Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses joh I.
Speaker 2: Go by the name of Q ward. Ram has caused
Speaker 2: me Q. My mom calls me Q, so you might
Speaker 2: as well call me Q.
Speaker 1: And sometimes your mom calls you Q dirty, And that's
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: Too, mom calls me Do you know how cool it
Speaker 2: is that my mom calls me Q dirty?
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I got another excellent show for you today and
Speaker 3: an interesting show a lot for you to stick around for,
Speaker 3: so stay tuned because we are going to be talking
Speaker 3: about a story that's come up a couple of times
Speaker 3: this week about a family that, without giving too much away,
Speaker 3: we'll say, had to quote unquote play the game with
Speaker 3: their house in order to get a fair appraisal.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're going to talk about that, peel
Speaker 1: back a couple of layers and hopefully share personal examples
Speaker 1: because I know I've had to do that before, and
Speaker 1: I know you've had to do We both have had
Speaker 1: to do that before in the same room, so definitely
Speaker 1: want to talk about that. We're also going to you know,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of common motifs around here, so we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about what it means to be a bully.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of videos that we've seen this week.
Speaker 1: Normally we've tried to you know, ping pong back and forth,
Speaker 1: but I know this week we've shared we've both seen
Speaker 1: a lot of videos, some of which have included human
Speaker 1: beings losing their lives at the hands of police, unfairly
Speaker 1: by all accounts, even those police departments. And so we
Speaker 1: want to really pull back a couple of layers there
Speaker 1: and really challenge the hero narrative, not because it's not deserved,
Speaker 1: but because it doesn't really leave a lot of space
Speaker 1: for errors for people that don't want to think critically
Speaker 1: about this. These institutions will say, and a lot more
Speaker 1: to come as well. But first we are going to
Speaker 1: discuss some ebony excellence. So this week we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about someone who's near physically near to you out
Speaker 1: there in Atlanta. She goes by the name of Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 1: So well, first off, what's your thoughts on on Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 2: So, part of our plight as a people, and I
Speaker 2: don't mean just black people, I mean people in general,
Speaker 2: is our lack of ability to find common ground. There
Speaker 2: is far more that we have in common than what
Speaker 2: separates us. Sure, we spend so much more time on
Speaker 2: what separates us. Stacy Abrams has found a way to
Speaker 2: at least have some collective of people with a singular agenda.
Speaker 2: And she's been able to organize and mobilize in a
Speaker 2: way that many people have tried, but not many have
Speaker 2: been as successful as she has. So she had an
Speaker 2: unsuccessful run for governor. People I think eventually thought that
Speaker 2: she would run for mayor. But what she did is
Speaker 2: she just found a way to organize people who had
Speaker 2: the same thoughts, the same ideas, had the same goals
Speaker 2: and wanted to reach the same point, and got all
Speaker 2: those people to organize, mobilize and get in the streets,
Speaker 2: bro get people to vote, get people to show up
Speaker 2: at the polls. And she's almost singularly responsible for the
Speaker 2: Democrats having the representation that they needed from those seats
Speaker 2: that were available in Georgia. I remember that flipping the
Speaker 2: state and getting people to come out in large numbers
Speaker 2: to you know, show up and vote, and her ability
Speaker 2: to organize, I think she's going to use for her
Speaker 2: own benefit this time, because she did run for governor
Speaker 2: before she lost to Brian Kemp. And the way that
Speaker 2: you know may have been a little fishy right right, However,
Speaker 2: she's the one, bro, if we had to champion someone,
Speaker 2: she's the one. I think her chances of success this
Speaker 2: time are really high. But you and I have gone
Speaker 2: back and forth in this show about all the ways
Speaker 2: that our legislators, our politicians, the people that we put
Speaker 2: in office, are now going out of their way to
Speaker 2: make it more difficult for more people to vote. She's
Speaker 2: the person on the opposite side of that. She might
Speaker 2: even be directly responsible for all of these states doubling
Speaker 2: down on making it harder for poor people and people
Speaker 2: of color to show up at these polls.
Speaker 1: And to vote.
Speaker 2: So shout out to her for being a person of
Speaker 2: the people, not just people that look like her, and
Speaker 2: not just people that have her ideas, but just people
Speaker 2: in general.
Speaker 1: Well that sounds like em any excellence to me. So
Speaker 1: we'll take that all day again. Shout out to Stacy
Speaker 1: Abrams and hopefully she has a successful run for governor.
Speaker 1: Moving on, all right, So you know the story too,
Speaker 1: because we've shared, you know, in preparation for today's show.
Speaker 1: Black Couple. Uh oh here we go. Yeah. Well, first,
Speaker 1: the reason that we share these types of issues on
Speaker 1: this program. Is because you know, some of the news
Speaker 1: sources aren't able to peel back the layers the way
Speaker 1: that we feel might be necessary, you know, for folks
Speaker 1: to really be able to know what the experience is like.
Speaker 1: And we are trying to create more empathetic allies or
Speaker 1: more empathetic people who, you know, maybe they're on the
Speaker 1: fringes or they're living their own lives and they don't
Speaker 1: really consider themselves allies to the plight of like black
Speaker 1: and brown people in this country. And so we're we're
Speaker 1: hoping to explain things in a way that is beyond
Speaker 1: the text that you might find and you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of give it some some more context. And so
Speaker 1: I'll begin long story short, and my sources come from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and the Daily Mail and the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: who did a cover for the story as well. Black
Speaker 1: couple ultimately ended up suing a real estate agency after
Speaker 1: their Bay Area home was valued at just nine hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five thousand dollars, but a one point four
Speaker 1: to two million dollar valuation came about when they removed
Speaker 1: all photos of themselves and asked white friends to pose
Speaker 1: as the owners. For viewing when the appraiser came to
Speaker 1: view the property a second time. So just by swapping
Speaker 1: out the family photos and them not being there themselves
Speaker 1: and having a white couple come in, they gained, you know,
Speaker 1: nearly half a million dollars in additional wealth in their
Speaker 1: appraisal of their property. Right now, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people that might say, well, this is one example
Speaker 1: that you know that's not across the board, and you know,
Speaker 1: to a degree, they might be right. But overall, based
Speaker 1: on the experience that I've had that the people that
Speaker 1: I know have had, you know, this is like when
Speaker 1: I first read this, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's genius. I wonder how much my house would have
Speaker 1: been worth if I had done that. What a what
Speaker 1: an excellent idea? Right not to say that, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I fortunately, I've had a very I'm very
Speaker 1: very good run. And so I live in a nice
Speaker 1: house in a nice neighborhood, and you know, the property
Speaker 1: values they kind of you know, have a I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to lose too much value. But in this house,
Speaker 1: I was able to see it, and I could see
Speaker 1: that they had added additional construction elements, and so forth,
Speaker 1: which is not really possible where I live. So but
Speaker 1: let me finish and then we'll get into this. So
Speaker 1: the couple's name is Paul and Tanisha Austin, and they
Speaker 1: believed that race was the reason that their home was
Speaker 1: undervalued because the only thing that they had changed was
Speaker 1: the race of the people. Trying to get the valuation
Speaker 1: on the property. Again, they bought the home in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen for eight hundred and ninety thousand. It was valued
Speaker 1: at nine hundred and ninety five thousand, despite spending four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars on renovations. Again, that's not really possible
Speaker 1: where I'm at. So you know, some other details here,
Speaker 1: and then as I mentioned, they brought in some friends
Speaker 1: of theirs to sit in the house and kind of
Speaker 1: receive the valuation under their name Paul and Tanisha Austin,
Speaker 1: and then of course, you know, they got the higher valuation.
Speaker 1: This process is called whitewashing. Now, I got at least
Speaker 1: one story that I can share, but I know many
Speaker 1: examples throughout my life when this type of tactic, not
Speaker 1: this exact tactic, but this type of tactic has been necessary,
Speaker 1: and I'll share one of them. So where I live
Speaker 1: in Arizona. I have to interact with people. Some of
Speaker 1: these people are business people, right, and they're accustomed to
Speaker 1: doing business with folks that look like them. And I
Speaker 1: understood that, right, So you know, the platonic ideal, whatever's
Speaker 1: in your mind right now, if I had to guess,
Speaker 1: it's a white, middle aged male in a business suit,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's got a briefcase, and this is
Speaker 1: the business person that I will be interacting with, And
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be wrong because this is the type of
Speaker 1: person I have to interact with. And I remember early on,
Speaker 1: I created a company to procure advertisements. You know, I
Speaker 1: work in radio and uh. I was trying to put
Speaker 1: together these ad packages for various companies and organizations that
Speaker 1: included me in the advertising package, right, so I could
Speaker 1: get paid for doing the media buys, but also I
Speaker 1: could get paid as the endorser of said initiative, right
Speaker 1: or whatever call to action. There was my background, like
Speaker 1: I went to school. My bachelor's is in marketing, my
Speaker 1: master's is in management. I know how to talk to talk,
Speaker 1: I know how to walk the walk. I have results.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't, okay, you know out here, but
Speaker 1: I look how I look. Uh, you know, and and
Speaker 1: to be fair, it's not just that I'm black. I'm
Speaker 1: also very young.
Speaker 2: Can you describe? Can you describe how you look for
Speaker 2: our listeners who have who don't be that's important, right.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to cut Ramdas off, but you guys, hear
Speaker 2: Ram this is amazing voice. And you may have no
Speaker 2: idea how he looks because he's so well spoken and
Speaker 2: so articulate.
Speaker 1: That's very kinring.
Speaker 2: He looks like the type of person that someone would
Speaker 2: say that about. He's so well spoken. Sure, such a
Speaker 2: such a such a a.
Speaker 1: Backhanded compliment, right, exactly exactly, But these things in my
Speaker 1: more formative years had informed how I would quote unquote
Speaker 1: play the game, how I would do my whitewashing because
Speaker 1: of backhanded compliments like that. I knew that I had
Speaker 1: the potential, But I also knew I had the potential
Speaker 1: provided that I, you know, took a a less obvious route.
Speaker 1: And I'll get to that in just a second. That
Speaker 1: might be a little misleading, but I you know, I
Speaker 1: know how to put on a suit, so you know,
Speaker 1: I my tattoos don't really come into play when I
Speaker 1: have a suit on and I'm in a business meeting,
Speaker 1: which was the case in this one example. But I
Speaker 1: do wear my hair the way God intended. Right. In
Speaker 1: other words, my hair grows and it reaches for the sky.
Speaker 1: It's an afro, you know, or a crown or whatever
Speaker 1: you like to call it. It's just it's my hair.
Speaker 1: That's how it comes, right. I don't change it. I
Speaker 1: don't really do anything to it. It's just it just
Speaker 1: is what it is. Right and to the wrong people
Speaker 1: that can be intimidating, or that can be in their opinion,
Speaker 1: unprofessional or whatever the case is. Right, And obviously everyone
Speaker 1: has to play the game, but there are some rules
Speaker 1: that I will not play by. You know. I will
Speaker 1: be the way God made me. My hair will be
Speaker 1: the way God made it. You know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: I can't change that. It's encoded into my genetics, right,
Speaker 1: and nor should me or anybody else change who they
Speaker 1: fundamentally are to you know, have to play this game.
Speaker 1: But I also recognize that if I'm not going to
Speaker 1: budge that, I have to work in a workaround.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: My hair has always been a part of my brand.
Speaker 1: You know, we say this all the time, but Q
Speaker 1: and I are DJs, you know, and part of being
Speaker 1: in DJ and entertainer is you know, having a certain
Speaker 1: look right and for me, in addition to me wearing
Speaker 1: my hair for my own reasons, my own spiritual and
Speaker 1: personal and cultural reasons, my hair is also a part
Speaker 1: of my brand. You know. It's just kind of one
Speaker 1: of those things folks associated with. So there's no way
Speaker 1: around this, no matter how you look at it, fiscally
Speaker 1: or otherwise. So what I did when I was meeting
Speaker 1: with the Health Department was I was working on a
Speaker 1: health campaign with the Health Department. Prior to actually meeting
Speaker 1: these folks, I had done a lot of emailing back
Speaker 1: and forth letting them know, Hey, I could help you
Speaker 1: with your media buys. I can help you with your
Speaker 1: outdoor buys. You can buy billboards and these zip codes.
Speaker 1: You can you know, buy advertisement in these magazines. You
Speaker 1: can buy radio ads you know, on these radio stations,
Speaker 1: and you can put together a campaign that will reach
Speaker 1: the folks that you're really trying to reach and have
Speaker 1: multiple impressions from different sources that I believe will you know,
Speaker 1: get the word out the way you'd like and be effective,
Speaker 1: you know, And I can help you craft the language
Speaker 1: and the visuals and so forth, because I know the
Speaker 1: people you're trying to reach and I can help you
Speaker 1: reach them, and they love this, you know. So the
Speaker 1: ideas flowed back and forth, back and forth, and then
Speaker 1: time came for us to have a meeting. I was
Speaker 1: working with a much bigger ad agency to actually handle
Speaker 1: my media, yes, and so they weren't in the deal
Speaker 1: as of yet. They just kind of had my back
Speaker 1: if I needed to come with them with a budget,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's a six figure deal that I
Speaker 1: was working on, and I knew prior to going into
Speaker 1: this meeting that, uh, I'm going to need someone that
Speaker 1: these folks can talk to. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: I had a friend named Russ. I still have this friend, right,
Speaker 1: And Russ and I had been through a lot together.
Speaker 1: We'll say that. But Russ is just like you think.
Speaker 1: He's a middle aged white man, looks great in a tie,
Speaker 1: looks like he knows what he's talking about. And he
Speaker 1: understood that. I was fine being the cool guy. But
Speaker 1: when it came time to have these really important conversations,
Speaker 1: despite my education, despite my familiarity with the subject matter,
Speaker 1: and despite them being my actual ideas, that I came
Speaker 1: up on my own, in my own space, I would
Speaker 1: never be able to I wouldn't be listened to in
Speaker 1: the same way. And so I asked him. I was like, hey, Russ,
Speaker 1: could you come to this first meeting with me, just
Speaker 1: the first one, please, and sit in the meeting and
Speaker 1: start the meeting, you know, and then turn it over
Speaker 1: to me, and then you you, for all they know,
Speaker 1: you're my boss, and then you turn it over to me,
Speaker 1: and then I'll do the talking. So that way it
Speaker 1: looks like it's both of us because they'll feel like
Speaker 1: they're doing business with you, but they'll get the actual
Speaker 1: information for me. So you don't have to study this stuff.
Speaker 1: You don't have to feel back any layers. And I
Speaker 1: was like, and I'll cut you in on, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the money, you know, if we get this
Speaker 1: taken care of. And Russ, of course, being the salesman
Speaker 1: that he was, you know, he's an old sales guy
Speaker 1: from radio, which is how I knew him. He says, yeah, absolutely, Man,
Speaker 1: I get what you're trying to do. I got you.
Speaker 1: Just give me the cliffs notes and then we'll knock
Speaker 1: it out of the park. And that's exactly what happened,
Speaker 1: and that relationship snowballed into other relationships where Russ would
Speaker 1: be with me when I'm doing media buys, when I'm
Speaker 1: sitting down with these logistics companies, I'm sitting down with
Speaker 1: all kinds of companies. You know, Russ would be my guy,
Speaker 1: that would be the white guy in the room to
Speaker 1: make the other white guys feel like, perhaps if we
Speaker 1: did business with this couple of people here, we would
Speaker 1: get the results that we want. Whereas me, by myself,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I would have had those same results.
Speaker 1: I'd never had any results outside of us. And it
Speaker 1: didn't matter how much I talked, or how as you
Speaker 1: put it, well spoken, or what my education was. There
Speaker 1: was a couple of things, not the least of which
Speaker 1: is my skin. Remember I'm in Arizona. These middle aged
Speaker 1: white men are oftentimes very right leaning, very conservative types,
Speaker 1: who you know they come from a different time, and
Speaker 1: you know they're not as familiar interacting with folks that
Speaker 1: don't look like them. And I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: any kind of way, and I'm not trying to say anything.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you my reality how similar it is
Speaker 1: to this couple, and I want to read one more thing,
Speaker 1: and I want to get your thoughts. Cute to add
Speaker 1: to this, A long time ago, when I was maybe
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, I worked at a Nissan dealership, right,
Speaker 1: and I had to study all these cars Exterras and
Speaker 1: Maximums and everything like that. I thought I was grown up. Man,
Speaker 1: I was seventeen. I had a grown up job. I
Speaker 1: had to wear a suit, you know, to sell these cars.
Speaker 1: And I just got a kick out of that. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of cars. So at this time,
Speaker 1: I read something that we got as like staff, as salespeople.
Speaker 1: I read something that suggested that Nissan was in trouble,
Speaker 1: legal trouble for giving higher interest rates overall the sales
Speaker 1: departments at the dealerships across the country, and the Nissan
Speaker 1: financing company and all this sort of stuff. We're giving
Speaker 1: higher interest rates to black people. Now, this was many
Speaker 1: years ago. This is twenty some odd years ago when
Speaker 1: this happened. So you know, this is how I remember it,
Speaker 1: which might not be entirely accurate, but I do remember
Speaker 1: that Nissan was charging more interest for black people overall.
Speaker 1: And it was a clear it was clear, like ones
Speaker 1: and Zero's racism. You know, the same credit score, same situations.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're comparing apples to apples, the blacker
Speaker 1: you are the higher interest rate, right, And we needed
Speaker 1: to know about that in case someone came in to
Speaker 1: try to buy an Ultima or a CenTra or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: and we needed to know how to defend against that.
Speaker 1: And there was me and there was another guy there
Speaker 1: whose name is Sherman. He was also black, and we
Speaker 1: had to like really sit with this, like, okay, so
Speaker 1: they know this is happening, they acknowledge it, and then
Speaker 1: now they're informing us on how to deal with the customer.
Speaker 2: They want us to be able to speak to it intelligently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that crazy? So the reason I bring that
Speaker 1: up is because not just this house, but and this
Speaker 1: comes from the New York Daily News in twenty sixteen, Toyota,
Speaker 1: not Nissan. And this is many years later, right, Toyota
Speaker 1: agreed to pay back twenty one point nine million dollars
Speaker 1: two thousands of African American and Asian borrowers when it
Speaker 1: was determined that dealers routinely charge customers of color higher
Speaker 1: interest rates than white customers with the same credit score
Speaker 1: and income level. To be clear this wasn't an aberration
Speaker 1: of some sort, but appears to be an industry standard.
Speaker 1: And now we have more substance to suggest that going
Speaker 1: in to a meeting where finances are at stake, money
Speaker 1: is at stake with black skin, that counts against you, right,
Speaker 1: And we know not just in the United States, but
Speaker 1: across the world things that are associated with poverty. We're
Speaker 1: seeing textbook examples of why it's more difficult for black
Speaker 1: folks to build wealth. You know, we could go all
Speaker 1: the way back and discuss redlining. We could look at
Speaker 1: right now and discuss the school to prison pipeline. We
Speaker 1: could look at the war on drugs. We can look
Speaker 1: at a number of things. But right now we're looking
Speaker 1: this in the face, the ones and zeros, right, and
Speaker 1: we know that crime and poor health, poor education, all
Speaker 1: these things tend to follow the money line. You know,
Speaker 1: the poorer this people are, the more difficult of a
Speaker 1: go that there is, and the more challenge the community is. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're seeing these things here and not for nothing.
Speaker 1: I kind of applaud this couple. I think that's a
Speaker 1: brilliant idea. Let's get some white folks in here so
Speaker 1: that we can get a little bit more money out
Speaker 1: of this house. Right. But the reason that I wanted
Speaker 1: to share that with you, our listener, is because this
Speaker 1: might not be something you might be aware of. You know,
Speaker 1: in your world it's this this whole thing might be
Speaker 1: black people versus the police, or maybe that's not your persuasion,
Speaker 1: and you're like, black people can't get over slavery. Why
Speaker 1: can't they just fix their own problems, you know, or
Speaker 1: whatever the case is. You know, there's just some stories
Speaker 1: that we need to tell, and this is the show
Speaker 1: that we have, and we can tell these stories now.
Speaker 1: I would love to get your reaction as well. Q.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts? We got about two and a
Speaker 1: half minutes. My thoughts are going to be I'm glad
Speaker 1: you said that. My thoughts are going to be much
Speaker 1: shorter and much less eloquent than you might think. That's okay.
Speaker 2: We have to we have to come to terms with
Speaker 2: things like that being brilliant and disgusting all at the
Speaker 2: same time. Like we have to laugh at their brilliance, Like, yo,
Speaker 2: you know played the game, you played it, Go ahead,
Speaker 2: But dude, do you know how like some some times
Speaker 2: all we can do is laugh and smile as to
Speaker 2: not burn the whole place down, Like we have to
Speaker 2: just be like, man, goodness gracious. And you know, I
Speaker 2: almost soar right there, so I had to go to
Speaker 2: goodness gracious to keep from saying a curse word. We
Speaker 2: have to really just be like man, wow, Like the
Speaker 2: game really is set up for us to fail perpetually,
Speaker 2: Like they don't want us to ever just be okay.
Speaker 1: So don't let me stop you. But I want to
Speaker 1: jump in right here. This is not the only thing.
Speaker 1: We're talking about cars and houses, and we're talking about money.
Speaker 1: We're not even considering political opportunities. We're not considering employment opportunities,
Speaker 1: which I guess is kind of tied to money, but
Speaker 1: also I think to a degree tied to the capacity
Speaker 1: to influence. We're not talking about you know, life and death,
Speaker 1: you know, which we will talk about a little bit
Speaker 1: later with respect to police. We're not talking about the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. We're not talking about educational opportunity. We're
Speaker 1: not talking about a lot of different things. We're just
Speaker 1: talking about this couple in their house. And you know,
Speaker 1: for those that listen to the show, you might know
Speaker 1: because we talk about things like this all the time.
Speaker 1: But for those that don't. Here's something you might not
Speaker 1: have considered. All right, please continue, We got another thirty
Speaker 1: seconds or something.
Speaker 2: I'll I'll just finish it up by saying, but we
Speaker 2: are talking about all that stuff you just said we
Speaker 2: weren't talking about. Sure, we're talking about all of that
Speaker 2: all the time. And just like the stats with the
Speaker 2: car dealerships and with lending and interest rates and finance,
Speaker 2: we have all this data. We have more, and we
Speaker 2: have even more in the amount and even more in
Speaker 2: the level of how compelling it is data to speak
Speaker 2: to all that other stuff you just said, with the
Speaker 2: only condition being don't look like us, and you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: It'll be okay.
Speaker 2: Look like us, and everything is going to be harder
Speaker 2: for you, just based on that. And we have to
Speaker 2: live with knowing this is true every day. And we
Speaker 2: don't burn this place down, like think about that part.
Speaker 2: And we don't now, nor have we ever even tried
Speaker 2: to burn this place down.
Speaker 1: All right, And that's a good enough place to leave
Speaker 1: it for right now. Stick around your radios. We're coming
Speaker 1: back with more civic cipher right after this