this is a black man and you arrested him, even
Speaker 4: though in your police report you said it was a
Speaker 4: white man who did this harm. So I think that
Speaker 4: it's important that you know, white folks recognize their their
Speaker 4: privilege and not kind of go off script and follow
Speaker 4: black leadership and keep showing up. And we definitely we
Speaker 4: appreciate it, and we need y'all because you know, Black
Speaker 4: lives matter isn't about that no other lives matter. In fact,
Speaker 4: all lives do matter, but or they will matter once
Speaker 4: black lives matter, but currently black lives don't matter. So
Speaker 4: if black lives don't matter, then all lives cannot matter.
Speaker 4: And so we have to also realize that you know
Speaker 4: what we're asking for or you know what Black lives
Speaker 4: matter is, it's a call for human rights. So if
Speaker 4: you're against Black lives matter, that also means that you're
Speaker 4: against human rights right for all, because that's what we're
Speaker 4: asking for. So we really appreciate people from all walks
Speaker 4: of life, people from all races in different countries showing
Speaker 4: up and helping us to make black lives matter.
Speaker 3: And we asked that you know, you follow black.
Speaker 4: Leadership, and obviously I think that it should be also
Speaker 4: specified that doesn't just.
Speaker 3: Mean any black person, but you know, a leadership position.
Speaker 4: People that you know are rooted and grounded in community,
Speaker 4: like the black community, because yeah, it is we We
Speaker 4: you know, are only thirteen percent in the country. In Phoenix,
Speaker 4: we're six percent. So yeah, we couldn't have thousands of
Speaker 4: people out there if it was just us, right, we
Speaker 4: need y'all and and we appreciate y'all being there for
Speaker 4: us and coming up and showing up. And we just
Speaker 4: asked that you like follow our leadership and follow what
Speaker 4: we're doing, because yeah, we do often get in trouble
Speaker 4: when people do decide to go off scripts.
Speaker 2: Okay, now there's another thing that I that I saw
Speaker 2: when I was first sort of made aware. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's I'm not gonna give too much away, but there's
Speaker 2: a group chat that exists, and uh, there's a space
Speaker 2: for white allies to engage with Black Lives Matter, and
Speaker 2: I was able to see some of the calls to action,
Speaker 2: and one of them included effectively it was saying like
Speaker 2: help as a as a human shield, keep the police
Speaker 2: away from us. And another one was it spoke to reparations.
Speaker 2: I want you to touch on those two as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 4: So you know, when white people ask us what is
Speaker 4: their role in the movement, we believe that they have
Speaker 4: three prominent roles. One is for reparations, and that's reparations,
Speaker 4: not charity. It's not that you're donating to us. We
Speaker 4: have to understand when we again take it back to
Speaker 4: how wealth was created in the first place. It was
Speaker 4: created through theft of land, genocide of Native Americans, and
Speaker 4: enslavement of Africans.
Speaker 3: So everything that y'all have we built. We built this country.
Speaker 4: And I think that it's also important to note that
Speaker 4: that all of their wealth is theft. You know, even if,
Speaker 4: like you know, in the last couple of generations, y'all
Speaker 4: worked hard, it's important.
Speaker 3: To realize how you had it in the first place.
Speaker 4: So when that's why we're not asking for charity, we're
Speaker 4: not asking for donations we're asking for reparations, and we
Speaker 4: believe it's white people's duty to be able to uh
Speaker 4: to uh give to us, because that's how we begin
Speaker 4: to right the wrongs that we're done, and that's how
Speaker 4: we begin to change the inequalities we don't have.
Speaker 3: Uh you know, the black.
Speaker 4: Communities are disinvested from, but the white communities have all
Speaker 4: that investment from. So if we're going to change inequality,
Speaker 4: we have to talk about redistribution of wealth. And that
Speaker 4: doesn't come from a oh, save the poor blackies. That
Speaker 4: comes from a do you want to address these harms?
Speaker 4: Do you want to really you know, begin to address
Speaker 4: the cracks in this nation's foundation.
Speaker 3: That's really what it's a call for.
Speaker 4: When we call for white people to use their body
Speaker 4: as a human shield, we're saying that because we believe
Speaker 4: that we know that the way white privilege acts is
Speaker 4: that if we had black people as a shield around us,
Speaker 4: all those black people getting maced, arrested and beat up
Speaker 4: may be killed, right, But we know they would never
Speaker 4: do that to white people. So we're asking them to
Speaker 4: use their privilege to shield us. And that's not that
Speaker 4: white people are our saviors. We're asking them to be
Speaker 4: race traders. We're asking them to be a trader to
Speaker 4: the privilege they were given to protect black folks.
Speaker 3: And then the last thing is to get your racist uncle.
Speaker 4: Like many of y'all have racist family members, many y'all have,
Speaker 4: you know, are related to the people who are now
Speaker 4: oppressing us. So y'all can speak to them in a
Speaker 4: way that we could never right anytime we talk to
Speaker 4: your you know, your uncle, your cousin, whatever, that's that.
Speaker 4: You know, we're speaking as an outer group, But when
Speaker 4: you know your daughter speaks to.
Speaker 3: You, you have a harder time ignoring that.
Speaker 4: So if you know that, you know you have family
Speaker 4: members who are racists, who are harmful, who are police,
Speaker 4: then you should have those conversations with them. You should
Speaker 4: again be that race trader, be use your privilege to
Speaker 4: support black folks.
Speaker 2: So when people make a donation, exactly how does that
Speaker 2: impact Like, where does it go? How does that impact
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it goes it directly goes to supporting the
Speaker 4: work currently Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro.
Speaker 3: We're an all volunteer org.
Speaker 4: We have like an all volunteer staff, and we're trying
Speaker 4: to change that because we believe black people should be
Speaker 4: paid for their labor, and over the summer, many of
Speaker 4: us have been working more than full time for free. Currently,
Speaker 4: all the funding goes to our rent, to the supplies
Speaker 4: to food. Is a really important one for us because
Speaker 4: it's part of how we build community and part of
Speaker 4: our African indigenous values of UBUNTU. I am because of you.
Speaker 4: We take care of each other, and so as we're
Speaker 4: trying to build the village, we realize, you know, we
Speaker 4: got to feed the children and anyone else who's there,
Speaker 4: and so we try to have that at our meetings,
Speaker 4: our in person meetings. We also take care of the community,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, uh supporting people.
Speaker 3: Uh through bailing them.
Speaker 4: Out through the Black People's Justice Fund, or helping them
Speaker 4: get into hotels so that single black mothers or black
Speaker 4: trans women don't have to be have to sleep on
Speaker 4: the streets and be harassed by the police, or whether
Speaker 4: it's you know, uh supporting people in their uh making
Speaker 4: sure that they can get into housing, or it also
Speaker 4: goes into all of the other kind of infrastructure that
Speaker 4: we've had to build, whether it's like our website or
Speaker 4: our zoom or all of the other kind of subscription
Speaker 4: services that we're using to run this org, so it
Speaker 4: goes directly into the work. And currently you know, we
Speaker 4: don't have like an admin team, so that work that
Speaker 4: those funds are directly going back into this work.
Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned something about community and something that I
Speaker 2: know to be true, you know, growing up in California
Speaker 2: and spending so much time here in Arizona, is that
Speaker 2: a lot of times community also extends to our Hispanic.
Speaker 1: Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: What is it that Black Lives Matter is doing on
Speaker 2: behalf of our Hispanic brothers and sisters who deal with
Speaker 2: the same sort of oppression, the same sort of social injustices.
Speaker 2: What is it that and how have we worked together
Speaker 2: with them to make the community safer and better?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro.
Speaker 4: We work directly with organizations like pod Air and Action,
Speaker 4: which works on police brutality, but also on immigration, trans
Speaker 4: Career Public which works with transmigrants, and Puente, who is
Speaker 4: also another human rights organization that works on immigration issues.
Speaker 4: And we work on this because we understand that, you know,
Speaker 4: we rise in solidarity with all oppressed people, and we
Speaker 4: realized that especially because of.
Speaker 3: The way they treat black people in this country.
Speaker 4: We realize that if they're you know, also oppressing brown people,
Speaker 4: we're not free. We're not free until we're all free.
Speaker 4: So we do realize that these issues affect us, and
Speaker 4: we also realize that we're strong, stronger together. So we're
Speaker 4: in coalition with many of these orgs, with the like
Speaker 4: Civilian Review Board, which we got passed in Phoenix in
Speaker 4: like December. That was a coalition of black and brown
Speaker 4: organizations that came together and realized that police brutality is
Speaker 4: affecting our communities, and we were able to build this
Speaker 4: powerful union because black and brown folks came together.
Speaker 3: We also, you know, will support victims of police.
Speaker 4: Brutality, of brown, brown victims. But we follow the leadership
Speaker 4: of brown orcs because we also realized like our place
Speaker 4: in that So with like the Antonio ARSA and more
Speaker 4: recently James Garcia, we followed the leadership of Podair's work
Speaker 4: because you know, they're able to connect with the community,
Speaker 4: They're able to speak Spanish, they're able to you know,
Speaker 4: connect with the community in ways that we realize we
Speaker 4: wouldn't be able to. But we still are going to
Speaker 4: show up for the protests. We're still going to follow
Speaker 4: their leadership and how they ask us to show up,
Speaker 4: because you know, until all.
Speaker 3: Of us are free, none of us are free.
Speaker 4: And we not only are in solidarity with Brown organizations,
Speaker 4: we're also recognized that we're on stolen Atom and Peeposh
Speaker 4: land and we support Native struggles. And so you know,
Speaker 4: we've gone gone out to Oak Flat. We go up
Speaker 4: actually monthly to a place called Black Mesa. It's in
Speaker 4: the Navajo Nation. We've been doing food runs supporting now
Speaker 4: up to sixty people because we realized, like our liberation
Speaker 4: is interconnected with all oppressed peoples, and so we build
Speaker 4: and rise in solidarity with.
Speaker 2: Them all absolutely. And I want to speak to this
Speaker 2: real quick. These are things the two events that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: or one of one of the events that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: which was a protest when I think he was sleeping
Speaker 2: in his car and the police killed him in his driveway.
Speaker 2: I want to say, so I went to that protest,
Speaker 2: and he was Mexican, and I did see all the
Speaker 2: things that you were saying following Brown leadership. You know
Speaker 2: a lot of it was in Spanish or otherwise translated
Speaker 2: into Spanish and so forth, and then ah, the I
Speaker 2: know that there's a uh a push to really support
Speaker 2: the trans community by Black Lives Matter. And I've actually
Speaker 2: been to those protests as well, in the front, you know,
Speaker 2: helping carry the banner, all that sort of stuff. So
Speaker 2: I actually can personally vouch for the fact that Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter has shown up for peoples that may not
Speaker 2: traditionally fit the role of they're not the popularly oppressed.
Speaker 2: But I think that when you said that we all
Speaker 2: rise together in solidarity, I think that really speaks to
Speaker 2: the at least one of the core values insofar as
Speaker 2: I can tell, of Black Lives Matter. Now, I do
Speaker 2: want to ask a question that has been submitted to me.
Speaker 2: This one came from California. So why is it that
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter is not doing more about the murders
Speaker 2: in Chicago? Why is that not as visible as some
Speaker 2: of the other things that Black Lives Matter is doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think it's important to, uh look at
Speaker 4: why those murders are happening in the first place, and
Speaker 4: how do we address them from a systemic issue, right,
Speaker 4: And so when we look at the history of gangs
Speaker 4: in the United States, gangs were first started because to
Speaker 4: protect from white supremacists and police, and so they were
Speaker 4: originally started to as a way to protect us because
Speaker 4: we did not have you know, we knew the police
Speaker 4: were terrorizing us and white supremacists were terrorizing us, and
Speaker 4: we had to protect ourselves because you know, you look
Speaker 4: at places like Black Wall Street in Tostal, Oklahoma, which
Speaker 4: was burned down by you know, by white people in
Speaker 4: the government because they didn't like to see black people
Speaker 4: do well. So black people started looking for a way
Speaker 4: to protect themselves and they created a way. And then
Speaker 4: that method then kind of.
Speaker 3: After a while itself.
Speaker 4: But then you also have to look at the history
Speaker 4: of that, and it's happened in multiple cities and including
Speaker 4: the city I'm from in Seattle, where the police would
Speaker 4: go tell one gang that this gang said this about you.
Speaker 3: Then they would go tell the other gang, and then
Speaker 3: they would record what they said. And once they found
Speaker 3: out this lie that the police created.
Speaker 4: Then they would take it to the other gang and
Speaker 4: then they would show them that so as to create
Speaker 4: war between these gangs. And then you have to look
Speaker 4: at the history of the War on drugs, which was
Speaker 4: a war on black and brown people. Then you have
Speaker 4: to look at the crack epidemic, which the government actually
Speaker 4: during the Cold War was taking drugs from South America,
Speaker 4: who they are also destabilizing those countries, and then they
Speaker 4: were bringing over into the hood and putting crack into
Speaker 4: the hood to create the conditions we are in now.
Speaker 4: So when you look at the hood and you see
Speaker 4: you know, gangs and drug infested neighborhoods, you have to
Speaker 4: understand that the government did that.
Speaker 3: You have to understand that white America did that.
Speaker 4: And so when we look at how do we address that,
Speaker 4: It's not that, oh, gun laws, Chicago has some of
Speaker 4: the strictest gun laws. That's not helping, you know, It's
Speaker 4: not that further criminalization. It's not that to create these
Speaker 4: gang registries to further veil black neighborhoods. None of that works.
Speaker 4: What works is what we're asking defunding the police and
Speaker 4: investing in community. If those kids had many of the
Speaker 4: services in the first place, they wouldn't have to join
Speaker 4: the gangs. They're joining the gangs because you know, they
Speaker 4: often are, you know, in families without fathers, and we
Speaker 4: have to look at why that is too. It's so
Speaker 4: often blamed on black women or blamed on all of
Speaker 4: these other conditions of black people, But you have to understand,
Speaker 4: in America, one in three black men are in jail,
Speaker 4: one in three. So when you look at and the
Speaker 4: age is that they're most often in between the ages
Speaker 4: of eighteen and thirty five, which are you know, so
Speaker 4: they're locking up the fathers and then then blaming us
Speaker 4: for being fatherless and then say it's because the content
Speaker 4: of our character that we're fatherless when you put all
Speaker 4: of our men in jail. And so we really have
Speaker 4: to address these things. We have to, you know, the
Speaker 4: way we see it, the way we address it is
Speaker 4: to abolish police in prisons and to create new systems
Speaker 4: of safety. And that's what you know, the defund invest
Speaker 4: is about. It's about creating after school programs, It's about
Speaker 4: creating stronger social safety nets so those kids don't have
Speaker 4: to feel like there's no one looking out for them
Speaker 4: and that they have to join this gang for protection.
Speaker 3: Because that's what it's about. It's about protection.
Speaker 4: So if we can make sure black children don't feel unsafe,
Speaker 4: if we can make how do we make those neighborhoods
Speaker 4: on safe, How do we make those neighborhoods safety. We
Speaker 4: invest in those communities and we prevent the police who
Speaker 4: created these problems. In the first place, there's a police
Speaker 4: in the FBI who put the crack in those neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: It's the police who took those fathers away. And so
Speaker 4: we really have to address it from a systemic side.
Speaker 4: And so so often these Fox News talking points are
Speaker 4: really like blaming black people for killing themselves. And we
Speaker 4: have to understand that this is the result of the
Speaker 4: societal conditions. It's the result of intergenerational trauma, the trauma
Speaker 4: of being ripped apart. Have these families have been being
Speaker 4: broken up since slavery and they never ended it. They
Speaker 4: just renamed it as prison right. And so when we
Speaker 4: call for the abolition of prisons, it's a continuation of.
Speaker 3: The call of the abolition of slavery.
Speaker 4: Because you know, with the thirteenth Amendment, you have that
Speaker 4: clause in there that says that, oh, you know, slavery
Speaker 4: has ended, except if you know, if you are a criminal,
Speaker 4: and then what is now You don't even have to
Speaker 4: say the inn word, You just call us criminal, right,
Speaker 4: And so this again is it's a continuation of slavery.
Speaker 4: And so how do we begin to address these systemic
Speaker 4: issues in this intergenerational trauma? You know, we invest in
Speaker 4: these communities who've been disinvested from day.
Speaker 2: One, and I think that that really speaks to the
Speaker 2: fact that there's a lot of disinformation floating around out there.
Speaker 2: One of the things that comes to mind is the
Speaker 2: myth that black men are bad fathers. What comes to
Speaker 2: mind is there was a report from the CDC and
Speaker 2: this will be my final thought a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and you're welcome to google it if you're tuning in
Speaker 2: or listening, But it turns out that black men are
Speaker 2: doing best of all races if you break it down
Speaker 2: by race. This is a Center for Disease Control. They
Speaker 2: did a study on black parenting black fathers specifically, and
Speaker 2: as it turns out, black fathers are most engaged, most present,
Speaker 2: and so there's this prevailing myth that those that's the case,
Speaker 2: and so a lot of this disinformation requires further research.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately we're out of time, and so before I go,
Speaker 2: I want to implore you to send us all your questions,
Speaker 2: any topics that you want. Keep in mind, this is
Speaker 2: a community supported show, so you can donate on the
Speaker 2: website Civiccipher dot com, Civic Ciphers all of our social media,
Speaker 2: you can follow me at Rams's Jah and Zar go
Speaker 2: ahead and leave them with your social media as well.
Speaker 4: So if you want to follow our work in BLM
Speaker 4: Phoenix Metro pretty much on all platforms, we are b
Speaker 4: l M, p A checks Metro and and our websites
Speaker 4: dot org.
Speaker 3: And if you want to follow my personal page, it's
Speaker 3: Zebra Tacola t E k O l A.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's on ig all right, Well, thanks for tuning
Speaker 2: in the civic cipher. Be sure to check us out
Speaker 2: next week, same time, same channel, and uh yeah, until then,
Speaker 2: they save y'all