Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'man host, Ramsey's Josh.
Speaker 1: They called me q Ward and that just so happens
Speaker 1: to be my name everything in the world. Man, I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to do the show for a while. A
Speaker 1: lot of folks don't know as much about the black
Speaker 1: experience as they would like to a lot of folks
Speaker 1: don't know as much about black leadership as they would
Speaker 1: like to. You know, they get a concentrated shot every
Speaker 1: year of the same information over and over again in
Speaker 1: February about MLK, A little bit of Frederick Douglas.
Speaker 2: A little bit of Rosa Parks. I think that's kind
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's pretty much.
Speaker 2: They don't even throw brother Malcolm in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because and I'm glad you said that. And I
Speaker 1: think that that has to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: there is a I believe a what's the word fear
Speaker 1: is not the right word, But Malcolm X is a
Speaker 1: little bit more difficult for some folks to digest than
Speaker 1: is Martin Luther King doctor correct. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because he had a more militant mindset, a more aggressive approach,
Speaker 1: and he was very much by any means necessary. In fact,
Speaker 1: Malcolm X is known for that that.
Speaker 2: Statement made a lot of people uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Exactly very good. Whereas Doctor King was he had a softer,
Speaker 1: gentler approach, and it made it a little bit easier
Speaker 1: for folks to process that they didn't have to deal
Speaker 1: with it and also deal with their own fears and
Speaker 1: insecurities at the same time. They could just say, well,
Speaker 1: instead of dealing with Malcolm X, we'll just deal with
Speaker 1: Doctor King because he seems like he's going to cause
Speaker 1: less trouble. You know, there's going to be less interference
Speaker 1: with what it is that is sort of the established
Speaker 1: status quo. And you know, I've read about that that
Speaker 1: Malcolm X was necessary for Doctor King to advance the
Speaker 1: civil rights agenda, and so you know, obviously they're both
Speaker 1: heroes necessary in what way necessary, so that there was
Speaker 1: an alternative, a worse alternative to dealing with Doctor King,
Speaker 1: Like you can negotiate with Doctor King through doctor Doctor
Speaker 1: King and and reach you know, black folks and and
Speaker 1: understand the black community's grievances, and that would be preferable
Speaker 1: than doing so through Malcolm X. Because Malcolm X was
Speaker 1: very much again a more militant mind and had the
Speaker 1: ear of the people, Black people especially, And when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with folks who are of the same faith, read
Speaker 1: from the same text, you know, Doctor King, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the devil, you know. Whereas with Malcolm X,
Speaker 1: and you know, these are religious folks following Malcolm X's leadership,
Speaker 1: that's sort of like the devil, you don't because it's
Speaker 1: historically a lot of positions of power been held by
Speaker 1: Christian folks in this country. So Doctor King just kind
Speaker 1: of felt safer. But the reason that I wanted to
Speaker 1: do this episode is because I think that, and forgive
Speaker 1: the expression, I think that history has very much whitewashed
Speaker 1: a lot of what Doctor King actually stood for. That's
Speaker 1: A and then B some of the things that Doctor
Speaker 1: King did say. I believe that as his time in
Speaker 1: the spotlight and it's his time as a leader kind
Speaker 1: of grew, he was able to learn more, gain more perspective,
Speaker 1: and toward the end of his life was able to
Speaker 1: decide that there were other factors that we're having in
Speaker 1: an adverse effect on the black community, sort of an
Speaker 1: invisible ripple effect that was affecting the black community. He
Speaker 1: began to really oppose the war. He began to really
Speaker 1: uh kind of go after like economic the economics part
Speaker 1: of the equation as opposed to like, you know, can
Speaker 1: we sit down and share a meal at the same
Speaker 1: lunch counter, Can we use the same bathrooms, the same
Speaker 1: water fountain. It became to it got to the point
Speaker 1: where it's like, Okay, we need some economic equity. We
Speaker 1: need some we need an equitable a position, something where
Speaker 1: we can really advance our own and be self determined
Speaker 1: and not be reliant upon you know, this country in
Speaker 1: the way that we've been made to rely on this
Speaker 1: country for you know, everything and so forth. So I
Speaker 1: think that in order to honor the legacy of doctor
Speaker 1: King and I know that you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: celebrate that coming soon. And also real quick, while I'm here,
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to doctor Kimilla Westenberg.
Speaker 1: She is at present still organizing the MLKAU celebration this year.
Speaker 1: It's virtual and we will have all that information up
Speaker 1: on the website civicside for dot com. We'd love for
Speaker 1: you to take part in that. It's a very insightful
Speaker 1: and informative event that takes place every year. But also
Speaker 1: I wanted to take some time to review some of
Speaker 1: the things that MLK said and just kind of let
Speaker 1: them diffuse into the community so that folks know that
Speaker 1: this wasn't just a non violent, peaceful, you know, protester.
Speaker 1: This was a man who was a great thinker and
Speaker 1: someone that was able to touch on many things that
Speaker 1: still affect the black community today. But unfortunately he was
Speaker 1: assassinated before he got to the point where he was
Speaker 1: able to really get that off and show folks that
Speaker 1: a lot of the ideas that we're dealing with right
Speaker 1: now are not new. In fact, some of them were
Speaker 1: very much pronounced during the time of doctor King, some
Speaker 1: even reflected in some of his words. And so again
Speaker 1: I thought that was important because a lot of times
Speaker 1: folks will say to, you know, people on the streets
Speaker 1: that are protesting, or people that you know, have a
Speaker 1: very charged way of describing their reality. Black folks, you know,
Speaker 1: on the other side, you know, whatever their opposition is.
Speaker 1: A lot of times folks like to point to doctor
Speaker 1: King and say, well, doctor King was nonviolent, and therefore,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: I think they mistake that for him being a passivist
Speaker 3: exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And again I thought that it was necessity sary for
Speaker 1: us to have this conversation. One of the things that
Speaker 1: has been touted more recently is his statement that a
Speaker 1: riot is the language of the unheard. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's a profound statement and a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who don't know this, But some of the protests that
Speaker 1: Doctor King to pardon or organized, they had some folks
Speaker 1: in there that would act up. And when those folks
Speaker 1: acted up, you know, that gave the authorities and police
Speaker 1: and so forth license to get in there and use
Speaker 1: the water hoses and the dogs and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. If you see this old footage, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to think that a water hose is going
Speaker 1: up against a water hose like that is easy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, he got spray with some water, he's
Speaker 1: wedd He's fine. No, those things hurt anyway.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement also didn't always wait for sure those people
Speaker 3: to act up and give them license. They showed up
Speaker 3: a lot of times ready to ready for that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we've seen that and would.
Speaker 2: Create that excuse even if it didn't exist.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that in more recent protests too, and
Speaker 1: e Cancide examples. But you know, Google's there if you
Speaker 1: want to look at that. I remember one example that
Speaker 1: comes to mind is the police officer that broke out
Speaker 1: the windows in the AutoZone And I forget what city
Speaker 1: it is, but if you look up police officer breaks
Speaker 1: windows at AutoZone, you'll be able to see the officer
Speaker 1: doing that to instigate the riot. And so that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, that's something that's happened as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: in the uh, in the past, there were some people
Speaker 1: that would you know, act up and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: folks don't that that part hasn't translated. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have this idea that everything Doctor King
Speaker 1: took part of was super peaceful. Everybody showed up, they prayed,
Speaker 1: and then they went home. But this statement that he
Speaker 1: made that a riot is the language of the unheard
Speaker 1: is profound because not only does it reflect that during
Speaker 1: his time there were riots and there was you know,
Speaker 1: people that were lashing out in a physical manner to
Speaker 1: challenge authority, the status quo, etc. But it also reflects
Speaker 1: the hopelessness that a lot of people experience. You have
Speaker 1: to think that before people take to the streets, they've
Speaker 1: already had to live through whatever it is that they've
Speaker 1: lived through, and it's likely that they've also gone through
Speaker 1: all of the proper channels to try to suggest some
Speaker 1: sort of alternative or you know, air out their grievances
Speaker 1: or get someone to remedy an issue that they're dealing with.
Speaker 1: And then after living through it and after going through
Speaker 1: the proper channels, you know, these things sometimes can take years.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes they do. Then they take to the streets to protest,
Speaker 1: to show that there are many of us, and we
Speaker 1: are going to protest, and we're going to stand in solidarity,
Speaker 1: and we are going to challenge. We're going to show
Speaker 1: that we are all committed to this cause. And then
Speaker 1: if that happens, and it happens again and again and again,
Speaker 1: and there's no progress, there's no forward, you know, progression.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely there can be a lot of hopelessness
Speaker 1: in a group like that. You know, when you get
Speaker 1: out there and you listen to someone talking someone again,
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the more recent protest that
Speaker 1: I've taken part in, I've heard, of course, mothers that
Speaker 1: had to bury their children at you know, the hands
Speaker 1: of injustice one way or another. And that sadness and
Speaker 1: that that hopelessness is something that permeates. It translates to
Speaker 1: the crowd. Because we're all human beings. We have we
Speaker 1: have the capacity, if we're healthy mental, to empathize with
Speaker 1: each other. This is what kind of helps us survive
Speaker 1: as a species. And so that that hopelessness and that
Speaker 1: feeling that no one's listening is something that is not new.
Speaker 1: I recall having gone to Scottsdale during one of the
Speaker 1: protests that was out here that immediately turned into eluding.
Speaker 1: Admittedly you know I have you know, and it was
Speaker 1: all children. There are all kids at the at the
Speaker 1: Scottsdale Fashion Square. And again there's articles about what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about now too, if you care to look them up.
Speaker 1: Scotts Stale Fashion Square is the name of the mall.
Speaker 1: I was there that day. I just happened to be
Speaker 1: driving by to check on my son who lived across
Speaker 1: the street from the mall, just make sure everything was okay,
Speaker 1: see if you needed to come back with me. And
Speaker 1: I saw so many police and then I saw kids,
Speaker 1: and you know, I know what kids look like. They
Speaker 1: don't dress the same, they don't walk the same, they
Speaker 1: don't look the same as you know, your normal black
Speaker 1: block dressed you know protesters that were in downtown Phoenix.
Speaker 1: These were kids, and to me at thirty eight years old,
Speaker 1: that's a very scary thing to see police and children
Speaker 1: because the police don't see children the way I do,
Speaker 1: especially if they're children of color. You know, they see threats.
Speaker 3: I was going to suggest that not only do they
Speaker 3: not see them the way you do, they don't see
Speaker 3: them as children. Yeah, they just see them as threats,
Speaker 3: especially when they look like us exactly.
Speaker 1: And make no mistake, there was probably we'll say maybe
Speaker 1: thirty forty percent of them were children of color, maybe
Speaker 1: ten percent of them were black. You know, this is
Speaker 1: this is in Scottsdale, Arizona. There's not a lot of
Speaker 1: melanated folks out there, majority white children. Based on what
Speaker 1: I say saw with these eyes, but I still recognize
Speaker 1: that those two don't mix, and so I offered. As
Speaker 1: I was driving, I saw some folks that were walking
Speaker 1: away from the mall, and I'm like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking in my brain, there's police around that corner.
Speaker 1: And if they see you walking and you're carrying whatever
Speaker 1: you're carrying, they're gonna think that you got it from
Speaker 1: the mall, whether you did or you didn't. That is
Speaker 1: not up to me. I see a human being. I
Speaker 1: see a child that still has to grow up, you know.
Speaker 1: And when I say child seventeen is a child to me,
Speaker 1: nineteen is a child to me.
Speaker 2: You know, it's definitely not a child to them.
Speaker 1: Right, you understand. But I'm like, hey, if you guys
Speaker 1: need a ride to your car, I can help you out.
Speaker 1: You can hop in, I'll take you wherever you want
Speaker 1: to go. I just don't want you walking past these
Speaker 1: people because you know, I don't know what they're prepared
Speaker 1: to do, and they're just around the corner waiting. I
Speaker 1: just came from there, and it ended up being the
Speaker 1: case that I was able to help quite a few
Speaker 1: of them get to where they were going as they
Speaker 1: were walking. And I remember listening to one conversation in
Speaker 1: the backseat of the truck where one of the kids says, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe now they'll listen to us, right now that we've
Speaker 1: we've dealt with them on an economic level. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't really listen when we're saying that
Speaker 1: we're afraid of the police. They don't listen when we're
Speaker 1: you know, they obviously the person didn't go into detail
Speaker 1: like this. But what I gathered from that statement was that,
Speaker 1: you know, every conversation that they had had to that
Speaker 1: point had fallen on deaf ears, you know, as a group.
Speaker 1: He was not speaking for himself because he said, now
Speaker 1: they'll listen to us. And I thought to myself that,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, maybe you're right again. I'm not
Speaker 1: the judge, I'm not the police. I'm not I'm a
Speaker 1: human being recognized that there are human beings that if
Speaker 1: they turned the corner they might get their head split shot.
Speaker 1: Who knows. But I again back to my point, I
Speaker 1: think that that statement by doctor King that you know,
Speaker 1: a riot is you know, the language of the unheard.
Speaker 1: I think it really has manifested itself in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've seen examples of that in my immediate surroundings,
Speaker 1: where you know, I think that it's just worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing that doctor King said that doesn't
Speaker 1: get brought up enough, even though it's been brought up recently,
Speaker 1: it doesn't get brought up enough because again, people, I
Speaker 1: think there's this idea that all black people need to
Speaker 1: be like doctor King and then all their problems will
Speaker 1: go away, you know, and Obviously, if you're listening to
Speaker 1: my voice, maybe this is not a sentiment that you know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not that shortsighted. But there may be people
Speaker 1: in your in your life and your immediate family that
Speaker 1: think that black people's problems are just their own problems,
Speaker 1: and admittedly some problems are black folks to deal with.
Speaker 2: Stop acting black ramses and you'll be fine, do you understand?
Speaker 1: And then the example, unfortunately, is that if you act
Speaker 1: like doctor King or some black person that reflects their worldview,
Speaker 1: that somehow things will be better for you. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's very unfair and very shortsighted. And so again
Speaker 1: this conversation is necessary another such statement, and I want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on this Q. However difficult it
Speaker 1: is to hear, however shocking it is to hear. We've
Speaker 1: got to face the fact that America is a racist country.
Speaker 1: I was said by doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 3: What do you think I think that when you use
Speaker 3: Martin Luther King Jr. As the reference or even the
Speaker 3: vehicle for that statement. As long as I can look
Speaker 3: at that statement as having been made fifty years ago
Speaker 3: as a person, as a member of the group that
Speaker 3: benefits most from racism. It's always easier to look at
Speaker 3: it as a really, really difficult blemish on our countries,
Speaker 3: beautiful on our countries, otherwise beautiful resume, but as a
Speaker 3: blemish from yesteryear. Then they're very I won't say very.
Speaker 3: People tend to be more comfortable and can reconcile easier
Speaker 3: when they speak about racism as something that used to
Speaker 3: be a problem in America. Racism from the past, sure, contemporary.
Speaker 3: Now you're pushing it. You might even be tripping. It
Speaker 3: might even be your imagination, right if you just and
Speaker 3: then there's a laundry list of things that they say. Comply,
Speaker 3: act right, be respect, will be polite, don't do anything wrong,
Speaker 3: you'll be fine. In our country's lack of ability to
Speaker 3: properly reconcile, straightforwardly apologize and straightforwardly tried to correct its
Speaker 3: original sin is why it has no chance of going
Speaker 3: away at any point.
Speaker 2: If you think about apartheid in South Africa, South Africa
Speaker 2: had to say, man, we was tripping, and of course
Speaker 2: not in those words, right, but South Africa had to
Speaker 2: face itself and say, these are all the things that
Speaker 2: we did wrong to you, to you, to you.
Speaker 3: And then South Africa as a country could self heal
Speaker 3: and self repair, but they couldn't deny what was going
Speaker 3: on and think that there was going to be any
Speaker 3: progress made. Our biggest issue is that denying the original sin,
Speaker 3: and even those that accept it pretending like it's something
Speaker 3: that happened to our great grandparents and not something that
Speaker 3: still happens to our children.
Speaker 1: Watch this. So I was reading an article the other
Speaker 1: day about a woman named Ruby Bridges, and I think
Speaker 1: I got the name right. But Ruby Bridges was the
Speaker 1: little girl that had to be escorted to school by
Speaker 1: the National Guard, then the National Guard of the Secret Service, and.
Speaker 2: They segregated her school desegregators school.
Speaker 1: Now Ruby Bridges is alive and well, still breathing air
Speaker 1: on this planet. She's in her seventies.
Speaker 2: No, that had to be one hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Right now she is a live and well, it's probably
Speaker 1: gonna have Thanksgiving, you know, or Christmas or whatever comes next.
Speaker 1: So again to your point that you know America, you know,
Speaker 1: doctor King says it is a racist country, and you
Speaker 1: know we're still dealing with that. Again, I think that
Speaker 1: the fact that there are people like Ruby Bridges, I
Speaker 1: mentioned doctor Camilla Westenberg earlier, she came on the show
Speaker 1: before and she told a story. I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1: I listened in real time on the air as she
Speaker 1: told me the story. She said that when she was
Speaker 1: a little girl, she could not drink from water fountains,
Speaker 1: she could not use the bathroom, certain restaurants she could
Speaker 1: not go into, and it was normal. She said, she
Speaker 1: could not try on hats, God forbid, shoes to see
Speaker 1: if they fit. And the kicker, she's still alive. I
Speaker 1: love her with all my heart. Talked her on the
Speaker 1: phone two or three times a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it gets personal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is what she said, And this is
Speaker 1: something that's perhaps the most personal thing of all. She said,
Speaker 1: when her and her family would go on road trips,
Speaker 1: they had to carry like a like a bucket with
Speaker 1: them in the car so that if they had to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom, they would have some degree of dignity
Speaker 1: because they were not allowed to use bathrooms like that.
Speaker 1: And that's just the way it was. And so there
Speaker 1: are people alive right now that have experienced that. So
Speaker 1: for people to and then for people to look back
Speaker 1: and say it was a racist country. So even if
Speaker 1: you wanted to say, Ruby Bridges, doctor Westerberg, those folks
Speaker 1: that are in their seventies, that it's from a different
Speaker 1: time nowadays, in this year, you know, you know that's
Speaker 1: a thing of the past. You know, we're very much
Speaker 1: dealing with it. Obviously this year we've had to deal
Speaker 1: with multiple murders, shootings from the police. You know, we've
Speaker 1: had to come to terms with again, come to terms
Speaker 1: with the statistics, because numbers don't lie, you know, no
Speaker 1: matter how many how many people try to fudge the
Speaker 1: numbers on Fox News or tell a different story with
Speaker 1: the numbers. If you take things you know for what
Speaker 1: they are, and you do your own research and just
Speaker 1: look at them and draw your own conclusions, you end
Speaker 1: up with facts. Facts that you know. Uh, black people
Speaker 1: are three times as likely to be incarcerated for drug
Speaker 1: offenses as white folks. White folks as a percentage are
Speaker 1: use drugs at a higher rate across the board, with
Speaker 1: the exception of crack cocaine, and that is marginal. So
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly white folks as a percentage, obviously as a number
Speaker 1: because they're more of the population, but as a percentage
Speaker 1: even use drugs more frequently. So how is it the
Speaker 1: case that black people end up incarcerated at three times
Speaker 1: a rate. And then we'll take it a step further.
Speaker 1: The sentences given to black people are so much heavier,
Speaker 1: so much more frequently. And that's just drugs, the war
Speaker 1: on drugs. Everything else.
Speaker 3: Is The really crazy part about the data is that
Speaker 3: this information comes from our government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not creating this.
Speaker 3: We're not going around talking to our friends and polling
Speaker 3: for our own statistics. The US Department of Justice will
Speaker 3: give you these numbers. Google is free and will say
Speaker 3: out loud that it's disproportionate, except it doesn't change, right.
Speaker 1: And now we're getting to the point that we're making
Speaker 1: with this statement that this is a racist country. There
Speaker 1: there are systemic you know, I know that that's a
Speaker 1: trigger word for a lot of folks that don't really
Speaker 1: sympathize with black folks's plight. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: and sometimes black folks don't even know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very easy. And that's the part that has begun
Speaker 1: to really really poke at my spirit. I had I
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to take you to Bibb County, making Georgia, USA,
Speaker 1: where Reverend Estella Seacrest.
Speaker 2: My mother was born and raised.
Speaker 3: Georgia, and we got to see this because people think
Speaker 3: Georgia is Atlanta. There's Atlanta, yeah, and then there's a
Speaker 3: massive state that's nothing like Atlanta. Atlanta's my mother's from Macon,
Speaker 3: she's not from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the Southern experience for someone born in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 3: and then you think about my grandmother, it's a much
Speaker 3: different experience than ours. And and and it was much
Speaker 3: more on its face, flagrant, violent, blatant racism. Through our lifetime,
Speaker 3: it's been a bit more passive. The idea of racism
Speaker 3: has been a bit more under the table instead of
Speaker 3: slapping you in your face. Now, in recent times, it's
Speaker 3: gotten horrible, and the statistics will bear this out. You know,
Speaker 3: during this last few years, for very very obvious reasons,
Speaker 3: hate crimes and overt racism have escalated to their highest
Speaker 3: numbers since the nineties.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But you know, you speak about our people not seeing
Speaker 3: it and being so disconnected from it, that's a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, you talk about voting in the election and
Speaker 3: just all the things that we're dealing with, voter suppression. Right,
Speaker 3: because my mother's eighteen pre nineteen sixty five. So the
Speaker 3: experience of people that look like us just deciding they're
Speaker 3: going to have something to do with deciding who's going
Speaker 3: to run this country was a lot different when she
Speaker 3: became of age to vote than it was for me.
Speaker 3: So a lot of these things, no matter how hard
Speaker 3: they try to deny, are making themselves a parent in
Speaker 3: front of everyone, and people either have to choose to
Speaker 3: see it or choose not to or decide not to rather.
Speaker 2: They see it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, if you're just tuning in to
Speaker 1: Civic Soccer once again, I'm host rams is joh My
Speaker 1: name is ke Ward, Yes, indeed, And today's show we're
Speaker 1: talking about doctor Martin Luther King because we feel like,
Speaker 1: or I certainly felt like he's largely misrepresented, and not
Speaker 1: that that's bad, it's just there's more depth. He's not misrepresented,
Speaker 1: that's the right word, definitely, because there's a lot more
Speaker 1: to him than just you know, we shallow come. Doctor
Speaker 1: King was a was a thinker, a brilliant man, of course,
Speaker 1: but doctor King a lot of folks look at him
Speaker 1: like he was a patriot. And if all black folks
Speaker 1: do what doctor King did, everything will be fine. And
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's gonna get along in harmony. But doctor
Speaker 1: King was very critical of this country and the direction
Speaker 1: that it was going in. And I think that it
Speaker 1: was his being critical that ultimately led to a lot
Speaker 1: of the changes, but then led to his ultimate assassination.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously, if you play the middle, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna upset anyone. But you know, towards the
Speaker 1: end of his life, again he got a little bit more.
Speaker 1: He doubled down on a couple of things, and you know,
Speaker 1: started to take on new initiatives that would really empower
Speaker 1: black communities a little bit further. And uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the conspiracy theory theories start at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of black folks can kind of
Speaker 1: see it because that's just kind of the world for us.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't want to get lost in
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole for now. The episode is to kind
Speaker 1: of revisit some of the things that he said so
Speaker 1: that we can add some depth to this to this man,
Speaker 1: and so that folks can understand that a lot of
Speaker 1: what it is that black folks have been championing or
Speaker 1: campaigning in in you know, this past year and in
Speaker 1: recent years, a lot of those things are nothing new.
Speaker 1: In fact, some of them are reflected in some of
Speaker 1: doctor King's language. One such statement is, large segments of
Speaker 1: white society are more concerned with tranquility and the status
Speaker 1: quo than justice and humanity. And I personally in it
Speaker 1: now in my life is you know, doctor King was
Speaker 1: dead and gone before I was even born. I still
Speaker 1: agree with that statement. You know, the status quo. As
Speaker 1: long as everything looks like it looks now, we're fine.
Speaker 1: We don't need to engage. What are they mad at?
Speaker 1: You know that they had a black president, you know,
Speaker 1: all these things, and it it I think that it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a mechanism that a lot of white folks
Speaker 1: and and and just people that maybe don't live around
Speaker 1: a lot of mixture, racial mixture, that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: have put up their walls and determined that the world
Speaker 1: looks the way it looks, and they wanted to keep
Speaker 1: looking that way. They can they can insulate themselves from this,
Speaker 1: and they can uh take the responsibility out of their
Speaker 1: lap and try to place it back into the laps
Speaker 1: of other folks. And you know, one thing that I
Speaker 1: know is that it if there's something that needs to
Speaker 1: be done. You know, Black folks for the most part
Speaker 1: will get it done. You know, we've seen that, you know,
Speaker 1: But again that challenge when it comes to systemic things
Speaker 1: and to trying to move the needle on a political
Speaker 1: in a political arena, or to take on huge systems
Speaker 1: that were built to oppress you. That's a long standing fight.
Speaker 1: And so again that statement large segments of white society
Speaker 1: are more concerned with tranquility and the status quo than
Speaker 1: justice and humanity. I think it still holds up. What
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 3: I mean, absolutely, one thing that I've seen during this year,
Speaker 3: in particular, as this pandemic kind of sat everybody down
Speaker 3: and then George Floyd Floyd's murder lit everyone on fire.
Speaker 3: Our so called allies, yeah, proved not to be like
Speaker 3: absolutely proved not to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think one of.
Speaker 3: The biggest, one of the biggest hurdles that we've had
Speaker 3: is that we have had moderate progress.
Speaker 2: Right, a black president was elected, So you can point
Speaker 2: to that and.
Speaker 3: Talk about racism, how far we've come, ignoring how far
Speaker 3: we have left to go. Right, people would would rather
Speaker 3: us be a lot less progressive, especially with any type
Speaker 3: of aggression. Don't push forward. Just stand in that line.
Speaker 3: It's a great metaphor to to no, no, no, yeah.
Speaker 3: But it's a great metaphor to what we spoke about
Speaker 3: standing in line outside of the clubs. They don't want
Speaker 3: us to get to. Just stand in that line. You'll
Speaker 3: get in eventually.
Speaker 4: Maybe you guys, just just be calm, be respectful, take
Speaker 4: off those air Jordan's, you know, straighten your hair braided
Speaker 4: or cut it, tuck your chain, tuck your chain, tuck
Speaker 4: your shirt, pull your pants up, and eventually you'll get
Speaker 4: where you're trying to go.
Speaker 2: How dare you try to push forward? We're already letting
Speaker 2: you in here. We're already letting you go forward. We're
Speaker 2: allowing it.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to add something to that analogy,
Speaker 1: because when we had that conversation, that example, one of
Speaker 1: the most notable elements of it was standing outside of
Speaker 1: those clubs. You're looking inside the clubs at folks who
Speaker 1: are not melanated that are doing all of those things.
Speaker 1: They're wearing, the Jordans they are wearing. You know, they've
Speaker 1: taken Black culture in there, all the all the things
Speaker 1: they like our culture.
Speaker 2: To a costume that they wear.
Speaker 1: Sure, So anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 2: At some point.
Speaker 3: People that benefit most from the very unjust way that
Speaker 3: everything is set up have to be the ones to
Speaker 3: at least help bring about the very necessary change. It's
Speaker 3: a system that we didn't build. It's a very very
Speaker 3: difficult system for us to tear down when those that
Speaker 3: did build itn't want to pretend that they didn't on
Speaker 3: our backs and pretend that the things that we're fighting
Speaker 3: for and against don't exist.
Speaker 1: Well, again, I really like the fact that these profound
Speaker 1: statements by this American.
Speaker 2: Icon, this.
Speaker 1: Model citizen, this great you know, civil rights you know, activist.
Speaker 2: If only they treated him that way when he was with.
Speaker 1: Us, right, you know. Oh, and that's another thing. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you brought that up. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people that were very very critical of doctor King, you know,
Speaker 1: the same way a lot of people were critical of
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, in death, you know, people look back
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, yeah, obviously he was a great person.
Speaker 1: Heroes exactly, but in their lifetime, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: Doctor King was he was going through it, you know,
Speaker 1: and then the government they were spying on THEIRS tapes,
Speaker 1: you know, they were spying, they were trying to intimidate him.
Speaker 1: The president at the time was trying to intimidate him
Speaker 1: out of politics by saying that they were going to
Speaker 1: paint him as a sexual deviate in the smears public
Speaker 1: image and so forth. And you know, some folks know this,
Speaker 1: but a lot of folks don't. And those are the
Speaker 1: things that I believe will happen with the people who
Speaker 1: founded the Black Lives Matter movement, you know, those are
Speaker 1: the things that will happen with And to be fair,
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter was never meant to have any real
Speaker 1: leadership per se. It was not. They they learned from
Speaker 1: the panthers not to have any celebrities or superstars in
Speaker 1: the organization because if you you know, start taking out
Speaker 1: the leadership, then the movement kind of loses its momentum.
Speaker 1: And so that's why it's organized by city and by chapter.
Speaker 1: And you know, nobody knows who the what who whoever is.
Speaker 1: Obviously if you did a little research, you could find out,
Speaker 1: but they're not out there, you know, on Oprah, you
Speaker 1: know like that. So anyway, uh, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: it's it's something that it's worth mentioning that, like those
Speaker 1: people that say all lives matter versus black lives matter. Right,
Speaker 1: whenever someone says black lives matter, there's the people that
Speaker 1: respond that say all lives matter. Those people will ultimately
Speaker 1: find that you know, slow and steady wins the race,
Speaker 1: that their their their their argument or their adversarial position
Speaker 1: is invalid. I think that on some level you have
Speaker 1: to know it, you know, because obviously all lives matter,
Speaker 1: or rather better said, to quote Zara, all lives will
Speaker 1: matter once black lives matter. Because right now, based on
Speaker 1: everything that we see, based on the numbers, based on
Speaker 1: the injustices that we're protesting in the streets and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: black lives don't matter. So we need to say black
Speaker 1: lives matter. We need to champion that effort so that
Speaker 1: all lives will matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, the the the latter argument is understood,
Speaker 3: that's the whole point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, want we want that too. We're not trying
Speaker 1: to say black lives matter more or you know, anyone
Speaker 1: else's lives matter less. And it's so interesting how that
Speaker 1: gets challenged.
Speaker 3: They want us to say black lives matter too. They
Speaker 3: want us to have like think about that.
Speaker 2: They want us to have to say the two as
Speaker 2: if they need help understanding what.
Speaker 1: We mean, you know what, flip this again. Shout out
Speaker 1: to everybody that's been supporting this show, Civic Cipher, Shout
Speaker 1: out to everybody that carries the program that allows you
Speaker 1: to hear my voice and Q's voice every week. Those
Speaker 1: are good people. People that understood what my initial charge was,
Speaker 1: and that was to be self determined. In other words,
Speaker 1: we black people, using black voices and black intelligence get
Speaker 1: to say what it is that we are going to do.
Speaker 1: And that means that whether we're right or sorry, right,
Speaker 1: wrong or otherwise, we get to decide what it looks,
Speaker 1: what is best for us moving forward. And what it does,
Speaker 1: even if we're wrong, is it emboldens black leadership. It
Speaker 1: causes black intelligence to come to the forefront. Need black
Speaker 1: people to be critical of me and you absolutely, so
Speaker 1: that we can challenge each other to find out our
Speaker 1: path forward. And I think that what it does is
Speaker 1: it takes power away from this white savior idea that
Speaker 1: a lot of folks have by default. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not to say that anyone's racist or anything. I think
Speaker 1: that we're just programmed. We look at all the movies
Speaker 1: and who comes and saves the day at the end,
Speaker 1: He's got flowing hair. He looks like thor and he's
Speaker 1: the god of thunder all this sort of stuff. You know, No,
Speaker 1: there's you know, we were here first, We had heroes
Speaker 1: before there was even anybody else, you know. And so
Speaker 1: again to be self determined, to be able to say
Speaker 1: black lives matter and have that be the complete statement,
Speaker 1: because even if we said black lives matter to I
Speaker 1: feel like if someone wanted to challenge it, they would
Speaker 1: because they have blue lives matter, as if there is
Speaker 1: a such thing, yeah as a blue life.
Speaker 2: That part.
Speaker 1: So my thinking is that people that want to be
Speaker 1: critical of black people's self determination, black people's pursuit of
Speaker 1: fairness and an equitable life, those people really need to
Speaker 1: figure out what it is that they are afraid of,
Speaker 1: because I believe that at a lot a lot of racism,
Speaker 1: at the core of it is fear. And that really
Speaker 1: for me, you know me q I'm love first, and
Speaker 1: these racist people come, hell or high water. They're my
Speaker 1: brothers and my sisters, and they're afraid of me. They're
Speaker 1: afraid of my children for some reason. And that means
Speaker 1: that me being the elder, Remember I was here first,
Speaker 1: the first human being that walked up right on this
Speaker 1: planet looked just like me, and his hair came out
Speaker 1: of his head just like this. And I wear my
Speaker 1: hair like this so that my ant said, will recognize
Speaker 1: me from wherever they are. Do you understand the first people?
Speaker 1: So I feel like, being older, it's up to me
Speaker 1: to make sure that I account for the fact that
Speaker 1: sometimes younger people are afraid and again, being self determined,
Speaker 1: being able to, you know, decide what our path forward is,
Speaker 1: being able to come up with our own even if
Speaker 1: we've been very critical, not very critical, but we understood
Speaker 1: that defund the police on its face, without any explanation,
Speaker 1: sounds like Anarchyah, you know, we understand that, and it
Speaker 1: takes a second step to really understand that's what that
Speaker 1: is about. But if all you hear is defund the police,
Speaker 1: then it sounds like, oh my god, black people don't
Speaker 1: like the police. I want it sounds like the purge
Speaker 1: right exactly. But it's if it came from a black
Speaker 1: mind and it's championed by black leadership, then I think
Speaker 1: that it has a place. Whether or not it needs
Speaker 1: to be explained remains to be seen. But I will
Speaker 1: always and forever cheer black people championing black initiatives. I
Speaker 1: follow brown leadership whenever I have to go and take
Speaker 1: to the streets because of something that's affecting my Brown
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, my Hispanic brothers and sisters. You know,
Speaker 1: the truth is, they know their lifestyle, they know their culture,
Speaker 1: like I grew up around it. But I'm not Hispanic.
Speaker 1: Well a little Cuban, but you know, I live in
Speaker 1: the Southwest and California and Arizona's where I grew up.
Speaker 1: So Mexican people are the people that have shaped my life.
Speaker 1: But I don't speak Spanish as well as them. You know,
Speaker 1: they know how to get the information. It moves back
Speaker 1: and forth, and I know to follow that leadership. I
Speaker 1: don't question it. It's good enough for me, it's good
Speaker 1: enough for everyone. And I think that some times this
Speaker 1: idea that whatever black people do, it's not good enough.
Speaker 1: It should be black lives matter too, I think that
Speaker 1: that's insulting in its face.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not being challenged from a critical standpoint.
Speaker 3: Those people are being intentionally adversarial to something that's sounded
Speaker 3: like black and then put any positive statement after it. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: they're going to take the opposing view of that period yeah,
Speaker 3: no matter how well it's articulated. You know, Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 3: said very plainly, I am not kneeling to disrespect our flag,
Speaker 3: our military, or our country. I'm kneeling because our country
Speaker 3: is better than what I'm seeing, and that's black people
Speaker 3: being brutally beaten and murdered by the police so on
Speaker 3: television and nothing being done about it. How about some accountability, anybody,
Speaker 3: And instead a large portion of the population to him
Speaker 3: to shut.
Speaker 1: Up, and instead of taking accountability, they do this thing
Speaker 1: where they try to twist the narrative, they try to
Speaker 1: those alternative facts.
Speaker 2: It turned into a villain, right, how in the.
Speaker 1: World, you know? And I remember reading an article, and
Speaker 1: not to be too far off topic, but I remember
Speaker 1: an article about him wearing his hair, which is something
Speaker 1: that's very important to me. Him wearing his hair and
Speaker 1: an afro shortly after he started, you know, protesting when
Speaker 1: he was off the field or otherwise not playing, injured
Speaker 1: or whatever as a statement, and to me it suggested, like,
Speaker 1: why is anybody afraid of how your hair grows and
Speaker 1: naturally grows out of your head? Had there been no mutations,
Speaker 1: mutations and not evolution, look it up. Google is absolutely
Speaker 1: free mutations in human beings. Everybody's hair would look just
Speaker 1: like Colin Kaepernick's big old afros everywhere. That's what human
Speaker 1: beings are look like in their natural state. Everything else
Speaker 1: is the result of a mutation. Again check it. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to dwell on that too much. Another statement.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get off because you know I could
Speaker 1: do that. I'm big on afros. You know both of
Speaker 1: my sons where their hair the way comes out of
Speaker 1: their head. It's just really important to me. I think
Speaker 1: of it as as as a crown. I like that.
Speaker 1: We can never be satisfied as long as the negro
Speaker 1: is the victim of unspeakable horrors of police brutality. Any
Speaker 1: idea who said that, I'm gonna just guess. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther the King Jr. That's the one said that
Speaker 1: if you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your host.
Speaker 1: Rams's Joah.
Speaker 2: They call me q Wharton. That just so happens to
Speaker 2: be my actual name.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, And what we're doing today is we are
Speaker 1: discussing doctor Martin Luther King, who is off then presented
Speaker 1: as more of a pacifist as only a non violent
Speaker 1: protester and not the critical thinker that he was, and
Speaker 1: not a person who was who had charged this country
Speaker 1: with being better, not a person who was able to
Speaker 1: identify that this country had some huge shortcomings and had
Speaker 1: failed to meet its obligation to its black citizens. A
Speaker 1: lot of times, uh folks think, you know, belack doctor King.
Speaker 1: Black folks, if if if you're black and you just
Speaker 1: belack doctor King, everything will be okay. And they and
Speaker 1: they say that not knowing that doctor King was just
Speaker 1: as critical and had just as many charges for this
Speaker 1: country as some of our you know, contemporary protesters, activist speakers,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I think that it's important that we
Speaker 1: give some some context and some some uh substance to
Speaker 1: doctor King that may not be taught every February when
Speaker 1: they when they glance over, when the gloss over the speech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. So again, one of the
Speaker 1: things that doctor King said is that we can never
Speaker 1: be satisfied as long as the negro is the victim
Speaker 1: of unspeakable horrors, of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
Speaker 1: And twenty twenty alone has shown that there are still
Speaker 1: very much unspeakable horrors of police brutality and according.
Speaker 3: To even just twenty twenty bro November, sure, sure this week,
Speaker 3: like you know what I mean, I don't even want
Speaker 3: it to be so vague as to you know, this
Speaker 3: year had its its challenges. No, no, no, all the time
Speaker 3: still right now, yesterday, day before.
Speaker 1: All the time. And uh, you know when he says that,
Speaker 1: you know, we can never be satisfied. For those folks
Speaker 1: that say, be like doctor King, well, in his own words,
Speaker 1: we can never be satisfied. In other words, we can't
Speaker 1: just chill at the critic. We got to take to
Speaker 1: the streets because what we see is unsatisfactory because by
Speaker 1: deafinite or at least uh, based on doctor King's advice,
Speaker 1: you know, there's still unspeakable horrors at the hands of police.
Speaker 1: And you know why that is and how to deal
Speaker 1: with that is something that we've covered in the past
Speaker 1: and will continue to cover in the future. But it's
Speaker 1: important that people know that if doctor King were alive today,
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe that he would be out there the
Speaker 1: same as all of us, you know. And so for
Speaker 1: those folks who have been very critical of the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter Statement organization, you know, whatever, even people that
Speaker 1: think of antifa in that way. You know, people that
Speaker 1: are critical and just so you know, antifa is anti fascist.
Speaker 1: If you're a fascist, you're a Nazi. So if you're
Speaker 1: not a Nazi and you don't like Nazi, than by
Speaker 1: definition you're antifa. That's the way it works. There's no organization,
Speaker 1: there is no nothing. It's just people that don't like
Speaker 1: Nazis and that are very vocal about it. So that's that.
Speaker 1: But doctor King, I believe it, if he were alive today,
Speaker 1: would absolutely be on on the streets, you know, shouting
Speaker 1: black lives matter, not all lives matter, nothing, none of
Speaker 1: those other things that you know that people are saying
Speaker 1: blue lives. There's no such thing again as a blue life.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so infuriating. It's so hurtful to hear that.
Speaker 3: I mean, even more than it being hurtful to hear,
Speaker 3: there's an intimidation thing going on now where they're flying
Speaker 3: that flag along with the Trump flag, along with the
Speaker 3: Confederate flag, along with the swashtikas, all together in uniform
Speaker 3: and in concert. Right, you have the leader of our
Speaker 3: country saying that people antifa in particular and black lives
Speaker 3: matter in particular are terrorist groups, while his followers, supporters
Speaker 3: and bass actually care march with swashtikas and Confederate flags,
Speaker 3: and you know, the Blue Lives Matter flag.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we've already talked about.
Speaker 2: It as a direct way to say, two black people
Speaker 2: carry on.
Speaker 1: And we've already talked about how law enforcement gets a
Speaker 1: lot of their officers from those very right wing nationalist
Speaker 1: organizations like you know, Nazis and KKK and that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff, especially in the South. But I also wanted
Speaker 1: to say another thing, and that's that I remember, I
Speaker 1: have to do some research on this, so maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say this. Yeah, vetted out first, but I will
Speaker 1: preface the statement by saying that I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just remember reading that you're not supposed to change the
Speaker 1: colors of the American flag. I remember that. So these
Speaker 1: people who are so patriotic, that have so much to
Speaker 1: say about the American flag that knits all of us
Speaker 1: for them to take the flag the whole country and
Speaker 1: then turn it black and white, not red, white and blue,
Speaker 1: and then put one blue stripe and then suggest that
Speaker 1: the thin blue line keeps us all. You know, my understanding, police,
Speaker 1: I've never seen police prevent a crime. I've seen police
Speaker 1: come after a crime has been committed and try to
Speaker 1: fix things, and sometimes they do so. And again, not
Speaker 1: to be critical of police, I'm not here to, you know,
Speaker 1: do that. Eventually, I'll have an officer up. We'll have
Speaker 1: a really interesting conversation with that officer, whoever he or
Speaker 1: she might be. But you know, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: say one thing or another about police right now, but
Speaker 1: I will say that that flag is, by itself, based
Speaker 1: on what I know to be true, that's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be how you display your patriotism for this country,
Speaker 1: in fact.
Speaker 3: Except when black lives don't matter to you. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then it's all good if you fly a flag that
Speaker 3: was designed for the sole purpose of being the antithesis
Speaker 3: of black lives matter. They designed a flag that's secreted,
Speaker 3: this sacred flag that they fly, and you know, curse
Speaker 3: you if you don't stand in pledge allegiance to just
Speaker 3: as an intimidation and an antagonistic statement opposed to Black
Speaker 3: lives matter.
Speaker 1: How that works. So I got one more thing that
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, doctor King said, And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna piggyback off of what we're just talking about with
Speaker 1: the flag. So some people are that passionate. Either they
Speaker 1: are intimidated by black folks and don't want to see
Speaker 1: any progress there, or they have some sort of some
Speaker 1: reason that they are just in love with the police,
Speaker 1: whatever that reason is. You know, I'm not calling anybody
Speaker 1: a boot liquor, but it does seem like that. You know,
Speaker 1: if you work in law enforcement or your family or
Speaker 1: whatever and you got to ride with the police, then
Speaker 1: there's your case right there. But if you don't, then
Speaker 1: you really need to really check your why you're really
Speaker 1: doing that. Have the police ever saved you from from
Speaker 1: any any crime from happening to you, or have they
Speaker 1: come around after it's happened and whatever. Anyway, it's the
Speaker 1: people who don't take it that far, people that don't
Speaker 1: fly those weird flags because there's a red one too
Speaker 1: about the fire department somehow, whoa with a red stripe?
Speaker 1: You haven't seen those? No, Oh this is Arizona, man,
Speaker 1: They got those. It's the people that they just don't
Speaker 1: want to be bothered. They're like, hey, man, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's them over.
Speaker 2: There, our moderate allies.
Speaker 1: Huh. So let me tell you what doctor King said
Speaker 1: about oh man, Okay, the Negro's great stumbling block in
Speaker 1: his stride toward freedom is not the KKK, but the
Speaker 1: white moderate. It was more devoted to order than justice,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's important to take those two
Speaker 1: words and look at them separately. Order order means if
Speaker 1: everything is doing exactly what it's meant to do, that's order.
Speaker 1: If the system was designed to oppress black people, which
Speaker 1: is what we've been telling everyone, and since the inception
Speaker 1: of the system.
Speaker 3: You know why that's so hard to accept, though, correct
Speaker 3: Talk to me, Well, it's the same reason why you
Speaker 3: look at some people and you can't, for the life
Speaker 3: of you figure out how they stand in defense of
Speaker 3: our president, except they're standing in defense of themselves. I
Speaker 3: voted for him, I support him, and I think like him.
Speaker 3: So if you're saying he's a racist, you're saying I'm racist,
Speaker 3: and I'm not racist. I know Ramsy's jah. I even
Speaker 3: go to hashtag lunchbag, so I couldn't possibly be. Those
Speaker 3: are the ones who would like to maintain order, okay,
Speaker 3: because they can't see themselves as a part of the problem. Sure,
Speaker 3: so they're going to defend the status quo because they're
Speaker 3: a part of it and directly benefit from it.
Speaker 1: Well, those are the same people that like a mild
Speaker 1: mannered Doctor King. And it's to those people people that
Speaker 1: I say, one more time, a quote from Doctor King,
Speaker 1: the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom
Speaker 1: is not the KKK, but you the white moderate who
Speaker 1: is more devoted to order than justice. And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's not just the white moderate. There
Speaker 1: are people who just if it's working for them. This
Speaker 1: could be black folks who have made.
Speaker 3: It, black men that benefit from the patriarchy, This could
Speaker 3: be a.
Speaker 1: Lot of our our Latino Latin X brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: I think is a better thing to say, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's largely but you know what I will, and this
Speaker 1: is me putting myself out there. A lot of Cuban people,
Speaker 1: they tend to be very Republican. I have you know,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm part Cuban.
Speaker 3: So the Mexican, our Mexican brothers and sisters in Texas
Speaker 3: and California, New Mexico, Arizona are Mexican. Okay, our Cuban
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters in many parts of the Eastern United States,
Speaker 3: the Southeast Florida more specifically are white. How about that
Speaker 3: that's the difference, and not that there are not, sadly
Speaker 3: plenty of Mexican people and black people who support what's
Speaker 3: going on. Strangely, and you know, like we can wrestle
Speaker 3: with that on a different show. That's how you end
Speaker 3: up with Cuban Republicans voting against their best interests.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They're they're they're.
Speaker 3: The nerdy kid that's now a part of the cool crew,
Speaker 3: or so they think, right, and they're looking down at
Speaker 3: the nerdy kids, like what is their problem?
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't I I think if I if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys was founded by a Cuban man. Wow.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, that's a charge from doctor King to
Speaker 1: in this case, the white moderate someone who you know,
Speaker 1: if they like you said, they identify with like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump himself or a person like him. They like the policies,
Speaker 1: you know, the fiscal policies, et cetera, hyper capitalism. Sure,
Speaker 1: and they fail to see the humanity around them, that
Speaker 1: the world is not the same for people who don't
Speaker 1: look like them. They just failed as they can't. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. They're like, hey, man, I was born
Speaker 1: in the same places everyone else and I worked, and
Speaker 1: here I am, and I want to keep going, not
Speaker 1: recognizing that not everybody has a story like that, not
Speaker 1: seeing brothers and sisters, they see themselves almost like you
Speaker 1: know whatever. And if they think that they're coming to
Speaker 1: hashtag lunch Bag, which is a nonprofit that are a
Speaker 1: charity event that we do monthly, we employ you to
Speaker 1: look that up and see if you can help out
Speaker 1: if you're in Phoenix or in this part of the
Speaker 1: country the next time we do one. But if you
Speaker 1: do come to our event and you associate with black people,
Speaker 1: and you do know rams's john no qword, and you
Speaker 1: don't consider yourself racist, but you cast a vote for
Speaker 1: a person who Donald Trump will just say it, you
Speaker 1: cast a vote like that, what you need to do
Speaker 1: is go back and redefine for yourself what racism is
Speaker 1: and accept a broader definition than what you've told yourself,
Speaker 1: and then work on yourself being critical of yourself. If
Speaker 1: you look at the fact that you share this planet
Speaker 1: with other folks, that you'll recognize that you know there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to that than you may know. So
Speaker 1: with that said, we're going to sign off. We would
Speaker 1: love for you to hit our website civicipher dot com.
Speaker 1: Submit any questions topics that you want us to discuss.
Speaker 1: You can donate. If there's any interviews we need, let
Speaker 1: us know about it. Be sure to follow all of
Speaker 1: our social media at Civic Cipher and until next week,
Speaker 1: I'll take care of yourselves.
Speaker 2: Peace's