Speaker 1: People 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,
Speaker 1: Ramsy's job. He is Ramsey's jaw.
Speaker 2: I am q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: And if you're still tuned in read it's better if
Speaker 1: you're just tuning in for wine because you need to
Speaker 1: learn a less Okay, you need to learn where we
Speaker 1: stand in this country. But yeah, for this next part
Speaker 1: of the show, I need you to stick around because
Speaker 1: we are going to be discussing some brighter moments that
Speaker 1: have happened recently in the news, and we're going to
Speaker 1: share the headlines and the stories behind them. It's important
Speaker 1: for us to share positive outcomes as well black people
Speaker 1: who weren't just born to live hard lives and then die.
Speaker 1: So let's all try to smile. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that point, I think we should discuss us something
Speaker 1: very special, Baba becoming a Better Allied Baba. Today's Baba
Speaker 1: A sponsored by Friends of the Movement. You can sign
Speaker 1: up for the Freeboter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to
Speaker 1: support black businesses and allied businesses as well as well
Speaker 1: as making the impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal
Speaker 1: dot com. So today's baba. I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: his last name. We're going to shout out a listener.
Speaker 1: His name is Jonathan. Jonathan is an older man, an
Speaker 1: older listener for our show, White Man, Older big fan,
Speaker 1: and he sent us a letter that was very heartwarming,
Speaker 1: very encouraging, and we read that letter on the show before.
Speaker 1: But after reading that letter, he emailed us again and says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what I can do more than just write
Speaker 1: a letter. I would like to support you financially. Right.
Speaker 1: The problem is I'm a little old. I don't use VENMO,
Speaker 1: I don't have though or all these electronic things. How
Speaker 1: can I support you fiscally? Would you take a check? Wow?
Speaker 1: Now this is like three months ago. We got the
Speaker 1: check and I wanted to read this and share this
Speaker 1: with him, so he hears it. Ke warden Rams's job
Speaker 1: finally sending you a check. Honored to be your first
Speaker 1: actual paper check. Hope you're well. Happy new Year. I
Speaker 1: hope it's a good one for you, full of love, peace, safety, pleasure, happiness,
Speaker 1: and then you have many more take care of Jonathan.
Speaker 1: God bless Jonathan, and a handwritten note with a paper
Speaker 1: check and it went to a po box and you
Speaker 1: left it there for months because we you know, and
Speaker 1: I just thought this was the sweetest thing. And Jonathan,
Speaker 1: you are the example of becoming a better ally. We
Speaker 1: need more people like you, and God bless you too. Brother.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about some things that have
Speaker 1: happened again. These I don't want to call it good news,
Speaker 1: but closure. Maybe closure. That's a good one. Thank you man,
Speaker 1: thank you. All right, So I'm gonna share a bit
Speaker 1: from CNN from these happier headlines. We have here a
Speaker 1: momentous day. All six rogue Mississippi officers got long prison
Speaker 1: sentences in goon squad torture of two black men. All right,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of words there. The main one
Speaker 1: is Mississippi, the second one is officers, and then obviously
Speaker 1: prison sentences is something you don't expect to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that laugh is like ironic and almost sarcastic
Speaker 2: because Ramses and I had a run in with Mississippi
Speaker 2: law enforcement. It's not pleasant, it was not funny, it
Speaker 2: was not enjoyable. And some of our friends were actually terrified.
Speaker 2: And we'll tell that story another time, and we have
Speaker 2: multiple times before. But yeah, Mississippi and officers, that chuckle
Speaker 2: is quite ironic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for folks who listened to the first part
Speaker 1: of the show, that example illustrates how sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to accept disrespect, you have to suppress your desire to
Speaker 1: have a degree of dignity in order to survive. We
Speaker 1: had to do that so we can make it home. Yep,
Speaker 1: we did. Yeah, So this is what we have to
Speaker 1: teach our children. So hopefully you understand. Again, for those
Speaker 1: who listen to the first part of the show anyway,
Speaker 1: I will read a bit more so. Joshua Hartfield, the
Speaker 1: last of six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers sentenced
Speaker 1: in the torture of two black men in January twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, received a ten year prison term in federal
Speaker 1: court Thursday afternoon hearing capped and emotional, three days during
Speaker 1: which vivid accounts of the horrifying brutality of a self
Speaker 1: styled gooon squad of deputies gripped a packed court room,
Speaker 1: where the highest ranking officer on the scene, Brett Macalpan,
Speaker 1: was sentenced to more than twenty seven years in prison
Speaker 1: earlier Thursday, Shackled around around his waist and hands, Hartfield
Speaker 1: choked up and sobbed when he began to address the court.
Speaker 1: I already know you were going to want to say
Speaker 1: something cute. I just could see you anyway. Here's this quote.
Speaker 1: He says. All I wanted to do was help people.
Speaker 1: I failed to help the two people who needed me
Speaker 1: the most, all right. The defendants rated a home in
Speaker 1: Braxton in January twenty twenty three without a warrant, subjected
Speaker 1: the two black men to racist vitrol, used tasers on
Speaker 1: them after they had already been handcuffed, beat them with
Speaker 1: various objects, and shot Jenkins in the mouth. Prosecutor said,
Speaker 1: mister Jenkins and mister Parker would like mister Jenkins and
Speaker 1: mister Parker, I would like to apologize to you both,
Speaker 1: Hartfield said. The officers went to the home after a
Speaker 1: neighbor reported several black men were staying at a white
Speaker 1: woman's home and reported seeing suspicious behavior. The officers kicked
Speaker 1: in the door of a home where two black men
Speaker 1: were staying and subjected them to an hour and a
Speaker 1: half of torture. So we're not giving you all the
Speaker 1: details We've covered this story on this show and on
Speaker 1: the Black Information Network, and you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to get like the really graphic, gruesome details beyond this article,
Speaker 1: you know, just look up the Mississippi Goon Squad. Not
Speaker 1: to be confused the Gilbert Goons in Gilbert, Arizona. Don't
Speaker 1: think we don't see you. Unfortunately, don't think we don't
Speaker 1: see you out there in Gilbert. We're close anyway. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that you would get a kick out of
Speaker 1: his statement. All I wanted to do was help people.
Speaker 1: I failed to help the two people who needed me.
Speaker 2: But well, the second part of that statement actually moves
Speaker 2: me in a way that's different than you might expect.
Speaker 1: Okay, talk to me.
Speaker 2: Accountability does not always show up at all. So after
Speaker 2: he's been handcuffed, shackled and sentenced, some accountability show because
Speaker 2: he could have stood on what he did and not
Speaker 2: understood why it was a big deal at all, and saying,
Speaker 2: even if it was performative, that the two people that
Speaker 2: needed him the most were the two people that they
Speaker 2: tortured and beat and shot. That's a lot for him
Speaker 2: to stand up and say in the wake of just
Speaker 2: being sentenced to twenty seven years. He could have been
Speaker 2: angry and said something way different. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: help people, and I did it, and I didn't help
Speaker 2: the two people that needed it the most. I think
Speaker 2: that's actually big of him, especially in a case where
Speaker 2: there is some sense of accountability. I think in a
Speaker 2: lot of cases this ends different because there are no
Speaker 2: living victims afterward, so the justice quote unquote doesn't really
Speaker 2: show up because there's no account other than that of
Speaker 2: the police and what we can kind of put together
Speaker 2: ourselves through evidence. The fact that they tortured these guys
Speaker 2: and allowed them to live after as far as accountability goes,
Speaker 2: is a massive mistake on their part and why twenty
Speaker 2: seven years is a sentence and not four. So I
Speaker 2: think it's actually very big of him to acknowledge that
Speaker 2: the two people that needed him the most were the
Speaker 2: two people that he and his crohonies or colleagues or
Speaker 2: goons or whatever they call themselves subjected these men to.
Speaker 1: So this is the part where so I like that.
Speaker 1: I love that. However, this is the part and the
Speaker 1: point in the conversation where I was expecting maybe something different,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that is because this officer was
Speaker 1: a part of the Goon squad. So to me, my
Speaker 1: powers of deduction, knowing the Goon Squad and how they've moved,
Speaker 1: and that this is not an isolated incident. Again, my
Speaker 1: powers of deduction would suggest to me that this was
Speaker 1: something that he was along the ride for, he was
Speaker 1: complicit in, he participated in, and before hearing that sensets
Speaker 1: it's because your life is gone. When you have a
Speaker 1: twenty seven year sentence, that's really it for you. The
Speaker 1: last thing that you did was the worst thing that
Speaker 1: you did, and it's the thing that you'll be known for,
Speaker 1: and that will be the story. May as well go
Speaker 1: on your tombstone, right, so people do have time to reflect.
Speaker 1: And again you're not wrong. That's not nothing. But I
Speaker 1: don't want I don't believe. Rather that he was he
Speaker 1: just showed up on the scene, saw this happening and
Speaker 1: was intimidated by his fellow officers and didn't say anything
Speaker 1: that would make more sense to me him saying I
Speaker 1: didn't help the people. I believe that because he was
Speaker 1: a part of the Goon squad and this is what
Speaker 1: they did, and this is what they were known for.
Speaker 1: That there was probably so that's what that's the angle.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, I think the
Speaker 1: words would ring more hollow.
Speaker 2: This was like a defense, right, Yeah, that's when they
Speaker 2: thought he was like, look, man, I just I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I was much it'd be different after the sentencing. These
Speaker 2: words ring a little different because you don't even have to.
Speaker 2: It's not about you accepting accountability at this point, the
Speaker 2: twenty seven years have been.
Speaker 1: You've already already guilty, here, already guilty.
Speaker 2: For these words to come and wake of that, I
Speaker 2: think they ring a little different than if they had
Speaker 2: been his defense in the beginning, or him pleading for
Speaker 2: a lesser sentence.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know that he didn't do that, No, no, correct,
Speaker 1: but I suspect that. Well, there's six of them, so
Speaker 1: from what I understand that, you know, all of them
Speaker 1: were trying to wiggle out of it somehow and shift
Speaker 1: the blame around. But that is not nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: they're all sentenced, and you know there are two living
Speaker 1: black men who endured something horrible, but they're still alive,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's not nothing. So that's why I
Speaker 1: can't call it a you know, a good sound.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's not celebratory, right, because it's in
Speaker 2: the wake of something awful happening to us. Again, but
Speaker 2: in a lot of these cases, and like I said,
Speaker 2: especially when the victims don't survive, Yeah, then it's a
Speaker 2: lot the accountability is a lot less. Even when found
Speaker 2: guilty in cases like this, the sentencing is typically very light.
Speaker 2: You're talking about multiple years even when found guilty of
Speaker 2: murder and manslaughter. So you know, in the case where
Speaker 2: you got two living victims, an officer getting twenty seven
Speaker 2: years is some form of justice and accountability which we
Speaker 2: don't typically see in cases like this.
Speaker 1: So another more positive headline. This comes from CBS Chicago.
Speaker 1: Conservative activist Kyle Rittenhouse cut short a speaking event on
Speaker 1: Wednesday night at the University of Memphis after he was
Speaker 1: drowned out by angry protests and activists. Now that's what
Speaker 1: it says. Wow. CBS affiliate WRIGTV reports Writtenhouse was invited
Speaker 1: to speak by the campus organization of conservative advocacy group
Speaker 1: Turning Point USA. Rittenhouse was acquitted about felloony charges for
Speaker 1: shooting three people, killing two of them in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse,
Speaker 1: who was seventeen at the time of the shootings, had
Speaker 1: claimed he shot the men in self defense. WRIGTV reported
Speaker 1: his appearance at the University Memphis had sparked weeks of controversy,
Speaker 1: and it was quickly shouted down at the UC Theater
Speaker 1: Wednesday evening when he told the audience he quote was
Speaker 1: violently attacked by a mob of rioters unquote in Kenosha.
Speaker 1: Instead of the planned speech, the event swiftly moved to
Speaker 1: a Q and A session, but Rittenhouse was ushered off
Speaker 1: the stage after about thirty minutes, after protest repeatedly yelled
Speaker 1: and booed and uh, it's nice to know that people.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not surprising that it would take place
Speaker 1: on a college campus, but still it's nice to know
Speaker 1: the people are not accepting that this worst timeline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a strange juxtaposition though, because a college organization
Speaker 2: brought him to cam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the weird partner.
Speaker 2: So a weird thing to witness this guy be somehow
Speaker 2: made an activist and hero for going home, getting a gun,
Speaker 2: going to a place and killing people and then making
Speaker 2: himself somehow the victim and the.
Speaker 1: Hero in this story.
Speaker 2: Is really insane, But it's not the first time we
Speaker 2: saw something like this happen, where these people get to
Speaker 2: do horrible things to us, zero accountability and somehow become
Speaker 2: heroes and go on speaking tours and sign autographs. We
Speaker 2: saw this happen in the wake of Trayvon Martin. We've
Speaker 2: now seen this in the case with this young man,
Speaker 2: and where the political backing kind of hals these guys
Speaker 2: up and lifts them up as heroes too. It gives
Speaker 2: you an idea and to the mindset of tens of
Speaker 2: millions of people in this country who think that things
Speaker 2: like this should be celebrated in that these guys should
Speaker 2: be labeled heroes. Right, if that kid really made a
Speaker 2: mistake and went there and was defending himself, you think
Speaker 2: he'd be a bit more somber, a bit more apologetic,
Speaker 2: a bit more sorry at the way they's played out.
Speaker 2: Taking a life, allowing himself to be made a hero
Speaker 2: and kind of living in it and making money off
Speaker 2: ros is insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if I got to be known for something,
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to be known for is
Speaker 1: an ending a life that just feels a little low vibrational.
Speaker 1: But like I said, shout out to the students at
Speaker 1: the University of Memphis for showing up and showing out
Speaker 1: and not letting him get off his nonsense. That's not nothing,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And you know what, There's been some colleges around the country,
Speaker 3: some college campuses that have been showing up. Man, I
Speaker 3: want to make sure that I shout out all the
Speaker 3: college campuses. I know there's a couple in California that
Speaker 3: have been I think it's called BDS or something, divestment
Speaker 3: and sanctions for the State of Israel so that Palestine
Speaker 3: can get aid. And you know, there's these calls for
Speaker 3: a c fire, and so these students are organizing on
Speaker 3: their campus not to do business effectively, not to do
Speaker 3: business with Israel and hurt their pockets. And we talked
Speaker 3: about this last week. So if Suzanne Oslin was listening,
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry that I'm not articulating it the way
Speaker 3: that you did. But I know that there's other college
Speaker 3: campuses around that are.
Speaker 1: Is booming right now. So shout out to all the
Speaker 1: student activists out there that are letting your voices be heard.
Speaker 1: We like to support you, and we feel like you
Speaker 1: support us, and we're all going to get where we
Speaker 1: need to where we need to be at some point
Speaker 1: in the future. All right, let me share this last
Speaker 1: one with you. This one comes from the Black Information Network,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of a BABA, but it's making headlines,
Speaker 1: so you and Chief Antonio Gutierrez is calling for reparations
Speaker 1: over the Transatlantic slave trade to quote help overcome generations
Speaker 1: of exclusion and discrimination unquote. On March twenty fifth, Gutier's
Speaker 1: made the call for reparations amid the UN International Day
Speaker 1: of Remembrance of Thectims of Slavery. Gutierrez said the Transatlantic
Speaker 1: slave trade laid the foundations for a violent discrimination system
Speaker 1: based on white supremacy. It goes on to say, we
Speaker 1: call for repertory justice frameworks to help overcome generations of
Speaker 1: exclusion and discrimination. Experts say at least twelve point five
Speaker 1: million Africans were kidnapped forcibly, transported by European ships and merchants,
Speaker 1: and sold into slavery between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Speaker 1: A UN report released in September suggested countries consider slavery reparations. Quote.
Speaker 1: This is the movement that will signal finally the collective
Speaker 1: victory of humanity, of good over evil. Hillary Beckel's chair
Speaker 1: of the Reparations Commission of the Caribbean Community Political and
Speaker 1: Economic Union, previously said at the UN govern Assembly, So
Speaker 1: I want to say a couple of things.
Speaker 2: Here, please, because I definitely have something to say on
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let me just get a couple of bars
Speaker 1: off and then we'll go to you. But this call
Speaker 1: is not just to the US. It's to Portugal, it's
Speaker 1: to Great Britain, it's all the countries that were involved
Speaker 1: in the slave trade. I also want to say for
Speaker 1: people that push back and say Africans weren't kidnap blah
Speaker 1: blah blahs and the other that is not true for
Speaker 1: everybody that thinks of African slaves, you know, and I
Speaker 1: that push back against this, I argue that you've been
Speaker 1: taught to undervalue African life and so the word African
Speaker 1: may not trigger the emotional response that it does for
Speaker 1: us and people who have not been conditioned in the
Speaker 1: way that you are. So I ask you perform a
Speaker 1: thought experiment going through all of this, you know, all
Speaker 1: your beliefs, and change the word African slave to sex slave,
Speaker 1: and then see if you feel the same way. All right,
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 2: Think that's a very powerful visual and mental stimulating exercise
Speaker 2: that you just expressed, and I hope people actually do it,
Speaker 2: or replace African with child or.
Speaker 1: Anything other than African, because you've been taught to devalue us,
Speaker 1: but you have not yet been taught to devalue the
Speaker 1: life of a child or a sex slave or anything
Speaker 1: like that. You usedill have empathy for those humans.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, God, I'm not looking forward to the
Speaker 2: show that we have to do when this is somehow
Speaker 2: brought to a vote and the country that doesn't say
Speaker 2: yes is the one that we live in.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's important that this is not just a
Speaker 2: call to the US, because I've lived in these other countries,
Speaker 2: you know. I've lived in Spain, spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time in Portugal. I know how the Portuguese feel about
Speaker 2: their history. They probably aren't they probably helped author this, right.
Speaker 2: I know how almost every other developed economic powerhouse in
Speaker 2: the world feels about parts of their history that are
Speaker 2: similar to this, even if they're not as grotesque, And
Speaker 2: they disavow and they stand against and they highlight so
Speaker 2: that so that the people know, so that the children know,
Speaker 2: so that everybody understands that these moments were awful, and
Speaker 2: then they learn and propel forward from those where this
Speaker 2: country tries to pretend it didn't happen, make light of it,
Speaker 2: tell us all the benefits that we got from being
Speaker 2: made slaves. And I am not looking forward to us
Speaker 2: having to do a show where somehow this becomes something
Speaker 2: real in the UN and the United States is the
Speaker 2: country that doesn't raise its hand when it's time.
Speaker 1: To say yay on something like this. You know the
Speaker 1: interesting thing, I have to have this conversation tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: have to add a conversation all the time. But on
Speaker 1: our other show that we do, voting matters. The reason
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court is packing down all of our
Speaker 1: rights and equitable access to different levels of society is
Speaker 1: because there are people who didn't vote in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: people who the stakes weren't high enough, they didn't affect them.
Speaker 1: And not just that Rams.
Speaker 2: We've spoken before, and our people say proudly all the
Speaker 2: time that we are not a monolith.
Speaker 1: We should be we should think that is that is
Speaker 1: kind of We're getting kind of tight out here, y'all.
Speaker 2: We are very splintered and very very particular about the
Speaker 2: things that we will support and the other side is not.
Speaker 2: They are singular and their hate for us and their
Speaker 2: disdain for us, and in their mission to keep us
Speaker 2: under their boot and under their thumb. And because of that,
Speaker 2: we took emails from a female presidential candidate and made
Speaker 2: that a disqualifier for her, and we have not done
Speaker 2: the same for the nineteen and counting federal criminal indictments
Speaker 2: for another candidate who has already been president is very
Speaker 2: very popular and leading the way to become that again, right,
Speaker 2: so that president was not polite, it was not decent,
Speaker 2: it was not honest, it's not honorable, and is the
Speaker 2: reason we have such a lopsided Supreme Court and the
Speaker 2: reason why things that a lot of you probably thought
Speaker 2: were made law have been overturned with regards to the eye,
Speaker 2: affirmative action and women's rights in this country. So we
Speaker 2: need to figure out a way to become more united
Speaker 2: on something and become more organized and more and mobilize
Speaker 2: better and getting the outcomes that we want in this
Speaker 2: country because we are losing that fight in a very
Speaker 2: very aggressive way.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. There's as frustrating as it is,
Speaker 1: especially when you have, let's say you have two candidates
Speaker 1: and you don't want to vote for neither of them, right,
Speaker 1: you still have to accept the fact that voting is
Speaker 1: the only way to shape outcomes in a democracy. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's the game that everyone is playing, and if you
Speaker 1: don't participate, then other people shape your reality too. So
Speaker 1: let's just realiity we have to deal with, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to leave it right there. So as always,
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank you for rocking out with this
Speaker 1: one more again here on Civic Cipher, I have been
Speaker 1: your host Rams's job. I am q Ward.
Speaker 2: If you are on our Live Today Instagram live and
Speaker 2: you see the comment that is pinned, message me DM me.
Speaker 2: If you have my personal information, reach out to me.
Speaker 2: I need advice people, because I have to deal with
Speaker 2: this very real situation tomorrow and I will not pretend
Speaker 2: that I am prepared for it.
Speaker 1: So you can also follow q at I am q
Speaker 1: Ward and I am at Ramsey's job, and you can
Speaker 1: hit us on all of our social media at Civic
Speaker 1: Cipher collectively. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: We are launching our lives on YouTube so that.
Speaker 2: More live, fully interactive shows on YouTube starting next month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so make sure you subscribe on our YouTube and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, hit the website civicipher dot com And until
Speaker 1: next week, y'all. Peace, peace,