Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop
Speaker 1: weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramses.
Speaker 2: Joh he is Ramses Joh I am Q ward Man.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, if you're just if you're still with us,
Speaker 2: and if you're just joining us, thank you for tuning
Speaker 2: in the Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: We have a lot in store for you. I know
Speaker 1: what that sigh was, because we just for those that
Speaker 1: missed it, we just did our way Black History fact
Speaker 1: and it was heavy because a child was executed and
Speaker 1: the family is now one hundred years later trying to
Speaker 1: get justice for that. But stick around because this part
Speaker 1: of the show, we are going to be discussing how
Speaker 1: black people overwhelmingly want to maintain or increase police presence.
Speaker 1: We came across an article that we felt had some
Speaker 1: really important data that we need to interpret and explain
Speaker 1: because you know, without that context, it might be a
Speaker 1: little alarming. But before we get there, let's discuss Baba
Speaker 1: becoming a better ally Baba. You wanna take this one?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I mean you were right. I'm sorry for
Speaker 2: kind of still emotionally being stuck in our way black
Speaker 2: history fact. But this is sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
Speaker 2: You can sign up for the free voter wallet from
Speaker 2: fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses, allied businesses as
Speaker 2: well as make an impact with your spending again fotmglobal
Speaker 2: dot com. This is from the Associated Press. Norway, Ireland
Speaker 2: and Spain said Wednesday they would recognize the Palestinian State,
Speaker 2: a historic but largely symbolic move that further deepens Israel's
Speaker 2: isolation more than seven months into its grinding war against
Speaker 2: Hamas in Gaza. Israel immediately denounced the decision and recalled
Speaker 2: its ambassadors to the three countries. Palestinian officials welcome the
Speaker 2: announcements as an affirmation of their decades long quest for
Speaker 2: statehood in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 2: territories Israel seized and neen sixty seven in the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven Mid East War, and that they still control.
Speaker 2: While some one hundred and forty countries more than two
Speaker 2: thirds of the United States I'm sorry, more than two
Speaker 2: thirds of the United Nations recognize the Palestinian State, Wednesday's
Speaker 2: cascade of announcements could build momentum at a time when
Speaker 2: even close allies of Israel have piled on criticism for
Speaker 2: its conduct in Gaza. Sometimes your humanity, an acknowledgment of
Speaker 2: another person's right to self determination, has to come out
Speaker 2: of you. And I think that's why one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty countries have just said enough is enough.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I wish our country was one of them.
Speaker 1: I wonder why it's not now to be fair. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden has said his peace there needs to be a
Speaker 1: two state solution, but not enough Joe.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So black people overwhelmingly want to maintain or increase police presence.
Speaker 1: They also want better police. This is the title of
Speaker 1: an article from Reason dot com. The article's author is
Speaker 1: a man named Billy Benyon. I looked his photograph up.
Speaker 1: This might have been a couple of weeks ago when
Speaker 1: I first got this article, and we were just now
Speaker 1: getting to it because you know, we only have an
Speaker 1: hour a week with you, our listener. So I remember
Speaker 1: Billy being white, just so that you understand that, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to offer something that we can offer having
Speaker 1: lived black lives. Right, I'll share a bit with you
Speaker 1: from the article, based on press coverage over the last
Speaker 1: several years, the author Billy Benyon would guess that a
Speaker 1: popular knee jerk response to that question would be straightforward
Speaker 1: bad whether or not in terms of whether or not
Speaker 1: black people feel good or bad about police, But new
Speaker 1: data challenging that notion, finding that while Black Americans do
Speaker 1: disproportionately fear cops, they expressed robust support or maintaining or
Speaker 1: increasing police presence and spending.
Speaker 2: Somebody made a joke to me when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and as a matter of fact, Eddie Murphy then made
Speaker 2: a very similar joke with the same premise. If all
Speaker 2: you've ever had is a cracker, you'd think crackers are hitting, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but realizing that there's something better, more nutritious, healthier, more filling,
Speaker 2: would give you a better impression. If all you've ever
Speaker 2: had is crackers, and somebody comes along and says, hey, man,
Speaker 2: we're taking all the crackers away, your natural inclination is
Speaker 2: going to be what are you? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: The crackers? We saw teens they help with the pain
Speaker 1: that I get in my listen.
Speaker 2: So and this was our problem when when defund the
Speaker 2: police was first set out loud. Our problem was, man,
Speaker 2: that that's what we need, but we have to figure
Speaker 2: out a way to communicate that better. We have to
Speaker 2: come up with better messaging because this is something I
Speaker 2: think we both could agree with. If I was in
Speaker 2: a position today me q Ward half of Civic Cipher
Speaker 2: where I felt in danger from someone that wasn't the police,
Speaker 2: and while trying to get to safety, I saw the police,
Speaker 2: even my inclination would be, man, if I can get
Speaker 2: to them police right there, I'm gonna be okay. And
Speaker 2: I think that that is the natural inclination of everyone.
Speaker 2: If that's all the information you have available to you
Speaker 2: at the time. It's always felt like we're safer when
Speaker 2: the police are present.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about that. Why does it
Speaker 1: always feel safer when police are present. Well, we've discussed
Speaker 1: on this show many times and it bears repeating. We
Speaker 1: turn a blind eye to police corruption. We're almost indoctrinated
Speaker 1: in this country because on the one hand, we see
Speaker 1: police as heroes, not just in movies. You know, copaganda
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff. We did a whole
Speaker 1: report on copaganda once upon a time for this show,
Speaker 1: and it started with dragmed in Los Angeles. The Hollywood
Speaker 1: filmmakers wanted to work with real police stories and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah the police in exchange for painting them in
Speaker 1: the positive light that they wanted to be painted in.
Speaker 1: This is the LAPD mind you, okay, the Rodney King
Speaker 1: beating's lapd, right, But in exchange for those stories, they
Speaker 1: wanted to have some control over how they how they
Speaker 1: were shown, right, And that relationship with you know, police
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, it just grew from there. So that term
Speaker 1: is called copaganda. So there's that subtle influence in the
Speaker 1: media that the police are the heroes and we see
Speaker 1: the cops stories and when we do see the police
Speaker 1: being corrupt, they look like Denzel in Training Day. So
Speaker 1: that has had its effect on us over the years.
Speaker 1: Then when we look at stories of police violence police overreach,
Speaker 1: oftentimes we associate police violence with black and brown people,
Speaker 1: and because of other social socio political factors, we associate
Speaker 1: black and brown people with criminality, and so rarely do
Speaker 1: we go much deeper than that. You know, Granted, there
Speaker 1: are the stories that pop up every couple of years
Speaker 1: where it's a kid that died, or you know, there's
Speaker 1: like police violence where we're looking like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is good.
Speaker 2: I hate to interject and cut you off. But I
Speaker 2: think the point that you just made is important. We
Speaker 2: see police violence against black and brown people. We see
Speaker 2: black and brown people as criminals. So the police are
Speaker 2: being violent, but they're being violent to the criminals. So
Speaker 2: it's too simple and a reason why it's important to
Speaker 2: point that out because people want to say that we
Speaker 2: race bait or we interject race where it doesn't belong.
Speaker 2: But here's the facts. This past week, a very popular
Speaker 2: white golfer was pulled over, arrested, has mugshot taken, and
Speaker 2: millions of back the Blue people angrily changed their tune
Speaker 2: to those thugs should be arrested and fired because the
Speaker 2: person who was probably being handled in a way that
Speaker 2: was more aggressive than he deserved. I think people expect
Speaker 2: us to be like, yeah, rough up the white dude
Speaker 2: like you do us. No, no, no, no, nobody should
Speaker 2: get roughed up. Give us the same benefit of the
Speaker 2: doubt and civility and human treatment that you give white people.
Speaker 2: We're not calling for you to treat white people worse.
Speaker 2: Just be as kind to us and as respectful to
Speaker 2: us as you are to them. People were up in
Speaker 2: arms because this guy was pulled over and asked to stop.
Speaker 2: And when cops were being out of line trying to
Speaker 2: pull him through his window, his fight or flight kicked
Speaker 2: in and he tried to drive away. They then used
Speaker 2: him trying to drive away as a reason to justify
Speaker 2: treating him worse. Oh, now you've done it. Now we're
Speaker 2: definitely gonna arrest you. They put him in an orange jumpsuit,
Speaker 2: took his mugshot, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, whatever the case,
Speaker 2: and people were up in arms. And the reason why
Speaker 2: it's obvious. People even got on you know, these internets
Speaker 2: and said they'd never seen anything like that before. And
Speaker 2: people were like, yo, never seen anything, You've never seen
Speaker 2: any But what they mean kind of a Freudian slip,
Speaker 2: is that they've never seen a whit white celebrity importantly
Speaker 2: treated that way by the cops, and now they somehow
Speaker 2: see that it's wrong.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, welcome to the real world. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: this it's it's strange that police get the hero narrative
Speaker 1: without exception. You know, if you're an officer, you put
Speaker 1: the uniform on your hero, same with with like soldiers,
Speaker 1: you know, thanks thanks for your What is it when
Speaker 1: they say thanks for your service. Yeah, that's it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with thanking a
Speaker 1: soldier for their service. I have a brother that's in
Speaker 1: the military, right, and I do recognize that they serve
Speaker 1: their country. And I'd even go as far as to
Speaker 1: say that that the individual officers you know there, there's
Speaker 1: there's there's something to be said about that position having
Speaker 1: a modicum of value at least, right, as you mentioned Q,
Speaker 1: if you're running from someone and there happens to be
Speaker 1: an officer there that that their job is to help
Speaker 1: out in a tense situation. Right. The system they belong
Speaker 1: to is rotten, corrupt, and it disproportionately and negatively affects
Speaker 1: black and brown people. And when it overreaches that's when,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, other people get a glimpse into how
Speaker 1: this works. The culture that is at you know, that
Speaker 1: is present and policing as an institution. And because that
Speaker 1: narrative stands in contrast to the hero narrative that has
Speaker 1: resulted of that copaganda, often it results in in action, right,
Speaker 1: and it has historically resulted in action when it's associated
Speaker 1: with black people. Well, you know, they beat a black
Speaker 1: guy up. What wasn't he on drugs?
Speaker 2: Wasn't he a criminal? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Didn't remember? Well, this guy beat up his girlfriend, you know,
Speaker 1: eight years ago.
Speaker 2: Didn't he have a gun? Wait?
Speaker 1: What didn't y'all to Yeah, this America a second Amendment?
Speaker 2: What y'all right to bear?
Speaker 1: Don't everybody get one of those?
Speaker 2: That's y'all right?
Speaker 1: Said that?
Speaker 2: Right? You have a gun too?
Speaker 1: Right? Yes? So but he had a gun. You can't
Speaker 1: have a gun.
Speaker 2: Oh, him having a gun is criminal?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, because he looked like there you go God?
Speaker 1: Now yeah, okay, So it's a different set of rule.
Speaker 2: Now we're now.
Speaker 1: I didn't know now we yet, So now I know
Speaker 1: that with different anyway, we should do a play with
Speaker 1: with no words, just responses. I think we can nail
Speaker 1: it in any event. Uh, over time, as Q mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, when all you're eating is a cracker, and
Speaker 1: the cracker is what is the only thing that you
Speaker 1: have to quell your hunger? Uh, the cracker becomes the
Speaker 1: sustenance that's that you you come to rely on. It,
Speaker 1: you recome. You can only conceive of a world where
Speaker 1: that continues. Maybe more crackers so that you have more food.
Speaker 2: I'll be Yeah, you give me crackers, I definitely be
Speaker 2: less hungry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're more food, So problem solve. Right. The
Speaker 1: thing is for those of us that work in an
Speaker 1: activism space, for people that are engaged politically and have
Speaker 1: a degree of intelligence and are data driven, uh, and
Speaker 1: they they search for objective facts in terms of shaping
Speaker 1: real outcomes for communities. For those people, which admittedly is
Speaker 1: a smaller group of people, those are people who have traveled.
Speaker 1: Those are people who have been to other countries and
Speaker 1: see how they do it. Those are people who have
Speaker 1: eaten more than just crackers.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, For.
Speaker 1: Those people, people like me and you Q, we can
Speaker 1: come across a concept like defund the police, and once
Speaker 1: we get past the wording and the messaging, we can say, okay,
Speaker 1: well this is an attack on the again that primordial
Speaker 1: sludge that produces crime.
Speaker 2: So even with us, he didn't have It was about
Speaker 2: getting past the words. We just knew a lot of
Speaker 2: people would stop. A lot of people wouldn't. They would
Speaker 2: stop reading once they saw that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't have a problem with defunding.
Speaker 2: We was like, yes, sure, opportunity, why excess resources, community centers, therapy,
Speaker 2: the stuff that will really use crime more jobs.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you this, Even just reading that first
Speaker 1: headline about defunding the police, I'm like, oh, defunding the police.
Speaker 1: Before I knew any of that, before I knew what
Speaker 1: it meant to reinvest, they knew what they meant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but before before I knew, he knew what it
Speaker 2: meant to us immediately.
Speaker 1: Well, so again just reading the headline defund the police,
Speaker 1: because I saw it at the protests and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it meant, and I'm thinking, defund the police. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they get less tanks. Cool, because police don't need tanks,
Speaker 1: because I bet any amount of money I would not
Speaker 1: run up to a police officer if he had like
Speaker 1: a huge AK forty seven standing in front of a tank.
Speaker 1: That's a whole different type of police officer. If I'm
Speaker 1: getting chased, I'm like, listen, I'll take my chance with
Speaker 1: what's chasing me right now, because I don't need a tank.
Speaker 2: Because a dog I could kick that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyway, you know, this militarization of the police,
Speaker 1: this intimidation of the police, the police and riot gear
Speaker 1: and tactical gear and they look like soldiers at war
Speaker 1: does not feel like the sort of thing you want
Speaker 1: to run.
Speaker 2: Up again at war with In most cases, when you
Speaker 2: see that gear, unarmed protesters boom, that look like us boom.
Speaker 1: Right, So immediately that whole defund the thing. I thought
Speaker 1: it meant, just stop giving them money to buy more
Speaker 1: helicopters and more whatever. Because the more money you give police,
Speaker 1: you would think it impacts crime rates, and it just
Speaker 1: flat doesn't. There are data stuff, Yeah, they just have
Speaker 1: more stuff, right, But when you put money into programs
Speaker 1: and start programs.
Speaker 2: Don't be fair. In some cases they hire more officers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that even that doesn't impact.
Speaker 2: But we know that that also doesn't affect crime ris.
Speaker 1: Yes, And you got to think about police in terms
Speaker 1: of what they really are. Police only respond to crime,
Speaker 1: and I think it's like upwards of ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of cases the only thing police can do is respond
Speaker 1: to crime after it has already happened. I think it
Speaker 1: might be higher than that. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Collect some information about the crime that already happened, and
Speaker 2: then in a lot of cases not solve it, not
Speaker 2: find the perpetrator, and not make any arrest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so don't hold me to this data because it
Speaker 1: might it might just be very localized data, maybe somewhere
Speaker 1: in California because they have a vague recollection of it,
Speaker 1: but please look it up on your own police I
Speaker 1: think they solve something in the neighborhood of like sixty
Speaker 1: seven percent of crimes. Right, And again that might not
Speaker 1: be universally around the whole country for every department, but
Speaker 1: that might give you an idea into exactly what we're
Speaker 1: getting when we get police. More police doesn't mean less crime,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean more crimes get solved. Right, So
Speaker 1: logical linear thinking people who have eaten more than just
Speaker 1: crackers might rethink the approach to public safety and say, well,
Speaker 1: instead of more police officers, because again, that doesn't impact
Speaker 1: crime rates and it doesn't solve crimes all in one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of instances, or even seventy percent of instances,
Speaker 1: let's invest this money, this police budgets into things that
Speaker 1: will really impact crime rates, that will lessen the amount
Speaker 1: of crime rates. And as I was mentioning, head start programs,
Speaker 1: after school programs have a drastic effect on crime rates.
Speaker 1: Economic opportunities, job opportunities have a drastic impact on crime rates.
Speaker 2: As of April twenty twenty four, the percentage of offenses
Speaker 2: cleared by arrest. And this just means cleared by arrest.
Speaker 2: This doesn't mean these persons goes to court and then
Speaker 2: is found guilty. Down from sixty four percent to fifty two. Boom,
Speaker 2: And that's for you know, murder nine, that's as a
Speaker 2: regligent homicide, as a twenty twenty four okay, aggravated assault
Speaker 2: down to forty one percent, crime down to thirty six percent,
Speaker 2: rape down to twenty six percent. So it's as a
Speaker 2: national average.
Speaker 1: So that's the amount of crimes that get solved by police.
Speaker 2: The amount of crimes that have that lead to an arrest. Okay,
Speaker 2: that doesn't even mean that the crime was solved, so
Speaker 2: its you got still people get arrested that didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: All the time. Sometimes the arrest is made so that
Speaker 2: the crime can be cleared. So we got somebody.
Speaker 1: So so knowing that, knowing that the police aren't even
Speaker 1: remotely close.
Speaker 2: At best, every other person just completely gets away with it.
Speaker 1: There you go, and knowing that it doesn't impact the
Speaker 1: crime rates in the first place. So no crime rates
Speaker 1: are getting impacted, and the crime that is being have
Speaker 1: isn't being solved. I think the highest number you told
Speaker 1: you it was fifty two fifty two, so let's.
Speaker 2: Call it half offenses cleared by an arrest.
Speaker 1: So that's the highest number. So let me read the
Speaker 1: rest of this quote. Our key finding was that Black
Speaker 1: America prefer to maintain or increase police patrol and spending,
Speaker 1: and that this preference was not conditional on the described
Speaker 1: crime rates or policing reforms. This is written by Linda
Speaker 1: Barklova and Justin Pickett of the University of Saint Albany,
Speaker 1: sun y Amanda Graham and Sewn Patrick Roach of Texas
Speaker 1: State University, and Francis T. Cullen of the University of Cincinnati. Quote.
Speaker 1: Most Black Americans reported that even if crime rates fell,
Speaker 1: and even if there were no new police reforms, they
Speaker 1: still wanted to maintain or increase police patrol and spending. Crazy, right, it.
Speaker 2: Is well established and feel safe?
Speaker 1: Right? It is well established the black people are disproportionately
Speaker 1: afraid of cops, particularly in comparison to their white counterparts.
Speaker 1: Black Americans are reportedly more than five times as likely
Speaker 1: than white people to fear excessive forced from the police.
Speaker 1: What's more, a study by three of the same researchers, Picket, Graham,
Speaker 1: and Cohen found that forty two percent of black respondents
Speaker 1: were quote very afraid police would kill them sometime within
Speaker 1: the next five years.
Speaker 2: Eleven Stockholm syndrome right, only.
Speaker 1: Eleven percent of why respondents feared the same thing. But
Speaker 1: in their more recent study, they found that such fear
Speaker 1: co exists, however, counterintuitively with that strong desire to keep
Speaker 1: or increase police presence and funding. According to their data,
Speaker 1: eighty one percent of Black Americans who say they are
Speaker 1: afraid or very afraid of cops want to maintain or
Speaker 1: increase police spending, while seventy eight percent of those respondents
Speaker 1: want to maintain or increase the number of cops in
Speaker 1: their communities. Interestingly, non black residents were more likely to
Speaker 1: express openness to decreasing police spending when crime is on
Speaker 1: the decline. So it's wild that we black people can
Speaker 1: be subjected to the same influences and miss the same data.
Speaker 2: That or completely disregard that data.
Speaker 1: That is showing us that this is not working. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that it's necessarily good for us. We
Speaker 1: all need more education, So we'll leave that one right there.
Speaker 1: Once again, I'd like to thank you for tuning into
Speaker 1: this episode. Of Civic Cipher. I have been your host
Speaker 1: rams this job.
Speaker 2: I am Q Ward. We love y'all. Thank you for
Speaker 2: supporting us and for listening to us. But sometimes we
Speaker 2: just got to get stuff off our chest toobs.
Speaker 1: Man, listen, I know that you came in here today
Speaker 1: ready to go, so that that rings you a special
Speaker 1: time especially true with you today. Man. But yeah, do
Speaker 1: us a favor. Hit the website Civiccipher dot com. You
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Speaker 2: Peace.