Speaker 1: And now my mic back you're like that.
Speaker 2: Strike headquarters behind him to be.
Speaker 3: But if you're just tuning into Civic Cypher, I'm your
Speaker 3: host Ramseys, Jacky is Ramses.
Speaker 1: Joh I am q Ward and you are listening to
Speaker 1: once again Civic Cypher's stick around.
Speaker 3: Still got a lot more show in store for you.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the political client in this country.
Speaker 1: Very very interesting topic. Yes, but we've had.
Speaker 3: An interesting mid term election.
Speaker 1: That's that's one way to put it.
Speaker 3: Some interesting characters that came to the forefront. And you know,
Speaker 3: some of these characters one a lot didn't, thank God,
Speaker 3: but a lot stood the chance, stood a really good chance,
Speaker 3: and a lot of places it was very close.
Speaker 1: You know that there was.
Speaker 3: People that we're voting to remove slavery from their laws
Speaker 3: steel and then there were people voting to keep it.
Speaker 3: So we're going to talk about that and stick around
Speaker 3: because we're also going to talk about how gangster Tupac was.
Speaker 3: But first we're going to discuss how to become a
Speaker 3: better ally Baba. This is sponsored by Major Threads. Checkout
Speaker 3: quality men's wear and sportswear at Major Threads dot com.
Speaker 1: BABA.
Speaker 3: So today's Baba better allies, We're going to shout out
Speaker 3: everyone who didn't give into fear mongering, who voted for
Speaker 3: integrity and class. Arbeit for me to say whether or
Speaker 3: not you voted long party lines, because the more I
Speaker 3: do this show, the more I realize that there are
Speaker 3: people who have conservative values and conservative beliefs that I
Speaker 3: absolutely don't agree with or not in alignment with my
Speaker 3: spirit whatsoever. But they're decent folks, and they can identify
Speaker 3: decent qualities and other human beings.
Speaker 1: For everybody that.
Speaker 3: Adheres to a shared reality, for everybody that cast a
Speaker 3: vote saying like, hey, you know what, that's something different.
Speaker 3: You know, I like this, but y'all are taking away
Speaker 3: too far. It's important to shout out those people, recognizing
Speaker 3: their role and their responsibility.
Speaker 1: To say, hey, look I'm cool, but I'm y'all doing
Speaker 1: too much right.
Speaker 3: The results of the midterms show that Trump is, while
Speaker 3: not a dead ideology, doesn't have the strength that once
Speaker 3: did to us around here. That lets a little air
Speaker 3: out of the balls. That was a monster is a monster.
Speaker 3: I don't want to act like it's gone. It's definitely not. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know, to just feel like okay, listen. We
Speaker 3: you know, especially.
Speaker 1: Where we live.
Speaker 3: We live in a very red state that has recently
Speaker 3: been blue. So what they say, thank the Lord for
Speaker 3: Jesus or however they say that man all day and
Speaker 3: tomorrow to everyone who stood in line and followed up
Speaker 3: to make sure they vote counted and contributed to quelling
Speaker 3: that red wave. Everyone was expected. You are an example
Speaker 3: of bahblah, and we want.
Speaker 1: To say thank you.
Speaker 3: And I think that that is the a great segue
Speaker 3: into talking about our current political climate. So let's start.
Speaker 3: Let's start where we need to start. Q. Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: give us your thoughts. Get us started on this.
Speaker 1: Well first and foremost, I voted. I think that's important
Speaker 1: to say out loud. We had a conversation, bless you.
Speaker 1: We had a conversation recently with Charlemagne. Charlemagne and God
Speaker 1: shout out and he says something that was so profound.
Speaker 1: Yeah that I think a lot of us think, but haven't.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard it articulated so precise and perfect. You know,
Speaker 1: we've been dealing with one political party that just fails
Speaker 1: to show up for us. Right. They make us, they
Speaker 1: make a lot of promises to us. We go out
Speaker 1: and vote based on those promises. There is no obligation
Speaker 1: for them to keep them because this game is rigged
Speaker 1: in a way where you either have to support this
Speaker 1: person or this one or you don't participate. And because
Speaker 1: our and i'm speaking for Ramses, because I'll take that
Speaker 1: latitude here, our ancestors put too much on the line
Speaker 1: for us to have this right, for us to not
Speaker 1: exercise it. But Charlotte May made me, for the first
Speaker 1: time have a lot more empathy for those people who
Speaker 1: have just checked out, because it's like, listen, man, you
Speaker 1: are doing nothing for us. However, you are trying to
Speaker 1: take us back pre the Civil War. And man, those
Speaker 1: are hard choices, except they shouldn't be right. It's the
Speaker 1: status quo which sucks versus going back to pre Civil war. Right, right,
Speaker 1: So even when said that way, the choice still seems obvious.
Speaker 1: Neither of them are great. But when you talk about
Speaker 1: the lesser of two evils, one of them is way lesser,
Speaker 1: way lesser. I wish you're right, but you know what
Speaker 1: we're trying to say. So, yeah, that has been the
Speaker 1: reality presented to us. However, I remember when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, Ramses, my mother did not vote for Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: but several people that she worked with did, and the
Speaker 1: day after the election was over, those same people came
Speaker 1: to work and asked her, how's Quentin. Now, my name
Speaker 1: is Quinton, but most people just say Quentin because pronouncing that,
Speaker 1: oh requires a little bit more effort than people want
Speaker 1: to put in. But you know, how's Quentin. How's the family? Hey,
Speaker 1: you want to go have lunch? Like there were common
Speaker 1: things that all Americans seemed to have in common, and
Speaker 1: the differences in who you voted for was very very
Speaker 1: nuanced and based on specific differences like how this person
Speaker 1: is going to approach taxes, how this person is going
Speaker 1: to approach education, you know. And it was very very
Speaker 1: little differences in political ideology that made people vote for
Speaker 1: one person versus the other. In addition to, like you
Speaker 1: said before, people just voting along party lines. Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: a Democrat, so that's what I'm going to vote all Democrats.
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm a Republican. I'm going to vote all Republican.
Speaker 1: But our differences were very, very minuscule. There was so
Speaker 1: much stuff in the middle that we agreed on on
Speaker 1: what would be good outcomes for all of us that
Speaker 1: even if we voted for a different person. We weren't
Speaker 1: at odds afterward, because voting for your candidate did not
Speaker 1: mean an awful life for me and people that looked
Speaker 1: like me, or me and people that I care about.
Speaker 1: We've gotten to that point now where you supporting that
Speaker 1: candidate means you're either complicit in supporting awful outcomes for
Speaker 1: me at worst, or at best you're okay with awful
Speaker 1: outcomes what you want. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it's like either way, like man, you voted for them,
Speaker 1: and then the other side thinks, oh, well, you guys
Speaker 1: are just brainwashed and stupid for supporting your candidate. At
Speaker 1: least my candidate doesn't want to see you enslaved, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it's gone down to the
Speaker 1: point where our differences have caused such a wide divide
Speaker 1: that there is no common ground anymore. By supporting this
Speaker 1: party and that candidate, you are opposed to me personally,
Speaker 1: real consequences, And that's how it feels. So you talked
Speaker 1: about the fear mongering. There are candidates in our state
Speaker 1: and RAMS and I are broadcasting from Arizona that didn't
Speaker 1: even run a campaign. Their materials just simply said, hey,
Speaker 1: Trump likes me, and you guys can't see me with
Speaker 1: this really cheesy smile, smile and two thumbs up. But
Speaker 1: like that was the whole thing, right they they've bought
Speaker 1: and they brought so much into that because they saw
Speaker 1: it work. I mean, that's the simple truth, is that
Speaker 1: they saw at work. Trump supports me. That's all you
Speaker 1: need to know. Vote for me, and thousands, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people, millions some of those people won went
Speaker 1: out and voted for people just based on that. So
Speaker 1: this this extreme Trump maga Republican Party, which seemed like
Speaker 1: an entirely different party than you know, the people who
Speaker 1: I used to do charity events with at the Republican
Speaker 1: National Convention. When I learned again we used the word nuanced.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of color, a lot of context
Speaker 1: that I learned doing, you know, raising money for the
Speaker 1: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation with members of the Republican National Convention
Speaker 1: when I was twenty five years old living in Maryland.
Speaker 1: I met some amazing people, genuine people who voted different
Speaker 1: than me, but didn't have very different ideas than me.
Speaker 1: They didn't have their they didn't have extremely different ideology
Speaker 1: than me and really really wanted the same outcomes for me,
Speaker 1: for my children and for them and their families. It
Speaker 1: was really just about the color green, which for a
Speaker 1: long time really was the difference. Rich people who wanted
Speaker 1: to protect more of their money voted along Republican lines
Speaker 1: because Republicans have for a long time put things in
Speaker 1: place to favor those with a little bit more coin
Speaker 1: and poor.
Speaker 3: People who thought they were going to get rich or
Speaker 3: felt like it somehow benefited them or fell in line
Speaker 3: with their Christian values or ideas.
Speaker 1: Or no, there's more that, right, because I don't even
Speaker 1: know that they ever convinced them that financially was in
Speaker 1: their best interest, but they found some way angle to
Speaker 1: tie them into it. Or again the US US versus
Speaker 1: them tactic that has been used for centuries. Right, that
Speaker 1: there's a group that as opposed to all of us.
Speaker 1: So to just keep that group at bay, you should
Speaker 1: support us, you know, trickle down economics and all these
Speaker 1: different reasons. Why if you keep us who have it
Speaker 1: all in place, we'll make sure you have some too. Cool. Right, So,
Speaker 1: our current political climate is scary, and you know, I
Speaker 1: am typically not a very hopeful person in regard to
Speaker 1: the direction of our country with regards to race relations
Speaker 1: and politics, specifically because of our former administration. However, I
Speaker 1: even felt some hope with these midterm outcomes because that
Speaker 1: red wave didn't feel like propaganda, It didn't even feel
Speaker 1: like fear minder. They felt like, this is it's about
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, and the fact that it didn't go
Speaker 1: down the way that it was predicted, I was able
Speaker 1: to breathe a sigh of relief a little bit.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to take a moment and
Speaker 3: shout out doctor Camilla Westenberg, who she was on the
Speaker 3: show for a couple of weeks before our last airing.
Speaker 3: She she came on behalf of the NAACP to encourage
Speaker 3: folks to vote. But I know that, you know, once
Speaker 3: we found out about for those who were watching, you know,
Speaker 3: the political shows around the country, Once she found out
Speaker 3: that Katie Hobbs defeated Carrie Lake in Arizona, she sent
Speaker 3: me that same sort of reaction that you just had,
Speaker 3: that kind of exhale, that sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't really like a celebration. It's just like,
Speaker 1: at least it didn't get worse.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, at least it wasn't that well, I want
Speaker 3: to talk about that for a second, please.
Speaker 1: So you make an interesting.
Speaker 3: Point Republicans and Democrats. You know, when we were talking
Speaker 3: to Charlemagne, you're right, he brought up an excellent point, Sam,
Speaker 3: it's hard to convince people to go vote. We on
Speaker 3: civic cipher, and I'm sure Charlemagne is as well, glad
Speaker 3: that you all went out and voted. Please do it again,
Speaker 3: because we've let our voices be heard. We fought back
Speaker 3: against that red wave and it was kind of a
Speaker 3: maybe a drop or two, that's probably all it was.
Speaker 3: But there was something that he said as Q mentioned
Speaker 3: that how can I convince people to go and vote
Speaker 3: when the political process doesn't impact their lives in any
Speaker 3: meaningful way.
Speaker 1: They people need money right now, and if it does
Speaker 1: impact them in a meaningful way, it's in a negative.
Speaker 3: Way, right right, And so to convince them that they
Speaker 3: should be involved with you know, go out and vote blue,
Speaker 3: and you know, especially black and brown for we're looking
Speaker 3: around like, well, these guys never do anything for us.
Speaker 3: They always say they're going to do something. They don't
Speaker 3: have any strength. The Republicans as gangsters and the Democrats
Speaker 3: is just sought and keep electing these people and they
Speaker 3: don't do anything. And when he said it.
Speaker 1: It's like, yo, man, you're right.
Speaker 3: Man, I know that you're right, and we're frustrated with
Speaker 3: that too, because we're like, Yo, why don't you just
Speaker 3: abortion what?
Speaker 1: Just put more judges in there? Man? Why you can't
Speaker 1: do that? Like be a boss? Were you scared? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? These frustrations are frustrations that we share.
Speaker 3: But you know, I like your point that you made
Speaker 3: Q when you were saying that either we stay here.
Speaker 1: By voting Democrats, I'm talking.
Speaker 3: I'm speaking in broad terms, you know, for marginalized and
Speaker 3: minority communities historically the way these communities tend to vote.
Speaker 3: So forgive me if this doesn't reflect your reality. But
Speaker 3: for the most part, we're just kind of dealing with
Speaker 3: big numbers here. So your options are to vote for
Speaker 3: more of the same because the Blue team isn't actively
Speaker 3: trying to change things, they're just kind of who knows,
Speaker 3: or you can vote for the Red team, which is
Speaker 3: taking those backwards, or you can just not engage. Right,
Speaker 3: And a quote came to mind. I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: it was Eldred's Kleaverer or if it was Bobby Seal.
Speaker 3: But I remember watching a movie. It was like a
Speaker 3: documentary called The Black Power Mixtape. I have it on
Speaker 3: my laptop, so I watch it when I rou'm on
Speaker 3: road trips or whatever and I can't get a signal.
Speaker 3: But he describes the United States as a morally bankrupt
Speaker 3: country and develops this idea that Democrats and Republicans are
Speaker 3: really just it's it's bad and worse and there is
Speaker 3: no good that you know, black people can expect voting
Speaker 3: for this candidate or that candidate often enough, and that's
Speaker 3: a sad reality. But you know, unlike you, I remain
Speaker 3: hopeful because I see, especially after these past midterms, more
Speaker 3: women entering into the political arena. I see more Black people.
Speaker 3: I see more young people entering into the political arena.
Speaker 3: I see over the past fifteen years twenty years of
Speaker 3: my life, since I've been able to vote, and since
Speaker 3: I've been able to engage in the political process and
Speaker 3: hope for certain outcomes, I've seen a black president get elected.
Speaker 3: I've seen, you know. And one of the things that
Speaker 3: I maintain on this show is that progress is slow
Speaker 3: for black people, super slow, super slow. But it doesn't mean.
Speaker 1: A stumption, slow motion and like the Ocean Man. It's
Speaker 1: like you're on the HS pressed play and rewind at
Speaker 1: the same time. Talk to me. So there's VCR that
Speaker 1: had four heads once upon a time. It's the type
Speaker 1: of VCR that you could record and you could record
Speaker 1: off a TV or record from another cassette in the
Speaker 1: same VCR. Okay, okay, if you if you just pressed
Speaker 1: rewind while it was playing, it was still try to
Speaker 1: go forward, just really slow. You should stop and then
Speaker 1: then rewind. Okay, But if you just pressed rewind while
Speaker 1: it was playing, the computer in the VCR wouldn't know
Speaker 1: to stop playing. So it was trying to be trying
Speaker 1: to go forward and trying to do both as possible.
Speaker 1: That's a great analogy. I like that. Well yeah, but.
Speaker 3: You know, think about this. We are a people that
Speaker 3: you know, our journey toward freedom started. You think of
Speaker 3: the underground railroad, how long ago this was, you know,
Speaker 3: think of you know, Frederick Douglas and the life that
Speaker 3: he lived and the work that he did. I think
Speaker 3: that we are his wildest dream.
Speaker 1: You got to think about that. You know, this is
Speaker 1: this little one hour long show that is aired and
Speaker 1: we're super grateful aired on these stations around the country.
Speaker 3: Isn't you know this isn't a huge, you know, footprint
Speaker 3: we're taking up in people's lives and in this space,
Speaker 3: but it's not zero. And you know, for a person
Speaker 3: like Frederick Douglass to look all the way into the
Speaker 3: future and see me in UQ, sitting in this space
Speaker 3: with these microphones talking to these people, I'm sure he
Speaker 3: would count that as progress. Doctor King. You know, Malcolm,
Speaker 3: you know they would look and say like, okay, there's
Speaker 3: we have a black president.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I mean, you and I have had this conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if we had it on the mic,
Speaker 1: but we had it multiple times in person. I spent
Speaker 1: the night at the polls to vote for Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: I was first. I was the first person because when
Speaker 1: my mother turned eighteen, when my mother was old enough
Speaker 1: to vote, it wasn't legal. So we don't have to
Speaker 1: like because when we think about our civil rights activists,
Speaker 1: I think people's minds go back hundreds of years, like
Speaker 1: if not for an assassination, then a reasonably healthy life lived,
Speaker 1: doctor King would still be with us. You know, we
Speaker 1: lost Rosa Parks as adults, so I don't want it
Speaker 1: to feel so removed. My mother, Reverend is Stella Secrets,
Speaker 1: you know, born Estella Eserie Scott Macon, Georgia, nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: When she turned eighteen. In nineteen sixty three, black women
Speaker 1: in the United States could not vote. So process that
Speaker 1: the lady who thinks that Rams and I are the
Speaker 1: most magnificent men on the planet. This is according to
Speaker 1: her Facebook. We love you, We love you, mama. But
Speaker 1: imagine that, bro, my mom turned of age to vote.
Speaker 1: It was illegal, So there's no version of me not
Speaker 1: voting like I do. I can't reconcile that. However, like
Speaker 1: I said, that conversation with Charlottmagne made me for the
Speaker 1: first time pump my brakes on people who have kind
Speaker 1: of given up on a system that incentivized politicians to
Speaker 1: really do what's right for them, not even their constituents,
Speaker 1: not even their city or the people that voted for them,
Speaker 1: for themselves. And the system in DC is kind of
Speaker 1: set up in a cyclical manner for them to benefit
Speaker 1: or profit no matter which way the laws and outcomes
Speaker 1: go for us common people. You know what's funny about
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 3: Dave Chappelle went on Saturday Night Live recently, and he
Speaker 3: was talking about that very thing. He was talking about
Speaker 3: people in Middle America's response to the previous administration's leader,
Speaker 3: and he said something effectually. What he said was, this
Speaker 3: guy came out, Oh yes, stood in front of air
Speaker 3: Found and said, Hey, all of y'all that think we're
Speaker 3: doing X, Y and Z in there, that's what we're
Speaker 3: doing in there, and then turned around and went right
Speaker 3: back in there and kept doing it, and then he won.
Speaker 3: And I can't I haven't been able to rather connect
Speaker 3: how that worked, but I can see it working.
Speaker 1: I just don't know. How can I give you a
Speaker 1: really strange analogy? Help me out? People ask why the
Speaker 1: person who's being cheated with doesn't feel awful, and it's
Speaker 1: typically because they're not the one being lied to. What's
Speaker 1: happening is morally wrong. There's moral bankruptcy there. Okay, that
Speaker 1: man or that woman is married and you're their other.
Speaker 1: But you feel like at least they're telling me the truth. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go with that. So, like he said, the man
Speaker 1: came out and said, look, man, I know y'all think
Speaker 1: we up to some crazy stuff in there. We are
Speaker 1: see you on the next episode, they don't rent back
Speaker 1: in there, and people were like, you know what, he's honest.
Speaker 1: At least he's telling us the truth. Yeah, even if
Speaker 1: he's awful, he's honest.
Speaker 3: And that's why no one he never had to show
Speaker 3: his income tax returns. He's like, yo, me not paying
Speaker 3: taxes makes me smart? Yes, and everybody else, and that
Speaker 3: you guys set up. I'm using those rules to my advantage. Sorry,
Speaker 3: you guys are the suckers.
Speaker 1: Vote for me. If you don't want to be a sucker,
Speaker 1: you should vote for me. Sucker, but brilliant. They didn't
Speaker 1: leave ignorant. I don't, is that?
Speaker 3: Listen, man, far be it from me to say that
Speaker 3: these You know, I've said this before in a different
Speaker 3: arena and about different people. But evil people are often
Speaker 3: times brilliant. Good people can be brilliant too, But evil,
Speaker 3: Make no mistake. You know, people don't often associated intelligence
Speaker 3: with a figure like a Hitler, you know, because you
Speaker 3: associate evil and evil is such a big adjective that
Speaker 3: it kind of blocks you from seeing all the other things.
Speaker 3: But someone with charisma, maybe someone who's good looking. At
Speaker 3: IM saying that dude was good looking, I'm just saying
Speaker 3: like in general, these are the sorts of people.
Speaker 1: That figured out a way to have millions of people
Speaker 1: buy into a very corrupt, very evil ideology. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: sure and fully bought into it. Yeah, man, the whole
Speaker 1: country man. And that's a stain on Germany in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: You know, no one's going to forget that in Germany
Speaker 1: is going to spend the rest of their existence having
Speaker 1: to own that. Fortunately they I believe they do a
Speaker 1: good job. A lot of people there are sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: are owning it, are trying to repair. Yeah, unlike some
Speaker 1: other places. Man, you need to say that again. Anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, these midterms, man, as I mentioned, you know.
Speaker 3: We're as divided as ever, but we know the wise,
Speaker 3: it's good that we talk about them, and it's good
Speaker 3: that we try to hold space to kind of move
Speaker 3: a little bit closer together. And I'm glad that we had,
Speaker 3: you know, people like John Fetterman defeating Doctor Oz and
Speaker 3: Carrie Lake losing to Katie Hobbs, because in my opinion,
Speaker 3: you know, a Carry Lake type of figures, like like,
Speaker 3: I know Carry Lake. You know, I work in media,
Speaker 3: so it's not too far removed from my circle at all.
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake type more dangerous than others. Right, very charismatic,
Speaker 1: very attractive, very well spoken, brought into an awful ideology,
Speaker 1: but for reasons that were very very obvious. But then
Speaker 1: you got to follow through on that awful ideology, and
Speaker 1: someone like her championing that would have been really, really
Speaker 1: scary for Arizona well, and not only that she would
Speaker 1: have been, it would have been a lot fightning rod
Speaker 1: for everybody else and this place would have been back
Speaker 1: on the map for the wrong reason.
Speaker 3: So we're grateful again to everyone who voted. We're grateful
Speaker 3: for the outcomes. Let's try to heal now. Don't forget
Speaker 3: what it feels like to lose, and if you can
Speaker 3: reach out, try to build a bridge or two. But
Speaker 3: for now, it's time The Way Black History Fact. Today's
Speaker 3: Way Black History Fact is sponsored by the Maggie B.
Speaker 3: Knowing Podcast. More details on that headed your way, but
Speaker 3: for now, just know that something specials in the works,
Speaker 3: So shout out to our producer is Maggie aka Maggie B.
Speaker 1: Knowing. Today is Way Black History of Fact. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Tupac Shakur.
Speaker 3: The story you may not know that I knew thought
Speaker 3: was really cool and it came up on my dash
Speaker 3: on my timeline. I was like, man, this might make
Speaker 3: for a cool wb HF.
Speaker 1: So here we go, let's share it.
Speaker 3: The son of a Black Panther, Tupac Shakur promoted self
Speaker 3: defense in the face of societal racism, particularly against police brutality,
Speaker 3: and in the early nineteen nineties he was a common
Speaker 3: sight at the Compton Gun Range, where he and friends
Speaker 3: would pass the time at target practice. Then, in the
Speaker 3: early morning of October thirty first, nineteen ninety three, he
Speaker 3: shot three times at two white men who pulled a
Speaker 3: gun on him outside his hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Not
Speaker 3: knowing they were off duty cops, Tupac shot the police.
Speaker 3: Police arrested him the next morning and charged him with
Speaker 3: two counts of aggravated assaults. Now I was old enough
Speaker 3: and conscious when this happened. Those men were also doing
Speaker 3: something to another citizen. Well, we're going to get to
Speaker 3: that gun work. While two versions of the story persist,
Speaker 3: investigators found Shakur's most credible. A twenty two year old
Speaker 3: had just performed at Clark Atlanta University when a street
Speaker 3: altercation turned violent. Spotting two drunk men harassed a black motorists.
Speaker 3: Shakur intervened to help and shot in self defense when
Speaker 3: one of the off duty officers brandished his gun. The
Speaker 3: incident came a mere month before Shakur was ambushed and
Speaker 3: shot five times tis at Quad.
Speaker 1: Studios in New York. All right, let's back it up
Speaker 1: A bit.
Speaker 3: Born Lassane Parrish Crooks on June sixteen, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 3: in New York City. He was renamed Tupac Amaru Shakur
Speaker 3: after an an Incan revolutionary killed by conquistadors, and Shakur
Speaker 3: after his stepfather. His mother, a Feenie Shakur, was a
Speaker 3: black panther and raised him in the party's revolutionary spirit.
Speaker 3: But he also attended art school, where he studied poetry
Speaker 3: and ballet. But you didn't know that about Tupac. And
Speaker 3: while his mother had been a forceful activist who stood
Speaker 3: trial against bombing charges, Shakur used music as his call
Speaker 3: to action. By the time of Tupac Shakur's violent police
Speaker 3: confrontation in nineteen ninety three, he had already found rap
Speaker 3: success with his nineteen ninety one debut album Tupocalypse Now.
Speaker 1: By that and nineteen ninety three follow up strictly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, strictly strictly yeah by that one too, Okay. On
Speaker 3: October thirtieth, nineteen ninety three, Tupac for performed at Clark
Speaker 3: Atlanta University, and in the early hours of Halloween, he
Speaker 3: and his caravan of cars were headed back to the
Speaker 3: Sheridan Hotel to celebrate the show, with Tupac in the
Speaker 3: front car. But when they arrived, they saw two white
Speaker 3: men beating a black driver in the middle of the road,
Speaker 3: locking the hotel entrance. Meanwhile, Clayton County Officer Mark Whitwell
Speaker 3: thirty three and his brother, Henry County Officer Scott Whitwell
Speaker 3: thirty two, and their two wives had just finished celebrating,
Speaker 3: Scott's wives passing the bar exam at the hotel. When
Speaker 3: they left and began across the street. They said they
Speaker 3: were nearly struck by an unrelated driver when an argument began.
Speaker 3: This altercation is what Tupac and his crew drove into. Quote.
Speaker 3: It looked like a fight, and as we got closer
Speaker 3: we seen it was two white guys jumping a black dude, unquote,
Speaker 3: said Rapper Daman, who was in one of the rear cars.
Speaker 3: He continues and immediately Pac just jumped out.
Speaker 1: Of the car.
Speaker 3: When Tupac jumped out, everyone in the caravan followed, and then,
Speaker 3: according to Atlanta Police Department Captain HERB Carson, quote, one
Speaker 3: of the officers pointed a gun toward the group unquote.
Speaker 3: Later during the hearing, Mark admitted that it was him,
Speaker 3: dressed in plain clothes. The Whitwell brothers were not immediately
Speaker 3: recognizable as police officers. Whether they identified themselves as such
Speaker 3: before brandishing the firearm has remained unclear. Well, what happened
Speaker 3: next isn't. The Whitwells were visibly intoxicated, and Shakur responded
Speaker 3: to the drawn gun by pulling out his own. Then
Speaker 3: Mark Whitwell smashed Tupac's car window with the butt of
Speaker 3: his pistol, and Tupac fired three shots from his nine
Speaker 3: millimeter clock. Two of the bullets hit the Whitwells. Mark
Speaker 3: was shot in the abdomen and his brother in the buttocks. Awesome,
Speaker 3: all right, So why the charges were dropped?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Police arrested few hours later at his hotel and charged
Speaker 3: him with two counts of aggravated assault.
Speaker 1: Treated for their.
Speaker 3: Wounds, and the Whitwalls were released from Grady Hospital. The
Speaker 3: following morning, when she corpleated not guilty and was released
Speaker 3: on a fifty five thousand dollars bond. The fact that
Speaker 3: the two officers were intoxicated at the time of the
Speaker 3: shooting was uncovered at a hearing on December first, nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three, which aim to determine whether or not the
Speaker 3: case would see a grand jury. Investigators had also discovered
Speaker 3: that both officers had been carrying guns stolen from a
Speaker 3: Henry County police evidence locker, which Scott Whitwell admitted to.
Speaker 3: Most notably, the brothers had lied about who was the
Speaker 3: aggressor when the prosecution. Prosecution discovered after a preponderance of
Speaker 3: evidence showed that Tupac had stopped as a good samaritan
Speaker 3: and fired his gun in self defense, dropping the charges
Speaker 3: against him. Mark Whitwell was charged with providing false statements
Speaker 3: to investigators and firing at Tupac's car, likely coming from
Speaker 3: conflicting accounts of the window breaking. The district attorney later
Speaker 3: dropped the charges against him as well. Mark Whitwell resigned
Speaker 3: six months later. And so so far, the story is
Speaker 3: kind of awesome. If you didn't think Tupac was really
Speaker 3: about that action. The revolutionary fist up panther that he
Speaker 3: wrapped about being. This is on full display for this story.
Speaker 3: But this doesn't have the best ending. I don't really
Speaker 3: love it, but I do have to sh because we're
Speaker 3: journalists and you know, we got to tell the whole story.
Speaker 3: So I will conclude ultimately the incident had a longer
Speaker 3: lifespan than that. The Whitwell sued Shakur in civil court,
Speaker 3: with Mark whitwell suit being settled out of court and
Speaker 3: Scott Whitwell's two million dollar suit yielding a default judgment
Speaker 3: against Secure's estate in nineteen ninety eight, two years after
Speaker 3: Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas. So despite these guys
Speaker 3: being drunk beating up a black motorist like jumping him,
Speaker 3: smashing the window of the car, destroying property, losing in
Speaker 3: criminal court, and stealing the guns that they were using,
Speaker 3: they still managed to win in civil court against Tupac
Speaker 3: after he had died, winning a civil case against his
Speaker 3: estate posthumously. Like that is little that shows you the
Speaker 3: depths that some people will go to maintain the evil.
Speaker 1: Like it's really it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: weird world.
Speaker 3: But for those of us you know, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 3: from California, So you know, I know Tupaca is the
Speaker 3: East coast do but you know Tupaca was the West
Speaker 3: coast do too. You know, he always he loves Oakland,
Speaker 3: he loved La So you know, we love Tupac over here.
Speaker 3: And you know, I I like when people put their
Speaker 3: money where their mouth is, especially if they're talking about
Speaker 3: you know, real stuff. And Tupac was never want to
Speaker 3: shy away from that.
Speaker 1: And you know, imagine had he not had good legal representation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that matters. Yeah, you talked about earlier with with
Speaker 1: criminal cases, not having a good lawyer could have you
Speaker 1: and definitely all the way health, all the way bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your situation would be awful.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, that's our way black history fact. So yeah, man,
Speaker 3: do us a favor, put on some Tupac when we
Speaker 3: go off or you know later when you're cleaning your house,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever you do to remember you know the ancestors,
Speaker 3: you know, do do one of those things in the
Speaker 3: name of Tupac because he was a real one and
Speaker 3: you know he set a good example, no fear. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm saying the stand up for the black man. Especially
Speaker 3: when you see him, even if it's a stranger. There
Speaker 3: you go, so you see him getting mistreated by whoever.
Speaker 3: But that's going to do it for us here on
Speaker 3: Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'm your host. Rams's job. He is Rams's job. I
Speaker 1: am q Ward. Thank you guys for tuning in for
Speaker 1: another episode of Civic Cipher. Rams just talk to the people. Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1: Todays show is produced by Ms Maggie a ka Maggie
Speaker 1: be Knowing.
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