Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Sivig Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses Joh I go by the name Q. You can
Speaker 1: call me Q. Yes, indeed, and uh, we've got a
Speaker 1: heavy show. I think it was expected. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about, so stick around.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 1: As you know, we were discussing the attack in Buffalo
Speaker 1: as our last recording, and this past week it was
Speaker 1: obviously a much widely covered UH mass shooting in Texas.
Speaker 1: Nineteen children at last count lives are quite short and
Speaker 1: so we have to talk about that. And it's been
Speaker 1: a difficult month, but we've done our best to try
Speaker 1: to cover everything, and we still wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that we honored our Asian American and Pacific Islander brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters for their History month and the heritage man
Speaker 1: I should say. And so we have a lot to
Speaker 1: cover in this episode, and we're going to try to
Speaker 1: do it all and be true to it all. And
Speaker 1: so again, a lot to stick around for. I can't
Speaker 1: promise it's going to be easy. I know that at
Speaker 1: least we've around here. We've been we haven't had any
Speaker 1: conversations about the goings on in the news. We've obviously
Speaker 1: sent a lot of stuff to our group chat and
Speaker 1: our show producer, Maggie A ka Maggie B. Knowing has
Speaker 1: kind of pointed us in this direction, which we knew
Speaker 1: we'd have to we'd have to do the show. But
Speaker 1: we're going to be strong for you. We've been holding
Speaker 1: onto this all week and hopefully we'll be able to
Speaker 1: do right by everyone. So first and foremost, let's get
Speaker 1: into some ebony excellence. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: Que asking me how I feel today? Probably not going
Speaker 1: to be your best. Well, we still want to celebrate.
Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about the first black
Speaker 1: female architect to earn a doctor from the University of
Speaker 1: Hawaii at Manoa and how she aims to diversify the industry.
Speaker 1: Danielle mcleve is the first black woman turn a Doctor
Speaker 1: of Architecture professional degree. Her degree serves as a milestone
Speaker 1: within the industry where black people make up just two
Speaker 1: percent of one hundred and six and forty two licensed
Speaker 1: architects and black women represent only zero point four percent,
Speaker 1: So the school notes, with her degree, she's looking forward
Speaker 1: to diversifying the industry and inspiring more black women to
Speaker 1: enter the field. This is a direct quote from her
Speaker 1: When I first found out I would be the first
Speaker 1: black woman to attain this degree, I was hit with
Speaker 1: a variety of emotions. I was excited to be in
Speaker 1: this position of trailblazing, and I knew it would be
Speaker 1: encouraging for other Black women looking to get into design.
Speaker 1: Mcleeve received her bachelor's in sculpture and painting from Belmont
Speaker 1: University in Nashville, Tennessee, before attending U H Manoah. M
Speaker 1: cleve won the Hawaii Architectural Foundation Ward for her thesis
Speaker 1: on housing titled Redesigning the Hood using Culturally Aware Wellness
Speaker 1: as a Tool to inform Architectural design. While on the
Speaker 1: doctorate programs, she stressed the need for more equitable housing
Speaker 1: and culturally aware design practices in architecture. I just want
Speaker 1: to make a note that our show producer Ms. Maggie
Speaker 1: aka Maggie b Noan, she's a big fan of this
Speaker 1: woman right here, So she sent a story over from
Speaker 1: Black Enterprise so that we could again shout out Danielle mcleve.
Speaker 1: Now we'll be honest with you. We record the show
Speaker 1: sometime during the week and it airs on most stations
Speaker 1: over the weekend. I know It's not normal to show
Speaker 1: behind the curtains when we're producing a show like that,
Speaker 1: but that is the way that most shows work. Hours included.
Speaker 1: So you might be hearing this well after we've recorded
Speaker 1: and in the days since we've recorded it. In the
Speaker 1: day that you're hearing it, maybe there are new things
Speaker 1: that have happened. But we are going to discuss the
Speaker 1: world as we see it, as we feel it right now.
Speaker 1: As you may know, nineteen children were killed one day
Speaker 1: at school last week, Tuesday of last week, and there
Speaker 1: were two teachers killed as well. This was because of
Speaker 1: a mass shooter and a city called Gouvalde, Texas. I
Speaker 1: believe that's how it's pronounced. And you know, we've had
Speaker 1: this conversation on the show before. You know guns, you
Speaker 1: know this is this is a black show, decidedly black space.
Speaker 1: Guns have been something that has plagued our community specifically,
Speaker 1: and so we have lots of conversations that involve guns
Speaker 1: and the use of guns and the use of guns
Speaker 1: against black people, and that's sort of done. Less frequent, however,
Speaker 1: is the discussion about guns in general. But we have
Speaker 1: had these conversations here as well. Q is famously I
Speaker 1: wouldn't I guess anti gun, but a gun owner, and
Speaker 1: I am just anti gun full stop. And those conversations
Speaker 1: I believe are necessary for us to really find our
Speaker 1: way through who we are, who we want to be,
Speaker 1: what's necessary, and how to protect ourselves in this country.
Speaker 1: Different philosophies, But this show is so that we can
Speaker 1: have those conversations. So it's good that you know Q
Speaker 1: feels the way he feels and that I feel the
Speaker 1: way that I feel, because I believe that between the
Speaker 1: two of us, we represent a good majority of the
Speaker 1: way people feel around the country. So you might hear
Speaker 1: your opinions somewhere in the conversations that we have had
Speaker 1: and perhaps we'll have. And this conversation is that we
Speaker 1: found out that the shooter was a Hispanic person. The
Speaker 1: attack was on a primarily Hispanic community, and so the
Speaker 1: racial component is a little different this time, but the
Speaker 1: gun component is one that is very familiar. You know,
Speaker 1: Q comes from Detroit, impoverished community seven Mile to be specific,
Speaker 1: and guns were a part of his everyday life growing up.
Speaker 1: You know, poor people struggling to get by, you know
Speaker 1: economic inequalities. You know, you get people that are scraping
Speaker 1: to get by, and some people even turn to crime,
Speaker 1: and some of those crimes include robberies. I'm from Compton, California,
Speaker 1: so it's no stranger to me as well. But in
Speaker 1: the years since we've grown up, we've seen mass shootings
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. We were both in
Speaker 1: high school when Columbine happened, and it's it's been like
Speaker 1: a runaway train ever since then, and of course more
Speaker 1: in recent years it's been even more so. So I
Speaker 1: want to stop right there because I want Q two
Speaker 1: chime in, because I know you have a lot on
Speaker 1: your mind. So Ramses.
Speaker 2: That you are behind the curtain with regards to the
Speaker 2: wind and the house when it comes to producing our
Speaker 2: show and when it airs to you now as a
Speaker 2: continent professional. Snapping back into professional mode, Ramses then said
Speaker 2: that this shooting happened last week. This shooting happened yesterday
Speaker 2: as of the time we record the show, So I
Speaker 2: need that to kind of settle in with people for
Speaker 2: a second, and just also said the racial component was
Speaker 2: a little different this time because the shooter was Hispanic,
Speaker 2: in the community where the shooting happened was as well.
Speaker 2: I would challenge that the racial component was the same
Speaker 2: as always. This time the shooter was a member of
Speaker 2: a minority. This shooter was not arrested, apprehended, and provided
Speaker 2: a day in court. The shooter was murdered on the scene,
Speaker 2: as what typically happened when the shooter looks more like
Speaker 2: us and less like the people apprehending. I grew up
Speaker 2: in Detroit, Michigan. At some point between me graduating from
Speaker 2: high school and today, my hometown was the murder capital
Speaker 2: of the United States, maybe even of the world at
Speaker 2: one point, and that was never something to be proud of.
Speaker 1: But I also.
Speaker 2: Walked to and from school every day. There were gangs,
Speaker 2: there was violence, but at least at school. I never
Speaker 2: for a second imagined someone would enter that school and
Speaker 2: possibly murder me and my classmates, no matter how impoverished,
Speaker 2: no matter how much crime, no matter what our daily
Speaker 2: realities were. Since Columbine, as Ramses pointed out, issues of
Speaker 2: rampant gun violence and specifically mass shootings of people in
Speaker 2: public places, public places once thought to be the safest
Speaker 2: of spaces for people of all backgrounds, colors, ethnicities, and religions, church,
Speaker 2: the grocery store, and school. In the wake of these things,
Speaker 2: we fall into a very very exhausting cycle. At this point,
Speaker 2: because it's so repetitive and it's so predictable, a lot
Speaker 2: of people are going to be very, very publicly and.
Speaker 1: Aggressively upset. Over these next few days.
Speaker 2: All of our social media stories and feeds will look
Speaker 2: the same. Everyone will actually pretend to be outraged by it.
Speaker 2: The NRA put out a statement today. The words as
Speaker 2: we gather are in the statement right, very very much
Speaker 2: business as usual for these people, their performative grief, their
Speaker 2: performative sorrow, their thoughts and prayers. In a cycle. Those
Speaker 2: of us who do not have power will let everyone
Speaker 2: know how upset we are, and those that do have
Speaker 2: the power to make changes will very predictably do nothing.
Speaker 2: So this is me as an adult, as someone who
Speaker 2: pays taxes and votes and is very very involved in
Speaker 2: the civics of the city, state, and country that he
Speaker 2: lives in. I vote in every election, not just the president.
Speaker 2: Pay attention to who I'm voting for and why. I
Speaker 2: do not predetermine those things before the election start. I
Speaker 2: do not vote in uniformity with a certain group just
Speaker 2: because that's what I'm supposed to do. However, there is
Speaker 2: a group that I can say without blinking that I
Speaker 2: refuse to vote for because they've shown me just how
Speaker 2: much me and people like me mean to them at
Speaker 2: some point, the Republican Party in this country. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to stop now because I was about to say
Speaker 2: something very very hopeful and something that I know it's
Speaker 2: not going to happen. So I don't even want to
Speaker 2: pretend for our listeners that they'll be called out for
Speaker 2: what they're doing and that they'll take any.
Speaker 1: Accountability for it. I think I forget his name is
Speaker 1: I want to say Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr, the head
Speaker 1: coach for the Golden State Wards. Yeah, he has a
Speaker 1: video that has gone viral and he spoke on the
Speaker 1: state of politics, and he named some Republican representatives specifically
Speaker 1: and kind of hung this most recent tragedy on the
Speaker 1: heads of those people. Now here's the thing, not singularly
Speaker 1: this tragedy. Though.
Speaker 2: We haven't finished talking about Buffalo like that's yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we haven't spent much time morning or trying to reconcile
Speaker 2: what just happened. Here we are again, and it's not
Speaker 2: just optics. These people say how they feel out loud.
Speaker 2: People who feel the same go out and carry out
Speaker 2: these very very scary retribution acts with assault rifles, killing innocence,
Speaker 2: and then we just get back to the status quo
Speaker 2: of whatever we were going to do that day. So,
Speaker 2: speaking of getting back to the status quo, because today
Speaker 2: is Wednesday that we're recording this episode, it was the
Speaker 2: last day of school for my sons. I have two sons,
Speaker 2: and like many of you, I was worried because again,
Speaker 2: this thing hangs over your head when you take your
Speaker 2: child to school. When Sandy Hook happened my older son,
Speaker 2: I left the radio station and I went picked up
Speaker 2: my son and we went to Toys r Us. I'll
Speaker 2: never forget that day. I went, I got my baby
Speaker 2: out of school.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going on, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: today business as usual. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: I didn't do was talk to my son about what
Speaker 1: happened yesterday. And everyone at his school was fine. He
Speaker 1: was let out of school, and I brought him with
Speaker 1: me to the studio. So he's sitting here and he's
Speaker 1: on the mic, say hi, baby, Hello. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm about to say, but I know that
Speaker 1: if you're a parent, that you may appreciate the conversation
Speaker 1: that I'm going to have with my son and that
Speaker 1: his uncle is going to have with his nephew. So
Speaker 1: here we go. Then, do you know that sometimes people
Speaker 1: go into schools with guns and they shoot little kids? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a real thing that happens. And you know, little
Speaker 1: kids are so little that a lot of times they
Speaker 1: don't survive and they don't know what to do. It's
Speaker 1: very scary. And you know, little kids don't run as
Speaker 1: fast as grown ups, you know. And you know, your
Speaker 1: mom and I we have you in a really good
Speaker 1: school in a really good area, and it's not the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that we want to worry about. But
Speaker 1: I guess before anything else, I need you to know
Speaker 1: that I love you, and your mom loves you, and
Speaker 1: your brother loves you. Okay, and I can't be with
Speaker 1: you all the time because that's just not the way
Speaker 1: that things work. But I don't I know this is
Speaker 1: kind of advanced for you, But I don't want you
Speaker 1: to ever think that I'm gambling with your life by
Speaker 1: taking you to school, because that's not what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: You deserve to have a childhood. You deserve to go
Speaker 1: and make friends and play. You deserve to learn at
Speaker 1: a school with the way most of us do, and
Speaker 1: you deserve to not to have to live in fear.
Speaker 1: Give me a second, anything you got cute.
Speaker 2: I cannot pretend to be prepared to have this conversation
Speaker 2: with my nephew or with my son. Yeah, he's going
Speaker 2: next year. He turns five. That's fall, so yeah, dropping
Speaker 2: him off at school thing starts next year. For the
Speaker 2: kids who were killed in Texas, the last day of
Speaker 2: school is tomorrow. For many of those kids, I'd imagine
Speaker 2: the last day of school was yesterday, just because what
Speaker 2: parent wants to send their kid back to that school again.
Speaker 2: After that, it was almost hard for me to decide
Speaker 2: seconds ago that I was going to finish the show today,
Speaker 2: because my nephew answered honestly the first question you asked
Speaker 2: him in the way that he absolutely should have. No, Dad,
Speaker 2: I don't know that little kids get shot and killed
Speaker 2: at school. That's the type of thought that should never
Speaker 2: have to cross his mind. And the fact that we
Speaker 2: have to weigh if we're being irresponsible by not having
Speaker 2: this conversation or we're doing him a disservice by removing
Speaker 2: that innocence, and that Naiven take from him. It's as
Speaker 2: bad as having to decide, you know, on rent or groceries.
Speaker 2: It's the type of choices that we should never have
Speaker 2: to make. We shouldn't be trying to figure out whether
Speaker 2: or not he should be more informed so he can
Speaker 2: be careful, but that might lead to him being scared
Speaker 2: and not taking advantage of the time where he's at
Speaker 2: school and should be learning and soaking up information, instead
Speaker 2: of looking over his left and right shoulder to know
Speaker 2: if it's safe to be sitting in the seat that
Speaker 2: he's in. The type of trauma that could cause PTSD
Speaker 2: in a kid where he hears a door slam loud
Speaker 2: and now he's scared because that might have been something else.
Speaker 2: I cannot pretend that I was even almost prepared to
Speaker 2: have that conversation with him, or with your nephew.
Speaker 1: But we are fathers, we are head of household.
Speaker 2: We do have to weigh if we're doing our children
Speaker 2: a disservice by not having them prepared for this very very,
Speaker 2: very difficult and scary place they have to grow up in,
Speaker 2: one that we thought when we were their age, and
Speaker 2: by the time we got to a point where we
Speaker 2: had kids their age would be a much different place
Speaker 2: than it is. I want to say it's very much
Speaker 2: the same, but in some cases it's worse off. We
Speaker 2: have access to far more information now, and even with
Speaker 2: that information, we are making informed decisions against our own
Speaker 2: personal quality of life best interest in the name of
Speaker 2: As we've said many times on this show, capitalism profit
Speaker 2: over everything, even the lives of our babies.
Speaker 1: And this is why Steve Curry said the name Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: That man is the reason why I have to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with my son, and I have to explain
Speaker 1: to my son. If you hear anything, I don't care
Speaker 1: if it's a loudo or slam son, you run as
Speaker 1: far and as fast as you can. You be smart.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not hiding is the right thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you just keep running, but if
Speaker 1: that happens to you, you just survive. Okay, baby, Okay?
Speaker 1: What grade are you going into? Second grade? How old
Speaker 1: are you? Seven? And let everyone know what your name is?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ayah. So that's the conversation I had
Speaker 1: to have with my son. I'm not going to pret
Speaker 1: like I didn't have the same conversation with my older son, Christian,
Speaker 1: there was a I think it might have been the
Speaker 1: Parkland shooting in Florida, and I had to take him
Speaker 1: to school, and this is not who I am, but
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned on the show that my father
Speaker 1: is a minister and his father was a minister. The
Speaker 1: teacher when I took my son to school after that,
Speaker 1: let me pray for my son and the rest of
Speaker 1: those kids as I walked into class, and the teacher
Speaker 1: didn't start class until I was done. And I realized,
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten to the guns part of this, because
Speaker 1: I think we're still dealing with the reality of it,
Speaker 1: and we will, so you know, stick around. We're gonna
Speaker 1: come back with more cific cipher read after this