Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your host,
Speaker 1: rams is Jah.
Speaker 2: My mother calls me Q, so I'm very comfortable with
Speaker 2: you calling me q as well. Last name Ward, I
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: I like it. If you love it, I like it
Speaker 1: or sorry that was the wrong way round anyway. Uh,
Speaker 1: we are back once again to broadcast balance and to
Speaker 1: defend the discourse. Special guests in the studio with us today. Uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes contributor on the show, but full time contributor to
Speaker 1: you know, the plight of black folks. And and and
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine, doctor Kamilla Wessenberg.
Speaker 3: Welcome, good they think to both of.
Speaker 1: You, and UH today you are with us as a
Speaker 1: former educator and as a person who has done a
Speaker 1: lot of work in the community. And Uh. One of
Speaker 1: the things that has happened recently on the show, as
Speaker 1: we've had to have some conversations about critical race theory,
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of folks reach out to us
Speaker 1: through social media to tell us, you know, that they
Speaker 1: love the show. They love the fact that we're giving
Speaker 1: some perspective to it because you know, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of other media outlets calling it indoctrination and things
Speaker 1: like this, and so to provide some context for folks
Speaker 1: that might not have access to that, you know, they
Speaker 1: were very much appreciative. And today to have you here
Speaker 1: so that we can kind of flesh out a more
Speaker 1: full discussion about critical race theory is something that we've
Speaker 1: been looking forward to for a long time. So once again,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. And again I'm very very excited
Speaker 1: about the amount of enthusiasm surrounding critical race theory, not
Speaker 1: necessarily the enthusiasm in opposition to it, but the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: in terms of wanting to learn more. And so that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we're going to do today. So before we
Speaker 1: get there, all I do is when when win, no
Speaker 1: matter what you know, like we normally do, we take
Speaker 1: a moment to acknowledge some ebony excellence. And today we're
Speaker 1: going to do just that in the form of acknowledging
Speaker 1: a story that we came across not too long ago
Speaker 1: that we didn't get time to put on the air.
Speaker 1: But finally we're having a little bit of time or
Speaker 1: we're catching up. This one is for Howard University, who
Speaker 1: renamed their College of Fine Arts after Chadwick Boseman. For
Speaker 1: those that don't know Chadwick Boseman is the actor that
Speaker 1: played Black Panther, And I'll read a little bit from
Speaker 1: the article that we have here. This one comes from
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Reporter, so it says that they partnered with
Speaker 1: Netflix to also establish a scholarship, and Howard University now
Speaker 1: has five point four million dollars for the cha Chadwick A.
Speaker 1: Boseman Memorial Scholarship, which will mainly support students in the
Speaker 1: Dramatic Arts College. Netflix is the inaugural donor of the
Speaker 1: scholarship and this year's recipients are freshman Sarah Long, sophomore
Speaker 1: Seawn Smith, junior Janie Ferguson, and senior d Dre Duncan.
Speaker 1: And the Howard President, Wayne Frederick, said in a statement,
Speaker 1: the scholarship embodies Chadwick's love for Howard, his passion for storytelling,
Speaker 1: and his willingness to support future generations of Howard students.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for the continued support and partnership of Chadwick's wife,
Speaker 1: Missus Simone Ledward Boseman, and to Netflix for this important gift.
Speaker 1: So I do believe that, you know, anytime we get
Speaker 1: a chance to honor the legacy of someone, especially someone
Speaker 1: who was able to bring so much grace and honor
Speaker 1: to the role. You know that now many of us
Speaker 1: hold dear in a whole new generation of Marvel fans
Speaker 1: hold deer black Panther just a testament to the life
Speaker 1: that he lives. So that's going to be our ebony
Speaker 1: excellence for the day once again, shout out.
Speaker 2: He also played Thirdgood Marshall, James Brown and Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to I don't want to short
Speaker 2: change the brother he was. Yeah, some legendary figures in cinema,
Speaker 2: got to keep me on my toes man, but yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely he was. He was the man and and uh
Speaker 2: just grateful to know that his name is going to
Speaker 2: live on. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, Howard is is definitely the spot.
Speaker 2: So onward to the subject of the day, critical race theory.
Speaker 1: All right, so how about this in your words, what
Speaker 1: would you say critical race theory is?
Speaker 3: Critical race theory is an abstraction. It is a concept.
Speaker 3: It is an idea. It is a supposition up on
Speaker 3: which one will build based on the research that is done.
Speaker 3: It isn't anything that is necessarily concrete. It's exploratory. It's
Speaker 3: looking for answers. It isn't doing anything to anyone. It's
Speaker 3: trying to resolve, if you will, and the only way
Speaker 3: that you can resolve is to inspect and to look
Speaker 3: at it and to look at it from all angles.
Speaker 3: And so in this instance, race of course is the
Speaker 3: subject that is being looked at in the educational setting
Speaker 3: and how it is being dealt with and from a
Speaker 3: legal perspective as well, from an educational and a legal perspective.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's interesting. I didn't know that there was
Speaker 1: a legal component to it because all the articles that
Speaker 1: I read about are based in academy.
Speaker 3: That is, because the community has taken it and driven
Speaker 3: it in that direction. There is a segment of our
Speaker 3: community that first it's very political. Indeed, this is political
Speaker 3: and it's being used in the political arena. And so
Speaker 3: if you think in terms of the climate today and
Speaker 3: everything that is happening in the world, the division that
Speaker 3: is taking place, it is not unreasonable for a segment
Speaker 3: of our population to take the concept out of context
Speaker 3: and say that it is teaching derogatory things about another
Speaker 3: component of society, when in fact that isn't really the
Speaker 3: essence of what it is. It's looking at the impact
Speaker 3: of race in the classroom. And that can be in
Speaker 3: a history class, it can be in a literature class,
Speaker 3: it can be in a math class, a science class,
Speaker 3: anywhere where you are looking at race as the topic
Speaker 3: and how in that genre there was an other an
Speaker 3: other and what impact has that other person a person's
Speaker 3: had on the intersectionality of the larger scheme of things.
Speaker 3: And that for some individuals who may not be used
Speaker 3: to looking at things critically in an exploratory fashion, but
Speaker 3: they take it on face value, are just very concrete
Speaker 3: or what they have been told, then it's very easy
Speaker 3: for them to embrace that and say, well, this is
Speaker 3: being taught in the schools and it should not be
Speaker 3: taught and it's making us feel bad, it's making the
Speaker 3: children feel bad. The fact is, as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 3: critical race theory is a part of our everyday life.
Speaker 3: When you look at the insurrection and the changing of that,
Speaker 3: how it occurred and what it really represents, there is
Speaker 3: a denial and not looking at the situation critically. Sure,
Speaker 3: sure it is not being critical. And you have a
Speaker 3: population who are being told one thing, Oh they were
Speaker 3: just visiting, they were just visiting, or are they are
Speaker 3: told well, the campaign was stolen, the race was stolen.
Speaker 3: They're not thinking critically. And anytime you are told something
Speaker 3: concrete and you don't have the capacity to take it
Speaker 3: and turn it this way and this way and that
Speaker 3: way and this way and that way, but you just
Speaker 3: look at it this way and that's it, then you're
Speaker 3: not thinking critically.
Speaker 1: Indeed, you know, there's a to your point. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Q and I talked about,
Speaker 1: certainly around the time of the insurrection earlier this year
Speaker 1: was that when you know, the right was trying to
Speaker 1: rewrite what happened.
Speaker 3: Now, that's not they were.
Speaker 1: They are correct a better way to say that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the time they were still attemptation. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think the word that Q used was delusion or
Speaker 1: shared delusion or something like that, something that fantastic, and
Speaker 1: it was voluntarily. They were voluntarily participating in this shared delusion.
Speaker 1: And on some level, based on video evidence, you have
Speaker 1: to know that these are not tourists, you know, but
Speaker 1: have managed to convince themselves otherwise by voluntarily participating in
Speaker 1: this delusion. And so I like how you said there's
Speaker 1: a segment of the population, because that segment of the
Speaker 1: population isn't all of the population, isn't even all of
Speaker 1: one group. The rest of us, the rest of us
Speaker 1: are able to see exactly what happened. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to things like this like critical race theory, we're
Speaker 1: able to you know, like you said, take some time
Speaker 1: with it, or you know, a word that Q uses
Speaker 1: quite a bit is explore the nuances of a conversation,
Speaker 1: of an argument of you know, whatever it is, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of debate, anything like that, where you know,
Speaker 1: there's more than just words, there's more than just interactions.
Speaker 1: There's nuance, there's history, there's framing and so forth, and
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of that is missing. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I found is that it's not
Speaker 1: just the media that has an issue with critical race theory.
Speaker 1: It's actually educators, particularly educators who, at least in the
Speaker 1: stories I've read, sit high above the classroom. They're not
Speaker 1: in the classroom interacting with students there. They're more in
Speaker 1: an administrative capacity. And those educators they kind of border
Speaker 1: on like really in the they're they're in the border,
Speaker 1: in the in the cross section of the educational arena
Speaker 1: and the arena, right. But you know, when when they
Speaker 1: get that high up it it becomes political for them.
Speaker 1: And so I love the way that you explain critical
Speaker 1: race theory that it is an examination and it's it's
Speaker 1: a theory, it's it's there's it's abstract, it's not concrete
Speaker 1: yet and should be approached, you know, for for all educators,
Speaker 1: for all people who are committed to studying, and you know,
Speaker 1: educated folks. You would think this would be very very
Speaker 1: easy conversation have. But because I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of these administrators border on you know, political uh people,
Speaker 1: you know politicians, I think that's where the right.
Speaker 3: Word well, you know I I I want to equate it.
Speaker 3: In another instance, we could go with critical vaccine theory.
Speaker 1: Okay, explain.
Speaker 3: And again it's a matter of looking at the situation,
Speaker 3: researching it, looking at the data, and making a determination.
Speaker 3: When you have a segment of the population again who
Speaker 3: will not look at science, but everything that they do
Speaker 3: in life is based on scientific exploration, especially in this
Speaker 3: day and age with technology, not to accept the fact
Speaker 3: that maybe I had better think about this as something
Speaker 3: that I need to entertain. And there are a lot
Speaker 3: of other factors as to why pe people may or
Speaker 3: may not, but logic would say to me, and I
Speaker 3: say that to say that I think there is a
Speaker 3: cohort of individuals in our society who are immune to thinking. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: I think they are immune to thinking. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And I also that I feel that there is an
Speaker 3: element of insecurity, okay, the desire to be superior. Sure,
Speaker 3: but when you think all of our lives, the notion
Speaker 3: of a vaccine is not foreign. Every time I have
Speaker 3: traveled out of the country or even here when I
Speaker 3: began school, there are places where you have to get
Speaker 3: a vaccine to travel to that particular country to protect
Speaker 3: to yourself. So the notion that this is completely removed
Speaker 3: from anything imaginable. When you have X number data showing
Speaker 3: that people have died, this phenomenal that has been taking place,
Speaker 3: it causes one to wonder where is the intellect, where
Speaker 3: is the thinking? Critically, so.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that because so actually I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell the story, but q Q and I
Speaker 1: we talk about some of our friends who are particularly
Speaker 1: susceptible to online facts, statistics and so forth. So Q,
Speaker 1: I want you to don't tell the story, obviously, but
Speaker 1: you know, help us to understand how a person can
Speaker 1: fall down that rabbit hole, if you will, and end
Speaker 1: up with a detached detached from reality, but very very
Speaker 1: confident in their convictions.
Speaker 2: Well, be careful with calling it online facts. That's what
Speaker 2: I mean online. It's just online information. It's not really
Speaker 2: online facts. Sure, and we have a generation of contrarian
Speaker 2: without a cause, people who are just opposed to what
Speaker 2: they consider group think. So if a large portion of
Speaker 2: the population thinks this way, they by nature have to
Speaker 2: think the other way to show us how woke they
Speaker 2: are or to somehow come across as intellectually superior. So
Speaker 2: you all are just thinking that way because you're brainwashed.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking this way because I did my own research,
Speaker 2: and by did their own research, they just mean click
Speaker 2: through their Instagram timeline and grabbed a hold to some
Speaker 2: things that sounded interesting to them, coined it as fact,
Speaker 2: and then would start to parrot those same views as
Speaker 2: their own. It's quite discouraging. But we've spoken about before.
Speaker 2: I think the most damaging thing that happened with our
Speaker 2: prior administration was that they found a way to suspend truth. Right.
Speaker 2: It's okay to have a healthy sense of skepticism, but
Speaker 2: to question everything is dangerous. Right, we've gotten to a
Speaker 2: point where nothing's the truth, water's not wet, the sky
Speaker 2: is not blue. So as we question everything and suspend
Speaker 2: a such thing as truth in fact, that's a very
Speaker 2: very very dangerous and slippery slope where we have no
Speaker 2: baseline to start from. So once we start a conversation,
Speaker 2: we have to first determine, Okay, what is it that
Speaker 2: we all agree is fact? And if we can't start there,
Speaker 2: it makes having intellectual and forward thinking conversation very very difficult,
Speaker 2: and it's very discouraging that in order to seem like
Speaker 2: an intellectual, we have people who are parroting and grabbing
Speaker 2: a hold to things with very very little intellectual basis,
Speaker 2: with no actual academic research being done. Right, just going
Speaker 2: on Google and searching doesn't mean you're doing proper research.
Speaker 2: There are people who are more qualified to do the
Speaker 2: type of research you're doing than you. They're called doctors
Speaker 2: and scientists. But once we've determined that they don't know
Speaker 2: what they're talking about, wow, I don't know where we
Speaker 2: go from there.
Speaker 1: So that's actually something that I wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: because what we're finding is that not only does that
Speaker 1: phenomenon exist where folks will come across, however, they happen
Speaker 1: upon this false, false factual information or these false you
Speaker 1: know information. But also there is a segment of the population,
Speaker 1: to quote Dr. Westernberg, that almost needs those facts. They
Speaker 1: need that to be true in order for their worldview
Speaker 1: to stay the way that it is. And so something
Speaker 1: like critical race theory, you know, this has been a
Speaker 1: complaint from you know, conservative parts of this country for
Speaker 1: a long time. Well, once our children get educated, they
Speaker 1: come back and their values have changed, you know, And
Speaker 1: this has been something that's happened for a long time. Typically,
Speaker 1: the more educated you are, the more liberal your beliefs are,
Speaker 1: the more liberal your votes tend to be in this
Speaker 1: country at least, and you kind of adopt the world
Speaker 1: view as opposed to just a you know, Buck Saw
Speaker 1: Mississippi view. And this is something that the right has
Speaker 1: rallied against for since forever. And so when there are
Speaker 1: these misrepresentations of what critical race theory is, they call
Speaker 1: it indoctrination, they call it all these other buzzwords that
Speaker 1: make people freak out. There's absolutely a segment of the
Speaker 1: population that sees it and it's susceptible to it and says, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, I don't want my children indoctrinated. And since
Speaker 1: the association word association is there, then I don't want
Speaker 1: any part of it. But then there's another segment of
Speaker 1: the population that knows better. But they have it somewhere
Speaker 1: in front of them. There's they don't feel alone. They
Speaker 1: feel like there's other people that are saying things that
Speaker 1: they need to be true, and so you know, they'll
Speaker 1: share this information or you know, you know, share it
Speaker 1: on their platforms or whatever it is that they do
Speaker 1: have conversations about it as though it's an attack on
Speaker 1: America itself.
Speaker 3: The term was presented very early on in the past
Speaker 3: administration's term. One of his press representatives, in speaking about
Speaker 3: the number of people who were there for the inauguration, said,
Speaker 3: these are alternative facts.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 3: That's what she said, These are alternative facts. And I
Speaker 3: listened to that. It was so interesting because when I
Speaker 3: was in Washington shortly after that, you know, you went
Speaker 3: to the gift shops all around and everything, and there
Speaker 3: was a hat and a shirt that had it was interesting.
Speaker 3: It was among his paraphernalia, and it had alternative facts.
Speaker 3: And the hat had alternative facts, but the letters were
Speaker 3: superimposed together in red that said lies.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And so this premise of all alternative facts with this
Speaker 3: segment of the population has been built. It has been structured,
Speaker 3: it has been nourished, it has been there has been
Speaker 3: a concerted effort to carry and if you go back
Speaker 3: to some of the footage, very very early on, the
Speaker 3: term was these are alternative facts. But look at the numbers,
Speaker 3: and look at the numbers, look at the space and
Speaker 3: look at the space. And people accepted it. Why did
Speaker 3: they accept it? It goes back to this other there
Speaker 3: was something about here that pumped them up and made
Speaker 3: them feel There was also the notion of something being
Speaker 3: taken away from them. Sure of America, something was being
Speaker 3: taken away from them. The notion that we can coexist
Speaker 3: isn't something that they can comprehend. They just are not able,
Speaker 3: I say, yet hopefully somewhere along the big battle, I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know, sir. I am very fearful
Speaker 3: to tell you the truth, because I have been looking
Speaker 3: and I want to go back to you to what
Speaker 3: you The business of the social media. As much as
Speaker 3: social media has been an asset, it also has been
Speaker 3: very very harmful because individuals do not know how to
Speaker 3: use it. They don't know how to look at it
Speaker 3: when they get that little snippet of information and say, well,
Speaker 3: who said it? When did they said? Oh, what was
Speaker 3: the education of the person? What was the experience of
Speaker 3: the person who paid for it to be said? What
Speaker 3: was the date that it was a you know printed? Sure,
Speaker 3: none of that information is asked, and they just look
Speaker 3: at it and if they see it and it fits
Speaker 3: with in the mold of what they want, then that's
Speaker 3: what they go with.
Speaker 1: Now I have to say this, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to take a break, and I have to say this.
Speaker 1: That is a human phenomenon and it does happen on
Speaker 1: both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: But there, I think is an added element of the again,
Speaker 1: the wilful delusion, which I think to often be on
Speaker 1: the right conservative side of things. And I'll just leave
Speaker 1: that right there, and now.
Speaker 4: My mic back like that journal time strike waters from
Speaker 4: headquarters behind him.
Speaker 1: And if you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's jock.
Speaker 2: They called me q war.
Speaker 1: Yes, Indeed, a special guest with us today, a decades
Speaker 1: long educator, doctor Canilla Westenberg, is sitting in with us, uh,
Speaker 1: and we're discussing critical race theory. Be sure to stick
Speaker 1: around because we are also going to uh take a
Speaker 1: look back at the Black Panthers, Uh, something that I
Speaker 1: found out that they did with respect to television, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be our way black history fact. And
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to share that with everyone because of
Speaker 1: something that even I didn't know. And I know a
Speaker 1: whole lot about the Black Panthers and h.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: A lot of good stuff coming your way. So again,
Speaker 1: a lot to stick around for. But first we are
Speaker 1: going to discuss how to become a better ally. This
Speaker 1: is our bah Bah segment. So qu you remember we
Speaker 1: talked about this family in Virginia Beach where they were
Speaker 1: getting harassed by their neighbors. The neighbors was playing like
Speaker 1: monkey sounds and.
Speaker 2: Racist yeah munson rhetoric exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So for those that don't know, there's a family, a
Speaker 1: black family in Virginia Beach and one of their neighbors
Speaker 1: didn't take too kindly to them moving into the neighborhood
Speaker 1: and try to intimidate them, you know. But everything the
Speaker 1: neighbor did was just barely legal. They didn't do anything
Speaker 1: off their property. They didn't do anything that was overtly
Speaker 1: just subtly racist, and they played like racist music and
Speaker 1: things like that, so they weren't able to be charged
Speaker 1: for a hate crime. Well, their story obviously made national headlines.
Speaker 1: We talked about it here. And what happened is they
Speaker 1: had a protest. So activists rallied in Virginia Beach to
Speaker 1: support the black family taunted by the next door neighbor
Speaker 1: with offensive loud noises and other racist stuff. Since twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: The peaceful march, organized by Russell T, who lives outside
Speaker 1: of Richmond, was a show of community solidarity in the
Speaker 1: sleepy Salem Lakes neighborhood the Martinez family called home for
Speaker 1: nearly five years. So I guess in short, you know,
Speaker 1: if there are no legal ways to support you know,
Speaker 1: you're black and ground, and you know other oppressed individuals, marginalized,
Speaker 1: I should say, individuals that you know, you know, protesting,
Speaker 1: marching that always helps, It goes a long way. And
Speaker 1: I just wanted to shout these folks, these activists that
Speaker 1: got out there and marched up and down the street,
Speaker 1: exercising their right to assemble and their right to free
Speaker 1: speech to support this family, the Martinez family, the Black family,
Speaker 1: and that is how you can become a better ally.
Speaker 1: Now back to critical race theory, Doctor Wessenberg. We talked
Speaker 1: about what critical race theory is, but let's I want
Speaker 1: to ask the question, and I want this to be
Speaker 1: a focused, a more focused answer, because I think that
Speaker 1: we take for granted the answer here, but there are
Speaker 1: people who are listening right now that may not know
Speaker 1: the answer to this question. So, in your words, why
Speaker 1: do you think critical race theory is important?
Speaker 3: I think by looking at it, we begin to understand
Speaker 3: human nature, and we begin to understand how we interface
Speaker 3: with each other, and when I said, the intersectionality of
Speaker 3: each other, how we come together in all of our arenas,
Speaker 3: whether it's in education, whether it's in health, whether it's
Speaker 3: in government, whether it's in the environment. There are environmental
Speaker 3: issues that we're dealing with right now as a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, decisions that are being made as to where
Speaker 3: the funds are going to be allocated for the environment.
Speaker 3: So and there are differences of opinions as to what
Speaker 3: should be and should not be done, because there is
Speaker 3: a different way of knowing the world and the only
Speaker 3: way that we're going to come together. I've always said,
Speaker 3: I believe in dialogue you are going to have to
Speaker 3: be able to get to know each other. And if
Speaker 3: you stay in your little sphere and everything is my
Speaker 3: opic and you don't get a chance to expand, and
Speaker 3: then there is no growth. There is absolutely no growth.
Speaker 3: And I think that through critical race theory, the research
Speaker 3: of it, and the looking of it, if some individuals
Speaker 3: would dare allow it to occur, then we can find
Speaker 3: out why we harbor some of the feelings that we have.
Speaker 3: That and it is okay to be different. That's the
Speaker 3: one thing that you have to understand. There is not
Speaker 3: anything wrong with being different. We can all all coexist
Speaker 3: on this earth and be different. There is enough space.
Speaker 3: There is enough, and so why feel jeopardized by it.
Speaker 3: No one is going to impose on you anything. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to impose my blackness on you. I am
Speaker 3: who I am. I love who I am, You are
Speaker 3: who you are, love who you are, and I love
Speaker 3: who you are. And there is beauty in it. There
Speaker 3: is beauty in it. Even with our culture, you know,
Speaker 3: the arts is one of the areas where we do
Speaker 3: tend to sort of begin to come together.
Speaker 1: Yes, the arts.
Speaker 3: It's an area in music and in dance. Food. Look,
Speaker 3: you're hating some people, but you're going into restaurants and
Speaker 3: you're eating the food. What's up with that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Well, you just think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's this. Okay. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: noted a lack of culture from a couple that got
Speaker 1: married in a McDonald's. And that always stood stood out
Speaker 1: to me, and it stayed with me because he said,
Speaker 1: those people have no culture. Right, I'm going somewhere with this,
Speaker 1: I promise Q lock in with me, man, all right.
Speaker 1: So I've also seen that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people in this country who's almost their entire identity is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in just being from this country. And I
Speaker 1: feel bad for those people to some degree. I believe
Speaker 1: that those people were told that they were going to
Speaker 1: grow up and be rock stars, and those people were
Speaker 1: told that they were going to live out the American dream.
Speaker 1: They were going to be millionaires and have the wife
Speaker 1: or husband of their dreams, and on and on and on, right,
Speaker 1: And then time came, and then time went, and they
Speaker 1: more or less stayed at their same station in life, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, the real source of this is greed
Speaker 1: from wealthy people. But the victims, the victims are often
Speaker 1: folks from Middle America.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But since all they learned was all they know, they're
Speaker 1: left with, well, I'm proud to be an American, where
Speaker 1: at least I know I'm free America, you know, And
Speaker 1: their whole identity is being from America. They got the truck,
Speaker 1: they got the flag, six or eight places around their house.
Speaker 1: They got six or eight t shirts with the flag.
Speaker 1: You know, this is you know, you know, you know
Speaker 1: the type. Yes, and it's these people that.
Speaker 3: Have to.
Speaker 1: America has to be the greatest place in the world
Speaker 1: to them because they.
Speaker 3: Have nothing else else, right.
Speaker 1: This is their whole identity. Q. You're still with me,
Speaker 1: so okay, So this is their whole identit. This is
Speaker 1: everything that they have. And that's why I feel bad
Speaker 1: because it's like, you know, I get that you were
Speaker 1: told a lie from being a young child, and you
Speaker 1: grew up and this is all you have left, so
Speaker 1: you hold on to it with dear life. But the
Speaker 1: problem here is that in these people's minds, America is perfect.
Speaker 1: Now even if even if they're right, America is the
Speaker 1: greatest country in the world, right, which I wouldn't disagree with.
Speaker 1: You know, I live here, I've lived here my whole life.
Speaker 1: I love it here. I've been around the world. I've
Speaker 1: seen other Right, you's been around the world. You've been
Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, so we've seen other countries. Even
Speaker 1: if America is the best country in the world, it
Speaker 1: can improve. In fact, if it is the best country
Speaker 1: in the world, it should continually improve. And a critical
Speaker 1: examination of race, a constant critical examination of race, which
Speaker 1: was sewn into the very origins of this country. You know,
Speaker 1: this country is built on racism, right, and for better
Speaker 1: or worse, here we are dealing with it. But the
Speaker 1: refusal of perhaps this type of people, or variations of
Speaker 1: this type of people, to even acknowledge it for what
Speaker 1: it is. Again, they will call it in doctrination, they'll
Speaker 1: call it anything but what it is, which I love
Speaker 1: the way you said it. An examination of the impact
Speaker 1: of I'm paraphrasing, and please correct me, you're the educator,
Speaker 1: I'm not, But an act the impact of historical occurrences
Speaker 1: and examining those the impact plural impacts using a racial
Speaker 1: lens to see where we end up, why we end
Speaker 1: up there and so forth. I think that that's something
Speaker 1: that really needs to be.
Speaker 3: Mentioned, this notion of critical race theory and their opposition
Speaker 3: to it. The other I'm going to say the other,
Speaker 3: okay in this context, because I've said that they are
Speaker 3: looking at us as the other, but this is the
Speaker 3: other in their disposition about the world. Has a strong
Speaker 3: undercurrent historically, because where it goes, it's not going to
Speaker 3: be and I jotted down not only on based on
Speaker 3: the color of your skin, but it's going to be
Speaker 3: based on your gender. It's going to be based on
Speaker 3: your sexual preference. It's going to be based on your religion,
Speaker 3: it's going to be based on, of course, your political affiliation.
Speaker 3: This notion, this bubble of other, encompasses all of that
Speaker 3: and the atrocities that have been and are being placed
Speaker 3: on all of these individuals, the indigenous population, the original Okay,
Speaker 3: all of that is an undercurrent of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: It's weighted. This notion of critical race theory is very heavy.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what on the show, so we had recently,
Speaker 1: this is a few weeks ago. Please feel free to
Speaker 1: go back and if you're listening, go back and check
Speaker 1: out the episode It was about some young women, some
Speaker 1: PhD students from Arizona State University. They had an incident
Speaker 1: on campus and that went viral. I'll explain in just
Speaker 1: a second. But these women came up on the show
Speaker 1: and discussed you know what happened. You know, they gave
Speaker 1: it some nuance to quote a word, to uses quite
Speaker 1: a bit.
Speaker 2: So here's what happened.
Speaker 1: The video, and you can check this out at Civic
Speaker 1: Cipher dot com or you can check the actual video
Speaker 1: the incident, the video that went viral, that's up on
Speaker 1: our Instagram page. You might have to scroll back a bit,
Speaker 1: but you'll see it. I promise, lots of comments there.
Speaker 1: What happened was there was a multicultural center on the
Speaker 1: campus Arizona State University campus. The multicultural center was something
Speaker 1: that was campaigned for by the actual women in the video.
Speaker 1: So the women are the ones filming the video just
Speaker 1: to take you there. And the video starts with them
Speaker 1: filming a young man. Now the young man is white.
Speaker 1: The women are black or brown skinned women. The young
Speaker 1: man in the first young man you'll see is white
Speaker 1: in the video, and he's he has a sticker on
Speaker 1: his computer and the sticker says police lives matter right now.
Speaker 1: He's in the multicultural center, and the women felt like
Speaker 1: he was there deliberately to try to intimidate them, and
Speaker 1: based on everything that we see and based on you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in that environment, you know, seems reasonable enough,
Speaker 1: right was. It was very much a deliberate So the
Speaker 1: man or the young man rather sets up his laptop
Speaker 1: facing the women as they're studying, with the sticker on
Speaker 1: his laptop, and he has a Chick fil A cup
Speaker 1: and a Bass Pro Shops hat, which are again other
Speaker 1: coated racist or rather conservative like markers, you know. And
Speaker 1: then he's with another young man who's in there as well,
Speaker 1: and the other young man is wearing a some sort
Speaker 1: of anti Joe Biden shirt. And the women engage the
Speaker 1: two white men, young young white men, and asked him
Speaker 1: to leave the multicultural center, and they cite the reasons
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned. Now. The reason that I'm talking
Speaker 1: about that is because the backlash from people who felt
Speaker 1: like the women were wrong and that the young men
Speaker 1: were justified being in a multicultural center with all of
Speaker 1: those things is crazy. I mean, even just them coming
Speaker 1: up and saying their peace. You know, I've gotten death
Speaker 1: threats people are like, oh, man, I know where your
Speaker 1: kids go to school, and they told me, you know,
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. The anger that exists is alarming, right,
Speaker 1: And I understand that it's been a huge talking point
Speaker 1: on the right, and so a lot of times those
Speaker 1: are the people that see the videos, and those are
Speaker 1: the people that respond to it. It's not something that
Speaker 1: we really need to share, you know, over here, because
Speaker 1: it's kind of a normal, everyday occurrence. But for them,
Speaker 1: they're like, aha, see they're discriminating against white children, and
Speaker 1: so that's reverse discrimination and reverse racism or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you know, whatever their issue is right now. The reason
Speaker 1: I'm telling that story is because, in my estimation, had
Speaker 1: critical race theory been taught.
Speaker 3: From an early age. Q.
Speaker 1: You remember we talked about the I forget the age,
Speaker 1: but we were talking about your kids and my kids.
Speaker 1: And do you remember the age that we're supposed to
Speaker 1: start talking about race?
Speaker 2: I do not.
Speaker 1: Okay, then don't hold me to it. But I think
Speaker 1: it's it's somewhere around two years old where we're supposed
Speaker 1: to start introducing other types of faces to our children.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter what color our children are, they
Speaker 1: need to be introduced to other types of faces, and
Speaker 1: then the critical, not necessarily critical race theory, because that's
Speaker 1: a little bit more advanced than academia. But conversations about
Speaker 1: race could start early in the home and then in
Speaker 1: school as early as possible, because it creates more informed
Speaker 1: students who get along better and do better when they're
Speaker 1: able to use each other as resources and share that
Speaker 1: perspective and then also impart their view and create better
Speaker 1: friendships and alliances and so forth along racial lines or
Speaker 1: across racial lines. I should say, now you've been in
Speaker 1: the classroom for Okay, how many years were you a teacher?
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I get that right.
Speaker 3: My god, it's a long time. I was at Phoenix
Speaker 3: College for thirty years. That doesn't include the Murphy School District, California. Yeah,
Speaker 3: quite a while.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I think that's an once you said
Speaker 1: thirty years. Yeah, yeah, obviously.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: I guess my question is, what do you think, having
Speaker 1: heard that story, what impact do you think critical race
Speaker 1: theory may have had on these students who are effectively
Speaker 1: trying to protest a multicultural center by sitting in there
Speaker 1: being antagonistic.
Speaker 3: I think it would have had an impact, you know,
Speaker 3: I taught African American literature, okay, and I had all
Speaker 3: ethnic groups, olegens in all religions in my classroom. But
Speaker 3: I taught the literature knowing part of it, and part
Speaker 3: of it being my experience growing up in the South
Speaker 3: and growing up in a segregated environment. So when I
Speaker 3: spoke to some of the things were happening about not
Speaker 3: being able to to drink from a water fountain, or
Speaker 3: use a restroom, or try on I had or try
Speaker 3: on shoes. That was my experience. That was my life
Speaker 3: growing up. And when I did that, it was never
Speaker 3: with the intent of making any other white person, Hispanic
Speaker 3: person from Asia, anyone to feel guilty for anything. It's
Speaker 3: just this is the fact of my life. That was
Speaker 3: for real. That was for real, and they would have
Speaker 3: to accept that. You know, they may try not to,
Speaker 3: but you have to accept that that's the reality that
Speaker 3: did occur. And yes, maybe some of your ancestors impose
Speaker 3: that on me, but that's not you. How dare I
Speaker 3: hold you accountable for something that someone else did. So
Speaker 3: my larger purpose in my mind was to share the
Speaker 3: experience through the literature so that hopefully we can come
Speaker 3: together understanding, not hating each other. Yes, this occurred, but
Speaker 3: I don't blame you. I would never have let an
Speaker 3: African American student in my class make a white student
Speaker 3: in the class feel guilty. Never ever, ever would have
Speaker 3: gone down.
Speaker 1: That way real quick, as a student who took your class.
Speaker 1: I know that to be true. Please continue, It.
Speaker 3: Would not have happened, and so I think that, yes,
Speaker 3: it would have helped if those young men. I don't
Speaker 3: know their history, I don't know where they've been, but
Speaker 3: I do believe that once you find yourself in this
Speaker 3: adversarial situation, and that's what that was.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Now there's an age difference here. I'm seventy three years old,
Speaker 3: all right, these are some young ladies. I went to
Speaker 3: ASU two and I experienced racism in the classroom with
Speaker 3: an instructor, and I knew how to handle the situation
Speaker 3: with poise and with dignity and a quality way exceptionally well.
Speaker 3: I believe it didn't. It didn't. It wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't not in the class. And there have been
Speaker 3: other instances where you have to find the time and
Speaker 3: the place, and sometimes the moment to address it is
Speaker 3: not the time and the place you can flip the switch.
Speaker 3: You can flip the switch. If you're about equality, then
Speaker 3: be about equality. Let's keep it real. I don't think
Speaker 3: that you're about equality. I'm gonna go there, go ahead,
Speaker 3: let's be about equality. I can sit next to you,
Speaker 3: whatever color you have. You may have not have welcomed
Speaker 3: me over there, but I'm going to be better than
Speaker 3: you are. Or I could just not give you what.
Speaker 1: You want, not play into their hands, just not give
Speaker 1: it to.
Speaker 3: You, walk out, go in and demand the opportunity to
Speaker 3: sit down and dialogue about the situation.
Speaker 1: Well, extremely well said.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't know how that's going to be felt
Speaker 3: by those who mm hm. But again this is I
Speaker 3: got age, I got you gray hairs up here, and
Speaker 3: that's so because I will always keep my.
Speaker 1: Integrity and and I know that to be true. Well,
Speaker 1: what we're going to do now is, uh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna check out our way black history facts.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I do want to say this too,
Speaker 3: I would be delighted to continue the dialogue with everyone,
Speaker 3: uh that that was involved. I do believe, I do believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I sent over invitations to everyone that I saw, and
Speaker 1: everyone they had something to say yeah, to come up
Speaker 1: on the show and say their piece as well. So yeah,
Speaker 1: way black history facts. So today we're reading this article
Speaker 1: came from I took a lot of material from a
Speaker 1: lot of places. Q. I want your reaction first. But
Speaker 1: this particular part of the uh, this reading it comes
Speaker 1: from Dangerous Minds dot net. So somewhat like Top Basketballers
Speaker 1: before Michael Jordan, the reputation of Norman Lear's sitcom The
Speaker 1: Jeffersons suffered somewhat by poor timing, and the shows that
Speaker 1: came after, Cheers, Seinfeld and others are regularly lauded as
Speaker 1: the greatest sitcoms of all times, but The Jeffersons, Who's
Speaker 1: Impressed two hundred fifty three episodes were spread across a
Speaker 1: wapping eleven seasons from nineteen seventy five and eight eighty five,
Speaker 1: never seems to get mentioned with the same respect. If
Speaker 1: you eliminate animated series and long running stables from the
Speaker 1: dawn of TV history. The longevity of The Jeffersons puts
Speaker 1: it in a special category with Two and a half
Speaker 1: Men with two hundred and sixty two episodes, Cheers with
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy five episodes, Mash with two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty six episodes, Frasier with two hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: four episodes, Married with Children with two hundred fifty eight episodes,
Speaker 1: Happy Days with two hundred and fifty five episodes. At
Speaker 1: a minimum, The Jeffersons is arguably the greatest put down
Speaker 1: show of all time, and it never would have happened
Speaker 1: but for an intervention by the Black Panthers. Here we go.
Speaker 1: Norman Lear, creator of a fair portion of the most
Speaker 1: successful sitcoms of the nineteen seventies, including All in the Family,
Speaker 1: Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, and Maud
Speaker 1: is the subject of an upcoming PBS American Master's telecast
Speaker 1: under the title just another version of You Remarkably Oh Sorry.
Speaker 1: Since nineteen seventies, Lear has become more or less synonymous
Speaker 1: with the introduction of ethnic diversity in American TV, as
Speaker 1: well as the foregrounding of what might be termed a
Speaker 1: liberal consciousness and televised comedy. Remarkably, the creation of The
Speaker 1: Jeffersons was a direct outgrowth of an intervention staged by
Speaker 1: three members of the Black Panthers political organization at some
Speaker 1: point during nineteen seventy four. A trio of angry Revolutionaries
Speaker 1: went to Lear's office to complain about the quote garbage
Speaker 1: end quote they were seeing on TV, specifically Lear's show
Speaker 1: Good Times, which ran from nineteen seventy four to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine and focused on a black family in the
Speaker 1: projects of Chicago. You wouldn't think that the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: would object to a popular sitcom calling attention to poverty
Speaker 1: in urban America, but they wanted to see a broader
Speaker 1: palette of Black America on TV. And then the next
Speaker 1: show was The Jeffersons. Then in the same person, uh,
Speaker 1: I think he had a hand in it, because I
Speaker 1: read a few articles. Like I said, I think he
Speaker 1: had a hand in creating the Cosby Show. I know
Speaker 1: that's a bad word around here, but the show had
Speaker 1: it's its intention was to show black people in a
Speaker 1: positive light. The same with the Jefferson's professionals. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about really about examining our history.
Speaker 1: You know, opponents of critical race theory, really they want
Speaker 1: slavery to be renamed as like work, slaves to be
Speaker 1: renamed as workers so that children aren't upset by the
Speaker 1: history of this country.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like whitewashing it and not trying to
Speaker 1: use that term to be like like line right there
Speaker 1: you go. Thank you for being here because you keep
Speaker 1: it real. But yeah, now, Q, you know that the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers are often considered a terrorist organization, but you
Speaker 1: also know by a certain segment of the population. But
Speaker 1: you also know that the Black Panthers did a lot
Speaker 1: of good. Now, how does this story hit you? What's
Speaker 1: your immediate thoughts? First? Did you know about this?
Speaker 2: I absolutely did not know about that. And the Black
Speaker 2: Panthers are sometimes intentionally miscategorized as a terrorist organization. Let
Speaker 2: me say that properly, because most of us have enough
Speaker 2: sense to know that that's grossly untrue. So I want
Speaker 2: to try to put a bow on what we've been
Speaker 2: talking about and what you just brought before us. Imagine
Speaker 2: being a member of the Black Panther Party or a
Speaker 2: member of the civil rights movement in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: and being an academician of any sort and trying to
Speaker 2: bring some levity to the disproportionate and disparate social, civil, legal,
Speaker 2: and criminal outcomes for black people as opposed to their
Speaker 2: white counterparts. Enter critical race theory and trying to use
Speaker 2: data to make sense of the very very obvious slant
Speaker 2: of racism and white supremacy on said outcomes, be it television,
Speaker 2: be it social, be it criminal, be it legal, all
Speaker 2: of those outcomes or slanted political, or slanted by white
Speaker 2: supremacy and racism. Now in the way that if you
Speaker 2: started dating someone and they told you they had been
Speaker 2: in an abusive relationship, they would expect sad empathy from you.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I never treat you that way, and
Speaker 2: it would give you some framework from which you know
Speaker 2: how to handle this person. Now, imagine, instead of showing
Speaker 2: empathy and using kindness and grace, that you were overcome
Speaker 2: with guilt and got angry and totally marginalized, erased, and
Speaker 2: discounted that other person's experience. That's what the last hundred
Speaker 2: years have been like for people that look like us
Speaker 2: in this country. We are not trying to make white
Speaker 2: people feel guilty for the sake of it. It's just like, hey,
Speaker 2: look at all of this information that shows that because
Speaker 2: we look like this and because of what our country
Speaker 2: is founded on, life has been disparate and disproportionately harsh
Speaker 2: to our people. And we're not seeking revenge. We're not
Speaker 2: saying that we wish your life was as hard. Just
Speaker 2: realize that this is the reason that ours has gone
Speaker 2: this way. And it's not to make you feel guilty
Speaker 2: so that you can angrily uprise and fight against that education.
Speaker 2: It is just to simply say, hey, man, these are
Speaker 2: the reasons why life has played out the way that
Speaker 2: it has for us, and we appreciate a little bit
Speaker 2: of grace and a little bit of empathy as a result.
Speaker 1: Let me let me make sure that I mentioned this
Speaker 1: before we uh in the show. I think you might
Speaker 1: have gave me a book or a passage, and I
Speaker 1: forget the name of the author, but there was this
Speaker 1: analogy saying that, you know, we the current inhabitants of
Speaker 1: this country are in a house. The country is the house,
Speaker 1: and the house has a couple of cracks. It's leading
Speaker 1: beautiful house. We love it, you know, but there's a
Speaker 1: couple of cracks foundation. We need to fix the roof
Speaker 1: these things. And you know, we're all in here together
Speaker 1: and we're not blaming anyone for the way the house
Speaker 1: is right now, but we do have to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: there's some problems, some things that need to be fixed
Speaker 1: in order for the house to be everything that it
Speaker 1: can be, and it's all of our problem together. And
Speaker 1: it might not affect your bedroom, but it does affect
Speaker 1: the overall house and and the condition of the house.
Speaker 1: And I love that. And so we're gonna end it
Speaker 1: right there. Once again, thank you for tuning in to
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher. I'm your host, framcis Joh.
Speaker 2: They call me q board sometimes they say Quintine.
Speaker 1: Yes indeed, and uh hit the website zipy cipher dot
Speaker 1: com to download this in all previous episodes. Of course,
Speaker 1: I want to thank my guest doctor Kimilla Westenberg for
Speaker 1: sharing the microphone with us today and uh until next week,
Speaker 1: y'all peace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they go.
Speaker 4: We had to live with these brothers, the fabulous lady
Speaker 4: showing you where vomb traveled. This speak to you from
Speaker 4: sunlight to move, bustling on stage like Anna fights. Move
Speaker 4: my mic back, You're like that journ strike borders with
Speaker 4: waters from headquarters behind in the beline side and the
Speaker 4: borders with presspassing.
Speaker 2: We bring it to you, Wes. It habits the streets.
Speaker 1: Love from street