Speaker 1: Keep on riding with it, says. We continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Speaker 1: Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rams's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams's joh I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned into Civic Cipher once again.
Speaker 1: Dude, you are, and we still have plenty more show
Speaker 1: for you to stick around for. I do want to
Speaker 1: share a little bit about a recent keynote address that
Speaker 1: I was able to give on behalf of our show.
Speaker 1: So stick around for our Bob Bob Becoming a Better Ally,
Speaker 1: because I do want to share a really special story
Speaker 1: with you. But also we're going to listen to a
Speaker 1: TikToker and influencer that we're a big fan of discuss
Speaker 1: the ways that slaves were captured not just bought. The
Speaker 1: influencer and the content creator goes by the name of
Speaker 1: LeVert the Baseman. We're going to listen to his story
Speaker 1: and then react to that on the show, and that
Speaker 1: and so much more interesting content coming your way. But
Speaker 1: before we get there, it's time to discuss these kids
Speaker 1: and tell you how to be Aba become a better Ally.
Speaker 1: Baba and Today's Boba sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for the free voter wallet from
Speaker 1: foteamglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses
Speaker 1: as well as make an impact with your spending. Again.
Speaker 1: That's foteamglobal dot com founded in nineteen thirty eight. Jack
Speaker 1: and Jill boasts two hundred and seventy one chapters nationwide,
Speaker 1: representing more than fifty thousand family members. Each chapter plans
Speaker 1: annual programming activities guided under a general five point programmatic
Speaker 1: thrust cultural awareness, educational development, civic and social slash, recreational areas.
Speaker 1: Through service projects, Jack and Jill of America creates a
Speaker 1: medium of contact for children to stimulate their growth and
Speaker 1: development through lobbying, educational programming, dissemination of education materials, and
Speaker 1: the organization of community and charitable events. Jack and Jill
Speaker 1: has promoted the public awareness and interest of children, including
Speaker 1: child development, child growth, child quality of life, childcare, and
Speaker 1: the promotion of children's rights. I have the pleasure of
Speaker 1: delivering the keynote address for their Greater Suburban Maryland chapter
Speaker 1: discussing the theme we will not be silenced And I
Speaker 1: know we talked about Jack and Jill of America last week,
Speaker 1: But I just I feel like we should double down
Speaker 1: on this organization. I know you're a lot more familiar
Speaker 1: with them than I was, Q, But just a fantastic organization,
Speaker 1: a great group of young people with great leadership in place.
Speaker 1: I want to send a special shout out to Donna Armstrong.
Speaker 1: She is indeed this Week's example of becoming a better ally.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you would like to support this organization,
Speaker 1: visit Jack and Jill and Jackanjillinc Dot org. Again, just
Speaker 1: a fantastic organization doing the right kind of work for
Speaker 1: the right group of people. A very vulnerable population, but
Speaker 1: a very resilient population. These young people were just I'm
Speaker 1: just in love with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I got to see the pictures from the event and
Speaker 2: it looked like it was incredible. I wish I could
Speaker 2: have been there, but it was my baby boy's birthday.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So all right, we are going to talk about some
Speaker 1: more slave stuff. And the reason we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about this, you know, Qu's the reason that we're talking
Speaker 1: about this right now. In fact, talk to us a bit,
Speaker 1: Q about why you thought that this was relevant, because
Speaker 1: I know the reason you sent it to a group chat.
Speaker 1: But the way you put it was so eloquent.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to share information like this
Speaker 2: with each other sometimes believe it or not. To you
Speaker 2: that is listening to us right now, we need to
Speaker 2: be reassured that we are not sitting in an echo
Speaker 2: chamber sharing information from a single point of view or
Speaker 2: a single data set. And oftentimes, because Ramsenes and I
Speaker 2: are singular as Civic Cipher and in a lot of
Speaker 2: other areas of our professional life, we spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time having these conversations in a studio with you,
Speaker 2: our listener, and each other, and we get far more
Speaker 2: pushback than support. And I think that's because some people
Speaker 2: think the information that we're sharing is obviously true, so
Speaker 2: they don't feel a need to come and give us
Speaker 2: an amen or a vote of support. And those that
Speaker 2: oppose us, very very loudly oppose us. So sometimes we're
Speaker 2: looking at each other like, are we the ones that
Speaker 2: are on the wrong side of this, because there's so
Speaker 2: many people that seem to be up against us in
Speaker 2: this information age. Because once upon a time there were
Speaker 2: gatekeepers to information. Scientists, professors, and even the news once
Speaker 2: upon a time gave us the information that we held
Speaker 2: to be true. If you wanted to do a scholastic
Speaker 2: research study on something, you had to go to a library,
Speaker 2: you had to look through encyclopedias, so the information that
Speaker 2: you were getting you were pretty certain that that information
Speaker 2: was real. Well, now in the information age, you have
Speaker 2: access to all of the information that exist. Because because
Speaker 2: so many of us don't know how to properly conduct
Speaker 2: a scholastic study or do scholastic research, we take all
Speaker 2: of the information that's true and then we share that
Speaker 2: information as some type of intellectual flex. You know, I
Speaker 2: know the one thing that all the doctors and scientists
Speaker 2: didn't know. And I know that one thing, no matter
Speaker 2: the topic, politics, slavery, medicine, a global pandemic, systemic depression. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm the one that knows. The thing that everyone else
Speaker 2: doesn't know. Is the position that a lot of people
Speaker 2: have taken. And sadly, we end up on the other
Speaker 2: side of the table from other black people with regard
Speaker 2: to the reasons that we are oppressed or that we
Speaker 2: are oppressed in the first place. And this contrarian intellectual
Speaker 2: flex that people think they're doing puts us in a
Speaker 2: position where we're arguing things that are obvious, proven fact
Speaker 2: against people who are arguing it against our collective own
Speaker 2: best interest. And one thing that you and I have
Speaker 2: seen too many times to count is black people. Because
Speaker 2: white supremacists and racist people do this anyway. They want
Speaker 2: to make slavery seem smaller, less important, and less impactful
Speaker 2: to today's black American. But even black Americans have started
Speaker 2: to parrot some of this information that you know, we
Speaker 2: sold ourselves into slavery, and that black people are just
Speaker 2: as at fault, and that black people who were going
Speaker 2: to be enslaved or killed otherwise are better off because
Speaker 2: Europeans took us from Africa and brought us to America
Speaker 2: as slaves and taught us all these things about cultivating
Speaker 2: land and being simple human beings and not savages. So
Speaker 2: seeing this information and having someone present actual, reputable and
Speaker 2: verifiable data contrary to some of those arguments was just
Speaker 2: something that I hoped listeners could benefit from.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get to it, let's play it. And so
Speaker 1: again this is from at Lavert the base man. If
Speaker 1: you want to look him up on any platform, I
Speaker 1: think he's all over the place.
Speaker 4: By good morning, you said, not one person was stolen,
Speaker 4: They were sold by their own leaders, don't race bait.
Speaker 4: If you're gonna use disinformation, well Brock Children's eighty seven,
Speaker 4: I can clearly see that your Alabaster, Alabama education has
Speaker 4: failed you. So come here real quick.
Speaker 3: Let's have a conversation.
Speaker 4: First and foremost, I'm gonna need you to stop lying.
Speaker 4: You are far too old that stop it. Secondly, the
Speaker 4: lies you're telling were started by a racist cloister of
Speaker 4: Karen's known as the United Daughters of Confederacy. Their job
Speaker 4: was to spread this and disinformation about slavery in the
Speaker 4: United States of America. They lied and rewrote history books,
Speaker 4: making sure that they favored the South and protected racists.
Speaker 4: You racists and many disinformed people say that nobody was
Speaker 4: stolen from Africa, while history says this. Momiral John Hawkins
Speaker 4: hijacked a Portuguese slave ship and sold three hundred Africans
Speaker 4: from it, and on his second trip he captured four
Speaker 4: hundred Africans. He didn't buy them, he didn't purchase them,
Speaker 4: and he didn't trade for them. He captured them. And
Speaker 4: when he finished he wrote a book titled an Alliance
Speaker 4: to Raid for Slaves. And in this book he tells
Speaker 4: the story of the very first Africans they captured, kidnapped,
Speaker 4: and stole. He writes in his book I went myself
Speaker 4: where we took two hundred and fifty persons, men, women
Speaker 4: and children. He said nothing about buying them, not purchasing them,
Speaker 4: not trading them. He said, we took two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty people, and in total there were six hundred prisoners.
Speaker 3: And yet here you.
Speaker 4: Are just loud, proud and wrong, declaring that nobody was stolen.
Speaker 4: You then go on to say that they were sold
Speaker 4: by their own leaders, and that too is false. Africa
Speaker 4: has the highest form of genetic diversity on the planet.
Speaker 4: Before white people showed up, there was no we are
Speaker 4: all Africans, we are all black. No, they were different ethnicities,
Speaker 4: much like you Europeans were. How you British were different
Speaker 4: from the Normans, who were different from the Irish, who
Speaker 4: were different from the Scots, who were different from the Celts,
Speaker 4: who were different from the French, who were different from
Speaker 4: the Germans, who were different from the Gauls. You see
Speaker 4: how that works. You see how different ethnicities work in Europe.
Speaker 4: It works the same way in Africa. It works the
Speaker 4: same way in Africa. And just like in Europe, white
Speaker 4: men were the ones who were fueling these conflicts between
Speaker 4: different ethnicities. So in warfare, when one kingdom conquers another,
Speaker 4: their prisoners of war were enslaved. These African kings didn't
Speaker 4: enslave their own people, They enslaved their enemies. You then
Speaker 4: go on to say, don't race bait if you're going
Speaker 4: to use this information. See, I don't think you understand
Speaker 4: what race bating is, because if you did, you would
Speaker 4: know that your misinformation is intentionally encouraging racism or anger
Speaker 4: about issues relating to race. The lies that you and
Speaker 4: people like you tell prevent this nation from healing by
Speaker 4: stopping the truth from being told. You know, people believe
Speaker 4: a lie faster than they believe the truth. I mean,
Speaker 4: you're a prime example, right. You then go on to
Speaker 4: say that they were promised land and a mule in
Speaker 4: eighteen sixty five, and that's true.
Speaker 3: We were promised forty acres and a mule. Did we
Speaker 3: get it? No?
Speaker 4: You want to know why, because Andrew Johnson overturned the
Speaker 4: order in the fall of eighteen sixty five. He gave
Speaker 4: all that land back to the racist to the very
Speaker 4: people who declared war on the United States of America.
Speaker 4: You then go on to say that the first slaves
Speaker 4: to leave Africa to America was fifteen twenty six, And
Speaker 4: that ain't true either, because it was fifteen oh one
Speaker 4: when Spain began trafficking enslaved Africans to the New World.
Speaker 3: You're too old to be doing all that, damn line.
Speaker 4: It was fifteen twenty six when Spain landed in what
Speaker 4: would become the United States of America. Now was I
Speaker 4: talking about Spain or Spanish colonies in that video, No,
Speaker 4: I was not. I was talking about Britain and British
Speaker 4: colonies around the world, specifically British colonial America. And I
Speaker 4: said that several times throughout the video, and at least
Speaker 4: twice within the first ten seconds. And as stated in
Speaker 4: the video, it was August twentieth, sixteen nineteen when Africans
Speaker 4: first landed in British colonial America. It's clear that your
Speaker 4: UDC education hasn't taught you that America started out as
Speaker 4: colonies of Spain, France, England, and the Dutch. Those are
Speaker 4: four separate countries that colonized indigenous land, and each one
Speaker 4: of those colonies had a different slave policy. So when
Speaker 4: you said they never promised them anything, You're partially correct
Speaker 4: because Spain never promised their enslaved Africans anything but Britain. However,
Speaker 4: Britain promised their indentured servants their freedom and land, and
Speaker 4: what was point comfort It was a British colony. So
Speaker 4: am I saying that no Africans were ever bought and
Speaker 4: sold during the entirety of the Transatlantic slave trade?
Speaker 3: No, that's stupid.
Speaker 4: We know that some were bought and sold, but for
Speaker 4: you to say that none were stolen, that is stupid.
Speaker 4: So why is that belief stupid? Because apologists for the
Speaker 4: African slave trade long argued that European traders did not
Speaker 4: enslave anyone. They simply purchased Africans who had already been
Speaker 4: enslaved and otherwise would have been put to death. Thus,
Speaker 4: apologists like you, sir, claimed the slave trade actually saved lives.
Speaker 4: Such claims represent a gross distortion of the facts. Some
Speaker 4: independent slave merchants did in fact stage raids on unprotected
Speaker 4: African villages, as we have shown previously in the video,
Speaker 4: as well as kidnap and enslave Africans, and most professional
Speaker 4: slave traders. However, they set up bases along the West
Speaker 4: African coast where they could purchase slaves from Africans in
Speaker 4: exchange for firearms and other goods. But before the end
Speaker 4: of the seventeenth century, England, France, Denmark, Holland and Portugal
Speaker 4: had all established slave trading post on the West African coast.
Speaker 4: And why they do that because of a little thing
Speaker 4: called supply and demand. You see, Europeans wanted everything that
Speaker 4: came from Africa, from the soil to the people, to
Speaker 4: the water to the mineral everything that came from Africa,
Speaker 4: Europeans wanted it. And all Africans wanted an exchange were
Speaker 4: weapons so that they could defend themselves from their enemies.
Speaker 4: And with European help, many African kingdoms were able to
Speaker 4: defend themselves against their enemies at the same time providing
Speaker 4: Europeans with slaves, with bodies, with human capital. So the
Speaker 4: next time you decide to open your mouth on the internet,
Speaker 4: make sure your facts are straight, because you don't need
Speaker 4: my help.
Speaker 3: Making you look stupid. Now half the day you were
Speaker 3: meant to have.
Speaker 2: Oh we have the day you were meant to have
Speaker 2: as an incredible way to send someone off.
Speaker 1: Oh so again, that was LeVert the Baseman, all his
Speaker 1: sources are cited. If you end up, you know, checking
Speaker 1: out his content, you come across that video, you can
Speaker 1: check his sources. We've checked a good number of them.
Speaker 1: But you know, he's a content creator that we bought
Speaker 1: on our own. Basically for people who love to throw
Speaker 1: that back in black people's face that you know, Africans sold,
Speaker 1: you know, their countrymen and slavery. That's not the only.
Speaker 2: Way important to interject here because something he touched on
Speaker 2: that the rest of the world seems to have a
Speaker 2: very obtuse view on it's Africans and their countrymen. Africa
Speaker 2: is a continent filled with several different countries. So again,
Speaker 2: Africans selling their countrymen as a statement is misleading. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah that people saying, I tend to think. No, this
Speaker 2: wasn't a correction for you. This is for the listener
Speaker 2: who clears that and continues to self perpetuate the idea
Speaker 2: that Africa is singular in ethnicity or in culture. Because
Speaker 2: of this constructive race, people see and think black is
Speaker 2: a one thing. That's why black people and I cringe
Speaker 2: every time I hear. But this is why a black
Speaker 2: people have had to so enthusiastically express to the rest
Speaker 2: of the world that we are not a monolith. Lord,
Speaker 2: I wish we were. However, they're not wrong when they
Speaker 2: say that. And the reason that they say that is
Speaker 2: because this constructive race, which was only created to separate
Speaker 2: those that could be owned as property and who were
Speaker 2: supposed to be the permanent slave class from those who weren't.
Speaker 2: If they're black, You guys can't see my quotation marks
Speaker 2: that I'm putting in the air. They can be property,
Speaker 2: they can be owned, they could be just like cattle
Speaker 2: or less than And.
Speaker 1: It was illegal to own a white person, of course,
Speaker 1: as it was, and whiteness was defined by law in
Speaker 1: this country, and there were arguments to determine what whiteness
Speaker 1: was for the and what blackness was right for the
Speaker 1: specific purpose of deciding who could be owned and who
Speaker 1: could not be owned. And then depending on the status
Speaker 1: of your mother, that determined what status you had. And
Speaker 1: so there was, as you mentioned, a permanent slave class.
Speaker 1: So the type of slavery that was even practiced in
Speaker 1: this country is very different than the type of slavery
Speaker 1: that had historically taken place. So again, for those folks
Speaker 1: who like old slavery is just something that's happened all
Speaker 1: over the country. Black people, black or Africans sold their
Speaker 1: own brothers and sisters, countrymen, whatever in the slavery. You know,
Speaker 1: that is nonsense in and of itself on its face,
Speaker 1: but the point that those people are trying to make
Speaker 1: breaks down when we look at again some of the
Speaker 1: other ways for those that heard the way black history fact. Indeed,
Speaker 1: piracy and slaver aids by white people to get more
Speaker 1: bodies onto their ships were also common. Of course, there
Speaker 1: was a good number of people being sold into slavery, but.
Speaker 3: That was due to.
Speaker 1: A market that was created by Europeans. The Transatlantic slave
Speaker 1: trans human beings been around for between one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty and two hundred and fifty thousand years or something
Speaker 1: like that. We're talking like the fifteen hundreds when this
Speaker 1: stuff start popping off through the eighteen hundreds, so there's
Speaker 1: a three hundred year period where European business people decide, hey,
Speaker 1: we can get cheaper labor if we acquire black people
Speaker 1: to do it, and we can have them enslaved in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: And granted that wasn't necessarily the case all over the world,
Speaker 1: it was definitely the case in the Americans and the
Speaker 1: West Indies. But this is where the concept of a
Speaker 1: white person comes from, because prior to fifteen hundred, there
Speaker 1: was no such thing as a white person. Indeed, as
Speaker 1: he mentioned in the.
Speaker 2: Article, especially not in a way of ethnicity or or race.
Speaker 1: It's not a thing. Yeah, Prior to fifteen hundred, there
Speaker 1: was only English people, Scottish people, French people, Spanish people.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. There was no such thing
Speaker 1: as white people any more than there was a such
Speaker 1: thing as black people, because you know, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: there was people from you know, different tribes in different
Speaker 1: you know, parts of Africa. So Mali, Morocco, thanks you
Speaker 1: exactly right.
Speaker 2: You know which places that would eventually in the future
Speaker 2: on the on the west coast of Africa become Nigeria
Speaker 2: and Ghana and things like this.
Speaker 1: So exactly exactly my point. So, in short, the way
Speaker 1: that a lot of people think of blackness, to your
Speaker 1: point earlier, Q, is that black people are just one
Speaker 1: group of people, and that black people sold black people
Speaker 1: into slavery, and black people had slaves in Africa, and
Speaker 1: slavery is something that everybody's done to each other, and
Speaker 1: that ignores it doesn't even ignore the nuance. It ignores
Speaker 1: the the entirety of the explanation it is. It is
Speaker 1: too elementary of a of a of an explanation to
Speaker 1: be taken seriously.
Speaker 2: And even as you say it back then, he he
Speaker 2: highlights in the video, if our countries were at war,
Speaker 2: those who were we captured, we didn't kill. We put
Speaker 2: them to work for us. That was a condition of
Speaker 2: being captured as an enemy to whatever nation you were
Speaker 2: warring against. So even then, the way that people did
Speaker 2: it in that sense was kind of merciful, like we
Speaker 2: could have just went od.
Speaker 1: On, y'all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been intentionally perpetuated in a way that makes
Speaker 2: it seem like there was mercy shown on those taken
Speaker 2: away from their captors in Africa because it was brought
Speaker 2: to the America.
Speaker 1: Let me go with that, because the truth is, if
Speaker 1: you were taken as a prisoner and enslaved, you were
Speaker 1: an African tribe, you were taken by another African tribe,
Speaker 1: you were enslaved. Your children's children's children weren't slaves. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a permanent slave class, you know. And there were
Speaker 1: laws of how to treat human beings and so forth,
Speaker 1: and you can find this out in Egypt. You can
Speaker 1: find this out elsewhere.
Speaker 2: There were laws, which is why we had to be
Speaker 2: view as less than human, thank you, so that they
Speaker 2: could use God to justify treating us as less than
Speaker 2: and consider themselves to be good people, moral people, even
Speaker 2: though they were subjugated an entire race to this type
Speaker 2: of slavery and treatment.
Speaker 1: And the last thing I'll say is that you know,
Speaker 1: let's call it three hundred year period or so of
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade. Again, that market, that European fueled
Speaker 1: market of okay, we got to get more slaves. It
Speaker 1: turned it, It turned Africa into you know, if you're
Speaker 1: an African leader, you're either going to be the one
Speaker 1: being captured ultimately or you're going to be the one
Speaker 1: doing the capturing. And if these Europeans are bringing guns,
Speaker 1: then you know, you govern yourself accordingly. So so Europeans
Speaker 1: cannot divorce themselves from their responsibility here either either. You
Speaker 1: because the history shows that black people were stolen, Black
Speaker 1: people were you know, rated pirated, and of course the
Speaker 1: European market influences have contributed to the overall Transatlantic slave
Speaker 1: trade and the current predicament of black people in this
Speaker 1: country at least, and so we'll leave it right there.
Speaker 1: Thank you as always for tuning in to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I've been your host, Rams's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams's jah I am q Ward. Thank you
Speaker 2: guys once again for continuing to tune in, for rocking
Speaker 2: with us, and for providing us with the platform that
Speaker 2: we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we really do appreciate it, and we do
Speaker 1: hope that you're growing as we're growing. Do us a favorite.
Speaker 1: Hit our website civiccipher dot com with any questions topics
Speaker 1: you want us to cover. You make a donation there.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that the show's growing with your support. Follow
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Speaker 1: slash Civiccipher. You can catch me on all social media
Speaker 1: at Rams's.
Speaker 2: Jo I am qward on all socials.
Speaker 1: As well, and don't forget you can download this in
Speaker 1: any previous episode and until next week, y'all.
Speaker 2: Peace