Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Rams's Jah. Yes he is Rams' Jah. I am
Speaker 1: Steel h Ward. You are listening to Civic Cipher. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: a lot to stick around for today. We will not
Speaker 1: have as heavy a show as we normally do. No
Speaker 1: one has died in this episode. Unfortunately, we had to
Speaker 1: skip over a lot of those stories to tell these
Speaker 1: stories that we're telling today, and eventually we'll get back
Speaker 1: to it. But for people who are particularly sensitive to
Speaker 1: those subjects, this is a much more listenable show, So
Speaker 1: stick around. We're going to be talking about the ex
Speaker 1: president and doing our best not to mention his name
Speaker 1: as often as we need to, or as often as
Speaker 1: we could, rather.
Speaker 2: As kind of a heavy topic too.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but we wanted to take some time and
Speaker 1: break down sort of where we are and ask some
Speaker 1: more questions that are kind of in the same of
Speaker 1: the questions we've been asking since twenty sixteen. But I
Speaker 1: think that now we have even more insight into exactly
Speaker 1: what the root of the fear in this country is
Speaker 1: because it is so established, so ingrained in people's minds
Speaker 1: that this individual can do so much and still has
Speaker 1: loud supports. Later in the show, we're also going to
Speaker 1: talk about critical race theory. We're going to use an
Speaker 1: example from Arizona to explain sort of how some people
Speaker 1: feel about American history that they've rebranded as critical race
Speaker 1: theory and give you the tools you need to have
Speaker 1: very important conversations that are true to the spirit that
Speaker 1: these people are suggesting that they want children to grow
Speaker 1: up in terms of the environment and the overall feel
Speaker 1: of it all. But first and foremost, let's start with
Speaker 1: some ebony excellence. How does that sound to you? Qute
Speaker 1: shall we shall so? Today's Abney Excellence is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Hip Hopweekly Media. Find out more at hip hopwekly dot com.
Speaker 1: I will share a bit with you. This comes from
Speaker 1: Black Enterprise. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has no good boss up
Speaker 1: gretch Okay, that's all I got to say. Yeah, QQ
Speaker 1: knows people. I didn't know that you knew who that was.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has chosen Kira Harris Bolden,
Speaker 1: whom she described as passionate about the law to fill
Speaker 1: a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court. Boss Up, Gretch, So,
Speaker 1: is that important? Well, I'll continue reading. She will bring
Speaker 1: a unique perspective to our High Court as a black
Speaker 1: woman and as a new working mom that has too
Speaker 1: long been left out, Whitmer said. According to The Detroit News, Bolden,
Speaker 1: who is thirty four years old, is the first black
Speaker 1: woman and youngest member of the Michigan Supreme Court Prior
Speaker 1: to that. Bolden has been a member of the Michigan
Speaker 1: House since twenty eighteen. She also previously served as a
Speaker 1: judicial clerk for Judge John A. Murphy and Wayne County
Speaker 1: and later practice civil litigation at Lewis in Monday. Bolden's
Speaker 1: appointment comes after she lost a campaign for one of
Speaker 1: the two open seats on the Michigan Supreme Court in
Speaker 1: the November eighth election, but Bolden was chosen to replace
Speaker 1: retiring former Chief Justice Bridget McCormick. And she will join
Speaker 1: the court at the start of the twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: year and serve a partial term that will end on
Speaker 1: January first, twenty twenty five. And I'll give you with
Speaker 1: a quote, I am incredibly honored to be chosen by
Speaker 1: Governor Whitmer for this appointment to the Michigan Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: Bolden said, real quick while we're here, we want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out to our Detroit affiliate that is
Speaker 1: WNUC ninety point seven FM on the ground in the
Speaker 1: d Yes, sir, so yeah. And also shout out kra
Speaker 1: Harris Bolden, first black woman and elected to the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court in Michigan. Ebny excellence if I ever heard it.
Speaker 1: Now let's talk. Do you remember when we had to
Speaker 1: do a show Q about uh, the January sixth insurrection?
Speaker 1: How could I possibly forget? So for our listeners, let
Speaker 1: me let me paint a picture. So we generally speaking,
Speaker 1: will have a rough idea of what the show is
Speaker 1: going to be about. And sometimes you know, guests, you
Speaker 1: know cancel. Sometimes you know material is dated or changes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we just feel like, honestly, we don't have the
Speaker 1: bandwidth to really sit in a room for an hour
Speaker 1: when we're on the verge of tears. And sometimes the
Speaker 1: news writes itself, we're gonna have a whole show written up. Okay,
Speaker 1: this we're going to talk about. You read these articles.
Speaker 1: I'll read these articles. You watch this video. I'll watch
Speaker 1: this video, and then out of the blue, people will
Speaker 1: storm the Capitol and then we have to talk about that.
Speaker 1: So when we did this show. I remember, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to speak for you, because I do want
Speaker 1: you to kind of bring our listeners up to speed,
Speaker 1: but I remember your energy and your temperament. It was overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and you knew then, as many of us did. The
Speaker 1: person who was at the center of it, the person
Speaker 1: who instigated it, the person who refused to stop it.
Speaker 1: There was loss of life that day. There was a
Speaker 1: horrible stain on this country's history, and there was a
Speaker 1: false equivalency that was popular in the news at that
Speaker 1: time about how this was similar in texture to the
Speaker 1: BLM protests. So I want you to take our listeners
Speaker 1: back to that moment in time and explain why you
Speaker 1: thought the individual at the center of it was.
Speaker 2: It is simultaneously mentally and emotionally exhausting to have to
Speaker 2: look in the face the truths that we have to
Speaker 2: look in the face in this country, the flagrant inconsistencies,
Speaker 2: the flagrant hypocrisy, and the wrapping of white nationalist patriotism
Speaker 2: around things like January sixth. We talk about false equivalencies,
Speaker 2: but the picture I paint is much more straightforward. Had
Speaker 2: this been the election for President Obama's second term and
Speaker 2: he lost, and he then ordered mobs of black people
Speaker 2: to storm the capital of the United States of America.
Speaker 2: We would have likely witnessed a massacre of every one
Speaker 2: of those patriotic citizens who'd just been taught, told, and
Speaker 2: coached to believe that the election was unfairly stolen from
Speaker 2: their candidate. Lots of those people would have been injured.
Speaker 2: Some of them, I can very very clearly say, without hesitation,
Speaker 2: would have been killed, lost their life, and President Obama
Speaker 2: would have forever been looked at as an insider of terrorism,
Speaker 2: if not a terrorist himself. But when you subscribe to
Speaker 2: the school of thought that our most recent former president
Speaker 2: does and the people that showed up that day at
Speaker 2: the Capitol, you get a certain measure of dignity. Still
Speaker 2: when trying to actively overthrow your country's government, that same
Speaker 2: government provides you a shred of dignity and benefit of
Speaker 2: the doubts. Still, and now, some of these people have
Speaker 2: been quote unquote brought to justice, arrested, on trial, whatever
Speaker 2: the case. But they got to survive that day. They
Speaker 2: get to tell their story still, and in ways that
Speaker 2: are so flagrantly unfair, they don't get labeled the way
Speaker 2: that any other community. Would any other ethnic group having
Speaker 2: done the exact same actions would have been framed so
Speaker 2: much differently. We see the same thing with these mass shooters,
Speaker 2: right if they just look different, it's a whole different story.
Speaker 2: It just the way that their story is told, the
Speaker 2: way that they're apprehended, if at all, the way that
Speaker 2: they're painted to the masses is so different. And it's
Speaker 2: so obvious that it's not even like we're being tricked.
Speaker 2: They're They're not using sleight of hand or magic.
Speaker 1: It's very obvious.
Speaker 2: They just tell it different when you look like you,
Speaker 2: and they do when you look like the young man.
Speaker 2: I won't say his name because you don't need to.
Speaker 2: He's somehow a celebrity now and endorsing products and don't
Speaker 2: have to take pictures after he took an assault rifle
Speaker 2: and killed people in a state he doesn't live in,
Speaker 2: protecting the businesses of people that he never met. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and got to go home, got his gun back to Like.
Speaker 2: January sixth was a very very loud reminder that they
Speaker 2: I'll let you guys insert who they are, don't care
Speaker 2: about us. And when I say us, this time, I'm
Speaker 2: not just talking about black people. I'm talking about anyone
Speaker 2: that's not directly benefiting from what they're selling. All right,
Speaker 2: let me there's a point that you're making that I
Speaker 2: want to make clear for our listeners. That day, again,
Speaker 2: we knew.
Speaker 1: Who organized that, We knew what that person's intentions were.
Speaker 1: We know that he knew exactly how much power he wielded,
Speaker 1: the influence that he had, and he knew that he
Speaker 1: could call people that would come to fight for him. Right,
Speaker 1: and we know the cryptic language that he was using,
Speaker 1: so that it's sometimes not not cryptic.
Speaker 2: That's my thing. Yeah, y'all meet me there. I'll be
Speaker 2: I'll meet you there, and this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2: It wasn't cryptic. He said exactly what happened, exactly, not
Speaker 2: wrong he wanted to do and what.
Speaker 1: But it was. What I mean is it was cryptic
Speaker 1: enough for the narrative for him to still have the
Speaker 1: thinnest shred of uh uh maybe in a sense or
Speaker 1: ignorance or whatever, which we know to not be true,
Speaker 1: except it wasn't. Well that's what they say on he
Speaker 1: provided with you said shred. I'll say shred too, but
Speaker 1: actually much more than the shred of dignity and benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt for the most obvious reasons, and I'm
Speaker 1: intentionally not so that's that's what I was going with.
Speaker 2: I never want our show to sound like.
Speaker 1: Us versus them. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2: You know, it's I understand that it's hard when we
Speaker 2: say the reason that the former president was able to
Speaker 2: do and say all the things that he did is
Speaker 2: because he's a white man.
Speaker 1: And if Obama did it, and the outcome will be different,
Speaker 1: it would be because he's not a white man. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's because he's a black man, period, And those things
Speaker 1: are true. So and your point would be, and this
Speaker 1: is the point I was making, that there's two different
Speaker 1: Americas and it's on full display, and there is a
Speaker 1: wilful ignorance to like a wilful like failure to acknowledge it,
Speaker 1: wilful blindness. It turned a blind eye to it. And
Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit more about that
Speaker 1: in the second part of the show when we discuss
Speaker 1: critical race theory or American history that has been rebranded
Speaker 1: by you know, conservative really often enough as critical race theory.
Speaker 1: But the point that I wanted to make was that
Speaker 1: you know, this January sixth thing was enacted by the
Speaker 1: former president. There was no other mastermind behind it. He
Speaker 1: was the person that you know, executed it. And it
Speaker 1: didn't lead to the outcomes that he wanted. And once
Speaker 1: he realized that it wasn't going to lead to those outcomes,
Speaker 1: anybody who watched the January sixth hearings knows this full well, right.
Speaker 1: But when it didn't look like it was going to
Speaker 1: result in the outcomes that he wanted, then he came
Speaker 1: out after many hours. People are dead. Now, there's poop
Speaker 1: all over the capitol. You know, everything's broken. There's a
Speaker 1: Confederate flag in the rotunda, you know, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Then he tells everyone to go home. All right, I
Speaker 1: want to move on. There's a story about a public servant.
Speaker 1: Public servant could be anybody from a mailman to a
Speaker 1: you know, mayor, to a judge, all the way a
Speaker 1: mail man. I don't think they're federal employees anymore. Oh well, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for correcting me. But you get what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 1: And just like with any other employee, when you when
Speaker 1: you're term has and did your contract is up, or
Speaker 1: you're otherwise replaced fired, anything like that, you leave with
Speaker 1: what you came in with you don't take anything with you, right,
Speaker 1: And there's a very public story, saga, if you will,
Speaker 1: that is ongoing right now about one such individual who
Speaker 1: removed important information documents boxes and took them to his
Speaker 1: house and then lied about it and then failed to
Speaker 1: cooperate with the people who were trying to get that
Speaker 1: stuff back and has done everything that he possibly can
Speaker 1: to keep that stuff from being you know, returned. And again,
Speaker 1: had this happened to the sitting president Quinn Ward, you know,
Speaker 1: if there would not even be this many levels layers
Speaker 1: to the story.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had a presidential candidate essentially disqualified because
Speaker 2: the rumor was she had some emails that weren't sent
Speaker 2: on the right server.
Speaker 1: Talk to them like, like.
Speaker 2: I said, this stuff isn't cryptic, it's not hidden even
Speaker 2: they're not even they're.
Speaker 1: Not even connecting it to the actual story that actually happened.
Speaker 2: They're not trying to be slick even, right, there's a
Speaker 2: different set of rules for this person than everybody everyone else,
Speaker 2: and we're all clearly okay with that.
Speaker 1: But you know, let's move on. I read a story
Speaker 1: recently that got me to thinking, do you remember a
Speaker 1: long time ago when folks asked this dude, it's former
Speaker 1: president of ours, and also, which of taxes? Are you
Speaker 1: as fair of a man as you say that you are.
Speaker 1: Are you as good of a business man as you
Speaker 1: say you are? Are you a con man? Or is
Speaker 1: this smoke and mirrors? Should we believe in you? You know,
Speaker 1: where's the proof? Show us the receipts? And he maintained,
Speaker 1: you know that he was one hundred percent clear. He
Speaker 1: could not, you know, provide any sort of records anything
Speaker 1: like that because he was being audited whatever. Well, recently,
Speaker 1: the same individual that we're referring to had to turn
Speaker 1: over those well really it was the I R S
Speaker 1: that had to turn over those income taxes. But another
Speaker 1: part of this story is that he was being sued
Speaker 1: for tax fraud in the state of New York, right
Speaker 1: or other his companies were being sued for tax fraud.
Speaker 1: And I never really understood the importance of taxes. I
Speaker 1: just thought it was like something really cool to do.
Speaker 1: You know, I admit on this show you probably are
Speaker 1: a little bit more politically sophisticated than I am. Q,
Speaker 1: But I admit that this is newish to me, being
Speaker 1: so invested in these stories and why they matter and
Speaker 1: why it's so important. So I'll admit that when it
Speaker 1: was when we're when I was first learning about taxes
Speaker 1: for this old president was back in twenty sixteen, long
Speaker 1: before Civic Cipher was even the thought right, So it
Speaker 1: was just kind of one of those things where it's like, ah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you could take it or leave it. Don't
Speaker 1: realize the importance of the significance of it. Now it
Speaker 1: is documented that this businessman is a fraudster, you know,
Speaker 1: as convicted of committing fraud. I believe it was two
Speaker 1: of his enterprises that are now guilty of I'm sure
Speaker 1: who telling to have no knowledge of what has here? Sure,
Speaker 1: but I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about tax fraud. Okay, now now convicted and forcibly
Speaker 1: had to have his income taxes turned over. So let's
Speaker 1: move on. So so far, just to ketchups, we talked
Speaker 1: about January sixth, talk about this dude taking documents from
Speaker 1: the White House. Talk about now being convicted of tax fraud.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about who this guy wants to hang out
Speaker 1: with a neat with so well Thanksgiving, by the way,
Speaker 1: Yeah crazy, So there's this saying that I heard that
Speaker 1: I believe to be true. And the saying says, if
Speaker 1: you see a person sitting at a table with nine
Speaker 1: white supremacists, no, sorry, Nazis. If you see a person
Speaker 1: sitting at a table with nine Nazis, you have a
Speaker 1: table with ten Nazis. Right, That's what was said, more
Speaker 1: or less, and I believe it. It's a German quote,
Speaker 1: like modern Germany, not like the uncool Germany from back
Speaker 1: in the day.
Speaker 2: The fact that there's a modern Germany that speaks out
Speaker 2: against that part of Germany's story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really incredible. That's special. Right. So you may
Speaker 1: know these stories listening to us talk about this today,
Speaker 1: but we want to just pile this on because we
Speaker 1: had we came to this realization and how why do
Speaker 1: we have to go through this again, live under this
Speaker 1: reality again? You know where we're uncertain and we're we
Speaker 1: have children to raise and you know, we have to
Speaker 1: talk about this wall again. You know where we live
Speaker 1: in the American Southwest. You know a lot of the
Speaker 1: people that we interact with, know and love, are Hispanic
Speaker 1: people and they have you know, roots in Mexico. This
Speaker 1: part of the country was once Mexico, and that type
Speaker 1: of language is very scary, not to mention it scary
Speaker 1: for us black folks, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: this hanging over our head like a dark cloud, we
Speaker 1: just it boggles our mind. And we are even having
Speaker 1: a you know. But anyway, just recapping, you know, the
Speaker 1: past year, some bright moments. This dude sits down with
Speaker 1: three known white supremacists, one of whom he says is
Speaker 1: his friend that he was trying to help out. It's
Speaker 1: another name that we don't really need to say on
Speaker 1: this show anytime soon, but you might know who we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Just because a person is black doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that they can't be a white supremacist. We say that
Speaker 1: all the time on the show. In fact, I believe
Speaker 1: last week's show we illuminated a few individuals who qualify.
Speaker 1: They certainly parrot the white supremacist ideas and ideologies and
Speaker 1: walk that path. They just happened to have some melanin,
Speaker 1: but all skin folks and kin folk, as they say. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so this former president sits down with these known white supremacists.
Speaker 1: That's literally what they're known for. They're not known for
Speaker 1: anything else. And this former president is the same person
Speaker 1: that said there's very fine people on both sides. I
Speaker 1: believe it was Charlottesville, Virginia. Is that right. I've actually
Speaker 1: been there, so h And one of the people that
Speaker 1: he was that was on you know, both sides that day,
Speaker 1: was at this dinner with him, right and you know,
Speaker 1: of course him and his.
Speaker 2: Person wasn't on both sides, that person, they're on the
Speaker 2: wrong side again, on the wrong side.
Speaker 1: There it is. Now, let's put a pin in that,
Speaker 1: because you know, he explains it away, tries to do
Speaker 1: damage control. Recently, this dude put a post on his
Speaker 1: social media platform that effectively, not not effectively, directly called
Speaker 1: for the termination of parts of the Constitution of the
Speaker 1: United States of America so that he could be reinstated
Speaker 1: because he he doesn't feel this way. But he continues
Speaker 1: to say that the election was stolen from him, right, well,
Speaker 1: despite there being no proof, is proof to the contrary exactly.
Speaker 1: But you know, none of the stuff has ever amounted
Speaker 1: to anything. And if there is a conspiracy against him,
Speaker 1: it's no longer conspiracy if everybody else is on it,
Speaker 1: like every judge, you know what I'm saying. So people
Speaker 1: that he appointed, he appointed was like that, man, I
Speaker 1: got nothing, employee side the most secure election or one
Speaker 1: of the most secure elections in our country's history. And
Speaker 1: the crazy part here is that he's still running for president.
Speaker 1: And you know, the crazy thing about presidents being the
Speaker 1: president is the main job is to defend the Constitution.
Speaker 1: That's like the that's the point of the job. So
Speaker 1: this person who's fundamentally calling for parts of the Constitution
Speaker 1: to be terminated, obviously doesn't value even his own story,
Speaker 1: even his own truth that he has to you know,
Speaker 1: and we heard the phone calls, Hey, I need you
Speaker 1: to find the extra votes in Georgia. That's all I
Speaker 1: need to just find me the votes. Sounds like you're
Speaker 1: the one stealing an election, bro, and it just didn't work.
Speaker 1: January sixth, all this sort of stuff, anyway, let me
Speaker 1: recap for you January sixth insurrection, stealing documents from the
Speaker 1: White House, committing tax fraud of course, dining with bye supremacists,
Speaker 1: calling pretermination parts of the Constitution. And we still thinks
Speaker 1: that Ramsens are pointing out after this guy became president.
Speaker 1: Before he became president, he did and said some wild
Speaker 1: stuff things. But he's doing all this and then still
Speaker 1: wants to run again despite losing Farren Square and it
Speaker 1: strength to me that you can be impeached and then
Speaker 1: run again. You feel what I'm saying, and you need
Speaker 1: to know twice impeached. Thank you. How this feels to
Speaker 1: start waking up to a reality where we see this
Speaker 1: dude's face again and we recognize, Shoot, now there's actually
Speaker 1: a real chance. The first time we was like there's
Speaker 1: no way and we were surprised. Now we're like have
Speaker 1: to live with it every day, Like, oh man, I
Speaker 1: hope this doesn't happen. So talk to your people out there.
Speaker 1: You know who your people are, all right, m