Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Csicher. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Rams's jock.
Speaker 2: I go by the name q Ward except if my
Speaker 2: mom is upset and then she calls me quinn ton
Speaker 2: like with the extra emphasis on the oh. And that's
Speaker 2: when you know it's you know it's real.
Speaker 1: You gotta listen up. Yes, sir, I ain't mad at that.
Speaker 2: Well, listen up.
Speaker 1: We are back opinion one more game. Uh're gonna talk
Speaker 1: to you today about some really important stuff, So brace yourself.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: But it's important, which means that it's also kind of heavy. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend some time talking about suicide in the
Speaker 1: black community. Uh, this is this is what we do.
Speaker 1: And you're listening because you care or this is something
Speaker 1: that might be personal.
Speaker 3: These issues might be personal to you, or maybe you.
Speaker 1: Care about the well being of black people, your brown people,
Speaker 1: whatever it's brought you to the table on. So we
Speaker 1: appreciate you locking in with us when it gets a
Speaker 1: little heavy. So yeah, we're gonna spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about the increase in suicide rates among black people, which,
Speaker 1: for those that don't know, is very much an.
Speaker 3: Alarming thing here because black people aren't typically associated with
Speaker 3: suicide in this way, So to have some meaningful increase
Speaker 3: is definitely something that's up our out and again to talk.
Speaker 1: About it, dude, we're also going to spend some time
Speaker 1: talking about some of the ways that the man gets you,
Speaker 1: you know, the police, the good old man. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's important for us to inform our communities so that
Speaker 1: we know what we're up against and can better navigate
Speaker 1: the waters that are beset on all sides with respect
Speaker 1: to our paths. And so those and other things are
Speaker 1: things we want you to stick around for. But you know,
Speaker 1: we'd like to start off on a pot positive note
Speaker 1: around here. So cue, with your permission, can we do
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Speaker 1: Rocks for the article. Now onto Heavier Things. Yes, indeed, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of John Mayer and he has an
Speaker 1: album called Heavier Things. Just a side note, I'm stalling
Speaker 1: because this is kind of a This is a heavy one,
Speaker 1: so I'll get right into it. You may have followed
Speaker 1: the news in recent months and learned of some high
Speaker 1: profile individuals who have committed suicide. Of those individuals, a
Speaker 1: good number are black people, and growing up black, suicide
Speaker 1: in the black community has always been something that's very
Speaker 1: rare and a suicide. Not to take anything away from
Speaker 1: anybody who has ever had to deal with suicide or
Speaker 1: anybody who's ever been suicidal. On this show and at
Speaker 1: this roundtable, we are all human beings and we lean
Speaker 1: on each other, right, But it's just more of a
Speaker 1: rarity in our families and on our homes, right. This
Speaker 1: is how it's been growing up. And so these high
Speaker 1: profile names and these people who are so accomplished. I
Speaker 1: think that well, I know now having researched this a bit,
Speaker 1: that it's just a window into some of the deeper
Speaker 1: goings on in the black community. Because obviously you're going
Speaker 1: to hear about the suicide of In this case, we're
Speaker 1: talking about Chesley Christ who is the lawyer and she
Speaker 1: was Miss USA twenty nineteen, leaping from a window in
Speaker 1: New York City right after posting on Instagram made this
Speaker 1: day bring you rest in peace. That's a selfie.
Speaker 2: That's heavy.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Oh we got.
Speaker 1: We got a few to get through here. But this
Speaker 1: kind of gives you an idea that if someone who
Speaker 1: can put on that veneer of happiness, someone who has
Speaker 1: for most people looking for the outside looking in, this
Speaker 1: is a person who has. She's a beauty literally, a
Speaker 1: beauty queen, a lawyer. She I think she was working
Speaker 1: with entertainment tonight or doing some sort of TV show.
Speaker 2: Living what appears to be a charmed life is that,
Speaker 2: you know, film television, beauty pageants. She was an attorney, right, accomplished, beautiful, successful.
Speaker 2: You'd never look at her life or look at her
Speaker 2: and imagine that inside she was dealing with the type
Speaker 2: of turmoil that would drive you to that. And you
Speaker 2: talked about the rarity of suicide and in black families
Speaker 2: and black homes and the black culture, And I think
Speaker 2: it comes from a sort of numbness to trauma, that's
Speaker 2: having been dealing with the worst for so long. That's it.
Speaker 2: We never felt so low. We were already so low.
Speaker 2: It was hard to get to depths below that that
Speaker 2: would make you say I can't be here anymore.
Speaker 1: There was no bottom to fall out of it, out
Speaker 1: of I guess black reality, day to day life, because
Speaker 1: you were effectively at the bottom, so being born into it,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, we talk about this word
Speaker 1: on this show, but we use this word a lot
Speaker 1: because I do believe that it is sort of like
Speaker 1: a badge of honor. But it's sort of unfortunate when
Speaker 1: we have to frame real conversations around it. But resilience.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a resilience to black people, you know,
Speaker 1: given our history in this country and the things that
Speaker 1: we deal with presently and a lot of the systemic
Speaker 1: oppression and just you know, there's a lot of environments
Speaker 1: where black people live for one reason or another, primarily
Speaker 1: because of redlining and government tactics that you know, effectively
Speaker 1: prevented the accumulation of wealth and privileged families who weren't
Speaker 1: black white folks. There's a great deal of hopelessness in
Speaker 1: those communities because those redline districts ended up becoming ghettos.
Speaker 1: And so if we're talking about the ghetto or the hood,
Speaker 1: there's a great deal of hopelessness in the other, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you can associate a lot of really bad
Speaker 1: things with people that live in those areas. Not to
Speaker 1: say that other people don't listen, Trailer parks have their
Speaker 1: same you know, have their problems and so forth. And
Speaker 1: you know, we've made this argument many times on the show.
Speaker 1: It there's a good argument to be made about class warfare.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, we live, black lives and there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of difference there, and that's why we
Speaker 1: have a show like this and we will defend those
Speaker 1: poor people, those trailer park people because they are brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters too. But we have to talk about these
Speaker 1: things where they are and for what they are.
Speaker 2: And you use the word hopelessness, Sure, hopelessness is what
Speaker 2: typically would lead a person to say, I don't want
Speaker 2: to be here anymore. Except when you're born into hopelessness,
Speaker 2: there's nowhere to Yeah, there's nowhere for you to fall from.
Speaker 2: So that's why I think historically has been so rare,
Speaker 2: because the circumstances that most black people are born into.
Speaker 2: You're already, like we said, already, you know, you're at
Speaker 2: the bottom. So there's nowhere to fall from and feel
Speaker 2: that sense of to feel the fall from succeeding and flying.
Speaker 2: Sure that drops you into that hopelessness that leads you to,
Speaker 2: you know, feeling like you can't go on anymore. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to say something, neither of us Q or me,
Speaker 2: neither of us are mental health professionals. In fact, we
Speaker 2: rely heavily on each other for just to kind of
Speaker 2: make sure that we don't succumb to the pressures of
Speaker 2: putting together a program like this.
Speaker 1: We have to live through each article, and we're both
Speaker 1: feeling empathetic individuals with beating hearts, and so when we
Speaker 1: read about a mother who's lost her son, or we
Speaker 1: read about yeah, I mean, we've even seen stuff that's
Speaker 1: made us son. You remember that video we saw where
Speaker 1: the police officers were saving those people's lives at the
Speaker 1: party and they were running and instead of just shooting ramp,
Speaker 1: they were actually saving people, and we were proud of that.
Speaker 1: You know, we process a lot of emotional stuff, but
Speaker 1: most of it is heavy, admittedly, And we have a
Speaker 1: system where we take turns like, hey, this looks like
Speaker 1: it might be something we should talk about. Why don't
Speaker 1: you take it I took the last one, or you
Speaker 1: will send it to my way kind of with the
Speaker 1: same instructions. But I don't want to pretend like we
Speaker 1: know more than we do. We feel like on this
Speaker 1: show we at least put it in the center of
Speaker 1: the room and we deal with it. And we're going
Speaker 1: to go first because we've been given the opportunity to
Speaker 1: stop the music for a second and deal with the
Speaker 1: human beings behind the cultures. You know that the culture
Speaker 1: that you know has caused your radio station to exist
Speaker 1: in your city. You know, we are a people We're
Speaker 1: not just rappers and singers and dancers. We do rather more,
Speaker 1: and we are rather more than just those things. And
Speaker 1: so today we're talking about where we are as a
Speaker 1: people and perhaps some of the things that have caused
Speaker 1: us to feel an even greater sense of hopelessness. And
Speaker 1: so I'll move on. I do want to say his name,
Speaker 1: but he is the son of Regina King. Regina King
Speaker 1: is a famous actress. We know who she is, even
Speaker 1: if screenwriter and director. To all the aboves, she's the truth.
Speaker 1: Her son's name is Ian Alexander Junior, and he took
Speaker 1: his own life in January on his twenty sixth birthday.
Speaker 1: And you know, here's a post that I have on
Speaker 1: Regina's fiftieth birthday. This was in twenty twenty one. He
Speaker 1: put Happy birthday to my co So extremely proud of you,
Speaker 1: inspired by your love, artistry and gangsta. To be able
Speaker 1: to watch you take this lifetime by its neck and
Speaker 1: make it yours is something I will forever be grateful for.
Speaker 1: But to have you as my mother is the greatest
Speaker 1: gift I could ask for. To be all that you
Speaker 1: are while always having the time to be their love
Speaker 1: and support me unconditionally is truly remarkable. The whole Marvel
Speaker 1: universe ain't got s word on you. You're the real superhero.
Speaker 1: Love you Mom, this day and every day, yo day.
Speaker 1: So this is a message that Ian Alexander Junior wrote
Speaker 1: to his mom on social media on her birthday in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, and then earlier this year he took
Speaker 1: his own life. And so you know, from the outside
Speaker 1: looking in, it always feels like, why would a person
Speaker 1: do that? And you know, we're often left with more
Speaker 1: questions and answers, you know, in the wake of someone
Speaker 1: committing suicide. So I don't think that we're going to
Speaker 1: we're not even trying to solve this or come up
Speaker 1: with any sort of solutions. But I think that by
Speaker 1: talking about it, maybe it encourages the conversations in your
Speaker 1: cities and in your households and you know, car rides
Speaker 1: and just seek someone to talk to because you know
Speaker 1: there's this you know, we get in trouble for saying
Speaker 1: for standing up for ourselves as black people, saying black
Speaker 1: lives matter. You know, people say all lives. People say, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you deal with black on black crime? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And we do it just doesn't
Speaker 1: get the same type of media coverage as when we
Speaker 1: stand up to police oppression or government oppression or systemic oppression. Right,
Speaker 1: and this is another example of us standing up for
Speaker 1: black lives. We're standing up for black lives against suicide,
Speaker 1: and this, of course will not get the same media attention.
Speaker 1: I had to compile all these into a segment that
Speaker 1: now exists, as these are not just individual stories. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a whole message that we're using this platform
Speaker 1: to say, hey, there's something happening here.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing is the polarity that exists in this story. Okay, right,
Speaker 2: The same thing that may suicide so rare in the
Speaker 2: black community is probably why it's becoming prevalent now. Feeling
Speaker 2: like there's no one that can relate to how you feel.
Speaker 2: You don't know a lot of people that outwardly even
Speaker 2: talk about being depressed, let alone wanting to kill themselves,
Speaker 2: and not feeling like you can express that to someone
Speaker 2: and not be looked at as quote unquote crazy or
Speaker 2: not be judged or kind of tossed to the side
Speaker 2: or disregarded because of your mental issues. There's that fear
Speaker 2: because the stigma that exists around mental health in our
Speaker 2: communities is a lot different than others there, it is. Right,
Speaker 2: So when you don't feel like you can even say
Speaker 2: out loud that you feel like you're drowning, and you
Speaker 2: just drown by yourself, in your own head, in your
Speaker 2: own feelings, I think it reverses the polarity on that
Speaker 2: sense of hopelessness, right, and you may feel like I
Speaker 2: was born in it, but the idea that I can't
Speaker 2: get out of it too much for me.
Speaker 1: Now, let me make sure I say this because you
Speaker 1: know I have one more sort of higher profile name
Speaker 1: in recent months. In fact, i'll say it right now.
Speaker 1: Moses J. Moseley, who's famous for playing one of the
Speaker 1: zombies in The Walking Dead, has they suspected suicide. And
Speaker 1: he was just thirty one years old. So again a young,
Speaker 1: younger person taking his own life. Now, I think what
Speaker 1: you said to you was really important because these are
Speaker 1: the names that we know, these are the sources we
Speaker 1: can point to. But the fact is, and we'll get
Speaker 1: there a little bit further along in the segment, but
Speaker 1: the fact is that suicide suicide rates for black men
Speaker 1: and women are rising. For those that know I have
Speaker 1: another show, or for those who don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: I have another show that I do for Ieart Media,
Speaker 1: and I recently did a segment that I started for
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher, and you know, they were able to dedicate
Speaker 1: a lot of resources in short order for this topic
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that really had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with what we're talking about today, which basically was
Speaker 1: mental health for black people. And so I got tons
Speaker 1: of statistics. And this isn't really a statistics type of
Speaker 1: show that you're listening to right now, So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to bog you down with statistics in the way
Speaker 1: that the other show is kind of built around hard numbers.
Speaker 1: But suffice it to say that this is not a
Speaker 1: black celebrities segment. This is not a Black wealthy people segment,
Speaker 1: nor is it a Black youngish people youngish people segment,
Speaker 1: you know, early thirties, late twenties. This is Black people
Speaker 1: in general. And one of the things that I suspected,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's hard to kind of point to
Speaker 1: what it could be because there's so many things that
Speaker 1: black people have been resilient about for so long that
Speaker 1: who knows which piece of the house is crumbling, you know,
Speaker 1: because the whole thing feels like it's been under a
Speaker 1: lot of stress. But in the past few years, everybody
Speaker 1: can put to the pandemic, you know. But in the
Speaker 1: past few years, even before the pandemic, we dealt with.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: Starting in twenty twelve, we saw Trayvon Martin, and Trayvon
Speaker 1: Martin lost his life. And you might not remember this,
Speaker 1: but the reason that Trayvon Martin was such a big
Speaker 1: deal is because that was like the eighteenth time that
Speaker 1: some black child was killed by police or some other
Speaker 1: form of law enforcement, you know. And by the time
Speaker 1: Trayvon Martin's name, you know, made headlines, people were fed
Speaker 1: up with it so much so that the phrase black
Speaker 1: Lives matter was born out of that eighteenth tragedy. In
Speaker 1: the preceding few years, and obviously, you know, black people
Speaker 1: have been getting killed by the police since the beginning
Speaker 1: of police in this country, so it's not a news story.
Speaker 1: But you know, once it gets filmed, once it gets sensationalized,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's a newer era of people that
Speaker 1: can share things on social media. So black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: started out as a hashtag, it caught fire, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So this is where you see the modern movement born.
Speaker 1: But it started before Trayvon Martin, very much so. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's before the pandemic, right, and then since Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 1: You listening to my voice right now, you can name
Speaker 1: six eight people black people who've lost their lives at
Speaker 1: the top of your head. But there's one hundreds, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like there's yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Because of the nature the way that policing is done
Speaker 1: in this country, the police have guns, and this is
Speaker 1: a gun wielding society, and it's very different than other
Speaker 1: places around the world where they don't have those numbers
Speaker 1: of imprisonment, of police shootings, of school shootings, of whatever. Right.
Speaker 1: And you know, the sad part about this is that
Speaker 1: there always exists, no matter what, a narrative somewhere, popular
Speaker 1: narrative somewhere that he deserved it. It was his fault.
Speaker 1: Or they need to do they need to get dads
Speaker 1: in the home. That's a myth, they need to do whatever.
Speaker 1: I think the most startling thing about Trayvon Martin was
Speaker 1: that he wasn't killed by law enforcement. Yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: was killed by.
Speaker 2: A citizen deemed himself a vigilante or a crime fighter
Speaker 2: or crime stopper or batman or whatever he thought he
Speaker 2: was doing walking around for pursue this kid and killed him.
Speaker 2: So for everyone who says that all lives matter, you
Speaker 2: can't find an example like that of anything other than
Speaker 2: a black child. Yeah, for they be pursued by a
Speaker 2: person talking to law enforcement, being told by law enforcement
Speaker 2: not to pursue them, pursuing them anyway, killing them and
Speaker 2: living the rest of his day is free, showing us
Speaker 2: how insignificant our lives are, forcing us to not state
Speaker 2: or declare, but almost plead like, hey, you guys, like
Speaker 2: we matter, right, and for that to be met with, well,
Speaker 2: you know, all lives matter, every everybody matters.
Speaker 1: I remember Tommy Lorenz called it the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: More movement, and I'm like, who said that? Anyway, this
Speaker 1: is our reality. I do want to I want to
Speaker 1: shout this page out. It's a it's an Instagram page,
Speaker 1: but we follow it. It's called black Media page. And
Speaker 1: this was kind of like the nexus of this segment.
Speaker 1: So I have a blurb from them how scientific it
Speaker 1: is or not, you know, I don't know. I believe
Speaker 1: it to be so, but that's not what I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure that it's stated because that's where
Speaker 1: the idea originated. They have a post that said Blackmail's
Speaker 1: suicides are rising faster than any other racial group. I
Speaker 1: think I've read that somewhere else too while I was
Speaker 1: researching this. While of suicide and anxiety have risen sharply
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, A recent study from the journal JAMA
Speaker 1: finds that suicide attempts have been rising at an alarming
Speaker 1: rate long before COVID nineteen. The study found black males
Speaker 1: had the highest increase in suicide attempts compared to any
Speaker 1: other race in the group, increasing nearly eighty percent. The
Speaker 1: study said young black men face financial hardship, among other stressors,
Speaker 1: and may have untreated mental health needs. I also want
Speaker 1: to mention the ex president and his supporters and the
Speaker 1: tone that was reintroduced into the country and the alarming
Speaker 1: response to what could be described as black people versus
Speaker 1: the police. You know, because police are not losing their
Speaker 1: lives at the same rate as black people, and they
Speaker 1: are if they do lose their lives, there is some
Speaker 1: accountability building into the equation for the person that takes
Speaker 1: the police officer's.
Speaker 2: Life, and sadly or strangely enough, some of that accountability
Speaker 2: comes at the hands of the police in the same
Speaker 2: way their retribution. They seek it out themselves. You know,
Speaker 2: you're talking about violent accountability, not just being brought to justice,
Speaker 2: but sometimes hunted down and killed like a revenge tactic
Speaker 2: from a gang.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm from California, so the police were
Speaker 1: often regarded in the same way as street gangs because
Speaker 1: oftentimes they behaved in such a way. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things going on in the world. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I think they were moving toward a more positive, you know,
Speaker 1: state of the country. But we need to have conversations,
Speaker 1: we need to have friends, we need to share information,
Speaker 1: we need to seek out mental health. And this is
Speaker 1: our contribution to making sure that none of those things
Speaker 1: feel strange. But this is a good enough time for
Speaker 1: us to take a pause for the cause, So stick
Speaker 1: around with coming back on more civic cipher right after
Speaker 1: this