Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses jah Jah, I.
Speaker 2: Am q Ward, and you people are tuned in with
Speaker 2: us again to Civic Ciphers.
Speaker 1: Indeed, you are a lot to stick around for today.
Speaker 1: As you know, it has been a sad week, another
Speaker 1: mass shooting event, another school shooting event, and we are
Speaker 1: going to definitely take some time to examine that. We're
Speaker 1: going to ask a few questions that we hope to
Speaker 1: leave you with so that you know, we all can
Speaker 1: do some soul searching and find the answers that are
Speaker 1: appropriate for us to move forward. And one of the
Speaker 1: things we're not going to do is pretend like this
Speaker 1: hasn't happened before, and it'd be hard for us to
Speaker 1: pretend like it won't happen again. So we are going
Speaker 1: to respect your intelligence and asking these questions. But indeed
Speaker 1: we feel it's necessary to break down kind of where
Speaker 1: we are with this country, and we have to come
Speaker 1: to terms with some things that you know, we do
Speaker 1: on this show consistently and give credit where it's due.
Speaker 1: That partly comes from Cute wanting us to make sure
Speaker 1: that we acknowledge, you know, heroism when we actually saw
Speaker 1: it and everything else, So a lot to stick around
Speaker 1: for insofar as that's concerned. We're also going to be
Speaker 1: discussing our Way Black History Fact as a former slave
Speaker 1: who actually arrested a sitting president once upon a time.
Speaker 1: So for those folks out there thinking that what is
Speaker 1: happening to our former president that being unprecedented, we got
Speaker 1: news for you today in the Way Black History Fact,
Speaker 1: That and so much more to stick around for. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, this is q's favorite part of the show.
Speaker 1: We call it Ebony Excellence. So how do you feel
Speaker 1: about getting some Abney excellence?
Speaker 2: Que?
Speaker 1: Shall we? I think we shall. So Today's Abny Excellence
Speaker 1: is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly Media and we're reading
Speaker 1: from Black Enterprise dot Com. The title of this one,
Speaker 1: a New Orleans teen makes impressive mathematical discovery, or rather
Speaker 1: New Orleans teens, so I'll read this the ingenuity of
Speaker 1: children has always been inspiring. New Orleans teenagers Calcia Johnson
Speaker 1: and Nikaiah Jackson ingenuity enabled them to figure out a
Speaker 1: mathematical equation that it's seemingly been impossible. According to four
Speaker 1: w WL, Johnson and Jackson demonstrated that Pythagoras's theorem can
Speaker 1: be proven with trigonometry. High school students presented their findings
Speaker 1: at the American Mathematical Society's annual Southeastern Conferences. This is all.
Speaker 1: It's really an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there's just nothing
Speaker 1: like being able to do something that people don't think
Speaker 1: young people can do, Johnson told for WWL. She goes
Speaker 1: on to say, a lot of times you see this stuff,
Speaker 1: but you don't see kids like us doing it. Four.
Speaker 1: WWL reported that mathematicians have tried to prove Pythagoras's theorem
Speaker 1: can be proven with trigonomy trigonometry for two thousand years.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of stuff to say. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pretend like I know any of this stuff means.
Speaker 1: But these kids do, these little black girls, this is
Speaker 1: black girl ebony, black girl excellence, black girl magic in
Speaker 1: the highest order. Yeah, they've been trying to prove this
Speaker 1: using trigonometry for two thousand years, and a teacher challenged
Speaker 1: them to prove the theory. The Grio reports that Johnson
Speaker 1: and Jackson's abstract adds that the book with the largest
Speaker 1: known collections of proofs for the theorem, Atlisia Loomis's the
Speaker 1: Pythagoram proposition flatly states there are no trigonomic proofs because
Speaker 1: all the fundamental formula of trigonometry are themselves based upon
Speaker 1: the truth of the Pythagorin theorem. So they broke mathematics
Speaker 1: for the better, and we as human beings are a
Speaker 1: little bit further along. So that's your ebony excellence for
Speaker 1: the day. Now, the Nashville shooting. This is the one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirtieth mass shooting event of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: One hundred and thirty of them have happened. And I
Speaker 1: you know, if you're online on social media, you probably
Speaker 1: come across the same statistics that I do that other
Speaker 1: countries don't have mass shootings because they've taken steps and
Speaker 1: they've you know, organized their guns, their fire and so
Speaker 1: forth and so on. I remember mentioning that the United
Speaker 1: States has the most private firearms in our personal arsenal arsenals.
Speaker 1: I should say, then the next like ten countries combined,
Speaker 1: and we're the third largest country, and number two and
Speaker 1: number three on the list are China and India, which
Speaker 1: are the number one and number two largest countries in
Speaker 1: the world. And then it goes on to include like
Speaker 1: you know, Pakistan and Great Britain and all the other
Speaker 1: countries on the list, and we have more than all
Speaker 1: of them put together, and that we do have a
Speaker 1: gun problem. Wow, yeah, you remember that. I remember sending
Speaker 1: that to you.
Speaker 2: How many shootings have we had this year?
Speaker 1: Around one hundred and thirty mass shooting events?
Speaker 2: You know, there haven't been one hundred and thirty days
Speaker 2: this year yet. Yeah, there hasn't been one hundred days
Speaker 2: this year yet. Yeah, hasn't been ninety days this year yet.
Speaker 1: All all true, and again all things that people come
Speaker 1: across on your social media. So you know, the one
Speaker 1: thing we don't want to do is insult your intelligence.
Speaker 1: We know that this is a tragic thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: we don't like to deal with tragedy. But unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: the nature of the show. Obviously, we deal with issues
Speaker 1: that affect you know, black and brown communities primarily and
Speaker 1: marginalize peoples in this country, and as a result, we
Speaker 1: often deal with a lot of police issues. And so today,
Speaker 1: the reason we're talking about this is because we had
Speaker 1: a lot to say about the nature of police, the
Speaker 1: purpose of police, especially after the yu've All Day School shooting.
Speaker 1: We were very critical of the police's response at that time,
Speaker 1: and on this show, we have been critical of a
Speaker 1: lot of police responses. You know, again, we do our
Speaker 1: best to advocate for black and brown people, black and
Speaker 1: brown bodies, black and brown communities, and marginalized communities in
Speaker 1: this country, and so being critical of the way policing
Speaker 1: is done is kind of part and parcel for what
Speaker 1: we do here. However, when police actually do something that
Speaker 1: goes against you know, let's be fair, it goes against
Speaker 1: human instinct running towards the danger. When police do things
Speaker 1: that we would consider above and beyond the scope of
Speaker 1: what the normal duty is and could be considered a
Speaker 1: heroic action, and police end up you know, who's to
Speaker 1: say how the outcome would have been different. But if
Speaker 1: we're being generous here, we'll say, if police indeed save
Speaker 1: lives as a result of their actions, then we have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I also think rams is that.
Speaker 1: You said above and beyond, that's what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's it. I just wanted to go back to that.
Speaker 2: I don't think that them being heroic is above and beyond,
Speaker 2: because that's kind of what you sign up for. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to go toward the danger in the name of protecting
Speaker 2: and serving the public right. For those that actually do that,
Speaker 2: it should be considered heroic. It should, but it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be considered above and beyond, because that should be the
Speaker 2: expectation if you signed up and applied and tested and
Speaker 2: trained for that job. It's not like the military once
Speaker 2: upon a time, where there was a draft where you're
Speaker 2: drafted into the civic duty of being a police officer
Speaker 2: and then whether or not you're brave, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a lottery shot. Yeah, for most police agencies in this country,
Speaker 2: you voluntarily sign up for that gig with all that
Speaker 2: comes with it. So it should not be beyond scope
Speaker 2: or beyond expectation for you to do what this hero
Speaker 2: is the job that you applied for.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I think what I was trying to suggest in that
Speaker 1: moment is that police are allowed to be human beings.
Speaker 1: And I want to couple that expectation with police are
Speaker 1: supposed to be supposed to represent the best of us, right,
Speaker 1: and so if police are allowed to be human beings,
Speaker 1: than going against that very nature, that that instinct that says,
Speaker 1: if I go here, I'm going to be harmed, hurt, shot,
Speaker 1: die or I could be rather could be sure, but
Speaker 1: going against that that requires courage, that make a level
Speaker 1: of courage, and most people may never face, may never
Speaker 1: even face. And so that's what I was trying to acknowledge.
Speaker 1: So maybe hero is not the right word, but I
Speaker 1: certainly want to acknowledge I think hero is the right word.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I just don't think it should be framed
Speaker 2: as above and beyond. Then that's the job they're signed
Speaker 2: up for, you know, even if it is against your
Speaker 2: normal instinct. But I think that's the point. That's why
Speaker 2: it's also heroic. It's what the job calls for. But
Speaker 2: to sign up for that job and then do that
Speaker 2: job should be heroic. The reason why we kind of
Speaker 2: on this show argue against police officers being called.
Speaker 1: Heroes because they don't do anything.
Speaker 2: They're not doing the heroic thing, just get called they're
Speaker 2: doing the people thing. Sure, and that's fair that you're
Speaker 2: behaving the way that a human being normally would in
Speaker 2: these circumstances, but that isn't what you signed up for.
Speaker 2: That's why when we're scared and when we're in danger,
Speaker 2: we call you, hey, hero, people. Can you come to
Speaker 2: some hero stuff over here because we're terrified?
Speaker 1: Yeah so, and y'all got the millions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think what you said is fair. I
Speaker 2: think using the word hero in that instance is fair.
Speaker 1: Okay, good. So why are we talking about this in
Speaker 1: the first place. Well, I'll let you take the floor
Speaker 1: here because you sent over a video for this week,
Speaker 1: and I want you to talk to people through it
Speaker 1: and talk me through it because I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: actually watch the video for you listening. As you may
Speaker 1: or may not know, on this show, we take turns
Speaker 1: when it comes to reviewing videos where violence is displayed,
Speaker 1: and so so you talk to people through what the
Speaker 1: video is about.
Speaker 2: The thing that I think we do here kind of
Speaker 2: masterfully as we paint a picture with strokes that don't
Speaker 2: require us to use pencils, But why brushed paint brushes?
Speaker 1: The specifics of this.
Speaker 2: Video that need to be pointed out is it is
Speaker 2: a video from the vantage point of a police officer,
Speaker 2: from a body cam, of the officer speeding toward the
Speaker 2: danger and proactively with urgency, with haste, making the I
Speaker 2: need to go and try to save and or protect
Speaker 2: and or apprehend and or stop the people that need
Speaker 2: to protect and the person that's putting them in danger
Speaker 2: in that order, And there's no other way to translate
Speaker 2: this video. Like even if you were somebody who's made
Speaker 2: your career or your life on the stance that police
Speaker 2: are by nature awful.
Speaker 1: Which is not what we do.
Speaker 2: But even if you did, if you watch this video
Speaker 2: and that's your stance on this officer, then somebody is
Speaker 2: wrong that right. Every decision made in this video, and
Speaker 2: I think we can make it available on our social
Speaker 2: media for you guys to watch. It is of an
Speaker 2: officer who's determined when he left the house that day
Speaker 2: that if he were putting this probably long before he
Speaker 2: left the house that day, that if he were ever
Speaker 2: put into this position, maybe it was when the Uvall
Speaker 2: Day shooting happened. Maybe that was the day, he said,
Speaker 2: not on my watch, but whenever that decision happened, it
Speaker 2: was before this day, because he was ready and from
Speaker 2: the car speeding toward the scene to this person getting
Speaker 2: out of their vehicle, and like I said in post taste,
Speaker 2: moving toward danger, it was clear that this officer's dedication
Speaker 2: to the job, dedication to the public that they served,
Speaker 2: was real was authentic, was brave, was heroic, was all
Speaker 2: all the things that when children say they want to
Speaker 2: be police officers when they grow up, this is what
Speaker 2: they're thinking, far before they know to be afraid, far
Speaker 2: before they know the mortality of human beings, and that
Speaker 2: by simply signing up for this job, that you might
Speaker 2: not make it home every day. Right, That very very heroic,
Speaker 2: very very idealistic image of law enforcement and policing that
Speaker 2: children have when they make that this is what I
Speaker 2: want to do when I grow up statement. This person
Speaker 2: grew up into that person, and I'll find out the
Speaker 2: officer's name. Ramses, remind me so that we can say
Speaker 2: that officer's name either today or the next time we
Speaker 2: record officer.
Speaker 1: Michael Colonzo Colaso. Michael Michael Colaso Comma hero. So that's
Speaker 1: why I'm saying I don't have a problem using that
Speaker 1: word at all. It just sadly doesn't always apply, and
Speaker 1: in this career choice it should. That should be the expectation,
Speaker 1: expectation for the pilot flying. My plan is that he'll
Speaker 1: take it off and land it safely. That's the expectation.
Speaker 1: We don't stand up and cheer like we should because
Speaker 1: it's quite miraculous. But the reason that we don't is
Speaker 1: because it's a pilot.
Speaker 2: If I flew a plane and landed, that people would
Speaker 2: jump for joy, oh my god, the guy who from
Speaker 2: twenty four to se got up and landed the plane.
Speaker 2: When the pilot does it, because that's the job that
Speaker 2: they trained signed up for, the expectation is that they
Speaker 2: will execute that job almost with perfection, because not doing
Speaker 2: it with perfection could result in all of us losing
Speaker 2: our lives. And that is our point, people, That is
Speaker 2: the point we try to make every time you hear
Speaker 2: us being.
Speaker 1: Hyper critical of police.
Speaker 2: The job that you signed up for does not come
Speaker 2: with the margin of error that would allow you to
Speaker 2: kill us or allow us to be killed while you're
Speaker 2: there hiding and protecting yourself. So I don't mind at
Speaker 2: all my brother, my teammate calling officers who act here,
Speaker 2: even if it is just doing the basics of the job, heroic,
Speaker 2: because like he said, it is against human nature to
Speaker 2: run towards the fire. It is against human nature to
Speaker 2: not cover up and duck for cover and hide behind
Speaker 2: shelter and protect yourself. However, the reason that you get paid,
Speaker 2: the reason that your trained and the reason why you're
Speaker 2: armed is so that when these situations arise, you protect
Speaker 2: and serve private citizens who do not have your training
Speaker 2: or your ammunition or your backup, not so that you
Speaker 2: kill them when they call you for help. Because they're
Speaker 2: having mental breakdowns, or because they were driving too fast,
Speaker 2: or because they ran the light, or because their tail
Speaker 2: lights out. Are all these benign reasons that.
Speaker 1: Should not.
Speaker 2: Conclude a person's life. And even if I said the
Speaker 2: most serious of crimes in that list that I just said,
Speaker 2: those people ending up dead at the end of their end,
Speaker 2: at the end of their interaction with you should not
Speaker 2: be the case.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, you know there's so there's this video that
Speaker 1: I saw recently. Just so that we have we're able
Speaker 1: to kind of make the establish the contrast. I was
Speaker 1: looking at a video the other day online and this
Speaker 1: looked like it was a Hispanic man in California, younger
Speaker 1: looking guy and driving some sort of sports car, got
Speaker 1: pulled over somewhere in California or having tent being too dark,
Speaker 1: had all this paperwork in order, he was leaving the gym,
Speaker 1: everything was fine, and he's recording the police interaction. So
Speaker 1: the police come up to the car and they say, hey,
Speaker 1: your tent's too dark, and he says, yes, I I'm
Speaker 1: aware of that. I was pulled over recently and I
Speaker 1: got it's called a fix it ticket, meaning like I
Speaker 1: get like thirty days to fix it or something like that.
Speaker 1: I'm still within the thirty days, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: get it taken care of. And the officer just kind
Speaker 1: of goes through the routine. Okay, do you have anything
Speaker 1: in the car blah blah blah, anything I need to
Speaker 1: know about, and he says and by now in the film,
Speaker 1: he's got a backup officer there right, Hispanic mail. So
Speaker 1: the uh when when the officer asks, he says, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: I do have a uh like a gun in the
Speaker 1: trunk of my car or something like that. Smith and
Speaker 1: Wesson or something like that gun in my car. Smith
Speaker 1: and Wesson, in case you don't know, is like a
Speaker 1: company that makes guns. So he says, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a I have a gun with me, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's it's in the trunk of the car. At least
Speaker 1: I believe I'm doing this for memory here. So then
Speaker 1: the second officer was a woman. She says she she
Speaker 1: puts her hand on her gun. Right, She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: well listen, I'm gonna need to get you out of
Speaker 1: the car. And he's like, well, what do I need
Speaker 1: to get out of the car for? I got the
Speaker 1: tent is getting fixed to fix the ticket. I'm I'm fine,
Speaker 1: I'm law abiding citizen. If I have a gun, I
Speaker 1: have a gun in the car, that's fine. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. And then all of a sudden, both
Speaker 1: of the officers are like, you know, why are you
Speaker 1: being combative? And you know, blah blah blah. And then
Speaker 1: the backup officer, the female officer, pulls her gun out
Speaker 1: and points it at the guy as he's in the car,
Speaker 1: and he's like, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? So, of course there's going to
Speaker 1: be no issues with her pulling a gun on this guy.
Speaker 1: You know, she's not going to get reprimanded or anything
Speaker 1: like that because she was afraid. So the contrast, and
Speaker 1: that'll be the excuse, the contrast between bravery, which I
Speaker 1: think is a precursor to hear heroism or what we
Speaker 1: would call a hero It needs to be applauded, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing today because we see far too
Speaker 1: many examples of police doing what we would consider to
Speaker 1: be cowardly things and then hiding behind the fact that
Speaker 1: they were scared for their life when indeed there is
Speaker 1: no threat. And we see this often after the fact
Speaker 1: there was no threat. He didn't actually have a gun,
Speaker 1: he was had a cell phone or whatever. The story
Speaker 1: is right, And so in moments like this, it's important
Speaker 1: to applaud the actions of the people that do the
Speaker 1: job right so that everyone else knows what our expectation is.
Speaker 1: And once we have that kind of gold standard established,
Speaker 1: and then we can start kind of working back from
Speaker 1: there to suggest, Okay, well this is working and this
Speaker 1: is not working. If you're constantly becoming afraid as you're
Speaker 1: doing your job, and somehow that fear is costing people
Speaker 1: their lives, then we need to reassess your value in
Speaker 1: this capacityas.
Speaker 2: I think you suggested something once upon a time that
Speaker 2: was brilliant, and please forgive me if I destroyed this
Speaker 2: in a way that you said it, but I think
Speaker 2: you'll get what.
Speaker 1: I thought you meant.
Speaker 2: The officer in that video. Officers that officer and officers
Speaker 2: like that officer should be who we call when something
Speaker 2: like this happens. Hey, there's a person here shooting people,
Speaker 2: and those officers should rush to that scene with their
Speaker 2: rifles and their tanks and all that tactical gear to
Speaker 2: handle stuff like that. That same person should not pull
Speaker 2: me over for doing seventy five and fifty. And I
Speaker 2: think RAMS has communicated that before, Like, we're not saying
Speaker 2: that there shouldn't be people who come and stop mass
Speaker 2: shooters when they show up. We are saying those same
Speaker 2: people should not be giving me a speeding ticket with
Speaker 2: their gun out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: That doesn't make any sense, and it shouldn't have ever
Speaker 2: made any sense.
Speaker 1: And I think the point you're making, or the point
Speaker 1: that I was making at the time, was it's very
Speaker 1: strange when you stop and think about it, that for
Speaker 1: the vast majority of calls to the police department, they
Speaker 1: do not require an individual to show up with a
Speaker 1: murder weapon on their hip. It's just not something that's necessary.
Speaker 1: Most of the calls that are like welfare checks or
Speaker 1: you know, the traffic stops, routine traffic stops, things like that,
Speaker 1: they don't require a weapon to a tool that's only
Speaker 1: used is to end to life. And the narrative that
Speaker 1: has been chronicled in this country, deeply ingrained in our psyche,
Speaker 1: is that, well, what if something bad happens to the officers,
Speaker 1: we need to protect officer lives at all costs, even
Speaker 1: at the expense of the general public. And because oftentimes
Speaker 1: the general public that is being affected by these officers
Speaker 1: and their guns, that those individuals are black and brown.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, as as a populations, as a total,
Speaker 1: you know, as a country, everybody is surprisingly okay with that. Well,
Speaker 1: they're just kind of shooting black people, brown people, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's kind of the same.
Speaker 2: It's the same energy or by nature criminal and most
Speaker 2: likely to do harm.
Speaker 1: So of course you're not scared. Of course they were scared.
Speaker 1: They were on Crenshaw. So watch this. I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: you the hypocrisy here. Dave Chappelle pointed this out. Once
Speaker 1: upon a time, drugs ravaged the black community in this country,
Speaker 1: ghettos all across the country, Drugs, crack babies, all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, you know, people dying from overdoses. This note
Speaker 1: the third, and no one cared. They criminalized drugs rather
Speaker 1: than treating like a health issue. They threw everybody in jail.
Speaker 1: And just turned a blind eye to the rest of it,
Speaker 1: let the animals wi themselves out. And then fast forward
Speaker 1: twenty five years something like that. Thirty years drugs ravage
Speaker 1: the white community, fentanmol right, drugs, same same steel ravishing
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, and now there's programs people care
Speaker 1: deeply we have to do, we have to fix, we
Speaker 1: have to change this. It's not that you're not You'll
Speaker 1: never see people in jail for fentanol not not serving
Speaker 1: them football numbers like that, like you know if you were.
Speaker 2: Sen and not the users of the drug, right, people
Speaker 2: being caught selling this stuff in mass are being prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, of course, people who.
Speaker 2: Are victims using this drug and putting their lives at
Speaker 2: risk are being treated like they're sick.
Speaker 1: That's an extent that they should be protected and like
Speaker 1: they have value as a human being. And again that's
Speaker 1: an excellent point. So we're face to face with the
Speaker 1: duality that exists in this country. So we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about in a second.