Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Ramses Job.
Speaker 2: He is Ramses Joh, I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned in the civic side.
Speaker 1: Indeed you are, and in today's episode we have more
Speaker 1: than a treat for you. We are once again joined
Speaker 1: by a good friend of the show and a hero
Speaker 1: she row of ours, the one and only Diane Post,
Speaker 1: who is an activist and a lawyer and the curator
Speaker 1: of the Action Alerts that are responsible for circulating legislative
Speaker 1: information to constituents and voters and just a joy and
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be around. So welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much that it's a great unintroduction.
Speaker 2: Sure sure. When you said her name, I tried to
Speaker 2: push a button for a standard ovation for the air
Speaker 2: horns celebratory when.
Speaker 1: You said yeah, yeah, So you know, obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot that we're going to talk about today. But in
Speaker 1: the in the last since the last time you've been
Speaker 1: up here, which, to be honest, I looked and it
Speaker 1: was it's been almost a couple of years been too long.
Speaker 1: A couple of years, yeah, yeah, But since then the
Speaker 1: show has grown. But the world has changed, and this
Speaker 1: conversation we're about to have is long overdue, and I
Speaker 1: fear it will be too short, but I'm really.
Speaker 2: Excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1: We're going to be discussing, briefly discussing We're going to
Speaker 1: have other guests on because you plugged this into a
Speaker 1: whole new community, but we'll be discussing reparations. We're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing a restrictive combinant bill that everyone needs
Speaker 1: to be on the lookout for. Some other really cool
Speaker 1: things that you mentioned earlier. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: we talk about the startle Baby reflex. We're also going
Speaker 1: to be talking about some of the attacks on affirmative action,
Speaker 1: the attacks on DEI, and of course what we can
Speaker 1: do to pull some power back from our local elected officials.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned for that and so much more. Of
Speaker 1: a first and foremost, like we always do at this time,
Speaker 1: let's discuss some Ebony excellence shall show. So today's Ebony Excellence.
Speaker 2: Actually you want to hit this one, sure, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Today's Ebny Excellence sponsored by Actively Black there is greatness
Speaker 2: in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. This comes
Speaker 2: from gistril yep dot com. Nigerian man tonday on A
Speaker 2: Koye plays chess with ten opponents at the same time
Speaker 2: in Germany. He wins every match. The founder of Chess
Speaker 2: and Slums Today, on A Koye made his country proud
Speaker 2: following his challenge with ten players simultaneously in Germany, and
Speaker 2: he managed to win every match. During a recent conference
Speaker 2: in Germany, the chess master participated in a competitive event
Speaker 2: where he faced off against ten ponents. Ten opponents simultaneously
Speaker 2: engaging in a dynamic chess match. He moved around against
Speaker 2: each of the players for about two hours and effortlessly
Speaker 2: won against all of his opponents. Tounde, whose intent was
Speaker 2: to raise funds for one hundred children in his foundation,
Speaker 2: made his people proud as he shared his victory on
Speaker 2: the x platform after the intense competition. Quote. On day
Speaker 2: two of the DLD conference, I played a simultaneous chess
Speaker 2: match against ten opponents at once. After an almost two
Speaker 2: hour battle of wits, I managed to win all the games.
Speaker 2: The chess exhibition helped us raise enough money to support
Speaker 2: the education of one hundred children in our academy. End quote.
Speaker 2: He wrote, Wow, I don't know if I can beat
Speaker 2: ten people at the same time at anything, so shout
Speaker 2: outs isn't enough. I wish I could crown this man.
Speaker 2: You know something that's.
Speaker 1: Really cool about stories like these is we try to
Speaker 1: highlight ebony excellence in places where folks might not expect it.
Speaker 1: But there's a The other side of this coin is
Speaker 1: that he's a do gooder on the continent of Africa,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's fantastic. Now let's get to
Speaker 1: the topic at hand. Diane Post joins us in the studio.
Speaker 2: I just tried to push the standalvation.
Speaker 1: We need airhorns. Man, it's time, it's going down. Okay,
Speaker 1: so a little bit of backstraight. We bumped into each other.
Speaker 1: This might have been a week or two ago, last Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Last Wednesday, okay, at the y w c A. It
Speaker 1: was an event, a community event, right, celebrating some really
Speaker 1: powerful women in the community leaders exactly. And we started
Speaker 1: having a conversation. And the conversation effectually what we were
Speaker 1: discussing was you know, what are we talking about that
Speaker 1: that has to do with you know, environmental racism, what
Speaker 1: are we talking about. That has to do with the reparations.
Speaker 1: What are we you know? And if you know Diane,
Speaker 1: and for those of you that are able to check
Speaker 1: out the press materials and everything for the show, you
Speaker 1: get a look at her. She's a woman who just
Speaker 1: her postured commands a certain respect from you.
Speaker 2: So it's very very much yes, ma'am. Yes, I'll get
Speaker 2: right on that.
Speaker 1: You know that sort of thing, right, But we in
Speaker 1: short order decided, you know what, we need to have
Speaker 1: you back up. You know, we miss this energy. We
Speaker 1: need this energy, our listeners need this energy, and we
Speaker 1: need to be because the truth of the matter is
Speaker 1: that as a lawyer and as someone who's so active politically,
Speaker 1: you know things. You get it insider information and you
Speaker 1: just have a better understanding of the workings of government
Speaker 1: and how power is wielded than most folks. And we
Speaker 1: famously are And I don't want to make us sound
Speaker 1: like just radio DJs, but we're DJs who felt like
Speaker 1: we needed to create a platform for people with voices
Speaker 1: such as yours. So what I want to do is
Speaker 1: start this conversation and we'll just get some of your
Speaker 1: thoughts with a topic, and then we'll have a brief
Speaker 1: discussion about that, we'll move to the next one. So
Speaker 1: first one is reparations. So when you hear the word reparations,
Speaker 1: where does your mind go.
Speaker 3: Well, my mind goes to the fact that it's absolutely
Speaker 3: way past time. The reparations movement has been going since
Speaker 3: nineteen forty, I think, and the bill has been introduced
Speaker 3: every year, but it is ramping up. And one thing
Speaker 3: I want to say about what looks kind of like
Speaker 3: a bad situation with the mega people rising up and
Speaker 3: trying to ban books and do all these things. The
Speaker 3: answer to that is double fight back, you know, do
Speaker 3: more and overpower that. And that's really what's happening. I
Speaker 3: think with the reparations movement nationwide. There's a couple of
Speaker 3: nationwide groups working on it, and we want to bring
Speaker 3: it here to Arizona's We should bring it everywhere. Reparations
Speaker 3: have been paid already to the Japanese and to some
Speaker 3: of the Native American tribes. Why not the blacks. So
Speaker 3: the newest told we did a lot of research. I'm
Speaker 3: working with another woman there and we're going to try
Speaker 3: to put together a conference here in Arizona to start
Speaker 3: the movement to get it going here in Arizona, as
Speaker 3: with the national movement, and what we found out was
Speaker 3: that I forgot what I was saying.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, while you gather your.
Speaker 1: Thoughts, I do want to break this down a bit,
Speaker 1: because there's been a lot of what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Okay, the polls of the approving of it or not.
Speaker 3: Blacks have always approved of reparations from you know, forty
Speaker 3: acres in the milk. Whites have not. But the poles
Speaker 3: are changing, especially after the George Floyd incident and all
Speaker 3: the uprising against the violence by the police, et cetera.
Speaker 3: The poles have really changed it to white's being in
Speaker 3: favor of it, especially younger ones who don't have the
Speaker 3: you know, negative associations during the civil rights movement and
Speaker 3: all of that sort of thing. You know. So as
Speaker 3: we become a newer nation with younger people who are
Speaker 3: taking the place of the old leaders, the mood is changing.
Speaker 3: People are more Whites even are in favor of reparation.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I feel is really
Speaker 1: important when it comes to not just reparations, but really
Speaker 1: any form of restorative economic justice, is understanding the counterpoints
Speaker 1: because those are things that inevitably you will brush up
Speaker 1: against and that's really with anything politically speaking, But with
Speaker 1: this argument in particular.
Speaker 3: We'll go ahead, go ahead your thought.
Speaker 1: So with this argument in particular, there is so much
Speaker 1: on the other side of it that it feels like
Speaker 1: if you need to be informed and empowered to take
Speaker 1: on any sort of opposition, this is the one that
Speaker 1: you need to take the most serious. And so what
Speaker 1: I was going to say is that we shared Q
Speaker 1: and I we share in.
Speaker 2: Our group chat.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the video where they were talking about
Speaker 1: reparations and there was might might have been a Fox
Speaker 1: News piece or something like that, but there was a
Speaker 1: gentleman saying, reparations is going to make everyone jealous of
Speaker 1: black people.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was presenting as a as a case or
Speaker 2: a reason why we shouldn't do it. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like I can't give this kid a popsicle because then
Speaker 2: I have to give all the kids of popsicles. That
Speaker 2: kind of elementary rhetoric used to manipulate a room, And
Speaker 2: when you have a room for the people who are
Speaker 2: already against it, that's a great place to start. Sure, sure,
Speaker 2: so do me for.
Speaker 1: Ever, cute, go ahead and explain some of these lists
Speaker 1: that you put together here, because I think that this
Speaker 1: is fantastic.
Speaker 2: So you know, in legal matters, especially there, and not
Speaker 2: just legal but policy, it helps when there's a precedent.
Speaker 2: We just so happened to have several. Nineteen ninety, the
Speaker 2: USA granted reparations and the amount of one point six
Speaker 2: billion dollars two Japanese Americans. Also in nineteen ninety Austria
Speaker 2: twenty five million to Holocaust survivors. Nineteen eighty eight, Canada
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty thousand square miles of land to
Speaker 2: Native Aboriginal communities Indian in Eskimo. Also nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty million dollars to Japanese Canadians. Nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six, the USA thirty two million dollars to the
Speaker 2: Ottawa of Michigan in the eighteen thirty nine treaty. Nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five thirty one million to the Chippewa of Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Similar in eighty five, the USA twelve point three million
Speaker 2: to the Seminoles of Florida. And I could go on.
Speaker 3: Oh, you couldn't go on exactly.
Speaker 1: Because you get to the bottom and the rest of
Speaker 1: these are at the USA There's another one from Germany,
Speaker 1: but most of these are from the USA. The CME
Speaker 1: Reparations nineteen February.
Speaker 2: That last one, well, I'm going to keep going, that
Speaker 2: was in eighty five, the USA one hundred and five
Speaker 2: million to the Sioux of South Dakota, nineteen eighty eighty
Speaker 2: one million to the Climax of Oregon, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 2: one billion dollars to Alaska Natives, and forty four million
Speaker 2: acres of land nineteen fifty two. Germany, most famously eight
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty two million dollars to highoc Coast
Speaker 2: survivors from eighteen sixty five to the present, the United
Speaker 2: States of America to the survivors of slavery and Jim
Speaker 2: Crow zero zero, zero exactly zero acres of land.
Speaker 3: And there you mentioned the Jim Crow thing. This is
Speaker 3: one of the things that RJ, who I really would
Speaker 3: like to come on and talk about this with you,
Speaker 3: is have talked about the fact that this isn't just
Speaker 3: about slavery, it's sent slavery, on the black codes, Jim Crow,
Speaker 3: the facto segregation, on and on and on. Today, redlining,
Speaker 3: which I'm going to talk about with the restrictive covenants
Speaker 3: on up to today. That economic depression is still there,
Speaker 3: and it gets to the point where you read those
Speaker 3: all the other things we've done, and the Hawaiians are
Speaker 3: fighting for reparations and an apology as well, you know,
Speaker 3: the Native Hawaiians. And how can you justify these and
Speaker 3: then say, oh, but not black people. How is that possible?
Speaker 3: It's not possible with any kind of a logical brain.
Speaker 3: It's only possible behind racism.
Speaker 1: Now. I know that we could keep talking about this,
Speaker 1: but I want to shift because there's a good point
Speaker 1: where we can hid hinge yes, segue exactly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: When you talk about certain things only being possible because
Speaker 1: of racism, one of the things that jumps out in
Speaker 1: my brain is environmental racism. It is only possible for
Speaker 1: this planet to be polluted if there's a group of
Speaker 1: people who have been subjugated and marginalized, who occupy piece
Speaker 1: of land that you can use to put your dirty
Speaker 1: factories or dump your trash, or otherwise disenfranchise this community
Speaker 1: so that your excess, the waste that is accumulated as
Speaker 1: a result of your access, can land somewhere right, And
Speaker 1: so these people have to be again politically disenfranchised, economically disenfranchised,
Speaker 1: and historically subjugated. In other words, historically there is no
Speaker 1: framework for a governmental agency to care about them. Right,
Speaker 1: So you sent me a case study in Arizona, but
Speaker 1: it is it is a textbook example and wide indeed
Speaker 1: from a place called Randolph, Arizona, which I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I live in Arizona with you, and you never heard
Speaker 1: Randolph Arizona.
Speaker 2: But give us a little bit of history.
Speaker 1: About this, because I think that everyone would enjoy learning
Speaker 1: about this, but also can see a little bit of
Speaker 1: themselves and their communities in this story.
Speaker 3: Randolf Arizona was founded in the nineteen twenties by a
Speaker 3: guy who owned a railroad and thought he was going
Speaker 3: to make it the stopping point between Chicago and Los
Speaker 3: Angeles and didn't happen. But that is a cotton pickin area,
Speaker 3: cotton growing area, and they needed cotton pickers. Well where
Speaker 3: did they get them? They got them from Oklahoma and Arkansas,
Speaker 3: and so they actually had labor contractors who went there
Speaker 3: and brought them back. When they came. Some of them
Speaker 3: had money and weren't all poor. Some of them had
Speaker 3: money and went to Coolidge, Arizona to buy a house,
Speaker 3: and they were not allowed. So they went out and
Speaker 3: they bought houses or land won't land because there weren't
Speaker 3: any houses there in what is now Randolph. And they're
Speaker 3: still there today and their one hundredth anniversary is next year,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, and it's a historically black community. There
Speaker 3: are Heel River Indians that's near the Hiller River Indian Reservation,
Speaker 3: as a lot of them live in there as well
Speaker 3: in Hispanics, and so they became over the years surrounded
Speaker 3: starting in the nineteen eighties with heavy industry. They are
Speaker 3: a unincorporated rural area, agricultural area, so they're in Pennell County.
Speaker 3: They are not in Coolidge, so they're little rectangle eight
Speaker 3: by five blocks. Wow, you can figure that out, eight
Speaker 3: by five blocks. How about one hundred and fifty people
Speaker 3: lived there? Used to be about eight hundred people live
Speaker 3: there now it's really down to one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 3: And they started to ring them all around with heavy industry, smells, pollution, noise,
Speaker 3: is trucks, the whole thing. You know, they fought, They
Speaker 3: fought for fifty years, have been fighting, and they lost
Speaker 3: time after time after time. So when twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: Saltworver Project tried to build or put an application in
Speaker 3: to build more than double their existing power plant that
Speaker 3: they have there, and so they fought. And this is
Speaker 3: how bad it is. You talked about reparations. They had
Speaker 3: never in the three years that they owned, that power
Speaker 3: plant been owned nineteen years before by trans Cannadam and
Speaker 3: they bought it in three years prior to that, and
Speaker 3: never once spoke to the Randolph residence, never once did
Speaker 3: one thing for them, even though they said, we're good neighbors,
Speaker 3: we like to work with our neighbors. And I said
Speaker 3: in the trial, how many times had you actually talked
Speaker 3: to anybody from Randolph zero? You know you heard that
Speaker 3: now we're didn't you zero? How much assistance did you
Speaker 3: offer Randolph zero zero? So during the trial, one of
Speaker 3: the guys from there came and he testified that they
Speaker 3: were pro testing, and so Saltware Project came to them
Speaker 3: and said, you know, well, we want to shut up
Speaker 3: your protests. Of course they didn't say that, but that's
Speaker 3: what they meant, you know, And they offered him. Guess
Speaker 3: how much they offered him. Saltware Project is a six
Speaker 3: billion dollar company.
Speaker 2: Per person no what they offered him. No, well, overall
Speaker 2: about one hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: Dollars fifteen thousand dollars. Oh, whoa, I know that.
Speaker 2: Was very low estimate. Q be an insulting leave.
Speaker 3: Well, this was so insulting.
Speaker 2: I tried to be insulting on a purpose, and I
Speaker 2: still overshot.
Speaker 3: I offered this fifteen thousand dollars to a guy who
Speaker 3: used to run the entire southern California fast food franchise,
Speaker 3: so he wasn't a dummy. He was very well versed
Speaker 3: in you know, money and negotiations and all of that.
Speaker 3: He said. It was such a slap in the face
Speaker 3: that it was clear to him there's no going anywhere
Speaker 3: with this. So the NAACP in Penal County called up
Speaker 3: and said, Dane, you got to get down there and
Speaker 3: testify at this you know, hearing kne anything about it.
Speaker 3: I'd never heard herndole either, and so I had to
Speaker 3: look up everything, and I called her back and I said,
Speaker 3: these people don't need it is not going to help
Speaker 3: for me to get down there and testify. They need
Speaker 3: a lawyer. He said, well, you're a lawyer. I said,
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about environmental injustice. This was so
Speaker 3: clearly a case of environmental injustice. So I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about environment the environmental law, or I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about that. Well, you had to find somebody. So
Speaker 3: I tried like the devil to find somebody. Time was
Speaker 3: running out. It had to be filed by January fourth,
Speaker 3: that happens to be my birthday, and so I couldn't
Speaker 3: find anybody. Everybody I called in Arizona to do it. Well,
Speaker 3: we worked for a SRP wow, so nobody could take
Speaker 3: the case. So I called National League, you know the
Speaker 3: Louisiana Cancer Zone and all these other cases of Chicago,
Speaker 3: these places going around with environmental interests. Nobody had time
Speaker 3: and everybody's busy, so I said, okay, okay, I'll file
Speaker 3: the thing and then I'll find somebody. We're going on
Speaker 3: three years now and I'm still the attorney and the
Speaker 3: only one, so there we are. So they the community
Speaker 3: testified at the administrative hearing, lost seven to two. So
Speaker 3: then we appealed to the Corporation Commission. Sieur Club was
Speaker 3: also in it with US and Western Resource, so there
Speaker 3: were three of us fighting Saltwrore project. So then we
Speaker 3: appealed to the Corporation Commission had a hearing at the
Speaker 3: Corporation Commission one four to one. We were hoping three
Speaker 3: to two, but when we got four to one, we
Speaker 3: almost fell off our chairs. So we're very happy to
Speaker 3: see that. So then Saltwur Project, of course wasn't going
Speaker 3: to take that land down. So then they appealed to
Speaker 3: the supirit to the Superior Court, and we went to
Speaker 3: trial on that and we won nice. So finally they
Speaker 3: said uncle because they wanted that plant. So then we
Speaker 3: started a negotiation process and we ended up with a
Speaker 3: little bit different monetary settlement and the whole plant got moved.
Speaker 3: It got cut in half, so the pollution is lowered
Speaker 3: and the site line, you know, it won't be such
Speaker 3: an eyesore because so it was moved away. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Diferent things happen, and different amount of money was offered
Speaker 3: in the next twenty years for the rebuilding of that
Speaker 3: community scholarships, job development, community center, health care, transportation. The
Speaker 3: roads have already there were no roads. Everything was dirt
Speaker 3: halfs There were no roads or sidewalks or fire hydrants.
Speaker 3: No fire hydrants. You have no fire hydrants. You can't
Speaker 3: get insurance on your home. If you can't get insurance
Speaker 3: on your home, you can't get alone on your home now,
Speaker 3: can you? Or a mortgage or anything. No new housing
Speaker 3: had been built in Randolph since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well listen. Rarely do stories have happy endings on
Speaker 1: this show. So kudos to you and to indeed the
Speaker 1: entire team that helped to fight that fightfore and the people, and.
Speaker 3: They need to be here and tell their story exactly.
Speaker 1: But what I want to do is take a moment
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's important to illuminate exactly what
Speaker 1: environmental racism and environmental justice looks like when we talk
Speaker 1: about healthcare outcomes for black and brown people in this country,
Speaker 1: when we talk about economic empowerment for black and brown
Speaker 1: people in this country. This example shows exactly how just
Speaker 1: where you live can affect those two things. Is your
Speaker 1: zip code, the place that you were born into, the
Speaker 1: place where you're raised. You know a lot of for
Speaker 1: a lot of people in this country, they have zero
Speaker 1: control over that. That's just where they are there, and
Speaker 1: there is no mobility because of that. So it's not
Speaker 1: as simple as just move or just change your circumstances
Speaker 1: or boots whatever, the bootstrap thing is that physically is impossible.
Speaker 1: And it was a joke when it was first introduced
Speaker 1: into popular use in the.
Speaker 3: Idea it was supposed to be a joke.
Speaker 1: It was a joke.
Speaker 3: It literally was a joke.
Speaker 1: It was boken newspaper and then late eighteen hundred, early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred something like that. But before we wrap up
Speaker 1: this segment, I do want you to share just a
Speaker 1: quick fun fact where you were saying you were discussing
Speaker 1: these these startle reflex and we'll come back with the
Speaker 1: restricted company bill.
Speaker 3: A study has been done and I've got two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight, and they followed babies when they were very
Speaker 3: first born. They were babies, what was their startled reflex?
Speaker 3: And the startle reflex is how you respond to like
Speaker 3: a sudden noise or a loud particularly a loud noise.
Speaker 3: You know how babies they can jump and start screaming
Speaker 3: or they can just lay there and look weird or whatever.
Speaker 3: So they measured these babies on how strong was their
Speaker 3: startled reflex. They followed these babies for thirty years, so
Speaker 3: they followed them to when they were thirty years old,
Speaker 3: and then they looked at their political opinions at that time.
Speaker 3: And what they found was the babies with the biggest
Speaker 3: startle reflex who were just shocked and scared. That's what
Speaker 3: you are, You're scared when you're startled like that. Who
Speaker 3: were the most scared were the most conservative. They wanted
Speaker 3: nothing to change, They wanted nothing new, They wanted to
Speaker 3: stay in the little bubble. They didn't want any anything different.
Speaker 3: So the babies who were the did not startle and
Speaker 3: were just curious were most liberal. They liked new experiences,
Speaker 3: new people, new foods, new countries.
Speaker 1: New hadish And the good news is that you could
Speaker 1: train the babies that were more easily startled.
Speaker 3: You can teach them, teach them. You can teach them
Speaker 3: so that being having something new is nothing to fear.
Speaker 3: But you have to teach them from when they're small.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know what, I like this. I'm going
Speaker 1: to look more into that study. And I felt like
Speaker 1: that was a nice neat little fun fact. We are
Speaker 1: going to have to take a pause for the costs
Speaker 1: and do our housekeeping around here. But I definitely want
Speaker 1: to come back and discuss the restrictive Covenant Bill and
Speaker 1: how that might impact communities nationwide. Nationwide exactly, so stick around.
Speaker 1: Will be back with more