Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, rams' Jah,
Speaker 1: and a big shout out to my man q Ward,
Speaker 1: who is indisposed this morning or evening, depending on when
Speaker 1: you're listening, but we are still back up in you
Speaker 1: one more again to broadcast the balance and to defend
Speaker 1: the discourse. We've got special show in store for you today,
Speaker 1: so be sure to stick around. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen it, and if you're listening to my voice
Speaker 1: right now, you might not have seen it, but there
Speaker 1: is a viral video that has been picked up mostly
Speaker 1: by right wing media that is being touted as an
Speaker 1: example of reverse racism and all those sort of buzzwords
Speaker 1: that get the right all riled up. Well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to that in just a moment. But I also
Speaker 1: have the ladies from that video, which takes place on
Speaker 1: Arizona State University's campus in the studio with me today,
Speaker 1: so we'll define definitely have a lot to cover there. Also,
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about our way black history. Fact,
Speaker 1: we're going to spend some time talking about HBCUs and
Speaker 1: their origins, and of course I wanted to take some
Speaker 1: time to discuss our segment that we'd like to do
Speaker 1: each and every week called Ebony Excellence, and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to get into that right now now. Today's Ebony
Speaker 1: Excellence segment highlights a woman by the name of Maya Smith.
Speaker 1: Around here, we like black women millionaires, and Maya Smith
Speaker 1: is one such individual. She is the founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of a company called the do I believe that's how
Speaker 1: you say that Doux haircare line and salon, and she
Speaker 1: creates an her words, sucker free hair care that devotes style, charisma,
Speaker 1: and a whole lot of attitude reminiscent of nineties hip
Speaker 1: hop and nostalgia. In two thousand and nine, after being
Speaker 1: stationed in Germany with her husband, she opened a national
Speaker 1: hair salon that catered to women with active lifestyles. She
Speaker 1: sought to reinvigorate and natural hair care market with products
Speaker 1: that delivered salon results in half the time. She did
Speaker 1: this in making Georgia, and her perspective on beauty has
Speaker 1: been shaped through her experience as a woman of color,
Speaker 1: but by the thousands of real life salon experiences over
Speaker 1: a twenty six year career. One such product that she
Speaker 1: makes is called we dad Ouidad and it's specifically designed
Speaker 1: for curly hair, to soften black hair, things like this,
Speaker 1: And what we have here is a woman who created
Speaker 1: an empire out of her own experience, out of her
Speaker 1: own desires to create things that she didn't see existing
Speaker 1: in the real world, and not only doing that, but
Speaker 1: partnering with much larger companies and bringing different products to
Speaker 1: market that are being consumed in mass by black women
Speaker 1: and women of color around the world now. And of course,
Speaker 1: Ebony Excellence exists to highlight women like this and the
Speaker 1: achievements of black people. And so today we wanted to
Speaker 1: take a moment to make sure that she gets her
Speaker 1: flowers once again. Maya Smith the founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: the Do Hair Care and Salon, And if you're in Georgia,
Speaker 1: you might.
Speaker 2: Want to stop by.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I think it's about time for us
Speaker 1: to get to the main topic of the day, and
Speaker 1: that is there is a video you may have seen
Speaker 1: about a confrontation on Arizona State University's campus between student
Speaker 1: trying to use a multicultural center. Again, it's been shared
Speaker 1: by right Doing media as an example of white discrimination
Speaker 1: or reverse racism, but of course there's a lot more
Speaker 1: to the story. My guests today are Zara, Mimi, and
Speaker 1: Ms Donnie, who are all students at ASU's campus. But
Speaker 1: of course you're all much more so. Zara, go first,
Speaker 1: let everyone know what it is you do on the
Speaker 1: campus and what you're studying and kind of your place
Speaker 1: in the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So again, my name is Sara Tacola. My pronouncer devilm.
Speaker 4: I am a PhD candidate and sustainability and I am
Speaker 4: my research is on climate change and colonization. I'm studying
Speaker 4: what I call the pathology of modernity.
Speaker 3: And I'm also the co.
Speaker 4: President of the Black Graduate Student Association and I'm also
Speaker 4: the founder of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love that. Mustani, let everybody know who you
Speaker 1: are and what you do on the campus.
Speaker 5: Hey everyone, I'm Asthani, I you see her pronouns. I
Speaker 5: am a senior this year. I'm graduating finally with my
Speaker 5: undergrad in May of twenty twenty two. I'm double majoring
Speaker 5: in history and justice studies. I'm getting a minor in
Speaker 5: political science. I'm also getting a certificate in Women and
Speaker 5: Gender studies. What I do at the campus is I'm
Speaker 5: an as official role called the co president of the
Speaker 5: Women's Coalition. But besides that, right now here, I'm representing
Speaker 5: the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, and I'm an organizer within this coalition.
Speaker 2: Very good, okay, and Mimi your turn.
Speaker 6: So I'm Mimi. I you see her pronouns, and I
Speaker 6: am a third year PhD student in justice studies, and
Speaker 6: I'm an in this School for Social Transformation. I am
Speaker 6: also the co president of the Black Graduate Student Association,
Speaker 6: and I'm also a member of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition,
Speaker 6: and i study gender violence against Black women specifically.
Speaker 1: Okay, very good. Now, if you're listening, of course, we're
Speaker 1: going to describe the video, but we need to paint
Speaker 1: a picture. There needs to be some context. Because we
Speaker 1: just get into the video, it will lack the depth
Speaker 1: that it needs. So this Multicultural Center did that always
Speaker 1: exist at a issue?
Speaker 3: No, it didn't.
Speaker 4: In fact, it had just opened that month and it
Speaker 4: was a long struggle to bring it here, bring it back.
Speaker 4: ASU had one, they defunded it. Michael Crowe came in
Speaker 4: with a new American university, and you had a race
Speaker 4: neutral vision of the university, and it took a lot
Speaker 4: of organizing. When I first came to the university, being
Speaker 4: a first generation college student. It was because of program
Speaker 4: services and spaces for students of color that I was
Speaker 4: able to get to the level of a PhD student.
Speaker 4: Those were the ladders that I climbed up on, and
Speaker 4: when I came to Arizona State University, they didn't exist.
Speaker 4: There's no diversity office. Still, there was no multicultural center.
Speaker 4: There was no place, space, programs, or services for underrepresented minorities.
Speaker 4: And so because of that, I started the campaign for
Speaker 4: a multicultural center through the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition. It took
Speaker 4: five years of organizing. What we did initially was host
Speaker 4: town halls and bring students together, students of color, women,
Speaker 4: people with disabilities, Muslim and other religious minorities, queer and
Speaker 4: trans people, and other marginalized peoples. These students came together
Speaker 4: and we continued to hear about how Arizona wasn't safe
Speaker 4: from the white nationalists who would parade campus and put
Speaker 4: up flyers to you know, the hostile place because of
Speaker 4: what a SU allowed and their and their race neutral
Speaker 4: policies that they were practicing. And so what we did,
Speaker 4: through these roundtables and town halls and circles, we were
Speaker 4: able to take this this information and develop a twenty
Speaker 4: five page proposal which was we tried to deliver in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen and we were ignored.
Speaker 3: We weren't listened.
Speaker 4: After years of organizing and putting this together and bringing students,
Speaker 4: you know, voices together in this proposal, and then it
Speaker 4: wasn't until twenty twenty and the uprising in George Floyd
Speaker 4: did Michael Crowe pretend to care about race relations in
Speaker 4: which he said, send me a proposal what to do.
Speaker 3: But we had already had a proposal out.
Speaker 4: So after our protest, which Michael Crowe comes out with
Speaker 4: a twenty five point plan which is now called the
Speaker 4: LIFT Initiative, about what he's going to do to improve
Speaker 4: African American students' conditions on the campus. One of them
Speaker 4: was a multicultural center that was only because of this
Speaker 4: prior years of organizing and this space only just opened
Speaker 4: up in the beginning of September.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm guessing you started this initiative in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: You said five years ago, what was the inspiration? Like,
Speaker 1: where was was what was the need for an multicultural
Speaker 1: center based off of.
Speaker 3: So basically.
Speaker 6: It was the fact that like there were no resources
Speaker 6: that were there virtually for students to have access to
Speaker 6: that can marginaliz students specifically, that can get them through
Speaker 6: the program, that can get them through their program, their departments,
Speaker 6: and that kinds of things. The retention rates for black
Speaker 6: and brown and indigenous students were super super low, you know,
Speaker 6: So it was just like, Okay, being from the West Coast,
Speaker 6: from California Mediay area, we have whole black achievement centers,
Speaker 6: we have black achievement counselors at my alma mater.
Speaker 3: Coming to ASU, you don't see any of that.
Speaker 6: So even me, as a first generation PhD student in
Speaker 6: my family, I'm coming in and I'm expecting to be
Speaker 6: flooded with resources, you know, as a black woman, and
Speaker 6: I go in there and that's not something that's being offered.
Speaker 6: And it was offered for me first generation college student,
Speaker 6: for my undergraduate So it's just kind of like we're
Speaker 6: we're seeing like that there's there's no clear support services here.
Speaker 6: And as an attest to the larger you know, racial
Speaker 6: resentments and of the larger Arizona community that doesn't listen
Speaker 6: to the needs of marginalized students and give them the
Speaker 6: equity that they deserve.
Speaker 1: What type of resources are you speaking about that will
Speaker 1: help and make the difference with black and brown and
Speaker 1: marginalized students?
Speaker 2: What what are those resources?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: So they're laid out in our twenty five in our
Speaker 6: Multicultural Scholars Proposal that we gave to President Crow. So
Speaker 6: pretty much like we're talking counseling services black col counselors
Speaker 6: that are black counselors that look like us, we're free
Speaker 6: for free and who currently doesn't have that.
Speaker 3: We're talking about.
Speaker 6: Pre college graduate school like for undergraduates, there's things called
Speaker 6: the McNair scholars McNair scholars. They help undergraduate students get
Speaker 6: into graduate schools, specifically marginalized undergo students get into graduate schools.
Speaker 6: And we're talking about free tutoring services with tutors that
Speaker 6: look like us that we could put inside of the
Speaker 6: center so that way students have a healthy access to
Speaker 6: that because we need extra help because our community, our
Speaker 6: communities have been ravistered by white supremacy when it comes
Speaker 6: to their education, our instercational institutions as well.
Speaker 3: So just just to kind.
Speaker 6: Of name a few programs there that we feel like,
Speaker 6: so what was it THATOK, why did it take five
Speaker 6: years to.
Speaker 3: Get they ignored us, They gasled us.
Speaker 4: They used to say that you don't need a multicultural center,
Speaker 4: you have the whole campus is a multicultural center, and
Speaker 4: that you know, we're all sun sun devils, which is
Speaker 4: really the all lives matter ideology that they were trying
Speaker 4: to perpetuate. And that was okay until the social moment
Speaker 4: that was twenty twenty and the uprising, and at that
Speaker 4: point Crow could no longer continue the neoliberal race neutral ideology.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this multicultural center exists to.
Speaker 1: Increase ultimately, perhaps its main purpose is to increase the
Speaker 1: retention and graduation rates of black students, brown students, marginalized
Speaker 1: students on the campus. And this was ignored for five years. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is something that you fought for, and people ignoring
Speaker 1: that or now I'm sure people that now that it's
Speaker 1: made national news or I guess global in some cases, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gone international. There are people who say stuff like, well,
Speaker 1: what about having like a whites only space on an
Speaker 1: HBCUs campus. What do you say, like, how is this
Speaker 1: multicultural center different from that? How do you do what
Speaker 1: would you say to someone like that?
Speaker 4: I think, first of all, you know, one of the
Speaker 4: things that happened in that video is like he's like, well,
Speaker 4: where am I supposed to go? White people are? We
Speaker 4: go to a predominantly white institution. That means that white
Speaker 4: people are centered in every single space on campus except
Speaker 4: for that room we're talking about. You see mostly white professors,
Speaker 4: mostly white staff. You learn in history about white people,
Speaker 4: and this isn't because African people don't have history. We
Speaker 4: have a much larger, longer, older history, pre colonial context
Speaker 4: that the university doesn't even.
Speaker 3: Teach, you know, we don't learn about.
Speaker 4: We don't see ourselves represented in any of these fields.
Speaker 4: And so that is why it's critical and all the
Speaker 4: research backs this that you need to have spaces where
Speaker 4: you center underrepresented minorities to increase retention and recruitment and
Speaker 4: graduation because this institution.
Speaker 3: Was not built for us, you know.
Speaker 4: And as far as like white people in HBCUs, you know,
Speaker 4: if white people choose to go to an HBCU, which
Speaker 4: is a historically black college, again we have to I
Speaker 4: think the issue here is that we're not looking at
Speaker 4: this with a critical race analysis, and we have to
Speaker 4: understand that race and white people, whiteness is a construct
Speaker 4: of power and so and black people have always been oppressed.
Speaker 4: There's a social hierarchy and black people are put at
Speaker 4: the bottom and white people are put at the top.
Speaker 4: So when we ask some of these questions, we have
Speaker 4: to are we looking at the social stratification of society
Speaker 4: with this? Why do white people need to be centered
Speaker 4: in the HBCU.
Speaker 3: They don't. They have most universities center themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to talk about that. There's because we're
Speaker 1: talking about the HBCU. So I'm glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I because this is the
Speaker 1: age old argument of why does there need to be
Speaker 1: a beet? And you know, when we talk about blackness,
Speaker 1: at least in this country, I guess a better word
Speaker 1: would be or a better phrase would be African American
Speaker 1: when we use the word black, and there's a cultural component.
Speaker 1: In fact, it is a culture in the same way
Speaker 1: that Italian Americans have culture and Swedish Americans or whatever.
Speaker 1: But when you say white, that's a color, not a culture,
Speaker 1: you know. And so when folks come around here at
Speaker 1: least with that argument, we shoot it down with that
Speaker 1: because it's just one of those things that they think.
Speaker 1: It's a very thinly veiled conversation piece that they think
Speaker 1: helps them fortify their white supremacist structures, or by saying, whoa,
Speaker 1: why can't we have a white space or do a
Speaker 1: white thing? Anyway, Mastranie, I want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: or at least I want you to start this off.
Speaker 1: So we've talked enough about why this multicultural center needed
Speaker 1: to exist, what it took to get it to manifestation
Speaker 1: and opened. Now let's talk about what happened in the
Speaker 1: video that ended up going viral.
Speaker 5: Right, So this is Thursday morning, last Thursday morning, and
Speaker 5: Mimi was in the multic Cultural Center, that space that
Speaker 5: we have been talking about, and she was having a
Speaker 5: black study group happening. Zara and I were in a
Speaker 5: building across from where the multicultural center is, right, and
Speaker 5: we were in a meeting with two ASU administrators. Right,
Speaker 5: So we're right, there's a Mimi's right here. Mimi notices
Speaker 5: a white guy in a brass pro hat and with
Speaker 5: a laptop that's his Police Lives Matter sticker, right, and
Speaker 5: that laptop is directed towards Mimi. So if Mimi's right there,
Speaker 5: that laptop is directly facing her, like she can see
Speaker 5: it from that distance, right. So Mimi sent us a picture,
Speaker 5: and Zara and I were in this meeting talking about
Speaker 5: literally the multicultural center with the administrators. Right, So we
Speaker 5: show the admin like around eleven forty five. Hey, you know,
Speaker 5: there's this white guy in the space. He's making it uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: He was doing that on purpose. You believe he was
Speaker 1: being there and being antagonistic.
Speaker 5: At that moment, I did not believe he was doing
Speaker 5: it on purpose, but when I went there, it was
Speaker 5: like a different story. But for now, he has a
Speaker 5: police Lives Matter sticker in a multicultural So that's right.
Speaker 3: He's supporting our killers.
Speaker 5: Automatically, right, So that doesn't even mean like there's no
Speaker 5: way out of it. So Zara and I, after the
Speaker 5: meeting finishes, we walk over there, you know, to the
Speaker 5: multicultural center. We walk over there, we wait for admin
Speaker 5: for five minutes, and it's been around twenty minutes since
Speaker 5: we have told the administrators about this white guy.
Speaker 3: So we go to Mimi.
Speaker 5: We're just hanging out with Mimi and there's a bunch
Speaker 5: of our friends to at this study table, right, And
Speaker 5: five minutes after five minutes of waiting, I approach that
Speaker 5: dude with the sticker, right, and I say hey, in
Speaker 5: a very polite voice, Hey, could you just put down
Speaker 5: your laptop in your bag because the sticker is making
Speaker 5: uncomfortable or could you please exit the space if you.
Speaker 3: Don't want to put your laptop back?
Speaker 5: Right, and just for context, there's another guy wearing an
Speaker 5: anti Biden shirt sitting right across him.
Speaker 1: Now, that's part of what makes it feel very intentional
Speaker 1: and very deliberate. They went there to upset the the
Speaker 1: spirit of the multicultural center.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: And not only that that a chick fil A called
Speaker 5: braspro Right. So four indicators, right, and all of them
Speaker 5: right across from Mimi, a black woman.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: We ask them politely. Even before he could answer, the
Speaker 5: other guy just starts saying stuff.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: The situation escalates. Right, And this guy, the white guy,
Speaker 5: his name is Chase Beckerman just for context, right, And
Speaker 5: the guy in the anti Biden ensured he is Garrett Niles.
Speaker 5: They're both ASU students, right. So Chase says, well, where
Speaker 5: am I.
Speaker 3: Supposed to go?
Speaker 5: I'm like, you can go anywhere on this campus. You
Speaker 5: can go to the first floor, the second floor, anywhere
Speaker 5: on the camp right, And then Garrett starts speaking on
Speaker 5: top of me. And that's when Zara comes, because first
Speaker 5: I was only talking to Chase, so I don't know
Speaker 5: why did he jump in right to defend his white friend.
Speaker 5: But then Zara comes and that's how it starts.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: We did not start shouting. We only politely asked them
Speaker 5: to leave. They raised their voices at us. We all
Speaker 5: have to come and speak because you know, we can't
Speaker 5: let someone get trampled on because of two guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's important to note, like, you know,
Speaker 4: when we told the ASU administration they said they would
Speaker 4: they were sending their situational response. They had over twenty
Speaker 4: minutes to get there. Tell me why one of the
Speaker 4: members of our coalition who is in a wheelchair got
Speaker 4: there faster than their situational response. That tells me that
Speaker 4: they did not prioritize it. And this is the nature
Speaker 4: and the history of this entire It took five years
Speaker 4: to get here, so of course they're not going to
Speaker 4: prioritize staff, which we told them we needed staff before
Speaker 4: we opened the space. We told them we needed rules
Speaker 4: and governance, of which we created last year of that
Speaker 4: the end of September of in the end of a
Speaker 4: fall semester, we had created a twelve page document on
Speaker 4: governance of the space, which we did with the whole
Speaker 4: cold which represented you know, all all student groups.
Speaker 3: They didn't use it. And so when we look at.
Speaker 4: This space and what happened here, we also have to
Speaker 4: look at all of the ways that ASU could have
Speaker 4: prevented it. And we also have to look in the
Speaker 4: context of the fact that the nonverbal aggressive cues and
Speaker 4: the dog whistle politics that these white boys were signifying.
Speaker 3: I mean, even.
Speaker 4: Before we got there, they're over here taking out their headphones,
Speaker 4: you know, looking at me, me, nodding their head, and
Speaker 4: so there was a lot of things that they did
Speaker 4: to make the space aggressive without ever having to open
Speaker 4: up their mouth.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like that is one of
Speaker 1: the things that the scale down clips of the video
Speaker 1: lax right. Which, by the way, if you want to
Speaker 1: check out the video, it's on our social media so
Speaker 1: look us up at Civic Cipher on your favorite platform
Speaker 1: and you'll see it, or if there's another place where
Speaker 1: it's hosted.
Speaker 4: Instagram has taken our our video down, which is you know,
Speaker 4: Instagram has a history of racism towards marginalized communities, but
Speaker 4: you know all of the conservatives don't have their video.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but I do want to say this, having
Speaker 1: seen the video and seeing the the Chick fil A
Speaker 1: cup and seeing the the the Biden shirt and the
Speaker 1: police Lives Matter sticker, you have to like go a
Speaker 1: couple extra steps to find that sticker, you know, if
Speaker 1: it's if it's back the blue or something that's everywhere,
Speaker 1: but police Lives Matter, that's you literally change one word
Speaker 1: from black to police. And that's a that's an that's
Speaker 1: an antagonistic stance. So for me, the conclusion that I've
Speaker 1: drawn that these people were there deliberately to antagonize the
Speaker 1: black and brown folks in that space, that's not that's
Speaker 1: not a big leap to make. And so that context,
Speaker 1: I believe helps frame everything that happened since then. So
Speaker 1: I think that with the Right running away with this,
Speaker 1: it's easy for them to to take that piece out
Speaker 1: or just to rewrite the story around these children being.
Speaker 2: Or their children.
Speaker 1: To me, I'm a little older and everyone else here
Speaker 1: but them being white and being pushed out of a space,
Speaker 1: and then now they want to be the victims.
Speaker 3: And they're not. They weren't pushed out because they're white.
Speaker 3: You know it was because.
Speaker 4: Of their offensive, drogatory doglessle symbology exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So so let's do this, let's take a break. We're
Speaker 1: gonna come back with some more on this incident and
Speaker 1: you know, figure out some of the backlash that work.
Speaker 2: M okay, and now.
Speaker 7: Watch my back like that strike behind.
Speaker 1: So if you're just tuning in the civic side for
Speaker 1: I'm your host Rams' job, big shout out to my
Speaker 1: man q Ward, who is off this week.
Speaker 2: But that's okay because we.
Speaker 1: Have Zara, Mimi and Maustani as guest hosts today. They
Speaker 1: have been involved in a video that has gone viral
Speaker 1: because they were the students who helped create a multicultural
Speaker 1: space on Arizona State University's campus and they filmed themselves
Speaker 1: confronting some folks who had some anti black messages in
Speaker 1: that space. And then right media has taken right wing media,
Speaker 1: i should say, has taken that and turned it into
Speaker 1: a huge talking point.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk more about that.
Speaker 1: Also, I need to explain what HBCUs are, So we're
Speaker 1: going to spend some time talking about historically black colleges
Speaker 1: and universities far away Black history fact But for now,
Speaker 1: we are going to do what we do every single week,
Speaker 1: and that is discuss how to become a better ally.
Speaker 1: So I have two minutes here, and normally I have
Speaker 1: something going on in the world, you know, something the
Speaker 1: NAACP is doing something like that where folks can get
Speaker 1: behind if you want to support black people. I try
Speaker 1: to give some instruction, but this week is y'all's week,
Speaker 1: and if anybody has anything, I got sorry a minute
Speaker 1: and thirty seconds left. But how would you empower people
Speaker 1: in that space to become better allies to black and
Speaker 1: brown people.
Speaker 6: We like food and we like money. So I think
Speaker 6: that's the first two things that y'all could do. Check
Speaker 6: on your people say, you know, like are you hungry?
Speaker 6: Can I can I send you some food?
Speaker 3: Hey?
Speaker 6: You know you need some cash. Here's twenty dollars for
Speaker 6: all the hard work you're doing. We know antism, anti
Speaker 6: racism work is hard. Here you go, so we could
Speaker 6: start there.
Speaker 1: And food there's a cultural component of food as well.
Speaker 1: You're breaking bread with someone anybody else we got a better.
Speaker 4: Meet so often times, you know, even in that space,
Speaker 4: why does it have to be you know, fims of
Speaker 4: color who have to go up to this person. White people,
Speaker 4: you need to check the other white people in the room.
Speaker 4: That's your job, that's your responsibility. Don't make the you know,
Speaker 4: it's always on black women's shoulders to address and fight
Speaker 4: all the racism, stand up, speak out.
Speaker 3: Don't let us be the only ones. Don't put that
Speaker 3: on our shoulders. Yeah, it's annoying that we're doing your job.
Speaker 6: Check your people, Tell your people to stop with their
Speaker 6: racist trash and go somewhere. It's exhausting for us to
Speaker 6: have to do it, So check them when they're out
Speaker 6: of line.
Speaker 5: You got anything, Yeah, I would say just repost our
Speaker 5: statement on Instagram. We released a statement about the incident.
Speaker 5: It's not getting circulated anywhere because you know, media has
Speaker 5: grasped by all right nationalists right now. So if you
Speaker 5: cut your statement and you could share video, and you
Speaker 5: could speak words in our defense, that would really help
Speaker 5: us and put positive influence right there hashtag.
Speaker 1: So a few ways that you can become a better
Speaker 1: ally right here on civic Cipher. With all that said,
Speaker 1: let's move on, because we've discussed some of what happened
Speaker 1: in the video. Actually, you know, let's take a moment.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's let's continue the video because we we
Speaker 1: got to the point where you know, you were asking
Speaker 1: these guys to leave.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that you finished so much. Donnie,
Speaker 2: please continue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So after the point when he started shouting and
Speaker 5: Zara came, you know, and it's just two of us,
Speaker 5: because there's just two white men sitting there. We're talking
Speaker 5: with them, and they he starts speaking up Garrett in
Speaker 5: a really loud voice.
Speaker 2: Garrett is one of the students.
Speaker 3: Right, Garrett is the one in the anti Biden shirt.
Speaker 5: Okay, right, So Zara replies to him, and they are
Speaker 5: basically talking about what's wrong with the police. Let Lives
Speaker 5: matter stickers? Ares is it is offensive? And they both
Speaker 5: are like, how is this offensive? We don't understand, and
Speaker 5: Zara explains in a very rational way that this is
Speaker 5: the antithesis of black Lives matter, right, And I add
Speaker 5: on to it, I say, you're supporting our murders, Like,
Speaker 5: who this basis of hurts to be? You're supporting those people?
Speaker 5: Could you please just you're just making us feel unsafe.
Speaker 5: They change the narrative after Zara and I say that,
Speaker 5: They're said, oh, it's because we're white, right, No, we
Speaker 5: did not kick them out because you're white. I don't
Speaker 5: know if that part is clear on the video, but
Speaker 5: we did not kick them out because they were white.
Speaker 3: And we did not even kick them out.
Speaker 5: We asked them to leave, but they wanted to be
Speaker 5: victims so bad they kept saying, kick us out, kick
Speaker 5: us out. And at that moment, when our voices got louder,
Speaker 5: Garrett takes out his phone.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and I saw him start filming. Now I
Speaker 2: want to say something. I want to be.
Speaker 1: I want to paint this picture the right way. Having
Speaker 1: seen the video, so Zara uh is a powerful and
Speaker 1: profound speaker, and I think that it's okay to say
Speaker 1: that she was firm in her ask. Would you agree, Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's at this point. We had asked for years and
Speaker 4: even that day, you know, for like the half an hour,
Speaker 4: like protect the space, and they weren't. So that allowed.
Speaker 4: And because we were the organizers of the space, the
Speaker 4: only reason the space was created then with no staff there,
Speaker 4: we had.
Speaker 3: To be the staff.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that happens, whether or not
Speaker 1: they say it out loud, is that there's this unfair
Speaker 1: I want to describe a quality assigned to black women
Speaker 1: who are feeling human feelings, and anger ends up counting
Speaker 1: against black women in a very hurtful way. It suppresses
Speaker 1: what is ultimately a human experience and a human expression,
Speaker 1: and so frustration anger even I think that given the context,
Speaker 1: it's okay to say that. Yes, initially, she approaches people
Speaker 1: in a calm manner and says, hey, you know this
Speaker 1: is what it is. You had your phone out because
Speaker 1: you know how these things go. I know that you
Speaker 1: know how these things go, so good for you having
Speaker 1: your phone out. But then beyond that, being firm in
Speaker 1: that space. I don't think that she counted against you.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that I said that
Speaker 1: it's okay to be firm in what you're asking for,
Speaker 1: especially if you fought for it after such a long time.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to jump in here, Zara. So
Speaker 1: these guys they pull out their phone and they start filming,
Speaker 1: and they start trying to be the victim.
Speaker 2: So what happens after that?
Speaker 4: You know, at that point it became aware of me
Speaker 4: to me that they they must have not even known
Speaker 4: what the space is. And that's on Asu. That's not
Speaker 4: all them. Because they opened the multicultural center, we gave
Speaker 4: them governance design we and they refused to give us
Speaker 4: autonomy and control and governance of the space. If we
Speaker 4: opened that space up, it would have looked a lot different.
Speaker 4: There would have been painting on the walls already that
Speaker 4: would have signified where you were at. There would have
Speaker 4: been agreements already there, you know, before you opened the doors.
Speaker 4: So these students didn't know what the space was. And
Speaker 4: so I was like, do you understand that you're in
Speaker 4: a multicultural center. You're not being centered. You're white. And
Speaker 4: that's what they're taking out of context. When I say
Speaker 4: you're white, they're saying, oh, you're kicking them out because
Speaker 4: you're white. No, I'm telling you that this isn't the
Speaker 4: space for you to be centered. And maybe people don't
Speaker 4: know what that means to be centered. To be centering
Speaker 4: means we get to focus on this group. And in
Speaker 4: the hegemonic Western society we live in, white men, white
Speaker 4: cis men, Christian people are centered always. So when we
Speaker 4: create a multicultural space, the whole point of it is
Speaker 4: to center the people.
Speaker 3: Who are already on the margins.
Speaker 4: And so that's why when I told him, you're being offensive,
Speaker 4: he's like, well, you're offending me too. But it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter that I'm offending you because we're not talking about equality.
Speaker 4: We're talking about equity, and equity means that we give
Speaker 4: everyone that amount they need to be the same, and
Speaker 4: we know black people have not been given our reparations.
Speaker 4: So equity looks like in a space that's supposed to
Speaker 4: center those on the margins, looks like my comfort's prioritized
Speaker 4: over yours. That's what a multicultural center means. And that's
Speaker 4: why I told him, you're white, you're not being centered
Speaker 4: in this space. And so, yeah, our comfort, while we're
Speaker 4: trying to have black study tables, which is the purpose
Speaker 4: of this space, is prioritized over.
Speaker 3: Your comfort, and you're you know, priorities.
Speaker 1: So the two students, you're saying they weren't together, because
Speaker 1: for me, when I looked at the video, it looked
Speaker 1: like they were together. It was a concerted effort to
Speaker 1: go into that space and deliberately upset what was happening there.
Speaker 2: You're saying that they didn't even know, no, they were together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're saying that even though they were together,
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean, I only have what's in
Speaker 1: the video, and so I don't know what the multi
Speaker 1: cultural center looks like I haven't been at ASU since
Speaker 1: two thousand and five when I graduated, so and of
Speaker 1: course I don't know that there was a multicultural center
Speaker 1: there either, because perhaps they weren't really advertising it at
Speaker 1: the point at that point. But you're saying that you
Speaker 1: don't feel that they even knew, because I feel like,
Speaker 1: if there's if there's one person in an anti Biden
Speaker 1: shirt and another person with an anti police sticker and
Speaker 1: he's angling it at me and giving her flashing her
Speaker 1: bad looks, that to me feels deliberate, like he went
Speaker 1: there with the sole intention of doing that.
Speaker 2: So maybe heard about it some way.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I definitely think that they came in once
Speaker 4: they see the space and see that it's a multicultural
Speaker 4: center and they see that, you know, black study tables,
Speaker 4: that they then decided to intentionally be antagonistic. But I
Speaker 4: think that it's also on ASU has culpability here for
Speaker 4: not better having governance, aesthetics and security of the space
Speaker 4: where the white people could colonize the space.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what they did.
Speaker 4: I mean, and then when we find out that Chase
Speaker 4: is a missionary, they were really trying to Christopher Columbus
Speaker 4: our space. Like when these two white men, one of
Speaker 4: them being a missionary, you know, come into our space,
Speaker 4: a black and brown space, and decide to you know,
Speaker 4: proseletitize their racist ideology and symbology that is Christopher columbuson and.
Speaker 6: Then take over and push other people out and ramses
Speaker 6: you know, me like, I'll sit up and stay like
Speaker 6: I could deal with a lot of people. You know,
Speaker 6: I'm a big black woman, I'm tall, you know, all
Speaker 6: this kind of right. But literally, I've gotten to the
Speaker 6: point where I physically was gonna leave the multicultural space
Speaker 6: that I had been fighting for because these two freaking
Speaker 6: white dudes were staring me down and like nonverbally like
Speaker 6: intimidating me to that point to that bad I was like,
Speaker 6: the multicultural space is not a safe space for me
Speaker 6: at this point. I feel like I need to leave.
Speaker 6: And then as soon as I was getting ready to
Speaker 6: pack up my things, they came through and they were like,
Speaker 6: what's going on. I'm like, you know, check out these dudes,
Speaker 6: check out these police stickers, check out all this this is,
Speaker 6: you know, like I feel like I just need to go.
Speaker 1: So tell me this. So, Mimi, you're in the video.
Speaker 1: All the three of you are in the video, but
Speaker 1: you're in the video, and then there's a third young
Speaker 1: man that gets up and involves himself as well.
Speaker 2: So how did that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I think that honestly, there was an Asian dude who
Speaker 6: started talking, and I honestly thought he was going to
Speaker 6: support my comrade Mustani over here and like stand up
Speaker 6: for us, but no, he proceeded to, you know, just
Speaker 6: kind of like support this white man and kind of
Speaker 6: his ideals about like how he should be present there
Speaker 6: with the police Lives Matter sticker, and so it was
Speaker 6: just really spoke to the larger like anti black sentiments
Speaker 6: in Asian communities, Asian Pacific Islander communities, and it was
Speaker 6: really sad to see in that moment, in a moment
Speaker 6: where we could have a critical solidarity moment, he was
Speaker 6: standing up for the white boys. And I think that
Speaker 6: they're trying to assimilate into whiteness because that gives them
Speaker 6: access to power and privileges. So in order for them
Speaker 6: to do that, they need to be anti black.
Speaker 1: Now here's the point in the show where I have
Speaker 1: to say something, because we have shared this space with
Speaker 1: Native Indigenous folks who've shared this space with our Hispanic
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, and we've shared this space with Asian
Speaker 1: folks as well as they all these communities endure different things.
Speaker 1: This is perhaps the only place where they can come
Speaker 1: and say their peace in this space. We have talked
Speaker 1: about the division in the in some Asian communities where
Speaker 1: some of those Asian people aspire toward whiteness, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure that that was stated,
Speaker 1: that this is a shared space for for anyone who's
Speaker 1: marginalized born with a strike against him.
Speaker 2: However you want to say.
Speaker 3: That, yeah, soultural space.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course that.
Speaker 4: Space was for him, and he helped to deconstruct it
Speaker 4: in that moment.
Speaker 5: Okay, so say that he did not show solidarity. I'm
Speaker 5: glad that he's Southeast Asian. I'm Asian, so you know,
Speaker 5: we expected him to stand up for us.
Speaker 3: He didn't.
Speaker 5: And this is this exemplifies what Asian people have done
Speaker 5: in the US since eighteen hundreds. They have sided with
Speaker 5: whiteness to save themselves. Like my people that have done
Speaker 5: that because they know if they want to survive, if
Speaker 5: they want to go up, they have to hate black people.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the anti blackness.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to that, Yeah, that speaks to a much
Speaker 1: bigger systemic issue.
Speaker 3: It's a survival strategy.
Speaker 4: But we've seen all of the hate that Asian people
Speaker 4: have endured even in this last year, and we see
Speaker 4: that it's not working. So your best option is solidarity
Speaker 4: because when we built the multicultural space, we built it
Speaker 4: for Asian folks too, and so we need all marginalized
Speaker 4: communities to come together.
Speaker 5: They're not the enemies, it's just they ally themselves with
Speaker 5: the enemies, and they don't understand that white supremacy is
Speaker 5: also affecting you.
Speaker 3: Those two white men don't give it, don't give anything
Speaker 3: about you.
Speaker 6: Yes, somebody has to be somebody has to be the
Speaker 6: bad guy, you know. So when I'm talking about anti
Speaker 6: black violence, what I'm also talking about is white supremacy,
Speaker 6: because you can't have one without the other. So when
Speaker 6: I'm saying like that, there could have been a point
Speaker 6: for solidarity. It's because you try to disassociate yourself from
Speaker 6: bla from how you're related more to black people then
Speaker 6: you're more related to whiteness. But it makes you more
Speaker 6: comfortable relating yourself to whiteness and white supremacy than this thing. Hole.
Speaker 3: Look at these black people. I'm just like them.
Speaker 6: Any moment the world has to have a bad guy
Speaker 6: and right now, and it's always been black folks.
Speaker 3: So what are we doing about that? You know?
Speaker 6: And we're standing up for each other and doing what
Speaker 6: it takes to build those coalitions and have that solidarity.
Speaker 6: Are we just you know, everybody leaning closer to the
Speaker 6: access to their whiteness no matter where you are, if
Speaker 6: you're black, you're light skinned, all this kinds of things.
Speaker 3: How close can you be to whiteness? You could be
Speaker 3: more human to the world, so it doesn't kill you.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So I think when you said that it's a survival strategy,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're too far off. That is heavy. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a heavy thing to process. So since this, what
Speaker 1: has happened to you? Since this incident, as the school
Speaker 1: trying to expel you, have there been any sort of
Speaker 1: like threats back like anything like that.
Speaker 4: The school's playing neutral, so they haven't really done anything,
Speaker 4: you know, checked in and make sure that we're safe.
Speaker 3: But I think that's the big issue here.
Speaker 4: And this is what we called out and this isn't
Speaker 4: the first time the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition has gone viral.
Speaker 3: Last time it was over a maga hat.
Speaker 4: So we have a history of calling out this dog whistle,
Speaker 4: you know, undercover coded racist symbology that we see on
Speaker 4: the campus that contributes to a racist space.
Speaker 3: And when we do it, white people lose their mind.
Speaker 4: White people across America, across the world, now, okay, have
Speaker 4: been coming into our inbox with lynch threats, rape threats,
Speaker 4: all sorts of massogyn or misogyny, all sorts of you know,
Speaker 4: fat shaming, homophobia. I mean, there's not there's not a
Speaker 4: thing you can't call me that I haven't already heard
Speaker 4: in these last couple of days. And you know, like, honestly,
Speaker 4: it hurts bad. At the same time, thanks for raising
Speaker 4: my profile, y'all.
Speaker 5: And they're not They're very violent, and they keep threatening us.
Speaker 5: We have found our address, We have found her parents' addresses. Right,
Speaker 5: we know where you're living. We're gonna come right. So
Speaker 5: this is what they do, and I feel this is
Speaker 5: what they're all capable of. They want to scare us.
Speaker 5: They don't like the fact that we stood up for
Speaker 5: our only room on one of the largest campuses in
Speaker 5: the US. They don't like that they can't understand that, right,
Speaker 5: So Zara's gotten emails and we both have gotten like
Speaker 5: dms tweets, redded twitch everywhere, or they're slapping our name everywhere.
Speaker 5: They're telling their folks they're pure white nationalists to go
Speaker 5: to zar in my profile and dm us right.
Speaker 3: So I feel that's just really scary.
Speaker 5: This is what whiteness boils down to at the end
Speaker 5: of the day, threatening us, right, but we don't care.
Speaker 5: We're gonna still keep fighting, right. So I just want
Speaker 5: to put that across too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And when the young man Garrett, he threatened even
Speaker 6: on the video to put say he said, oh, right
Speaker 6: wing media is gonna love this.
Speaker 3: So at this, at that moment, what he was is
Speaker 3: he was he was second degree murder.
Speaker 6: At that moment, he pulled the trigger on people going
Speaker 6: to our profiles, pulling up people's houses to their address
Speaker 6: and threatening their family members and threatening to come into
Speaker 6: people's homes and rape them.
Speaker 3: He pulled the trigger on all that.
Speaker 6: So ASU wants to go around and talk about, oh,
Speaker 6: this was a disagreement.
Speaker 3: This wasn't a disagreement, Okay, this.
Speaker 6: Was a This was a white man who created a
Speaker 6: heinous act of violence and who needs to be held
Speaker 6: accountable for his actions. Wasn't just a siff And we
Speaker 6: and then with the you know, police lives matter thing,
Speaker 6: we all know that this is a racist slogan. It's
Speaker 6: a direct it's in it goes up against Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 6: and it says like, no, I'm gonna discredit this, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna say police lives matter.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: So in the Black Lives Matter is a movement surrounded
Speaker 6: around like, hey, black humanity.
Speaker 3: Black people were humans.
Speaker 6: So you're gonna discredit black humanity by saying police lives matter.
Speaker 6: And you're gonna, when I call you out on your crap,
Speaker 6: going to say that you're not racist.
Speaker 1: I'll do you one better if you look up police
Speaker 1: Lives Matter. It doesn't exist online before Black Lives Matter exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's it's it's literally born out of response to say, well,
Speaker 1: to prioritize police lives over black lives.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's the end of the conversation. And so
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right.
Speaker 5: And there there is also the fact that it was
Speaker 5: an occupation. It was a small scale occupation. They came
Speaker 5: and they wanted to occupy our space. Right, So this
Speaker 5: there moves a white supremacist, a colonial move right, and
Speaker 5: they thought that we were women. And they'll also say, like,
Speaker 5: you know, when they're leaving, when Garrett is leaving, you know,
Speaker 5: I think I'm probably the most educated here. We have
Speaker 5: three four PhD students in the room. Like the audacity
Speaker 5: to think that you might be just more educated because
Speaker 5: you're white, says hetero man.
Speaker 3: That's just mind blowing.
Speaker 5: And if as does not see this as racist, I
Speaker 5: don't know, that's not a disagreement. He's insulting our people
Speaker 5: that we can't be educated.
Speaker 4: I think that's also part of the reason why I've
Speaker 4: gotten so much hate, and there's whole hit pieces out
Speaker 4: on me that actually explicitly said that I thought she
Speaker 4: was just an undergrad, but then when I found out
Speaker 4: she's a PhD student, a Ford fellow. I think it
Speaker 4: really irritates people to see loud, black, unapologetic, educated black woman,
Speaker 4: and they really they can't handle it. And so I think,
Speaker 4: you know, that's for me code switching. That is a
Speaker 4: skill and it's a privilege being able to do that.
Speaker 3: So I can.
Speaker 4: Act you know, you could call it act black. I
Speaker 4: can be an intellectual ratchet and they can't handle it.
Speaker 4: You know, because I can jump through your white man's hoops.
Speaker 4: I'm a PhD candidate in your white man's institution. And
Speaker 4: also I do how to speak to my people, and
Speaker 4: also I'm not afraid, you know, to call you out.
Speaker 4: So they really can't handle the ability to live in
Speaker 4: both cultures and to be successful in both cultures. And
Speaker 4: I think that's why they're so mad.
Speaker 1: That's that's such a So has anything happened to them
Speaker 1: as a result of this, I don't think.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: We don't know what I'm in.
Speaker 5: But what we do know is that on Friday, Zara, Mimi,
Speaker 5: and I and one of my other friends, we all
Speaker 5: got an email from one of ASU administrators. He works
Speaker 5: in the student's Advocacy and Assistant department, so in the
Speaker 5: dean's office. Basically, right, he wants to set us set
Speaker 5: up in meeting with us because he's concerned about our safety.
Speaker 5: I'll want to make sure we have the right resources.
Speaker 5: So what we're expecting is that they're going to implement
Speaker 5: the student Code of Conduct at that time, because that's
Speaker 5: what is you put in their statement. So basically he
Speaker 5: might be deciding the consequences for us and for those
Speaker 5: students right. And the funniest thing is he wanted to
Speaker 5: talk to us into vidual and we said, no, we're
Speaker 5: doing it together.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: We're not individual students who want who he can punish individually. No,
Speaker 5: we are a collective. So that's going to be hard
Speaker 5: for him.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So what could ASU have?
Speaker 1: I want to read this because I do need to
Speaker 1: have some sort of context from their side or some
Speaker 1: sort of something from their side.
Speaker 2: I have a quote here.
Speaker 1: The Dean of Students office is aware of the disagreement
Speaker 1: between a handful of students that was captured in a
Speaker 1: video circulated on social media. The Dean of Student's office
Speaker 1: will be discussing it with all involved. ASU is a
Speaker 1: community more than one hundred thousand people from all fifty
Speaker 1: states and more than one hundred and fifty countries. Differences
Speaker 1: of opinion are part of the university experience. The university
Speaker 1: expects respectful dialogue between students and all engagements end quote.
Speaker 1: What could they possibly I got about one minute? What
Speaker 1: could they possibly have done any differently?
Speaker 3: This is very neutral.
Speaker 4: It doesn't acknowledge power privilege, and you know the fact
Speaker 4: that we are getting assaulted. You know in these virtually docs,
Speaker 4: all of that because we're women of color versus as
Speaker 4: you know, these white men, they're gonna be fine. So
Speaker 4: that statement doesn't acknowledge the fact who's the aggressor here,
Speaker 4: who has power and privilege in this society?
Speaker 5: And we email them before they release the statement. I
Speaker 5: clearly email them that's Aura and I are getting death
Speaker 5: and rape threats. They knew about it, and they're still
Speaker 5: they chose to remain neutral. So there are white nationalists.
Speaker 1: Well, unfortunately that does not surprise me, and I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to say that, but you know, I've lived thirty nine
Speaker 1: years in this body, in this country, and a good
Speaker 1: number of those years I've lived in this state, and
Speaker 1: so that checks out.
Speaker 2: But with that in mind, let's talk about colleges for.
Speaker 1: Black people with our way black history fact.
Speaker 2: Now this comes straight from Wikipedia. You know.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the show, we talked about HBCUs. That sounds
Speaker 1: for historically black colleges and universities, and a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, don't know what these are. You know,
Speaker 1: this show is of course listened to by black people,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of allies to black people in
Speaker 1: black culture that tune in to try to you know,
Speaker 1: empower themselves to help create the world that we all
Speaker 1: want to see, where we're all have a little bit
Speaker 1: more equitable go at things.
Speaker 2: So for those that don't know.
Speaker 1: Historically, black colleges and universities, or HBCUs are institutions of
Speaker 1: higher education in the United States that were established before
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four with the
Speaker 1: intention of primarily serving the African American community. Most of
Speaker 1: these institutions were founded in the years after the American
Speaker 1: Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States.
Speaker 1: During the period of segregation in the United States prior
Speaker 1: to the Civil Rights Act, the overwhelming majority of higher
Speaker 1: education institutions were predominantly white and completely disqualified or limited
Speaker 1: African American enrollment for a century. After the end of
Speaker 1: slavery in the United States in eighteen sixty five, most
Speaker 1: colleges and universities and the Southern United States prohibited all
Speaker 1: African Americans from attending, while institutions in other parts of
Speaker 1: the country were regularly employed quotas.
Speaker 2: To limit admissions of black people.
Speaker 1: HBCUs were established to give opportunities to African Americans, especially
Speaker 1: in the South. There are one hundred and one HBCUs
Speaker 1: in the United States of one hundred and twenty one
Speaker 1: that existed in the nineteen thirties, These one hundred and
Speaker 1: one represent three percent of the nation's colleges and universities,
Speaker 1: including both public and private institutions. Of these remaining HBCU
Speaker 1: institutions in the United States, twenty seven offer doctoral programs,
Speaker 1: fifty two offer master's programs, eighty three offer bachelor's degree programs,
Speaker 1: and thirty eight offer associate degrees. Among the graduates of
Speaker 1: HBCUs are Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Junior United
Speaker 1: States Vice President Kamala Harris, United States Supreme Court Justice
Speaker 1: Thoroughgood Marshall, Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, and former president of
Speaker 1: Brown University Ruth Simmons. That's another talking point for people
Speaker 1: on the right that you know, you know, they can
Speaker 1: go to their own colleges. Why do they need a
Speaker 1: place on the campus? Blah blah blah. So three percent
Speaker 1: of all the total colleges, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: just like you said, you know, you could go anywhere
Speaker 1: on the campus. You can go to any college, But
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of colleges that really account for
Speaker 1: the differences in the black experience. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: on either side would say the Black experience and the
Speaker 1: white experience is equal. There's people who would try to
Speaker 1: get that off, but no one realistically, you know, in
Speaker 1: their heart, believes that to be true. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that I shared that for our way
Speaker 1: Black history fact. But you know, just like all of you,
Speaker 1: I went to Arizona State University. It was not an HBCU.
Speaker 1: I had to find a mentor to connect with what
Speaker 1: it really means to be black, to join my place
Speaker 1: among the ranks of people pushing this culture forward. I
Speaker 1: have children, so I have to think about their future
Speaker 1: and what that might look like. And just like every
Speaker 1: human being or creature endowed with consciousness that cares about
Speaker 1: its offspring, try to create a world that's better tomorrow
Speaker 1: than it is today. Right, this is our if you
Speaker 1: believe in God God given right as conscious beings. With
Speaker 1: that said, I think it also makes sense to point
Speaker 1: out that colleges are often associated with institutions of higher learning,
Speaker 1: so these are supposed to be the most enlightened members
Speaker 1: of society. These are people who are going places, going
Speaker 1: to shape society in the future, and that's not always true.
Speaker 1: I want to share a letter and get your brief
Speaker 1: reaction to it. Q sent this in because it hit
Speaker 1: him when he read it, and it took a toll
Speaker 1: on him, and I read it and it took a
Speaker 1: toll on me and for Q and I a lot
Speaker 1: of times, this show was our therapy, and we share
Speaker 1: that with the folks that listen. So we're going to
Speaker 1: have our therapy, and you know Q's going to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we came across a letter and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to put it together. So I won't give you too
Speaker 1: much in the way background, but it says, hello, Black
Speaker 1: students of our campus. We are writing you from a
Speaker 1: group sharing the sentiments of many students on campus, of
Speaker 1: all races and creeds except yours, to inform you what
Speaker 1: we think of the Negro slash that lovely inward you
Speaker 1: hate slash African Americans on campus. We are naturally writing
Speaker 1: from a non student account so that we are not
Speaker 1: victimized by the predictable cries of racism and not being inclusive.
Speaker 1: We expect the first thing you will do is cry
Speaker 1: to the administration and media. We look down upon you.
Speaker 1: We instantly know in all manners, from your language, which
Speaker 1: most of you still speak in some broken form of ebonics,
Speaker 1: or to ghetto speak, to where you're from third world
Speaker 1: sewers in America bought and paid for by the US taxpayer.
Speaker 1: Mind you, this letter is riddled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, everything,
Speaker 1: But listen, man, okay, let me let me, let me,
Speaker 1: let me finish.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: To to how you live like hood rats, to how
Speaker 1: you appear fro. I have a fro for those that
Speaker 1: have never seen me, big lips, black skin, Actually that's me.
Speaker 1: You are different regarding your intelligence. Regarding your intelligence, you
Speaker 1: are clearly stupid. And while not all students know the
Speaker 1: average IQ of a black person is seventy five, it
Speaker 1: is abundantly clear that you possess a lacking intelligence, along
Speaker 1: with an elementary grasp of subjects that most of us
Speaker 1: learned in high school. Here in lays the problem with
Speaker 1: your presence at our college. You simply did not get
Speaker 1: here on merit. Believe it or not. Students are not
Speaker 1: the only who think this and know this. It is
Speaker 1: a common fact that a black person can score hundreds
Speaker 1: of points lower on the SAT, but also professors and
Speaker 1: tas I'm sure you can see it in their faces
Speaker 1: and behavior towards you. The only reason ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of black students are at you mass, You MASS, is
Speaker 1: because you were given an easy pass, and this applies
Speaker 1: to every other post secondary institution. Not only do you
Speaker 1: lack intellectual chops, you never truly fit in with campus
Speaker 1: culture or any clique on campus, and the only reason
Speaker 1: we engage with you is out of fear of being
Speaker 1: called racist and your forced imposition White people, Asians, Hispanics.
Speaker 1: Almost none of us truly want to interact with you.
Speaker 1: We only do so because it is required. The entire
Speaker 1: history of black people in the US is unlike every
Speaker 1: other superior ethnic groups. Literally every single one, including Asians,
Speaker 1: who are richer and more educated than whites, is one
Speaker 1: of the imposition on our society. Every cry, every wine,
Speaker 1: every demand stems from a place of rejection. You must
Speaker 1: beg the rest of society to accept you and allow
Speaker 1: you in, because otherwise we would never interact with you.
Speaker 1: The natural inclination has not subsided you. People should seriously
Speaker 1: consider doing the human race of favor and getting sterilized.
Speaker 1: I'm not being facetious. You should consider undergoing the surgical
Speaker 1: procedure to remove your gonads, thereby sparing the human race
Speaker 1: exposure to your DNA. The world will thank you. Thank
Speaker 1: you for reading our letter um Mass Coalition for a
Speaker 1: Better Society. And unfortunately I don't really have a lot
Speaker 1: of time for a reaction to that, because you know,
Speaker 1: we were running out of time. But briefly, Zara, any thoughts.
Speaker 3: That's the white supremacy. We're talking about why we need
Speaker 3: a multicultural center because they do think that.
Speaker 1: And the thing I want to add to it is
Speaker 1: that this is a student at another college and you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. This is exactly why we're all here today
Speaker 1: doing this show, and unfortunately that's where we have to
Speaker 1: leave it. So I want to thank my guest Zara
Speaker 1: Maustani and Mimi for coming up and for posting the
Speaker 1: video again. You can check that video out on our
Speaker 1: social media at Civic Cipher on your favorite platform, and
Speaker 1: be sure to hit the website civiccipher dot com uh
Speaker 1: download this in any previous episodes if you missed any
Speaker 1: part of it, because please consider making a donation.
Speaker 2: The show has grown and it's growing because of your support.
Speaker 2: And until next week, y'all.
Speaker 8: A record, Yeah, like Yo, we had the label these Brothers,
Speaker 8: the Fabulous, Our Lady, showing you where Vron traveled, this
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Speaker 8: like the fight, roll my mic back.
Speaker 7: You're like that journalist, journalist too.
Speaker 8: We can strike back borders with waters from head, borders
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Speaker 8: Compare this last week Expando like