Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of CIVI Czipher. I'm your host.
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job is Rams' job. He calls me q war
Speaker 1: most of the time.
Speaker 2: You guys are tuned in too, Synic Cipher.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, y'all. Stick around. A lot in store for
Speaker 1: you today, A lot to talk about. A lot of
Speaker 1: things have been up in the news, not the least
Speaker 1: of which is Gilbert or rather the comic strip creator
Speaker 1: for the Gilbert Comics and some of his comments that
Speaker 1: have resulted in him being dropped by newspapers across the country.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into that and break that down
Speaker 1: and figure out the whys and potential sources, and of
Speaker 1: course do our best to educate you how to interact
Speaker 1: with folks who might feel as frustrated as he does
Speaker 1: and feel like, you know that is whatever, We'll tell
Speaker 1: you the whole story. Stick around for that. Also, we
Speaker 1: have to talk about Sea Pack Conservative Political Action conference
Speaker 1: that took place recently and these new candidates who will
Speaker 1: be running for the GOP nomination. This is a space
Speaker 1: that we function in as well, and so it's our
Speaker 1: job to kind of brief you on what things may come.
Speaker 1: Some are familiar than some maybe you don't know too
Speaker 1: much about so all that, and of course we're going
Speaker 1: to be doing our way black history fact. This time
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about something I didn't know about.
Speaker 1: I came across this piece of information and I'm happy
Speaker 1: to share our way black history fact. A bomb that
Speaker 1: was set off deliberately in Philadelphia that killed eleven black folks,
Speaker 1: five of them were children. So there's a whole story
Speaker 1: there and that and so much more for you to
Speaker 1: stick around. But first and foremost, like we always do it,
Speaker 1: this time, let's uh check out some ebony excellence. How
Speaker 1: does that sound to UQ? Shall we shall? So? This
Speaker 1: week's Ebony Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly Media,
Speaker 1: and we are going to be shouting out a lady
Speaker 1: another VideA I didn't know too much about named Charlane
Speaker 1: Vivian Stringer. What's her? What's she known by?
Speaker 2: Professionally known as C Vivian string that's it?
Speaker 1: Okay, She's an athlete, and Q kind of knows about
Speaker 1: athletes stuff. Anyway, She's an American former basketball coach and
Speaker 1: she holds one of the best coaching records in the
Speaker 1: history of women's basketball. She was the head coach of
Speaker 1: the Rutgers University women's basketball team from ninety five until
Speaker 1: her retirement in twenty twenty two. Stringer is the first
Speaker 1: coach in NCAA history to lead three different women's programs
Speaker 1: to the NCAA Final Four. Rutgers, how do I say that?
Speaker 1: Rutgers Rutgers, that's it in two thousand and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the University of Iowa in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: and Cheney State College which is now Cheney University of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania in nineteen eighty two. She is the fifth winningest
Speaker 1: coach in women's basketball history, and she was honored as
Speaker 1: the Naismith College Coach of the Year for women's basketball
Speaker 1: at ninety three, and she's a member of the Women's
Speaker 1: Basketball Hall of Fame. She was elected to the Basketball
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame in April two thousand and nine and
Speaker 1: was inducted in the September of that year. On February
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, twenty thirteen, Stringer won her nine hundredth game,
Speaker 1: becoming only the fourth coach in women's basketball history to
Speaker 1: reach that mark. And she's about to have her seventy
Speaker 1: fifth birthday, and she is decidedly Ebny excellence, And from
Speaker 1: what I understand and how she came to our attention
Speaker 1: here is that she took a group of women from
Speaker 1: an HBCU to the championship very early in her career,
Speaker 1: when she wasn't even a coach. She just kind of
Speaker 1: volunteered for that program. So a lot of success stories
Speaker 1: in her lifetime and were happy to celebrate her. So yeah, now,
Speaker 1: before we get into this serious question, did you ever
Speaker 1: really read the Dilbert comics.
Speaker 2: I've never read the Delbert comics, but they are so
Speaker 2: excessively popular that I've seen them. You're familiar with them.
Speaker 2: I want to say millions of times, but that sounds
Speaker 2: like too many. I know, I'm being hyperbolic on purpose.
Speaker 2: I've seen them amount of part of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I recognize that some of our listeners might
Speaker 1: not have grown up in a world where newspapers were popular.
Speaker 1: So Dilbert is a newspaper comic. It's basically like a
Speaker 1: one frame cartoon or four frame cartoon or whatever, where
Speaker 1: you look at this image and then the next one
Speaker 1: next to it, and so forth all the way through,
Speaker 1: and it tells you a story. And Dilbert was about
Speaker 1: a guy who worked in an office space and often
Speaker 1: had issues with office politics or office life or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it was a comic, so it was meant to
Speaker 1: be funnier, you know, bring some attention about or something
Speaker 1: like that. It wasn't a political cartoon per se. It
Speaker 1: was just making light.
Speaker 2: Of kind satirical though, right right, So.
Speaker 1: This is how we came to know Gilbert as a
Speaker 1: part of you know, popular culture. But I would never
Speaker 1: go as far as to say that Gilbert spoke to
Speaker 1: my reality. You know, by the time I got old
Speaker 1: enough to start trying to read newspapers every day for content,
Speaker 1: you know, phones were out and you could just look
Speaker 1: at a phone and I so I didn't really come
Speaker 1: across Dilbert for the sake of enjoying it. I just
Speaker 1: was generally familiar with it. But the illustrator and the
Speaker 1: creator of this comic had some some interesting things to
Speaker 1: say recently. We're going to get into that in just
Speaker 1: a moment. And what he said, there are some people
Speaker 1: out there that that defended it because taking it faced value,
Speaker 1: you might not know exactly what he was trying to
Speaker 1: say or what he was trying to get at. And
Speaker 1: the world is full of ignoratuses and people who insist
Speaker 1: on being the victim and who insist on seeing other
Speaker 1: people who demand equality as playing the victim right, And
Speaker 1: we have a classic example of that here, And that's
Speaker 1: why we wanted to talk about this today because we
Speaker 1: know that this might be making the rounds in your world,
Speaker 1: or maybe it already has, and without context, a person
Speaker 1: might look at what he's saying and say, well I
Speaker 1: could see that, or well maybe there's a point. And
Speaker 1: we're here to educate you and to paint the picture.
Speaker 2: Right. They got to be doing some stretching.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure we know that, but you and I both
Speaker 1: know that. But you know, people who don't live this
Speaker 1: life life and you know, read what we read, know
Speaker 1: what we know, have the experience we have, they might
Speaker 1: that it might not be as far of a stretch
Speaker 1: for them, because again, accepting certain things at face value,
Speaker 1: that's all you know. There's no context, there's no nuance,
Speaker 1: there's nothing else to it, and so we're happy to
Speaker 1: share with you. So let me read a bit. This
Speaker 1: comes from NPR dot org. I like saying the names
Speaker 1: of our sources, so you know kind of where we're
Speaker 1: picking from. And if you need a different type of
Speaker 1: balance be our guests, but we're letting you know our
Speaker 1: starting point, so i'll read. The fallout was sparked by
Speaker 1: a YouTube livestream posted February twenty second where Adams, who
Speaker 1: is the guy who creates the Dilbert comic, referenced a
Speaker 1: Rasmussen poll that found only a slim majority of black
Speaker 1: Americans agreed with the statement it's okay to be white.
Speaker 1: Adams went on to accuse black Americans of being quote
Speaker 1: a hate group and advise white people to quote get
Speaker 1: away away from them. Okay, but cartoonists say Adams has
Speaker 1: a long history of spewing problematic views and the past,
Speaker 1: Adams has inaccurately described people who are not vaccinated against
Speaker 1: COVID as the real winners of the pandemic. He also
Speaker 1: questioned the accuracy of the Holocaust death toll. Another of
Speaker 1: Adams claims is that he had lost most multiple job
Speaker 1: opportunities for being white. All right, so let's stop here
Speaker 1: for a quick tick. Okay. Now, his other idea political
Speaker 1: ideas about the vaccine, about you know, the way the
Speaker 1: world is working, or whatever, kind of paints a picture
Speaker 1: of maybe who he is probably seems like a solitary
Speaker 1: dude maybe gets his information from one source, maybe to
Speaker 1: the lesser right leaning of the two, would probably be
Speaker 1: Fox News, and has insisted has determined rather that the
Speaker 1: world is against him or his kind in particular. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of folks out there who straight
Speaker 1: white Christian men are like, yo, we're under attack, right,
Speaker 1: They feel that way, and whether or not we believe
Speaker 1: it's founded, we have to acknowledge that that is true.
Speaker 1: And on this show we've always done this that we
Speaker 1: acknowledge that is true. You feel that way, and we
Speaker 1: acknowledge that you are our brothers, no matter what, you
Speaker 1: are our brothers, right.
Speaker 2: And I'm acknowledging that you're Tripp and Trip. Of course
Speaker 2: you're Trip, and that's that goes without saying. But you know,
Speaker 2: we can't dismiss people. We wouldn't want that happening to us.
Speaker 2: We can't do that to anyone else. And we have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge, Okay, this is your reality and approach it accordingly.
Speaker 1: Right, So let me go through this again, at least
Speaker 1: the first part again for folks that don't know better
Speaker 1: to take it at face value, him saying that this
Speaker 1: rass musen pole found only a slim majority, again majority.
Speaker 1: Most black people, according to the ras musen Pole, feel
Speaker 1: or rather agree with the statement it's okay to be white.
Speaker 1: Then he looks at well, the rest of the black
Speaker 1: people almost half disagree with that. This is his determination
Speaker 1: based on that one little bit of information, and then
Speaker 1: he goes on to say the black people are hey group.
Speaker 1: White people need to get away from him. Okay, So
Speaker 1: if those are the facts, you can say, well, shoot,
Speaker 1: if he feels that way and that pole is accurate
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, then he's off the deep end.
Speaker 1: But I see how he could reach that conclusion. Whether
Speaker 1: or not you agree with this or not in question,
Speaker 1: you could see how a person could go from reading
Speaker 1: this one pole to that conclusion, or at least I
Speaker 1: could see him going crazy based off of that. The
Speaker 1: thing is, I know better, So I'm going to help
Speaker 1: you to know better as well. I'll start first off,
Speaker 1: ras musen poll very very right leaning pole, very rightly.
Speaker 1: They're known for that. Right, a slim majority is still
Speaker 1: a majority. But remember there's when when people do polling,
Speaker 1: there's you know, do you agree with this statement? Do
Speaker 1: you disagree with this statement? And often enough there is uh,
Speaker 1: don't know enough about the statement to respond or have
Speaker 1: no response or you know, offer no, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: So in his determination that nearly have black people disagree
Speaker 1: with this, it doesn't account for the people who refuse
Speaker 1: to respond, you know, et cetera. Another thing that we don't.
Speaker 2: Nearly have of the black people that were polled and responded,
Speaker 2: that could be seventeen people. There you go, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that's so, but just.
Speaker 1: Again, and where where were those people from? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly are they from the South? Where they where they've
Speaker 1: had really rough time with you know, racial relations and
Speaker 1: so forth. But here's the thing that is I think
Speaker 1: the most important thing for everyone to.
Speaker 2: Know about.
Speaker 1: When you ask the statement it's okay. When you ask
Speaker 1: people if it's if it's okay to be white, that's
Speaker 1: very similar to asking like, okay, do you agree with
Speaker 1: the statement? Let me ask you a question, Q. Do
Speaker 1: you agree with the statement black power? It's an honest question.
Speaker 1: You can say no if you don't, But do you
Speaker 1: agree with the statement black power? Someone said black power
Speaker 1: would be like yeah, men, it's fine, yes, okay. Cool. Now,
Speaker 1: if somebody came and said white power. How would that
Speaker 1: make you feel? Is it a different single word answer?
Speaker 2: Because because that statement is very, very problematic, That's all
Speaker 2: I needed.
Speaker 1: That's all I needed. That was a perfect answer. Okay,
Speaker 1: so watch this. The reason why black power is different
Speaker 1: from white power is because white power is rooted in
Speaker 1: the oppression of black people. The statement and black power
Speaker 1: is meant to galvanize and energize and fortify and movement
Speaker 1: an idea of black people pursuing equality, pursuing fairness, pursuing
Speaker 1: you know, representation, et cetera. Right, so, the spirit behind
Speaker 1: the statement is very different. Even though you just change
Speaker 1: black to white in the black power white power. I
Speaker 1: want to take it a step further, if I may.
Speaker 1: I am a part of a group. I've said this
Speaker 1: on the show before. I'm a part of a group
Speaker 1: on and Reddit, and this group is the opposition. You know.
Speaker 1: We do a show here where we do our best
Speaker 1: to have conversations Black conversations, and oftentimes we share this
Speaker 1: stage with our AAPI brothers and sisters, our Hispanic brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, our Native brothers and sisters, our lgbt q
Speaker 1: I A plus brothers and sisters. We've even had officers
Speaker 1: chime in on the show here, and we find spouses
Speaker 1: and we find exactly I remember that, Yeah, And we
Speaker 1: find that those systems that the officers subscribe to are
Speaker 1: very problematic. Right, but we do recognize that brotherhood is
Speaker 1: central and fellowship and love is central to our mission
Speaker 1: here on this show. Right, However, I need to know
Speaker 1: what people who don't subscribe to that philosophy are saying
Speaker 1: and doing and how they feel. So rather than just
Speaker 1: subscribe to a bunch of like pro Hispanic, pro black,
Speaker 1: you know, lgbt Q, I A positive you know, you know,
Speaker 1: next Shark for my AAPI, brothers and sisters, you know,
Speaker 1: all those things where I get my information, I also
Speaker 1: subscribe to people who would be very much opposed to
Speaker 1: even the fellowship that we try to create, the environment
Speaker 1: that we try to create on the show. And one
Speaker 1: such subscription that I have is through Reddit, and it's
Speaker 1: called It's Okay to Be White. I've been a member
Speaker 1: as long as I've been on this show. When do
Speaker 1: we make this show? In September of twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 1: ever since then, I've been on in that group and
Speaker 1: that subreddit, just a fly on the walls reading all
Speaker 1: these things that these very very conservative, often you know,
Speaker 1: very masculine energy behind a lot of the posts. What
Speaker 1: they feel, why they feel like the world is crumbling
Speaker 1: around them, why they feel they're under attack being replaced,
Speaker 1: why black people are all criminals and ugly and whatever
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they think that's worth posting that day,
Speaker 1: it's all there. And in my estimation, it is a
Speaker 1: bonafide racist group. It is a group where racist people
Speaker 1: can go and celebrate and share their racist ideas with
Speaker 1: each other and have a sense of community. Right And
Speaker 1: because they're doing it out in front of people, and
Speaker 1: because they don't use the N word, because it's moderated,
Speaker 1: you know, or I don't know that Reddit allows that
Speaker 1: language or whatever. But because they don't do that, they
Speaker 1: can tell themselves that they're not racist. They're just dealing
Speaker 1: with the real right. But what in effect is that
Speaker 1: it is very very extremely mean spirited. It is not
Speaker 1: rooted in fellowship and growth and togetherness and building. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's rooted in the opposite. You can't tell me otherwise
Speaker 1: because I've been a member for years. Okay, now the
Speaker 1: name of that group once again, it's okay to be white.
Speaker 1: Now we talked about the spirit of a statement. Okay,
Speaker 1: white power versus black power. I got another one for Q.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love this one. Our listeners are gonna love
Speaker 1: this one, especially the ones that know black lives matter.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: It is an affirmation of oppressed, marginalized groups right to
Speaker 2: simply exist important to point out, not even to pursue happiness,
Speaker 2: not even to thrive, not even to live a full life,
Speaker 2: just to exist because the world around them is constantly
Speaker 2: trying to drive home the idea that those lives are
Speaker 2: without worth and that they're meaningless, and that their pain
Speaker 2: and their loss of life means nothing to the greater
Speaker 2: community around them.
Speaker 1: Masterful, masterful, Now you know what's coming next, right, White
Speaker 1: lives matter?
Speaker 2: Okay, So remember the last question he asked and the
Speaker 2: last statement that he said, No, they don't, No, they don't.
Speaker 2: All that stuff you just said no, And then that's all.
Speaker 2: That's the only reason that phrase even exists, you know,
Speaker 2: the last phrase you asked about and the answer you
Speaker 2: gave no.
Speaker 1: That's the only reason that no, white lives matter is
Speaker 1: no period.
Speaker 2: All that stuff you just said no.
Speaker 1: So the point here is that oftentimes these statements are
Speaker 1: rooted in the oppression, the subjugation, the silencing, the disenfranchisement
Speaker 1: of marginalized people, in this case black people. So if
Speaker 1: you were to pull black people similarly and say is
Speaker 1: white power a concept you can get behind, you might
Speaker 1: get similar results to this ras museen pole. You know,
Speaker 1: if you pulled black people and ask them, do white
Speaker 1: lives matter? In principle? The language absolutely? Is it okay
Speaker 1: to be white? The language absolutely, But the spirit behind
Speaker 1: the statement is something very different. Of course, it's okay
Speaker 1: to be white. Of course, white lives matter. Like it's
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing that sometimes we have to say that
Speaker 1: to remind people like, yeah, we love human beings, you know,
Speaker 1: we just don't like the spirit behind these things, these
Speaker 1: statements that rise up in opposition to the group that
Speaker 1: really needs the affirmations. It's not even thinly veiled racism.
Speaker 1: It is out loud, in front, in the middle of
Speaker 1: the street racism. And you know, far be it from
Speaker 1: me to call something that when it's not, but that's
Speaker 1: what it is. But when it is there, it is,
Speaker 1: call it. What else am I supposed to say? There
Speaker 1: has never been a need to even ask a question,
Speaker 1: is it okay to be white to black people, as
Speaker 1: though black people have some control over that that the
Speaker 1: nature of the question is silly. But what they do
Speaker 1: is they divorce the spirit of the statement from into
Speaker 1: the language.
Speaker 2: Right, They divorce the spirit of that intention.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened with this guy that does the
Speaker 1: Dilbert thing because the media that has fed that to him,
Speaker 1: in this case Rasmussen has not provided proper context.
Speaker 2: Intentionally, there you go.
Speaker 1: And because of their right leaning nature, they're sowing additional division.
Speaker 1: It may as well say, like I said, it may
Speaker 1: as well say do you agree with the statement white power?
Speaker 1: Because most folks are going to be like, no, do
Speaker 1: we want white people to be empowered as human beings? Sure,
Speaker 1: we want all human beings to be empowered. But that statement,
Speaker 1: that particular phrase doesn't mean what you're trying to pass
Speaker 1: it off as ras musen and you know that and
Speaker 1: then mist and then this guy is particularly susceptible to
Speaker 1: it because the world around him has told him that
Speaker 1: he's losing as a result of very natural changes, human changes,
Speaker 1: evolution of you know, population, culture, etc. You know, I
Speaker 1: looked up the definition of conservative and some of the synonyms.
Speaker 1: One of them said stick in the mud, and I
Speaker 1: was like wow. I was like, whoa, And that's not mean.
Speaker 1: You can look it up yourself. Stick in the mud
Speaker 1: like I have. I don't want anything to change. Well,
Speaker 1: the only constant is change, sir, allow me to continue reading.
Speaker 1: After receiving widespread pushback for his offensive rant, Adams described
Speaker 1: himself as getting canceled, but cartoonists argued that he is
Speaker 1: simply being held accountable for his remarks. Quote by Adams
Speaker 1: saying he's been canceled. It's him not only owning up
Speaker 1: to his responsibility for the things he has said and
Speaker 1: the effect they have on other people, said Ward Sutton,
Speaker 1: who has contributed illustrations to The New York Times, in
Speaker 1: New Yorker and Rolling Stone. He goes on, he's trying
Speaker 1: to turn himself in to a victim when he himself
Speaker 1: has been a perpetrator of hate. Sudden added, he said
Speaker 1: newspapers are not obligated to run Dilbert, and they have
Speaker 1: the editorial right to cut ties with Adams if they
Speaker 1: no longer want him as a voice in their paper.
Speaker 1: All right, now, this next little piece comes from Yahoo.
Speaker 1: Quote it's almost entirely white people that canceled me. It
Speaker 1: might be entirely because they're the one that owned the
Speaker 1: publishing companies and the newspapers, he told News Nations Chris
Speaker 1: Cuomo in an interview. He goes on to say Black
Speaker 1: America is actually completely fine, both conservative and liberal, if
Speaker 1: they see the context, he added, citing people who contacted
Speaker 1: him about the fiasco. In the wake of his controversial video.
Speaker 1: Adams has stood by what he said and even received
Speaker 1: support from people who are frustrated by what they call
Speaker 1: cancel culture, including billionaire Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Of course, so the guy who increased the use of
Speaker 2: the N word by like five thousand of you got
Speaker 2: support from him.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. So you're starting to see
Speaker 1: these people who are very powerful, these people with voices,
Speaker 1: these people who are influential, they have platforms, and they
Speaker 1: really feel this way. And you, our listener, need to
Speaker 1: know the context in case you don't have it, because
Speaker 1: we feel like you might end up in places where
Speaker 1: you can actually start to have important conversations and start
Speaker 1: to shift the narrative at the dinner tables with your
Speaker 1: family around Thanksgiving dinner, and you know, on road trips
Speaker 1: with your friends from college that might maybe they grew
Speaker 1: up a little different, you know, so understanding nuanced context,
Speaker 1: you know, and the opposite side of a conversation I
Speaker 1: think fills in some really meaningful gaps. We're going to
Speaker 1: come back after a quick tick, but we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about Elon Musk and of course cities, folks,