Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of A Civic Cipher. I'man host,
Speaker 1: Rams's Josh.
Speaker 2: They call me q Ward, mostly because my mother named
Speaker 2: me Quentin and Quinn is kind of hard to pronounce,
Speaker 2: so people just go with Q, so.
Speaker 1: They call the one and only Q word.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And we are here today again, like every week, to
Speaker 1: talk to you about progress and ideas and you know,
Speaker 1: to try to help shape the world into a place
Speaker 1: that is a little bit fairer and more pleasant for
Speaker 1: all people. This is a black space, uh, but it
Speaker 1: is a space also for all of our brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: allies and folks who want to learn, you know, a
Speaker 1: little bit more than what they may be able to
Speaker 1: determine from their traditional news sources. And so today's episode
Speaker 1: is no exception. We got a few things to talk about.
Speaker 1: I do want to touch on some of the voter
Speaker 1: suppression is what we're calling voter suppression legislature that is
Speaker 1: on the floor at least in Phoenix, Arizona, where we live,
Speaker 1: and some of the other articles that are on the
Speaker 1: floor or have passed already in other places. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that a little later in the show. I do,
Speaker 1: even though it's not necessarily American. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about recent events with respect to Megan Markle and
Speaker 1: Prince Harry and all of the stuff that they're going through,
Speaker 1: because I do think that at least warrants a conversation,
Speaker 1: and this is really the only space where we can
Speaker 1: have that conversation in a mass media format. But first,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about something that is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: So being black, we obviously we recognize that the world
Speaker 1: is just a little different for us, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: a little different for our Caucasian brothers and sisters. I
Speaker 1: think that goes without saying. If you're listening to the show,
Speaker 1: you might have an idea of what we're going on about,
Speaker 1: and you know, for the most part, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of understood that there are some things that you know
Speaker 1: that just we don't expect, right, But rarely do we
Speaker 1: get to actually hear about a story from the beginning
Speaker 1: all the way through to what I'll call the end.
Speaker 1: In this case, we have a guest on the show
Speaker 1: today who is a sometimes contributor in terms of commentary.
Speaker 1: She is a political activist. She's done lots of work
Speaker 1: with Rerising and a bunch of other groups. Can't even
Speaker 1: name them all, but certainly a visible figure out on
Speaker 1: the street and what we would consider an ally. Her
Speaker 1: name is Tessa Ferrell and recently she was able to
Speaker 1: follow up with a Karen, the Scottsdale Karen, the one
Speaker 1: that was in Target, I want to say, tearing down
Speaker 1: all the masks and so forth. And you know, rarely
Speaker 1: do we hear the end of these stories. They come up,
Speaker 1: their sensationalized and then they you know, they fall by
Speaker 1: the wayside and no one follows up. But we have
Speaker 1: a an actual direct interaction with this woman, and and
Speaker 1: we have we have an opportunity to examine the ways
Speaker 1: that sometimes the world treats, you know, folks different. And
Speaker 1: and I don't want to get too much into it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to tell the story before she does,
Speaker 1: so I'll just bring her on the mic. So welcome
Speaker 1: once again. Yeah. So, so for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: I know I kind of gave a brief introduction to
Speaker 1: the story. But can you tell a little about what happened.
Speaker 1: I want to say it was July of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: As in the incident, so it actually happened in March. March,
Speaker 3: and a well known in our community. I guess white
Speaker 3: woman went into a Target and went on a rant
Speaker 3: and tirade pulling down masks in Scottsdale. I think it
Speaker 3: is a target, but pulling down masks and having a
Speaker 3: hissy fit about how you know this it's finally her time.
Speaker 3: She's not going to get on board with this and
Speaker 3: you don't like her. She won't be stifled in this
Speaker 3: way and what have you?
Speaker 2: When you say pulling down masks, pulling down other people's.
Speaker 3: Masks, or so pulling down masks for sale in the.
Speaker 2: Store off also like the displays.
Speaker 3: Ye displays throwing the masks on the floor. She's she's
Speaker 3: recording herself doing this, live streaming herself doing this, and
Speaker 3: it went viral. It has like one hundred million views. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's that is the incident.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know not to harp on this, but
Speaker 1: I do believe that it's it's important to present examples
Speaker 1: of what's the word I'm looking for, privilege. We'll call
Speaker 1: it privilege when they present themselves what we have is
Speaker 1: well to do. I believe white blondhaired woman who disagrees
Speaker 1: with you know, the government mandating that everyone wear masks,
Speaker 1: and she's in Target and she decides to destroy property
Speaker 1: and so forth. Now, mind you, this was around the
Speaker 1: same time when you know, we were taken to the
Speaker 1: streets for George Lloyd, and we were before that there
Speaker 1: was a string of police killings, and then after that
Speaker 1: as well, and so we were already the Black delegation,
Speaker 1: if you will, We're already on high alert with respect
Speaker 1: to the way the world treats us differently and how
Speaker 1: we felt and feel often as though our Caucasian brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters have a tendency to distance themselves from our concerns.
Speaker 1: In other words, for the most part, there is this
Speaker 1: either cavalier attitude toward it or this pronounced attitude of well,
Speaker 1: that's not me behaving like that, and so because I'm
Speaker 1: not behaving that way, it's not my problem.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, because we're on high alert during this time when
Speaker 1: we see someone destroying property at a target and then
Speaker 1: she gets to leave the target, and then she goes
Speaker 1: home and she's taken in peacefully. Meanwhile, there's someone who
Speaker 1: allegedly spent a fake twenty dollars bill. I want to say,
Speaker 1: is what happened with George Floyd, and he was treated
Speaker 1: as though he was already guilty.
Speaker 2: He was physics treated much worse than than if he
Speaker 2: was guilty for that specific crime.
Speaker 1: Right right. And you could argue that the difference is
Speaker 1: that he's female, or that he was male and this
Speaker 1: other woman's female, and you could argue that the difference
Speaker 1: is I mean, there's you know, differences across the board.
Speaker 1: But there was no destruction of property, there was no threat,
Speaker 1: there was no nothing. There was just a black male
Speaker 1: who had his life crushed out while people were filming
Speaker 1: it and telling him to get off of it, while
Speaker 1: he begged for his life. And then there's a woman
Speaker 1: who's actually actually causing a disturbance to society act actually
Speaker 1: actually causing damage or or harming you know, the larger population,
Speaker 1: and uh.
Speaker 3: Alter with the workers like the whole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, you know better because I just
Speaker 1: kind of vaguely remember it. But anyway, so this situation,
Speaker 1: this was something that kind of stood out in our
Speaker 1: minds and and so that's the reason why I thought
Speaker 1: that it was worth bringing back up because at that
Speaker 1: time we could point to it and say, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, this is a clear example of privilege. This
Speaker 1: is a clear example that you can throw what you
Speaker 1: refer to Tessa as a hissy fit, and you can have,
Speaker 1: you know, get to your wits end. You can become
Speaker 1: frustrated with the authority, with the government, with whoever, and
Speaker 1: you're allowed to have your moment. For the most part,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to be a human and make a mistake
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then if there needs to be some
Speaker 1: sort of ramifications or repercussions or whatever, you are treated
Speaker 1: humanely in during that process. You're still treated as though
Speaker 1: there's the potential for you to be rehabilitated or maybe
Speaker 1: you potentially made a mistake. I remember the arresting officer
Speaker 1: when they took her into custody, apologized to her as
Speaker 1: he was handcuffing her, and so he's like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I gotta do this. Wow. And so there
Speaker 1: again that attitude that exists that we again we the
Speaker 1: black delegation. That's a bar I took from Dave Chappelle,
Speaker 1: but a black host. It's one that we know very
Speaker 1: well that you know, we don't want to cross paths
Speaker 1: with those people because they don't Their heart turns off
Speaker 1: when when there's a little bit too much melanin in
Speaker 1: front of them, you know, and it's kind of sad
Speaker 1: because Melanin is all of our friend, you know, it's
Speaker 1: how I think about it. But again, I thought it
Speaker 1: was important because if you don't agree that that's an
Speaker 1: example of privilege, or if you don't agree that that's
Speaker 1: a one off sort of instance, and I'm comparing apples
Speaker 1: to oranges, George Floyd versus whoever this Karen is from Scottsdale,
Speaker 1: you know, then that's fine. But because Tessa was able
Speaker 1: to follow up with her and find out the rest
Speaker 1: of the story and how things fleshed out, I thought
Speaker 1: that maybe that would tell the story that I've been
Speaker 1: trying to tell and that we've been trying to tell
Speaker 1: a little bit better because you can see where one
Speaker 1: road leads to death and the other one leads to
Speaker 1: and I'll let you finish. So what happened?
Speaker 3: It became a book signing, how she gets her book deal,
Speaker 3: She got her own book deal, and so she's.
Speaker 2: I just almost left.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that culture and how she's going to
Speaker 3: rebuild her life after this whole thing. So what what
Speaker 3: becomes of this story then, is her husband actually is
Speaker 3: who calls the police on her after seeing this whole
Speaker 3: incident go viral. I guess they were like in some
Speaker 3: divorce proceeding or something like that they had some issue,
Speaker 3: like as the stories I'll tell the night before, all
Speaker 3: these justifications right as to how she ended up in
Speaker 3: this place, and you know, then they source in all
Speaker 3: these articles talking about interviewing all of these people that
Speaker 3: know her as to how this behavior is so unlike her,
Speaker 3: and clearly there were issues leading up. But she ends
Speaker 3: up going on what is now multiple news channels. She's
Speaker 3: a pr rep, so she's spinning this perfectly. Goes on
Speaker 3: to say that that she she was brainwashed by Quanon
Speaker 3: through the course of COVID and being at home and
Speaker 3: the stress of everything, and how you know, being at
Speaker 3: home and being on the internet all the time she
Speaker 3: was taking on all this information and how it was
Speaker 3: slowly brainwashing her. And so she goes on to say
Speaker 3: then that she has a mental collapse and what we're
Speaker 3: witnessing is not racist behavior, because she ends up making
Speaker 3: racial slur She posts racial stuff Joe won't obviously like
Speaker 3: elaborate on, but it exists in the world of the internet.
Speaker 3: But she ends up saying that it's a mental health
Speaker 3: collapse and then voluntarily submits herself to no core order.
Speaker 3: She as you saw like, she's not as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: she's not, you know, like attacked. The police don't arrest
Speaker 3: her on the spot. She's not thrown on the ground.
Speaker 3: They show up at her house, they apologize as they're
Speaker 3: arresting her, and she voluntarily submits herself to some like
Speaker 3: it's listed as like one of the luxury like recover
Speaker 3: your resorts. So I saw another article again today about
Speaker 3: it in the Washington Post. So we're talking national news
Speaker 3: here where she's where they're where. They give her the
Speaker 3: opportunity to timeline these events and talk about how she
Speaker 3: got to the police she got to and then ample
Speaker 3: space to discuss her journey into mental health and what
Speaker 3: she's learned since and how she's rebuilding her life and
Speaker 3: what this whole episode cost her. And so I started
Speaker 3: commenting on it and tagging her in things on the
Speaker 3: internet saying that I understand that mental health isn't is
Speaker 3: a real thing, that we should work on destigmatizing mental health,
Speaker 3: and we need to allocate funds in our budgets, specifically
Speaker 3: from the seven hundred and forty five million dollars police
Speaker 3: budget that the Phoenix PD receives into into you know,
Speaker 3: mental health services, over five almost half a million calls
Speaker 3: in this last year alone to the police work for
Speaker 3: like mental wellness checks. So I'm not I'm not diminishing
Speaker 3: the need for mental health you know services, But she
Speaker 3: gets the opportunity right to spin this instance as something
Speaker 3: that is solely rooted in a mental health collapse. She
Speaker 3: doesn't you know, the fact that she even gets to
Speaker 3: tell her story, where black folk in general don't get
Speaker 3: that opportunity, but particularly black folk during mental health checks
Speaker 3: of their own, when their families are begging cops not
Speaker 3: to do what cops do.
Speaker 2: They don't kill my son. I called you, called you
Speaker 2: because he's having a mental health breakdown. I called you
Speaker 2: for help, not for you to show up and murder him.
Speaker 2: And we're not here to you know, parse through or
Speaker 2: even make the allegation ourselves that this young woman didn't
Speaker 2: have a mental health collapse. It's just to point out
Speaker 2: that she's now had the opportunity to express that she
Speaker 2: had a mental health collapse and to fiscally benefit from
Speaker 2: said mental health collapse, which that part of it makes
Speaker 2: me cringe a little bit. Right, you're going to get
Speaker 2: a book deal after doing this, just because she was
Speaker 2: treated like a human being when the police were called.
Speaker 2: And I think a big thing last year, as our
Speaker 2: call for social justice reached its height, was people were
Speaker 2: confusing the idea that we wanted not to be treated
Speaker 2: the same as our white brothers and sisters, but for
Speaker 2: them to be treated the way that we've been treated.
Speaker 2: The call was the opposite. We're not saying, hey, shoot
Speaker 2: more unarmed white men and women. We're saying, have the
Speaker 2: same heart, empathy, emotional intelligence, patience, and tolerance when you
Speaker 2: show up to see us that you do when you
Speaker 2: see them. Give us a chance to tell our story,
Speaker 2: give us a chance to make a mistake, give us
Speaker 2: a chance to rehabilitate. Instead, on more cases than we
Speaker 2: wish to counter talk about on video, we're shot dead.
Speaker 1: Oh let me talk about that.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to my voice, I want you to
Speaker 1: take a beat. Okay, I want to, I want to.
Speaker 1: I want your mind. Okay. I want you to think about, uh,
Speaker 1: someone that you know, maybe someone young, Okay, someone that
Speaker 1: you saw, you know, uh come come into existence.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Maybe you saw the gestation period, you knew what it
Speaker 1: took to bring this life into manifestation. You you recognize
Speaker 1: how vulnerable this life was and how precious it was,
Speaker 1: and you saw the joy that this life brought to
Speaker 1: those around you. Right, this might be a sibling, This
Speaker 1: might be your own child, This might be someone like that. Right,
Speaker 1: I must say you add a few years, you get
Speaker 1: to see this child grow and develop and learn and
Speaker 1: laugh and all these things. Right, If you can appreciate
Speaker 1: what I've just suggested to you, then you understand how
Speaker 1: precious a life is and how easily it can be
Speaker 1: taken away. If you're a human being with a beating heart,
Speaker 1: then you understand how vulnerable we are and how special
Speaker 1: we are to be able to enjoy this thing called life.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter what color you are, what you believe, or
Speaker 1: anything like that. That is one fundamental truth that we
Speaker 1: all can agree on. You don't have to be human,
Speaker 1: you can just you can be a plant and agree
Speaker 1: on that everything thrives to survive, strives to survive.
Speaker 2: Brother.
Speaker 1: So with that said, the stories that I do want
Speaker 1: to share are not even stories of necessarily mental health issues. Right,
Speaker 1: but everyone, every human being with a brain, has the
Speaker 1: capacity to suffer from some sort of mental breakdown. Doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what color they are, right. The thing is if
Speaker 1: police show up and they're afraid, then all that stuff
Speaker 1: goes out the window because their first move and all
Speaker 1: their moves are going to be based out of fear,
Speaker 1: not compassion or any of the things Q just mentioned
Speaker 1: right now. And this is part of the thing that
Speaker 1: we're trying to suggest. Nobody wants a book deal after
Speaker 1: they interact with the police, because we know that for us,
Speaker 1: just being able to get out of that interaction alive
Speaker 1: and go home to see our children is the goal,
Speaker 1: you know, because it really, like, my heart never beats
Speaker 1: faster than when I see those lights light up behind me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, okay, here we go, you know,
Speaker 1: And I started thinking of everything I just did for
Speaker 1: the past fifteen minutes. How long they've been following me?
Speaker 1: What did I do wrong? What story done?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: So back to my point. There's a man named Richard Brooks.
Speaker 1: This was last year, I want to say, and he
Speaker 1: was at a Wendy's in Georgia and he atlanted to
Speaker 1: be specific, Okay, Atlanta, Georgia, and he was, I want
Speaker 1: to say, sleeping in his car at the drive through
Speaker 1: at a Wendy's, and the police came and they were
Speaker 1: being cool with him initially. This is the way I
Speaker 1: remember it, you know, don't hold me to it. They
Speaker 1: were being cool with him, talking to him. Again, this
Speaker 1: is a life. This is a man who people love.
Speaker 1: He loved people smiled. He was smiling in the video.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously he was drinking. He drank too much,
Speaker 1: stopped driving the car. He was sitting there. Police interact
Speaker 1: with him, They get him out, they do a sobriety
Speaker 1: test or otherwise, you know, welfare check on him, and
Speaker 1: it seemed like they were kind of doing a you know,
Speaker 1: just what is that thing where a cat just plays
Speaker 1: with its prey before it kills it, just toying with him,
Speaker 1: you know, because they know he's drunk or whatever, but
Speaker 1: they let him whatever. And then finally they suggest to
Speaker 1: him that he's going to have to go to jail.
Speaker 1: Right so he panics rightfully. So you know, that's different
Speaker 1: if you're black. You know, what's her name where she
Speaker 1: went to jail and then died there? I forgured her name,
Speaker 1: Sandra Bland.
Speaker 2: Yeah I wish she was the only example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, But I mean, you get it. Anything beyond. Hey, look, officer,
Speaker 1: I'm chilling. I just want to go home. It's very scary, right,
Speaker 1: So this guy panics, which to me it seems kind
Speaker 1: of like part of the course. It's not like he's
Speaker 1: panicking because he saw like a pigeon on the ground.
Speaker 1: Those are the police. They have guns and the right
Speaker 1: to kill you with impunity, and no one will bat
Speaker 1: deny clearly. So that's a very scary interaction because that's
Speaker 1: how it's framed in our mind, because that's how it is.
Speaker 1: So he panics, and he turns and runs away, and
Speaker 1: then the police pull out their guns and they shoot
Speaker 1: him in the back and he dies. His life ended
Speaker 1: in a parking lot of Wendy's on the pavement. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even a sidewalk. His life ended right there, that
Speaker 1: same life, that same life that his mother pushed him out.
Speaker 1: He took his first breath, He played with all his friends,
Speaker 1: his cousins, He had goals, dreams, hopes, and he was
Speaker 1: executed on the sidewalk, running away, posing no threat to anyone.
Speaker 1: Right didn't damage any property, he didn't tear any masks
Speaker 1: down at a target.
Speaker 2: He actually went out of his way to make sure
Speaker 2: that didn't happen, which is why he was pulled over asleep,
Speaker 2: not driving drunk.
Speaker 1: There you go. Another one I want to share is
Speaker 1: this one is especially troubling to me. Especially troubling to
Speaker 1: me because I know what this feels like because I've
Speaker 1: been there before, I've seen it, and it just hits
Speaker 1: close to home. But there's a man by the name
Speaker 1: of Andre Hill, and I've told story on the show before.
Speaker 1: But he was working on a car in his garage
Speaker 1: and he was starting the engine. This is the way
Speaker 1: I remember the story. So if you want to research
Speaker 1: it on your own to prove me right or wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, go for it. But the way I remember
Speaker 1: reading the stories, he's in his garage and he's like
Speaker 1: working on a car, starting the engine, turning it off,
Speaker 1: starting the engine, turning it off, and a neighbor calls
Speaker 1: the police. The police come and they show up, and
Speaker 1: they have their cameras on but or they have their
Speaker 1: cameras off, but it only it still records the last
Speaker 1: thirty seconds or something with no audio. So what you
Speaker 1: see from the police camera is an officer walk up
Speaker 1: to the garage, you see Andre Hill walk out of
Speaker 1: the garage. You see the officer pull a gun, shoot him,
Speaker 1: and he dies right there in his own garage working
Speaker 1: on his car. He did nothing except, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what he did.
Speaker 2: He existed in skin that looks like ours.
Speaker 1: And so this is the thing that makes these these
Speaker 1: when white folks get to have their mental breakdowns and
Speaker 1: the police show up and they're not angry and they
Speaker 1: don't want to kill your whatever it looks like like
Speaker 1: white skin looks like a superpower.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said angry that time and not scared,
Speaker 2: because I think they use the fear thing as a scapegoat.
Speaker 2: I know how I behave when I'm afraid of something.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid of something and it's running away from me,
Speaker 2: I don't murder it, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 2: they get to disguise that hate as I was afraid.
Speaker 2: I was afraid from my life. So no, you weren't afraid.
Speaker 2: That was hate. That was anger, that was racism, that
Speaker 2: was bigotry. That was not fear. So I'm glad you
Speaker 2: said anger that time, because they use fear as a
Speaker 2: very convenient excuse. After the fact, it's very, very hard
Speaker 2: to justify that you murdered a guy you were afraid
Speaker 2: of as he ran away from you.
Speaker 1: Now, I do want to come back to this, but
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment for a second. If
Speaker 1: you're just tuning in the Civic Cipher, I'm your host
Speaker 1: ramses job. You call me q Ward and UH don't
Speaker 1: forget to check us out online Civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: You can download this and all previous episodes. We can
Speaker 1: always use your support. Uh, please consider signing up on Patreon.
Speaker 1: You can check us out on your YouTube that's YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com, slash Civic Cipher, and be sure to follow
Speaker 1: all our social media at Civic Cipher. But yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: this story that we're telling with Tessa Ferroll, who's with
Speaker 1: us today, is one where this we're calling her a Karen.
Speaker 1: I don't think her name really needs, you know, too
Speaker 1: much recognition, and I don't care to remember it. But
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with the example of this sort of
Speaker 1: thing happen and there being no real consequences. Now, I
Speaker 1: do want to say this, now, we're all human beings
Speaker 1: first above all else.
Speaker 2: Right, If this.
Speaker 1: Woman had a mental breakdown, and if her brain caused
Speaker 1: her to resort to the most basic disgusting things, using
Speaker 1: all these racial slurs and all of this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff because her mind turned against her or something like that. Admittedly,
Speaker 1: I don't understand everything about mental illness, but I do
Speaker 1: understand prejudice, and this looks a lot like prejudice and
Speaker 1: racism to me. But for the sake of argument, let's
Speaker 1: call it a mental illness. If that's what she was
Speaker 1: in fact suffering from, and she went to go get
Speaker 1: help for it, there's really nothing else to see here.
Speaker 1: One thing that I've learned about black people is we
Speaker 1: tend to be very forgiving. I'm no exception, So hey, man, lesson, learn,
Speaker 1: don't do it again. Let's move forward, right. But I
Speaker 1: think that the point that all three of us are
Speaker 1: making here today is let's try and treat black folks.
Speaker 1: Let's try and treat Hispanic folks, our Native brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: You know, we're here in the Southwest, if you know,
Speaker 1: you might be listening and you know, Wisconsin or something,
Speaker 1: But in the Southwest, you know, there's lots of problems
Speaker 1: that plague the communities of our Native brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: You know, let's give those same people, you know, as
Speaker 1: you put it, the same consideration. You know, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: showing up. If you're an officer, if you're someone who
Speaker 1: is inclined to call the police or whatever, let's take
Speaker 1: a beat and really understand what's at risk here. What's
Speaker 1: at stake. These are human lives, and the people showing
Speaker 1: up with murder weapons, and those of the people that
Speaker 1: are supposed to help you, they show up with the
Speaker 1: only thing that that thing was designed to do was
Speaker 1: in the life. That's the only thing a gun is
Speaker 1: designed to do. It's not a knife. You can't shape
Speaker 1: a tool, you can't prepare food with a gun. The
Speaker 1: only thing that it will do is in the life.
Speaker 1: That I have a fundamental problem with you calling someone
Speaker 1: who shows up and their primary tool is the only
Speaker 1: function of it is to end the life. And that's
Speaker 1: the person that's supposed to help someone who if they
Speaker 1: are having a mental issue that doesn't check out for me,
Speaker 1: or any other kind of issue for that matter. With
Speaker 1: the exception of I don't know going to war, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't I don't understand how that's you know,
Speaker 1: But I don't have all the answers here, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to rent, but I do want to talk
Speaker 1: about the part of this story where the Karen had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to speak to the I want to say,
Speaker 1: as a Huffington Post or something like that, Washington that
Speaker 1: was the Washington Post, so real quick, and then we'll
Speaker 1: move on. What do you recall from her interaction with there?
Speaker 1: And then what was the conclusion of your interaction with
Speaker 1: her directly?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean what so that was just like that
Speaker 3: was just the article just ran. Mind you, She's been basically,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better way to put it, on
Speaker 3: tour with this story for months now. This is not
Speaker 3: the first time she's been interviewed on a national platform,
Speaker 3: getting to tell the lining up of events. This one,
Speaker 3: this most recent story just kind of covered how she's
Speaker 3: recovering from, if you will, this brainwashing, right, and she
Speaker 3: goes on to say, like her family is Jewish and
Speaker 3: so I want to say white passing in this moment,
Speaker 3: like but blonde hair and blue eyes, right, But she
Speaker 3: goes on to say how it there was a lot
Speaker 3: of trauma that was brought up for her and this
Speaker 3: idea of her Judaism and her family's history and other
Speaker 3: familial issues that haven't been worked through, and so as
Speaker 3: I'm you know, kind of challenging her in this respect,
Speaker 3: not on her mental health, because we all deserve the
Speaker 3: opportunity to heal and grow in our mental health, but
Speaker 3: rather how if she's saying she's grown, what looks to
Speaker 3: me like not cancel culture, but accountability culture is recognizing
Speaker 3: the privilege that you have as a white passing or
Speaker 3: white person, getting all of these opportunities to heal, to discuss,
Speaker 3: to grow, whether I mean, and that's layered right, that's
Speaker 3: the socioeconomic to be able to even have the affordability
Speaker 3: to receive that kind of care. Sure, you know the
Speaker 3: stigma that surrounds, you know, cultural perspectives on that her
Speaker 3: whiteness alone, as we already mentioned, to be alive to
Speaker 3: tell this tale. And I challenged her on it, and
Speaker 3: she said that the whole reason she's done everything she's
Speaker 3: done is to highlight her privilege. And I said, but
Speaker 3: I don't hear you talking about anything other than yourself
Speaker 3: in the story, and she said, thanks for sharing, and
Speaker 3: like blocked me on all the things. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: didn't know.
Speaker 2: We don't have to talk about this, lady anymore. You
Speaker 2: have to talk about this, but.
Speaker 3: It's just right, the purpose is for me, the nature
Speaker 3: of this what's so important in that is is particularly
Speaker 3: because this whole cancel culture thing has really gotten highlighted again.
Speaker 3: And I know you guys have already talked about it,
Speaker 3: but it's not here to cancel people. We're here to
Speaker 3: help people grow. And to me, when it looks like
Speaker 3: you're canceled, when you've shown that there's an ineptitude to
Speaker 3: want to grow and now you're just making excuses and
Speaker 3: she continues to make excuses, and that's for me where
Speaker 3: it became particularly problematic because you had an opportunity to
Speaker 3: really say, hey, the only reason I'm getting to talk
Speaker 3: about this is because I'm white and I'm here still,
Speaker 3: like nobody else outside of a white person would get
Speaker 3: to tell this story, right, like we already know seen
Speaker 3: it a million times over in the news.
Speaker 1: Like you all don't need me to tell you if
Speaker 1: you don't know, Uh, Tessa's white, real white.
Speaker 3: Super white through like Larry Bird.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's enough there. I do want to
Speaker 1: say this though, to all the folks listening to the
Speaker 1: show White White, passing Hispanic Black and everything in between.
Speaker 1: With this show, Q and I We always want to
Speaker 1: make sure that love is at the center of the narrative,
Speaker 1: that that this is a show for healing. Sometimes that's difficult,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's challenging, sometimes it's rough and painful, but that
Speaker 1: is the purpose of this show. We do need to
Speaker 1: acknowledge shortcomings. We we do our best to celebrate when
Speaker 1: when things get accomplished. You know, when when the election
Speaker 1: went the way that a lot of us were hoping
Speaker 1: it would, you know, that was a time for celebration.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes we have to look back and we
Speaker 1: have to you know whatever, and so uh, you know,
Speaker 1: for all of allies, all the allies listening to my
Speaker 1: voice right now, everybody who believes that, you know, tomorrow
Speaker 1: has the potential to be better than today. I want
Speaker 1: to remind you that you know that we love you.
Speaker 1: We appreciate your support fiscally or otherwise, even if it's
Speaker 1: just listening and trying to grow listening to conversations that
Speaker 1: you and I have that we allow other folks to
Speaker 1: listen into who might not have grown up with the
Speaker 1: same vantage point as us, and I just want to
Speaker 1: make sure that that's stated because sometimes we can get
Speaker 1: kind of deep into a conversation, and it might be
Speaker 1: a little challenging, but it doesn't mean that we are
Speaker 1: angry or we're not forever angry. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's it's all a part
Speaker 1: of the healing process.
Speaker 2: So isn't forever Okay, I think the q Q feels
Speaker 2: the same way, be angry all the time.
Speaker 1: You feels the same way.
Speaker 2: I promise you very very hard not to be bring
Speaker 2: it over goodness gracious man.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, well, no matter what happens, you know, it
Speaker 1: takes it takes all of us to write this story,
Speaker 1: and and it you know, it's very necessary for some folks,
Speaker 1: like I say all the time, it's it's necessary for
Speaker 1: some folks to hold the line. And it's necessary for
Speaker 1: some folks to believe that, you know, we can all
Speaker 1: get there. And so I'll take that role. I'll believe
Speaker 1: that we can all get there, and you guys hold
Speaker 1: the line, make sure I don't get taken advantage of
Speaker 1: or that I'm not being too naive. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's a good mix here. It took Malcolm and it
Speaker 1: took Martin, and you know I like that analogy. So
Speaker 1: moving on, I do want to talk about again. Even
Speaker 1: though it's not strictly relevant to what happens here in
Speaker 1: the US with black folks, I think that it does
Speaker 1: kind of speak to some underlying issues that we deal
Speaker 1: with in this country. That's Megan Markle and her interview
Speaker 1: with Oprah. Now, I know that you've probably heard about
Speaker 1: it and so forth, But if not, she sat down
Speaker 1: with Oprah and talked about excuse me, she talked about
Speaker 1: her time in the UH with the royal family and
Speaker 1: the Buckingham Palace. I want to say, or I'm not
Speaker 1: too familiar with any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: The royals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that just doesn't really crown. Yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: it's not a thing for me. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: acknowledge that crown. I only acknowledge the crown on Instagram
Speaker 1: that I put underneath black men's pictures. That was a joke, and.
Speaker 2: A good joke, by the way. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, so this woman she goes into this
Speaker 1: castle and like Mary's this prince dude and they have
Speaker 1: babies or whatever, and these guys treat her really bad
Speaker 1: over there, right, this is what I'm hearing, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, she comes out the other side and she
Speaker 1: tells her side of the story, and now I'm clicked in.
Speaker 1: Now I'm tuned into it because I you know, this
Speaker 1: is something that's kind of right up my alley. And
Speaker 1: she says that there were some issues with respect to
Speaker 1: her child getting a royal title. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that she said. She said, she wasn't supported and
Speaker 1: so forth. But you know, I'm not going to argue
Speaker 1: those things because that could be because she's female, that
Speaker 1: could be because of a hundred other things. But you know,
Speaker 1: this show exists to really help bridge bridge the gap
Speaker 1: in so far as race is concerned between all our
Speaker 1: different cultures, so that we can kind of fellowship in
Speaker 1: a fellowship as brothers and sisters. So I want to
Speaker 1: speak to the issues that she had with respect to
Speaker 1: race and her child. So she said that there was
Speaker 1: they didn't want to give her child a title. And
Speaker 1: along with a title like prince, the baby's name is Archie.
Speaker 1: I want to say, yeah, so Prince Archie. So along
Speaker 1: with the title, he would have gotten protection. Like there's
Speaker 1: a like think like secret secret service, right, so they
Speaker 1: have something similar over there. I guess it's like James
Speaker 1: Bond and all the guys with the hats, big hats, and.
Speaker 2: They definitely not James Bond. But yeah, think secret service,
Speaker 2: turn you down.
Speaker 1: The wrong street, Listen, it's something like that they protect
Speaker 1: the baby. Right, that's so whoever who I don't know
Speaker 1: how they dress or what their names are.
Speaker 2: But that he said it, right, think secret service, Okay,
Speaker 2: don't think James Bond.
Speaker 1: Sames Bond is like secret Service.
Speaker 2: Definitely not talk about it. I'm learning, Okay, I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you about it.
Speaker 1: So and she I guess she couldn't really connect whether
Speaker 1: or not that had anything to do with his race.
Speaker 1: But then later or it might have been the same
Speaker 1: conversation or maybe a different conversation, she said that they
Speaker 1: were discussing how dark his skin might be, and that
Speaker 1: that that's when Prince Harry terrible with names. Prince Harry
Speaker 1: he added to that conversation, and he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that that happened, and he said that he didn't
Speaker 1: want to hell, he didn't want He'll never say who
Speaker 1: was the person that was saying those things.
Speaker 2: Or go into detail about what they said, right, for
Speaker 2: very very obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he's related to them. But I think that
Speaker 1: that speaks to a the idea of white supremacy at
Speaker 1: its core. Now, it doesn't surprise me to find that,
Speaker 1: you know, there are ideals that are rooted in white supremacy.
Speaker 1: There's or at least prejudiced against black skin, you know,
Speaker 1: which I think is the other side of that same coin.
Speaker 1: In that family, you know, or in families like that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's they're not the only dynasty on earth.
Speaker 1: They're not the only family with prestige, money, wealth, whatever.
Speaker 1: And and to know that these folks, they spend so
Speaker 1: much of their energy trying to look like they're really
Speaker 1: for the people, you know, the even Britain colonized most
Speaker 1: of the world, and you know, it has had to
Speaker 1: come to terms of what that means. You know, they've
Speaker 1: had to deal with the people of the world in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And to know that they still
Speaker 1: kind of have this turn your nose up sort of
Speaker 1: attitude or or this black skin is beneath us, it's
Speaker 1: not welcome in our house. We don't want that. The
Speaker 1: title is for us, not for them, you know, or
Speaker 1: the the you know, how how dark will his skin be?
Speaker 1: Like that sort of a thing, as though dark, darker
Speaker 1: skin is some somehow undesigirable. It's it's these subtle things
Speaker 1: that you hear about throughout the course of your life.
Speaker 1: I got thirty eight years of them. There's people older
Speaker 1: than me, there's people younger than me. You know, these
Speaker 1: little micro uh these these these instances that are relatively
Speaker 1: frequent and by themselves are not extremely impactful, but over
Speaker 1: many years and decades in my case of knowing that, man,
Speaker 1: you know what, no matter how cool you think these
Speaker 1: people are, how you know, you see them on TV,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, at the end of the day, they
Speaker 1: just don't like you. They're just that, you know, That's
Speaker 1: just how it is. I remember Paris Hilton said something.
Speaker 1: This was back when Paris Hilton was on top. She
Speaker 1: says something that was super out of pocket, and I
Speaker 1: was like, really, you know, and they're there, these people
Speaker 1: get paraded around on TV like their heroes, and you know,
Speaker 1: you see them on TV, so you think they're good
Speaker 1: people there, they belong there, and so forth, and then
Speaker 1: you realize that they, like a lot of our Caucasian
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, have a tendency to insulate themselves from
Speaker 1: the real day to day people who support them, who
Speaker 1: allow them to hold that place, especially black people. Black
Speaker 1: people may as well be on a different planet with
Speaker 1: a whole different set of problems that they want nothing
Speaker 1: to do with. And I know I'm painting with broad strokes.
Speaker 1: I'm talking potentially about one person in one family. But
Speaker 1: the point is is that over my thirty eight years,
Speaker 1: if you hear one person from one family and another
Speaker 1: person from a different family, and this person from this job,
Speaker 1: and this person who works with this place, and this
Speaker 1: person who you saw at the grocery store, and then
Speaker 1: you know, over and over again, eight ten times a year,
Speaker 1: at the end of your or once you reach your
Speaker 1: thirty eighth year, you know you have a profile. I
Speaker 1: might interact with fifty people in a day, but it's
Speaker 1: that one person that's the one that'll stick with you, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know it. You build this profile where you
Speaker 1: start to feel like, why why do you hate me?
Speaker 1: What did I do to you? My skin might be
Speaker 1: too dark? What is what is that's like saying my
Speaker 1: hair might be too well, I guess that is the
Speaker 1: same thing. My hair might be too curly. My hair
Speaker 1: might be too curly. I know you probably can't see me,
Speaker 1: but I got a lot of hair in it's really curly.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, man, it just that that that's set
Speaker 1: with me the wrong way, and I know that it
Speaker 1: for a lot of other black folks. And I want
Speaker 1: to get your take on this too. Q. When you
Speaker 1: hear that, it feels like, ah, you know, like I
Speaker 1: knew it, but I you know, when she says it
Speaker 1: was like another like it's like a death of a
Speaker 1: thousand cuts. You know, it's just another cut where you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, and then that woman is so pretty she
Speaker 1: I mean, she could pass for a white to me,
Speaker 1: she could pass for white if she wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: or white and Asian or white, and you know she
Speaker 1: didn't want to be black. You know, there's no there's
Speaker 1: nothing visibly that I would say that I could definitively say, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: this is a black woman. She's just clearly mixed with
Speaker 1: something that made her look like a pretty lady. But
Speaker 1: she still was too black. Her child, which is only
Speaker 1: half her, it is too still too black. And I
Speaker 1: think that harkens back to that one drop rule that
Speaker 1: was that existed during slave times, or if you were
Speaker 1: one one drop of your blood was black, then that
Speaker 1: meant that you were black and you were no good
Speaker 1: to a white family and you had to be working
Speaker 1: the slave fields or in the house at best. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to say that because I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of us thought it, and I don't like having
Speaker 1: these microaggressions, these micro infractions build up and not have
Speaker 1: the space to have a little bit of therapy about
Speaker 1: it and talk about it, get it out in the
Speaker 1: in the open, and just discuss it. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a better world than the one I was born
Speaker 1: into after thirty eight years, but it is also a
Speaker 1: world that we need to work on.
Speaker 2: What do you think, man, it's unfortunate. You know, I've
Speaker 2: spoken to you before about how I have far less
Speaker 2: hope than you do with regards to how progressive we
Speaker 2: think we are as a country, as a nation, as
Speaker 2: a people. Maybe we'd made some progress from when we
Speaker 2: were born, sure, but the last four years have made
Speaker 2: it very clear that it's far less progress than we thought.
Speaker 2: And if that's not a statement that lands with you,
Speaker 2: maybe you haven't been paid attention. Maybe you just choose
Speaker 2: to think and believe another way. The really interesting position
Speaker 2: that it puts me in. We were talking about Bill
Speaker 2: Maher a few shows ago, and he had some guests
Speaker 2: on who spoke about the you know, white privilege not existing,
Speaker 2: racism not existing. You know, no one white that's alive
Speaker 2: now owned slaves. No one Black that's alive now was
Speaker 2: a slave, So why are we still talking about it?
Speaker 2: Kind of mentality? And Bill and his guests going on
Speaker 2: and on about how they're tired of hearing about race.
Speaker 2: They're tired of it, And based on his interactions with
Speaker 2: his black friends, so are they? Bill maher speaking for
Speaker 2: not just himself but all of black people, because his
Speaker 2: black friends, including this black guest, said so they were
Speaker 2: tired of being the victim in that conversation. And I
Speaker 2: can understand that part of it to be true. And
Speaker 2: I can also understand the discomfort that comes with always
Speaker 2: pointing out, Yo, that was racist again for the ninety
Speaker 2: two thousandth time. There's a discomfort with being the person
Speaker 2: that's pointing it out. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like I don't want to have to say it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you should know better this And bless her heart, another
Speaker 2: sister on this interview trying with all of her not
Speaker 2: to call her in laws racist, not to point out
Speaker 2: the very clear and blatant reason why her and her
Speaker 2: child won't be treated the same. Why they want to
Speaker 2: deny the baby a title and the protection and inheritance
Speaker 2: that comes with that. She has a very very and
Speaker 2: it's not because she doesn't come from royalty. He has
Speaker 2: an older brother that married a woman that became famous.
Speaker 2: And even the way they cover the exact same things
Speaker 2: about them, from them being pregnant and carrying a bump
Speaker 2: to eating avocado, the way that the press covered the
Speaker 2: exact same things for both women polar opposite, it's incredibly
Speaker 2: obvious why and so many people seem so shocked that
Speaker 2: the royal family was racist. Are you serious? The British
Speaker 2: colonizing Royal family is racist? Oh my god? Are they?
Speaker 1: They thought they were better than other people.
Speaker 2: Right before Megan met Harry's grandmother, the Queen, and we're
Speaker 2: not talking about Beyonce or Mary J. Blige, We're talking
Speaker 2: about Queen Elizabeth, she had to learn to Curtsey before
Speaker 2: she could meet her fiance his grandmother. Now, think of
Speaker 2: the normal nervousness that comes with me in your significant
Speaker 2: other's parents. Specifically, if you're a woman meeting my grandmother.
Speaker 2: By itself, that carries some weight, but it's also the
Speaker 2: best compliment I could possibly pay you the way. I
Speaker 2: need you to learn how to bow to her before
Speaker 2: you meet her. I need you to learn how to
Speaker 2: bow to her properly as to not insult her and
Speaker 2: my family before you meet her. And Meghan doesn't get
Speaker 2: offended and say, how dare you? Meghan an accomplished actress,
Speaker 2: very well off on her own. She's not trying to
Speaker 2: come up on some money here, took that and spent
Speaker 2: the time to pay this man's grandmother the proper respect.
Speaker 2: I will learn a deep curtsy, as she said, so
Speaker 2: that I could greet her properly, as is tradition in
Speaker 2: your family. Yes, sweetheart, I love you. Whatever I need
Speaker 2: to do, run it will do it. And her being
Speaker 2: so beautiful and charismatic and well spoken and educated and
Speaker 2: articulate was threatening to them even more so, how dare
Speaker 2: you bring this black woman into the family who's also
Speaker 2: going to become a superstar as a member of this family.
Speaker 2: We can't have that. She can't be the face of
Speaker 2: the family. And what was scary to Harry, which he
Speaker 2: and I did not mean to rhyme right there, but
Speaker 2: what was scary to him? He pointed this out I
Speaker 2: don't know if this part of the interview aired, but
Speaker 2: Oprah spoke about this the next day when she was
Speaker 2: on a talk show. His mother was treated bad Princess
Speaker 2: Diana for those of you who don't know, because she
Speaker 2: wasn't of royalty, and she had that same charisma, that
Speaker 2: same gravity. People fell in love with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fall in line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did her own thing.
Speaker 2: And she carried on with her children like a mum.
Speaker 2: She hugged them, she loved on them, she kissed them,
Speaker 2: she showed exorbitant amounts of affection to them.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that's just you know, we can't spend
Speaker 1: too much time on it because again, it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: us directly. But that's something worth mentioning. Yeah, we notice it.
Speaker 1: And for all the allies and folks listening to the
Speaker 1: show that will never know what it's like to be black,
Speaker 1: hopefully that gives you a glimpse into what that is like.
Speaker 1: I do want to remind you that you're tuned into
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher to check the website civiccipher dot com to
Speaker 1: download this and any of our previous shows, to donate
Speaker 1: support the show, and to find links to everything else
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about
Speaker 1: the political Action Initiative proposed by the NAACP. If you
Speaker 1: miss out on this part again check the website a
Speaker 1: Civic cipher dot com. But shifting gears here briefly. Oh,
Speaker 1: before it do, I do want to say Stacy Dash?
Speaker 1: Did you hear about her? Hear about Stacy Dash?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So how about that? Go ahead? What happened with Stacy Da?
Speaker 2: No, write that down and we'll come back to it. Okay,
Speaker 2: we don't, Yeah, I don't. We don't have the bandwidth
Speaker 2: of the time right now for me to dive into
Speaker 2: miss Dash. All right, So.
Speaker 1: I do want to spend the rest of the show. Uh. Then,
Speaker 1: in that case talking about some of the legislature that
Speaker 1: we've encountered recently. When I say we, I mean specifically
Speaker 1: black and brown folks. You'll recall a couple episodes ago.
Speaker 2: And poor folks. And it's very important to point that out, sure,
Speaker 2: because the powers that be have have gone out of
Speaker 2: their way to even create division amongst the poor. Some
Speaker 2: of you are not poor because of you, you're poor
Speaker 2: because of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's come over here with us and we'll
Speaker 2: take care of you, it will trickle down.
Speaker 1: So there's a Q and I were on a zoom
Speaker 1: call recently, uh, and we're going to have a really
Speaker 1: awesome announcement for the show here in the next couple
Speaker 1: of weeks because we are can't wait because of your support.
Speaker 1: So we do appreciate everyone this because I'm growing, but
Speaker 1: it's just because Blaine, that's all I gotta say.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: But we were on a zoom call toward that end,
Speaker 1: and I was able to mention that there was an
Speaker 1: initiative in Georgia to kill the Souls to the Polls campaign.
Speaker 1: And I'll refresh your memory if you if you don't know,
Speaker 1: but basically, uh, this past election, the organizers came up
Speaker 1: with this Souls to the Polls campaign so that they
Speaker 1: can get black folks out of church on Sunday to
Speaker 1: go and vote. And you know, the black voter turnout
Speaker 1: was really what helped sway Georgia and Michigan.
Speaker 2: In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin exactly, but in Georgia, Arizona that part,
Speaker 2: but specifically in Georgia, this Souls to the post campaign
Speaker 2: was super effective again to get black folks, black people,
Speaker 2: that was specifically what it was supposed to do out
Speaker 2: of church after church and into a voting booth.
Speaker 1: So recently they introduced a piece of legislature that says
Speaker 1: that they want to close polls on Sundays. There's a direct,
Speaker 1: direct attack, and in direct response to this, souls to
Speaker 1: the post initiative so that that will no longer be
Speaker 1: a thing that they'll have to worry about in terms
Speaker 1: of black voter turnout. If you don't know, the more
Speaker 1: people that vote in this country, the more the vote
Speaker 1: tends to favor liberal philosophies and Democratic candidates Republicans. And
Speaker 1: this is not me saying anything that's partisan. I'm not
Speaker 1: a big fan of Republicans. I think we all know that,
Speaker 1: but I'm not trying to be in this moment. Republicans
Speaker 1: have an overwhelming tendency to disenfranchise.
Speaker 2: He's not a big fan of a lot of Republican politics.
Speaker 2: That sounded like he doesn't like Republican people in that part.
Speaker 1: Thank you for catching that. Yeah, But yeah, what I
Speaker 1: meant is the philosophies that that are that that party
Speaker 1: is based on. And it's not even a matter of
Speaker 1: disliking it. I just prefer the other party. It just
Speaker 1: sounds like they're a little bit kinder people.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's more about us than I that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. So so yeah, they for the
Speaker 1: most part, these Republican UH candidates, they tend to win
Speaker 1: when there are less people voting, and when they do
Speaker 1: what's called jerry mandering, which is another thing that we've
Speaker 1: discussed during the show. In short, it's when you draw
Speaker 1: up the districts to favor Republican candidates and to further
Speaker 1: disenfranchise Democratic candidates, which is for the most part how
Speaker 1: that's used in this country along with the electoral college,
Speaker 1: which gives white males. I saw it's on Netflix. I
Speaker 1: think it's white males in Wisconsin. They had their voter's
Speaker 1: worth like one point seven five votes, and not just
Speaker 1: white men there, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, overall.
Speaker 1: But then voters in southern California their vote's worth like
Speaker 1: sixty percent of a vote or something like that. So
Speaker 1: there's some in terms of the actual power that a
Speaker 1: vote has. You know, it's not the same, and it's
Speaker 1: disproportionately favors white males who own land. Anyway, they passed
Speaker 1: their souls to the polls initiative, so you can't vote
Speaker 1: on Sundays anymore. And it's a direct attack on black
Speaker 1: people voting. This is not new, This is something that
Speaker 1: has happened over and it just creates more and more hurdles,
Speaker 1: and Black people have to jump over these hurdles, you know,
Speaker 1: and we always do. Obama, we elected Obama, we got
Speaker 1: Biden in there. You know. It's just that's the battle
Speaker 1: front that I found that Republicans tend to wage their
Speaker 1: war on. The thing is it doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: war of ideas as much as it feels like a
Speaker 1: war on technicalities. They take full advantage of a society.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about capitalism quite a bit on
Speaker 1: the show, but you know, capitalistic society compels you to
Speaker 1: work and maximize profit and you know all these sorts
Speaker 1: of things, and so a lot of folks are not
Speaker 1: able to engage to the degree that they otherwise would
Speaker 1: because they have families to feed, they have to live
Speaker 1: their life, and so pieces of legislature like this can
Speaker 1: you know, get brought brought up in you know, debates,
Speaker 1: and you know, they can get sent to the Florida
Speaker 1: vote and then they can pass, and then we don't
Speaker 1: hear about it until the next time we go to vote.
Speaker 1: You know, in three four years time, and then we
Speaker 1: find out, oh, the polls are closed on Sunday. So
Speaker 1: where we live in Arizona, I want to take a
Speaker 1: moment to discuss a couple of couple of things. One
Speaker 1: is up for vote right now. It's called SB fourteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. This is in Arizona, and these are all
Speaker 1: across all the states. So if you live in a
Speaker 1: different state, please look up what's going on in your state.
Speaker 1: Research it, get in contact with the NAACP chapter in
Speaker 1: your state, find out how they're recommending that you vote,
Speaker 1: so that your vote still counts, so that it's not
Speaker 1: difficult to vote, so that people who are like minded,
Speaker 1: who really want their voice to be heard, are still
Speaker 1: able to vote. But this SB fourteen eighty five, effectively,
Speaker 1: it would remove people from the permanent early voting list
Speaker 1: if they fail to vote by mail for multiple elections
Speaker 1: in a row. That means that if you haven't voted
Speaker 1: in the past three elections because you didn't like the
Speaker 1: past three sets of candidates, then on the fourth one
Speaker 1: you know you don't, you no longer have the option
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: It's even worse than what you just said, is it okay?
Speaker 2: If you don't vote by mail, Oh that's it, okay,
Speaker 2: which is even worse. That means you could have been
Speaker 2: active at the polls every time and still be denied this.
Speaker 2: And like you said, it's the semantics and details like
Speaker 2: that even we just kind of overlooked right now. So
Speaker 2: let me use against let me say this.
Speaker 1: I believe next week we're going to have someone up
Speaker 1: on the show who's going to be able to explain
Speaker 1: these in more detail. I just wanted to touch on
Speaker 1: them because every week that passes, more and more stuff
Speaker 1: is being enacted. So I want to let folks know
Speaker 1: at least that they're this is happening right now. There's
Speaker 1: places you can call. You know, there's a actually, let
Speaker 1: me jump down here. There's an initiative called Protect the Vote.
Speaker 1: You can join the Maricopa County Branch of the NAACP
Speaker 1: for a community community discussion on action to combat voter
Speaker 1: supression in Arizona. It's taking place Saturday, March twenty seventh
Speaker 1: at eleven thirty am and it's being held by Zoom
Speaker 1: And you can check out the Americopa County Branch of
Speaker 1: the NAACP to get more information on that zoom. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of other things on here as well that I
Speaker 1: don't have time to go over because we're just about time.
Speaker 1: But once again, i'm your host, ramses joh They call
Speaker 1: me Qward and then. For more information, please check the
Speaker 1: website at civiccipher dot com. Please consider donating to the show.
Speaker 1: We do this for you and we need your support
Speaker 1: for the show to continue to grow. Follow our social
Speaker 1: media at Civic Cipher, and I want to thank our
Speaker 1: guest Tessa Farall for showing up today.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me, thanks for
Speaker 3: the space
Speaker 1: And then we'll see you next week, y'all,