Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job.
Speaker 2: He is this job.
Speaker 3: I am exhausted, but not like sleepy exhausted. I'll explain
Speaker 3: more later in the show, but you guys can call
Speaker 3: me Q.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I know what he's referring to because we had
Speaker 1: to put together today's episode and we know what is
Speaker 1: coming your way. So buckle up because we want you
Speaker 1: to ride with us while we discuss a question. I
Speaker 1: think we should frame it sort of like, maybe when
Speaker 1: do black people's rights kick in? You know, in this country,
Speaker 1: we're big on our rights. You know, we're Americans, you.
Speaker 2: Know, So when do they kick in? Or do they
Speaker 2: kick in? Either one?
Speaker 3: Either one, because I'm not sure they do kick in
Speaker 3: according to some of our fellow citizens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we're gonna go through a couple recent examples,
Speaker 1: a few recent examples that really shows how different of
Speaker 1: an experience that we have when it comes to our
Speaker 1: rights and what we're entitled to as citizens in this country.
Speaker 1: And the second half of the show, we're going to
Speaker 1: be discussing some high profile executions where there have been
Speaker 1: some doubts that have had to be considered and ordered
Speaker 1: right based on our position, they absolutely should have been considered,
Speaker 1: and they were not. And as a result, there are
Speaker 1: people who are no longer alive because they were executed.
Speaker 1: And we're taking a look at the systematic exterminating of
Speaker 1: human beings. Whether or not that's immoral is irrelevant. The
Speaker 1: thing is we're asking the questions, does this happen if
Speaker 1: you know a couple of things are different, and our
Speaker 1: position is that it's not likely.
Speaker 2: That it does.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, we like to start off
Speaker 1: on a high with some ebony.
Speaker 2: Excellent, shall we?
Speaker 1: I think we shall want me take this on?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: All right? Today's Abney Excellence a sponsored by Actively black.
Speaker 1: There was greatness in our DNA visit actively black dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna share with you from afrotech, what if your
Speaker 1: garment pieces could communicate how you feel? Kenyan inventor Roy
Speaker 1: Alila answered that question and provided an accessibility solution with
Speaker 1: his smart gloves. Alila is the brain behind Sinio smart
Speaker 1: gloves that give the hearing impaired and death the ability
Speaker 1: to communicate with people who don't know sign language. According
Speaker 1: to Africa dot Com, Aleela was inspired to create the
Speaker 1: technology after needing a method to communicate with his then
Speaker 1: six year old niece who was born deaf. Signio uses
Speaker 1: Bluetooth to connect the products app with his technology. Flex
Speaker 1: sensors placed inside the gloves on each finger can quantify
Speaker 1: the bend of a finger and process the letters being signed.
Speaker 1: The gloves creator believes the power behind them really rests
Speaker 1: in the speed at which the signs are vocalized.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: People speak at different speeds, and it's the same with
Speaker 1: people who sign. Some are really fast, others are slow.
Speaker 1: So we integrated that into the mobile application so that
Speaker 1: it's comfortable for anyone to use it unquote, Allella continued
Speaker 1: to the outlet. The gloves can also be customized to
Speaker 1: fit different colors and themes, such as Princess or Spider Man.
Speaker 1: The glove has a ninety three percent accuracy in language, gender,
Speaker 1: and audio. Pitch goes on to say it fights the
Speaker 1: stigma associated with being deaf and having a speech impediment.
Speaker 1: If the gloves look cool, every kid will want to
Speaker 1: know why you have them. On With the brand success,
Speaker 1: Aleella plans to get his product in schools across Kenya
Speaker 1: to assist with learning and accessibility equity for hearing impaired children.
Speaker 1: I kind of love that. Obviously it's Ebony excellence, but
Speaker 1: it's also doing some good in the world and making
Speaker 1: the world more accessible, which is something that we can
Speaker 1: get behind pretty easily here. All right, So, yeah, when
Speaker 1: do black people's rights kick in? Or do they kick in?
Speaker 1: I think that's probably an even better way to ask
Speaker 1: the question. But we're going to share some stories with you.
Speaker 1: These all come from the Black Information Network, which you know,
Speaker 1: full disclosure, Q and I are a part of the
Speaker 1: Black Information Network, but you know, we cover these stories
Speaker 1: and share these stories with our podcast, the Black Information
Speaker 1: Network Daily Podcast, And we noticed a theme in recent stories,
Speaker 1: and the theme again had specifically to do with whether
Speaker 1: or not a black person's rights were violated. So these
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily instances of police brutality, police shootings, police killings,
Speaker 1: but rights like the dignity that comes with or the
Speaker 1: dignity that should come with being an American citizen that
Speaker 1: often does not accompany stories when you know the person
Speaker 1: at the center of the story black. I'll start so
Speaker 1: that I can give you an idea of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about with this first story, again from the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network. A Canton, Ohio police officer has been fired
Speaker 1: after he was caught on video kicking a black man
Speaker 1: in the chest while he was kneeling on the ground
Speaker 1: with his hands raised. According to News five Cleveland, Brandon
Speaker 1: Mamarrov was fired earlier this month following an investigation into
Speaker 1: the arrest of twenty one year old Jamir McElroy. A
Speaker 1: video taken by a bystanders showd Morimov sorry Mamarrov, running
Speaker 1: toward mceilroy and kicking him in the chest as he
Speaker 1: appeared to comply with police orders. Police previously said they
Speaker 1: were responding to reports of an argument last month when
Speaker 1: officers encountered McElroy. According to the police, multiple people, including
Speaker 1: one individual alleged to be armed, fled the scene when
Speaker 1: they arrived. However, suspects quote appeared to be complying when
Speaker 1: officer Brandon Mamarov kicked Jamir mickilroy in the nuote. The
Speaker 1: department previously said in a statement. McElroy and two other
Speaker 1: men were arrested on suspicion of obstructing official business and
Speaker 1: resisting arrest. According to a report at the time, police
Speaker 1: Chief John Gabert defended the officer's actions. Quote, Our officers
Speaker 1: frequently faced stressful, dangerous situations and confrontations with armed suspects.
Speaker 1: Police Chief John Gabbert previously said, quote, their dedication to
Speaker 1: the community has resulted in exceptional reductions in violence, especially
Speaker 1: gun violence, over the past two years unquote. So I
Speaker 1: think the reason that this one stood out to me
Speaker 1: was because there was such an emphasis on the fact
Speaker 1: that he was complying with the officer's request. And in theory,
Speaker 1: if you're doing what a police officer asks you to do,
Speaker 1: the police officer then does their job. If they assault you,
Speaker 1: if they kick you in the chest while you're on
Speaker 1: your knees with your hands raised, that is a violation.
Speaker 1: And what else stood out to me is, of course
Speaker 1: the police chiefs initial position again to defend the officer
Speaker 1: kicking him in a chest with his hands raised, and ultimately,
Speaker 1: as we know, the officer was fired. And I know
Speaker 1: that we talked about this a bit, but kind of
Speaker 1: let our listeners know a bit about when you first
Speaker 1: read this one, what was going through your head.
Speaker 3: Well, my initial thoughts are not unique to this story
Speaker 3: and again why I had us rephrase the question. You
Speaker 3: do black people's rights ever come into account in stories
Speaker 3: like this, With the ever present cloud of qualified immunity,
Speaker 3: police officers kind of get to break the law all
Speaker 3: the time as long as someone can say, well, that's
Speaker 3: what they had to do to do their job. They
Speaker 3: were stressed, they were afraid, and the list goes on
Speaker 3: of reasons that they come up with to justify these behaviors.
Speaker 3: In cases like this one, the absence of video would
Speaker 3: almost always mean that they can do whatever they want.
Speaker 3: And you and I spoke before in another story sadly
Speaker 3: another similar story that whenever there is absence of video,
Speaker 3: the punishment for that should be severe because in most
Speaker 3: of those cases, it's not because something malfunctioned, it's because
Speaker 3: the cameras were turned off because officers. Because officers know
Speaker 3: they're going to do something wrong, they plan to do
Speaker 3: something wrong, they want to do something wrong. And in
Speaker 3: cases like that, I don't have the data in front
Speaker 3: of me, so don't quote me. More times than not,
Speaker 3: the person who is on the receiving side of these
Speaker 3: violations looks like you and I And the reason why
Speaker 3: I'm so confident in saying so is because we would
Speaker 3: see it all the time if it were the opposite.
Speaker 3: Those who want to pretend racism doesn't exist and throw
Speaker 3: it in our faces, those who want to minimize the
Speaker 3: idea that black people are treated any differently, especially in
Speaker 3: the negative skew, and even those who think, quite frankly,
Speaker 3: we deserve it, would love to have examples to the
Speaker 3: contrary to show us to prove their point. And the
Speaker 3: fact that those almost never come up, you know, is
Speaker 3: all the evidence.
Speaker 2: That I need to feel how I feel.
Speaker 3: I'm not making a scientific argument, this is just an observation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we want. The thing is, over the
Speaker 1: next couple of stories, it's less about feeling and more
Speaker 1: about it pattern. So let's add another story please. This
Speaker 1: also comes from the Black Information Network. A lawsuit has
Speaker 1: been filed on behalf of the family of a Georgia
Speaker 1: man who was shot by police officers who entered his
Speaker 1: home without a warrant. Okay, so this again back to
Speaker 1: violating a person's rights, you know, right to privacy, a
Speaker 1: right to you know, police do need warrants in this country,
Speaker 1: and you have a right you have you're protected from
Speaker 1: search and seizure, a lawful search and seizure, etc. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, all right? So he was shot by
Speaker 1: police officers who entered his home without a warrant. The
Speaker 1: family of Mirando Salmon filed a federal lawsuit last week
Speaker 1: alleging that Salmon's constitutional rights were violated during the deadly,
Speaker 1: warrantless search of his home on November eleven, Alive reports
Speaker 1: officers entered Salmon's home without a warrant amid an investigation
Speaker 1: over a car that was stolen from a dealer. Ship
Speaker 1: Police spotted the alleged stolen car in Salmon's driveway, which
Speaker 1: was believed to have been taken on a test drive
Speaker 1: from a dealership a week before, and did not return
Speaker 1: or pay for it. That according to the lawsuit, officers
Speaker 1: knocked on the front door and entered the home. After
Speaker 1: no one answered, the police officer, Russell Mathis, encountered Salmon
Speaker 1: sitting on his bed in the dark. Matthis shot and
Speaker 1: killed Salmon in a matter of seconds. District Attorney Sherry
Speaker 1: Boston said Salmon threw a phone at Mathis, which the
Speaker 1: officer believed was a knife. Phones and knives they looked
Speaker 1: similar to.
Speaker 3: You Okay, so obviously no, but I'm gonna take a
Speaker 3: few steps back to try to be fair break it down.
Speaker 3: Of course they don't. But in the dark, who knows.
Speaker 3: In the dark, he could have the phone could have
Speaker 3: been a gun. In the dark, the phone could have
Speaker 3: been any weapon. And you justifiably have that position. Were
Speaker 3: you supposed to be in this person's house. But because
Speaker 3: you were not, you're an intruder and it's dark, and
Speaker 3: this person is afraid. And if this person had taken
Speaker 3: the extreme position that you know, the back to blue
Speaker 3: people want to pretend that they honor and that's the
Speaker 3: right to bear arms, then he'd be justified in having
Speaker 3: shot that officer who he believed to be an intruder
Speaker 3: in his home in the dark. So it does not
Speaker 3: even matter if it was a knife. Why are you
Speaker 3: in my house? Why are you in my bedroom?
Speaker 2: Who are you like?
Speaker 1: Oh, you have a right to bear arms?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean we're talking about black people's rights because
Speaker 3: black people apparently don't, and that's the presence of a
Speaker 3: weekend tends to justify us being shot.
Speaker 1: You're making the point I was trying to make.
Speaker 3: That's you know, so you know whether or not the
Speaker 3: phone looked like a knife, or looked like a gun
Speaker 3: or a baseball batter or a crowbar.
Speaker 2: That none of that matters.
Speaker 3: Someone's in my home in the dark, who I did
Speaker 3: invite here, and who legally has no right to be there.
Speaker 3: I should be able to defend myself. So the argument
Speaker 3: that you thought I had a weapon completely irrelevant. You
Speaker 3: know what, I'm sitting on my bed in the dark,
Speaker 3: and you're in my house and I don't know who
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you amaze me because I like pitch it and
Speaker 1: then you swing for the fences and you get a
Speaker 1: home run. It's amazing. I love it. I do want
Speaker 1: to go back just a bit, though, because sometimes people
Speaker 1: have I believe, have trouble empathizing when they hear, well,
Speaker 1: what did you do? You know?
Speaker 2: Oh, the car was.
Speaker 1: Stolen from a dealership, blah blah blah, this that and
Speaker 1: the thod and I want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: again are examining rights in this country, and we are
Speaker 1: breaking down the rights of all the citizens, or at
Speaker 1: least what rights all citizens should enjoy. We don't know
Speaker 1: that the car was stolen. We don't know if the
Speaker 1: dealership had wronged him. We don't know if he had
Speaker 1: wronged the dealership. We don't know this because he never
Speaker 1: had his day in court. He's dead now. So for
Speaker 1: people to say, well, you know, he shouldn't have the
Speaker 1: car and then the police wouldn't you know, not that
Speaker 1: we don't know these people, but there are people out
Speaker 1: there who will defend the police officers, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: no matter what.
Speaker 2: In this case, I don't even want to extend him
Speaker 2: that benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 3: Right, say the dealership, say the car is stolen, and
Speaker 3: it was, and it was hard way and it was
Speaker 3: parked in his driveway and he stole it. You still
Speaker 3: don't get to enter this man's house unannounced without warrant
Speaker 3: and kill him. So I'm again the same with the phone.
Speaker 3: And then he thought it was a knife, Okay, say
Speaker 3: it was a knife, Say it was worse than a knife,
Speaker 3: Say he had a katana sword. You are still a
Speaker 3: warrantless person in his home. You're not an officer there
Speaker 3: to carry out some duty that you have function he
Speaker 3: stole the car, Okay, get a warrant, present yourself as
Speaker 3: an officer, and give this person a chance to not
Speaker 3: make himself a victim of the crime. You already know
Speaker 3: you want to commit. That's what we have to take
Speaker 3: it back to. You enter without a warrant on purpose
Speaker 3: and in the dark. You can justify the crime you
Speaker 3: want to commit by pretending you're the one that's afraid.
Speaker 3: How about that you enter my home unannounced and you're
Speaker 3: scared of me. You entered my home without the legal
Speaker 3: steps that you were supposed to go to, But you're
Speaker 3: the one that's afraid of me in the dark, in
Speaker 3: my home, in my bed. So you know, I don't
Speaker 3: even want to extend the benefit of doubt that he
Speaker 3: didn't do anything, because you don't have to be innocent
Speaker 3: of a crime to not deserve to be killed in
Speaker 3: your home, in your bed.
Speaker 1: Or to be afforded due process. Correct, right now, that's
Speaker 1: number two. Allow me to continue with number three.
Speaker 2: And we have so many more of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these are just you know, rule of threes.
Speaker 2: I just don't have enough time.
Speaker 1: So this also comes from the Black Information Network. And
Speaker 1: this one I know he was gonna love it because
Speaker 1: when we were talking about it before, I kept telling him,
Speaker 1: don't say anything, don't say anything, wait till we turn
Speaker 1: the MIC's on. So now the mics are on, I'll
Speaker 1: paint the picture, and then cues off to the races.
Speaker 1: The black pastor arrested while watering his neighbor's flowers is
Speaker 1: suing three Alabama officers who he alleges violated his Fourth
Speaker 1: and First Amendment rights. CNN reports Pastor Jennings was detained
Speaker 1: and booked into Talladega County Jail in May after a
Speaker 1: neighbor who deemed the pastor quote suspicious unquote called the
Speaker 1: police as he was watering flowers at another neighbor's house
Speaker 1: who was out of town. Viral video of the incident
Speaker 1: shows police handcuffing the Alabama pastor and his neighbor's yard
Speaker 1: with a water hose in hand, despite Jennings explaining the
Speaker 1: situation to officers and a third neighbor vouching for him.
Speaker 1: Jennings said he verbally identified himself to police during the incident,
Speaker 1: but officers didn't believe him. The pastor didn't have physical
Speaker 1: identification with him at the time of the encounter and
Speaker 1: refuse to retrieve it. He said, Okay, now before you go,
Speaker 1: I know you're ready, let me paint the rest of
Speaker 1: this picture. Because the Bayanna had a follow up to
Speaker 1: this story, what happened was As I mentioned, this pastor
Speaker 1: was asked by a neighbor to take care of his garden.
Speaker 1: Can you water my garden while I'm out of town?
Speaker 1: Pastor says yes, a black pastor. The pastor then goes
Speaker 1: to the house waters the garden while the neighbors are
Speaker 1: out of town. Another neighbor in the neighborhood calls the
Speaker 1: police saying, hey, there's a black man in his yard.
Speaker 1: He doesn't live there, blah blah blah. Police show up,
Speaker 1: still out there taking care of the friend's garden, a
Speaker 1: neighbor's garden. The police ask him who he is. He
Speaker 1: identifies himself, you know, I'm a pastor. I you know,
Speaker 1: I lived right there. This is my friend. You know,
Speaker 1: he has to take care they want. The police are like, okay,
Speaker 1: well now you need to go physically get your ID
Speaker 1: or produce somehow produce your ID. And the and the
Speaker 1: pastor says, I don't have my ID. You know this
Speaker 1: this is not I'm not out in public. This is
Speaker 1: where I live. And I suspect that it got contentious
Speaker 1: at that point, that that's not the part of the video. Later,
Speaker 1: the officers arrest him for not showing his physical ID. Okay,
Speaker 1: that turned into a nothing burger. But the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is that this pastor was embarrassed and humiliated
Speaker 1: and you know, inconvenience and all these things. Right, we're
Speaker 1: talking about rights. You know, this isn't a murder case,
Speaker 1: which I know we covered a lot of those. Now. Originally,
Speaker 1: he files a lawsuit, the pastor against the police, and
Speaker 1: the courts throw out the lawsuit because of, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, qualified immunity. UH. These police were executing there
Speaker 1: they were, they were functioning in their in the capacity
Speaker 1: of their job description, investigating a potential crime whatever, so
Speaker 1: qualified immunity UH protected them from being liable and being
Speaker 1: held accountable. The thing is, this pastor appealed that decision,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the appeals court ruled that in Alabama, officers
Speaker 1: can stop you, they can ask you to identify yourself
Speaker 1: and what you're doing, but there is no law that
Speaker 1: says that officers can demand that you show them physical
Speaker 1: identify cation. And because that was the point upon which
Speaker 1: this entire case rested, the appeals court allowed this pastor
Speaker 1: to continue with his lawsuit because indeed his rights were violated.
Speaker 1: Now that's the story as far as we've gotten with it,
Speaker 1: we're still following, of course, but now the floor is
Speaker 1: yours to talk to me.
Speaker 3: I hope that if you can hear my voice, you
Speaker 3: can understand the frustration. From the very beginning of the story,
Speaker 3: a neighbor called the police on their neighbor for watering
Speaker 3: their neighbor's plants. Like we told that part of the
Speaker 3: story fast, I have to rewind. You say, a third
Speaker 3: neighbor came out to vouch for this person, which means
Speaker 3: the person that called the cops could have been the
Speaker 3: voucher as well. They could have They see the person
Speaker 3: that's doing it, and they see what they're doing. So
Speaker 3: I'd go on to guess that the suspicious part.
Speaker 1: Is the black part was this party the skin.
Speaker 3: For those who can't see me, I am rubbing the
Speaker 3: skin on my hand. The brown or black part was
Speaker 3: the suspicious part. There's nothing about holding a water hose,
Speaker 3: seeing the water come out of it onto the plants
Speaker 3: that's suspicious in any way, even if you don't recognize
Speaker 3: the person. Oh, my neighbor hired a landscaper. That's why
Speaker 3: he has a water hose in his hand and is
Speaker 3: watering the plants. So we start there, and I am
Speaker 3: frustrated telling myself the story in my head so that
Speaker 3: I can talk about it. Then the police arrive, and
Speaker 3: as an officer, part of your job should be to
Speaker 3: show up and notice a crime isn't being committed, right
Speaker 3: because me hiring a landscaper while I'm not present does
Speaker 3: not mean my landscape or is trespassing. If you get
Speaker 3: there and this neighbor is looking in the windows and
Speaker 3: looking and or actually acting suspicious besides being black, I
Speaker 3: get it. But when you officer arrive and see that
Speaker 3: there's a water hose and he's watering the plants, even
Speaker 3: if you're curious, you should have now okay turned off
Speaker 3: you or I have to arrest somebody today. Circuit in
Speaker 3: your head the presence of another neighbor vouching that this
Speaker 3: person lives here and is doing this favor for me,
Speaker 3: Like there's so many things that happened before he got
Speaker 3: placed in handcuffs and arrested and had to file a
Speaker 3: lawsuit that only happened because he's black and accusing us
Speaker 3: of race baiting or playing victim or whatever you people do.
Speaker 2: Sometimes just be a human being.
Speaker 3: You hear this stuff and realize that if it was
Speaker 3: you or somebody you cared about, that you would think
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous. But because it's me and I look like me,
Speaker 3: you don't