Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher,
Speaker 2: where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Ramsey's job. He is Ramsey's job.
Speaker 1: I am kward. You are tuned into Civic Cipher did
Speaker 1: you are? And there's a lot for you to stay
Speaker 1: tuned for as usual, because.
Speaker 2: Today we're going to be talking about some interesting stories.
Speaker 1: Is going to be kind of like a true crime
Speaker 1: episode for us. Those are those are popular, so hopefully
Speaker 1: I bet all of our episodes are true crime. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's that's fair.
Speaker 2: But this this one is gonna get a little little ruesome,
Speaker 2: So buckle in.
Speaker 1: We have to talk about.
Speaker 2: The truth of the matter is that, you know, we
Speaker 2: talked a lot on the show about how trump Ism
Speaker 2: is kind of like a cult, and today we have
Speaker 2: some examples to help flesh that out. You'll hear what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about in just a second, but the short
Speaker 2: version of it is that there's a story that broke.
Speaker 1: Recently of a young man who.
Speaker 2: Took his father's life because his father was a Joe
Speaker 2: Biden supporter or not a Trump supporter, you know, either way,
Speaker 2: the Trump fanaticism has gone far enough for us to
Speaker 2: have evidence to show exactly what we're talking about, and
Speaker 2: so stay tuned.
Speaker 1: We're going to be able to kind of help paint
Speaker 1: that picture for you.
Speaker 2: We're also going to spend some time talking about black
Speaker 2: unemployment rates, and we learned recently the black unemployment rates
Speaker 2: since the data started getting collected, have consistently been double
Speaker 2: that of white unemployment rates. And despite the positive momentum
Speaker 2: in the economy, as of late, black people still lag
Speaker 2: behind white people in terms of employment rates. And we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about that in the implications exactly what
Speaker 2: that means. Yes, sir, and we have a whole lot
Speaker 2: more to talk about as well. You're definitely gonna want
Speaker 2: to hear our way Black History fact, because if you
Speaker 2: haven't heard of the Green Book, you're in for a treat.
Speaker 2: But before we get there, let's discuss some of many excellents,
Speaker 2: shall we? I think we shall? I think you shall.
Speaker 1: This week's EBNY Excellence brought to you by Actively Black.
Speaker 1: There is greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com.
Speaker 1: This story from Sports Illustrated Detroit's own Terrence mathis ma
Speaker 1: I'm smiling bigger inside than I am outside. Just excessively
Speaker 1: proud of my big bro. Morehouse College announced the appointment
Speaker 1: of Terrence Mathis as the new head coach of the
Speaker 1: Maroon Tigers football team. A former NFL star and accomplished
Speaker 1: coach recently inducted into the twenty twenty three College Football
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame class, Mathis brings a wealth of experience
Speaker 1: and a passion for the game that will undoubtedly inspire
Speaker 1: the team to new heights. Morehouse College presidents said in
Speaker 1: a quote, it is my pleasure to extend a warm
Speaker 1: welcome to our football coach. Former NFL Pro and College
Speaker 1: Football Hall of Famer Terrence Mathis a leader who I'm
Speaker 1: bodies the spirit of teamwork, dedication, and excellence. I look
Speaker 1: forward to watching Coach Maths take our program to new
Speaker 1: heights and establish winning football culture within Morehouse College athletics.
Speaker 1: I have had the privilege of being not just a fan,
Speaker 1: but you know, almost family too. Brother Terrence Mathis, for
Speaker 1: you know, three fourths of my life. Got to look
Speaker 1: up to him when I was an aspiring football player
Speaker 1: and just got to watch the man he was off
Speaker 1: the field, be it the work that he did to
Speaker 1: help our church, to the work that he did to
Speaker 1: help me personally, so to Terrence, to his family, we
Speaker 1: are excessively proud of you here at Civic Cipher, and
Speaker 1: please believe we will be in Atlanta at some games
Speaker 1: this year. I guarantee to the whole Morehouse College family,
Speaker 1: the House as they call it, and all of my
Speaker 1: friends and family members that are alum and supporters of
Speaker 1: Morehouse and Spelman and really the whole movement of HBCUs,
Speaker 1: especially down in Atlanta, Georgia, we support you and we
Speaker 1: are proud. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, that's that's a big deal. So there's our any
Speaker 2: excellence for you. Now let's get.
Speaker 1: Graphic. Yeah, that's why I apologize in advance. But that's
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's we we live graphic lives over here. And
Speaker 2: you know you've opted to join us for this ride.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna share again a recent story. This comes
Speaker 2: from ABC News, and I want us to listen to
Speaker 2: this story and bear in mind that we're we're talking
Speaker 2: about Trump supporters primarily, but these are our countrymen and
Speaker 2: country women. They are still our brothers and sisters. This
Speaker 2: is what we we know. It's not always easy to
Speaker 2: get along with your brothers and sisters. But we maintain
Speaker 2: that these people are our brothers and sisters. What we're
Speaker 2: trying to point out is the fanaticism and the cult
Speaker 2: like behavior that is prevalent within the ranks of the Trump.
Speaker 1: Movement, the Maga community. There you go, Maga community. That's
Speaker 1: a better way to say it.
Speaker 2: So let's try to listen and be understanding and know
Speaker 2: that no matter what, everybody suffers from a human condition.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But these outliers certainly helped tell a story about the
Speaker 2: culture within the Maga movement, the type of environment that
Speaker 2: could breed these outliers. The environment is toxic to even
Speaker 2: breed folks that behave like this. So the first story
Speaker 2: we're in a share comes from ABC News. A thirty
Speaker 2: two year old Pennsylvania man is accused of decapitating his
Speaker 2: father and then making threats against federal officials in a
Speaker 2: video posted online. Following the gruesome murder, officers responded to
Speaker 2: reports of a deceased man in his sixties at a
Speaker 2: home in Middleton Township Tuesday night. Lisaid the victim, Michael Mohn,
Speaker 2: was found dead in a bathroom by his wife. According
Speaker 2: to the police criminal complaint, victim had been decapitated, and
Speaker 2: a machete and large kitchen knife were found at the scene,
Speaker 2: according to the The video posted to YouTube shows Justin
Speaker 2: Mohan wearing rubber gloves that had been observed at the
Speaker 2: crime scene while saying that his father is now in
Speaker 2: health for all eternity and the video reviewed by ABC News,
Speaker 2: the suspect, who says his father was a federal employee,
Speaker 2: refers to the federal government as the enemy and makes
Speaker 2: threatening statements against federal agents, judges, and other federal employees.
Speaker 2: The suspect also states that President Joe Biden is no
Speaker 2: longer in power and refers to himself as the acting president.
Speaker 2: So first thing I want to say here is clearly
Speaker 2: there's some mental health problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's we can say he's unfit. Yeah he's mentally
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 2: So this is not I don't want to paint all
Speaker 2: MAGA people with that same brush. But what I want
Speaker 2: to do is use this story in some other stories
Speaker 2: to illuminate again the toxicity that is prevalent.
Speaker 1: And the aggressive.
Speaker 2: Language and energy that is very present in that camp.
Speaker 1: It's an ideology, it's identity politics. I think you and
Speaker 1: I have had conversations on air and oft. I've voted
Speaker 1: since I was eighteen. I've never flown the flag of
Speaker 1: that person from my home as sign of them in
Speaker 1: my living room. I don't start conversations with strangers defending
Speaker 1: decisions that they make right. I vote as is my
Speaker 1: civic duty. I hope for the best outcome, but I
Speaker 1: have not indoctrinated myself passionately to following, supporting, or loving
Speaker 1: the people who I have elect to public office. And
Speaker 1: the identity ideology and almost religious cult like politics that
Speaker 1: the MAGA supporters subscribe to is a bit different than
Speaker 1: anything I've seen in my lifetime. There's a grouping of
Speaker 1: politicians in a singular way as all bad and sure,
Speaker 1: but he is an outlier, and the way his base follows, supports,
Speaker 1: and loves him is also not normal, not normal behavior
Speaker 1: that I've observed from people who are just running for
Speaker 1: political office. I think back to when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: My mother had coworkers who did not vote the same
Speaker 1: way that she did. But the day after the election,
Speaker 1: they were not fighting about the outcome of it. They
Speaker 1: went back to work there January sixth. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: no They didn't become enemies because they cast a different
Speaker 1: vote from each other. They still cared about us, her children,
Speaker 1: She still cared about their kids. They were still friends
Speaker 1: at work. Right, So this, this identifying as the candidate
Speaker 1: you support, is something that's new and something that's different
Speaker 1: and something that's dangerous, as these stories will likely illuminate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and there's something else here too. So one
Speaker 2: of the things I read I read an article recently
Speaker 2: and the conclusion there was a conclusion drawn from some
Speaker 2: data in terms of people and personality traits that they
Speaker 2: find endearing in terms.
Speaker 1: Of like who they vote for whatever.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that was true across the
Speaker 2: board that was even more prevalent or more pronounced than race,
Speaker 2: socioeconomic background, blah blah blah whatever that really angered a
Speaker 2: person to Trump was they really liked the authoritarianism. They
Speaker 2: like that character trait in there, like his.
Speaker 1: Almost fake macho man.
Speaker 2: There you go exactly. Now here's the thing. I was
Speaker 2: also watching something recently, and I think it was Trevor
Speaker 2: Noah was talking about this, and I know that you'll
Speaker 2: appreciate this because you've been all over the world just
Speaker 2: like I have. He was saying, you know what, it's
Speaker 2: weird because in other countries they elect their officials very reluctantly,
Speaker 2: and then they criticized them the whole time, like even
Speaker 2: if they voted for them, and they plan on voting
Speaker 2: for them, movie should exactly exactly, And they're they're critical
Speaker 2: like places like France, places like you know, any any place.
Speaker 1: That we would consider like first world. You know, they're
Speaker 1: and it's almost unfair to say that they're critical, Right
Speaker 1: that I'd assume because I've lived in multiple countries, but
Speaker 1: I've never participated in the politics there. One because I couldn't,
Speaker 1: two because the reasons why I left here would not
Speaker 1: have me go somewhere else to sign up for the
Speaker 1: same fights. Right. But the criticism is often just them
Speaker 1: holding this person responsible for the promises they made while
Speaker 1: trying to be elected. It's not like, hey, you're awful,
Speaker 1: it's hey, you said you were going to do X,
Speaker 1: Y Z ABC and we're still waiting on a so,
Speaker 1: so watch this.
Speaker 2: The difference with Donald Trump specifically is that a lot
Speaker 2: of his supporters, most post to all, are not critical
Speaker 2: of him. They will either willfully ignorant or they will
Speaker 2: turn the blind eye to.
Speaker 1: Even their own hipocrisy and even to their own detriment
Speaker 1: and to do things to actively harm them. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: will support him. So watch this.
Speaker 2: You know, I mentioned January sixth. When people try to,
Speaker 2: like you said, they try to say all the politicians
Speaker 2: are the same. I can't think of a politician ever
Speaker 2: who could have pulled a January sixth and got that
Speaker 2: many people to come and then fight and then there
Speaker 2: were people even died.
Speaker 1: And then in the wake of it wipe his hands
Speaker 1: like he had nothing to do with it. He's like,
Speaker 1: if you let me again, I'll pardon them. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: I say that he has no problem with it, and
Speaker 1: most of his supporters celebrated like it was a holiday,
Speaker 1: even though they were taking up arms against their own
Speaker 1: country government while raising their fist in the name of patriotism.
Speaker 2: Sure, and so well again, I'm going to make another
Speaker 2: point after I tell this next story. But I feel
Speaker 2: like that is critical because knowing that Trump exists beyond
Speaker 2: the scope of what a politician should be and there's
Speaker 2: this cult like following that is toxic and breeds outliers
Speaker 2: like this is something that we need to be aware
Speaker 2: of when we're approaching people, you know, and talking to
Speaker 2: them and kind of doing our best to reaffirm our
Speaker 2: humanity in front of them and reaffirm their humanity to themselves, Like, Yo,
Speaker 2: you're a person on a planet we need to save,
Speaker 2: and we share this planet with each other and animals,
Speaker 2: and you know what I mean. Like, it's not just
Speaker 2: you can't have that way of thinking, and so knowing
Speaker 2: kind of what breeds this type of thinking, I think
Speaker 2: is important in terms of developing strategies to have effective
Speaker 2: conversations with these Right. So this next story, we're going
Speaker 2: to go back a little bit. But this the first
Speaker 2: story I told you about the guide taking his father's life.
Speaker 2: I don't want to rehash all the groups of details.
Speaker 2: I'm not a true crime fan guy, but that story
Speaker 2: reminded me of another story, and this is a sad
Speaker 2: story as well, for different reasons I'll share. This is
Speaker 2: from August twenty twenty one an NBC News article. A
Speaker 2: California surfing school owner who was charged with killing his
Speaker 2: two children in Mexico is a follower of QAnon and
Speaker 2: Illuminati conspiracy theories who thought that the children were going
Speaker 2: to grow into monsters, so he had to kill them.
Speaker 2: This is alleged by the federal officials that were investigating
Speaker 2: this all right. Matthew Taylor Coleman, age forty, was charged
Speaker 2: with foreign murder of US nationals in connection with the
Speaker 2: death of his two year old son and his ten
Speaker 2: month old daughter, according to the US Attorney's Office for
Speaker 2: the Central District of California. Authority said Coleman confessed to
Speaker 2: the killings and told the FBI that he used a
Speaker 2: spearfishing gun to stab them. A criminal complaint alleged, oh children,
Speaker 2: by the way, Yeah, those were his kids. A criminal
Speaker 2: complaint alleges that he told the FBI that he killed
Speaker 2: his children because he believed they were quote going to
Speaker 2: grow into monsters unquote, and that conspiracy theories led him
Speaker 2: to believe that his wife had passed down her quote
Speaker 2: serpent DNA quote to the children. Coleman's wife, identified only
Speaker 2: by her initials, contacted Santa bar Repolice after her husband
Speaker 2: had taken the kids out on a Saturday but didn't
Speaker 2: tell her where they were going. The complaints set. She
Speaker 2: grew concerned after he failed to respond to her messages,
Speaker 2: and knowing their husband didn't have a car seat with him,
Speaker 2: she called police. Now I'm going to spare the rest
Speaker 2: of the story because it's very sad. But along the
Speaker 2: short of it is that later in the article there's
Speaker 2: a connection to the Trump camp and the far right,
Speaker 2: and then of course these qanons and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. Again the same sort of toxic reading ground
Speaker 2: that breeds these sort of outliers. Now, before we decided
Speaker 2: to make today's episode, and you can confirm with me,
Speaker 2: because we built, you know, we build our episodes together
Speaker 2: before we decide we're going to talk about, we were
Speaker 2: looking for a third topic. Typically, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: the rule of threes. Anybody who's working in show business
Speaker 2: at all, you know the rule of threes. You want
Speaker 2: to have three elements to kind of had to make
Speaker 2: a point or at whatever they could get a laugh
Speaker 2: out of people, whatever it.
Speaker 1: Is that you're trying to do. So we're looking for a.
Speaker 2: Third example that kind of illuminates the sort of outliers
Speaker 2: that that toxic primordial oose.
Speaker 1: And sadly, we had way more than three to choose.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was going to say. Sadly, that's
Speaker 1: what I didn't. I didn't mean to cut no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, we just said we googled it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just the idea if if you google Trump supporter or
Speaker 1: support or arrested, there are way too many results we
Speaker 1: could have done. We could do a series of shows
Speaker 1: based on just those results, reading those stories and kind
Speaker 1: of going through the tribalist identity zell it like ideology
Speaker 1: of supporters of our former president, and stories like this
Speaker 1: were not rare, Like these aren't the two that stood out.
Speaker 1: This is just what just.
Speaker 2: One happened today, and then one I remembered because he
Speaker 2: said lizard people or something like that. Right now now
Speaker 2: I'm going to piggyback onto that. So in the interest
Speaker 2: of being fair, you know, we try to be journalists
Speaker 2: on this show as best we can, and we try
Speaker 2: to preserve a degree of journalistic integrity here on Civic Cipher.
Speaker 2: We felt like it might be meaningful for us to
Speaker 2: google Biden's supporter arrested, and I'm going to be truthful.
Speaker 2: You can find examples of that. Have to dig very
Speaker 2: very deep. I went to find please Obama supporters arrested,
Speaker 2: just because I know that. You know, Obama was a
Speaker 2: popular more popular president, and there are examples of that.
Speaker 2: But you have to go very very deep when you
Speaker 2: google Trump supporter arrested.
Speaker 1: Do those searchers yourself, so you don't have to take
Speaker 1: our word for it. And it's this, listen, this. This
Speaker 1: is not a discussion as to whether or not people
Speaker 1: Obama and Biden supporters do criminal or otherwise evil things.
Speaker 1: The difference is most of us. I'll use myself as
Speaker 1: an example. Don't identify as supporter of anyone.
Speaker 2: And know would I commit any arrestable act in their
Speaker 2: naticker on my car.
Speaker 1: There's no flag waving for my porch. And I will
Speaker 1: not fight you to support any of them. I will
Speaker 1: not take issue with you in support of any of them,
Speaker 1: especially people that I know and cares about. I had
Speaker 1: personal friends of mine take issue with draw a line
Speaker 1: and divide themselves from me because I didn't support Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: That's such a strange thing. I don't know him. I
Speaker 1: don't He doesn't know the people who argued and fought
Speaker 1: with me on his behalf, and if you ever let him,
Speaker 1: never care about them, and it has not done anything
Speaker 1: on purpose to help them. Right now, if he put
Speaker 1: a fire out on a building he owned and you
Speaker 1: just so happened to live there, that was not to
Speaker 1: save your life. As the best way that I can
Speaker 1: kind of paint that picture. He's not that type of
Speaker 1: human being. I don't care about the type of politician
Speaker 1: that he is, right, because if we're rating politicians, then
Speaker 1: the argument that people make that they're very much the
Speaker 1: same in a way, in the way that they're out
Speaker 1: for self more than their constituents, I'd agree with you, right,
Speaker 1: but very much the same in the way that they
Speaker 1: very very intentionally look to divide and destroy. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't well, I do know it's
Speaker 1: not the truth that our former president was different in
Speaker 1: a way than really any other president in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: and his ability to motivate and inspire the worst of us.
Speaker 2: So this is what I'm trying to say here. So
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that. Watch this. You know, I
Speaker 2: said it briefly, but I didn't want to talk over you.
Speaker 2: It would be inconceivable to commit a criminal act in
Speaker 2: the name of a politician that I'd never met before.
Speaker 2: It would be inconceivable for me to commit a criminal
Speaker 2: act in anybody's name unless I was related to them
Speaker 2: and they needed to.
Speaker 1: Really start a real argument with in the name of Obama.
Speaker 1: Like that, he's cool, but like I mean, like, if
Speaker 1: you got a point, you got a point, that's it, right.
Speaker 1: But what I'm I think what we're saying here is
Speaker 1: that because of these really extreme.
Speaker 2: Uh people like it's their their identity almost like you know,
Speaker 2: Maga twenty twenty, you'll see it on their profile and
Speaker 2: it's zealot like man. And the thing is, it's okay
Speaker 2: to be excited about a candidate. It's okay to tope,
Speaker 2: be hopeful that the country is going to go in
Speaker 2: a direction that you value. Right, those things, they matter.
Speaker 2: But at a point, because of these outliers, these stories,
Speaker 2: this man beheading his own father because he's not going
Speaker 2: to vote for Donald Trump, you know, this man taking
Speaker 2: his kids lives because he really sincerely believes in the
Speaker 2: QAnon conspiracy theories that Donald Trump is the real president
Speaker 2: and blah.
Speaker 1: Blah, this and the third.
Speaker 2: You know, at a point you have to look at
Speaker 2: this as a Trump supporter and say, you know what,
Speaker 2: maybe there is some kool aid that we're drinking. And
Speaker 2: that's not the worst thing in the world. Because human
Speaker 2: beings are susceptible to propaganda. It's not irredeemable, it's not
Speaker 2: there's always a path back. You know what, I mean,
Speaker 2: like you started this by saying, these are our brothers
Speaker 2: and these are our sisters, even if it's a tough
Speaker 2: relationship that we have to maintain, that we we cute
Speaker 2: Ward and Ramse's jaw have resolved to being the brothers
Speaker 2: of the people that we discussed on the radio. Right,
Speaker 2: We're going to be your brothers no matter what. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you're going to get off, you know, Scott.
Speaker 1: Free over here. We're gonna we're gonna tell you about yourself.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but we won't. We have not decided that
Speaker 1: you are less than in any way because of the
Speaker 1: way that you love, because of the way that you pray,
Speaker 1: and absolutely not because of the way that you vote. Right,
Speaker 1: We just would love to have more in the way
Speaker 1: of empathetic conversations with an actual open mind and not
Speaker 1: be so determined to prove each other wrong and to
Speaker 1: other and make enemies of each other because we don't
Speaker 1: share the same politics. I think that's insane. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, one of the things that is very true is
Speaker 2: that you know, for those of you that follow us
Speaker 2: on social media, which, by the way, follow us on
Speaker 2: social media at Civic Cipher, at Civic Cipher, again, you
Speaker 2: might notice that we have a comment section that's full
Speaker 2: of people that hate us. Don't they don't have to
Speaker 2: say it with no colorful language. They have these file
Speaker 2: things in the comment section. I disconnected myself as a
Speaker 2: administrator of our page because I don't do so well
Speaker 2: with hundreds or thousands of evil, hateful, negative comments which
Speaker 2: grow them back in eventually. But yeah, yeah, I know
Speaker 2: what you mean. But the fact of the matter is
Speaker 2: that we and that's that's I think that's a lesson
Speaker 2: that we're learning in real time. We have to maintain
Speaker 2: that these are people that we're trying to reach. These
Speaker 2: are people that we feel could be lost, could have
Speaker 2: drank the kool aid, could be susceptible to getting sucked
Speaker 2: into that ooze that breeds these outliers, and indeed breeds
Speaker 2: a very toxic relationship and toxic split in the political
Speaker 2: climate in this country.
Speaker 1: So food for thought.