Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic scipher I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rams's job.
Speaker 2: He is joh I am q war. Together we are
Speaker 2: Civic Sciphering. That's the truth stick around. We've got a
Speaker 2: great show lined up for you.
Speaker 1: Today. We are going to inform you about a situation
Speaker 1: that is taking place in Kansas City where black women
Speaker 1: were ignored for some time and the consequences that you know,
Speaker 1: people may not consider that come into play when black
Speaker 1: women are ignored. In fact, you may not even know
Speaker 1: that this is a real thing. You know, we mentioned
Speaker 1: that we touched on a couple times on the show.
Speaker 1: We talked about, yes, we have healthcare disparities, you know
Speaker 1: how mortality rates, maternal health care especially, and today we're
Speaker 1: going to be looking into policeing. We actually did talk
Speaker 1: about missing while black, the phenomenon surrounding the Gabby Petito thing,
Speaker 1: the missing white woman syndrome where the media jumps on
Speaker 1: a missing person if she is a woman, was white,
Speaker 1: of a certain age, and often enough blonde. But if
Speaker 1: you are black and a woman and go missing, oftentimes
Speaker 1: there's no coverage. So today we will be listening to
Speaker 1: black women. This story came from our show producer, Miss
Speaker 1: Maggie aka Maggie Be knowing she do, and so we
Speaker 1: are going to listen to at least that one black
Speaker 1: woman today and bring some attention to this situation. Further
Speaker 1: on in the show, we were going to be talking
Speaker 1: about the La City Council leading that ended up turning
Speaker 1: racist to something we have to talk about.
Speaker 2: I'm just asking you out everybody else, I'm just talking
Speaker 2: to Ramses.
Speaker 1: Do you think racist.
Speaker 2: People ever get tired of being racist? But they take
Speaker 2: a break at home that they could they take a lunch.
Speaker 2: It's gotta be a full time job, fifteen. It has
Speaker 2: to be an exhausting undertaking.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely sure that it is, and we are going
Speaker 1: to have to figure out why this happened and a
Speaker 1: lot more on for you to stick around for it.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost uh q's favorite segment in fact
Speaker 1: you why don't you take this one? My favorite segment Excellence.
Speaker 2: Ebony Excellence is my favorite.
Speaker 1: Said that before, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure be getting heavy and I'd be like almost crying.
Speaker 2: But furthermore, Ebny Excellence sponsored by Major Threads where high
Speaker 2: fashion meets timeless men'swear. Visit they at major Threads dot com.
Speaker 2: And this is via the Big Three dot com. Uh,
Speaker 2: the Big Three is now the first professional sports league
Speaker 2: to be certified by by Black the US Black Chamber
Speaker 2: of Commerce as a Black owned and operated business.
Speaker 3: UH.
Speaker 2: Shout out to ice Que the city of Compton. I
Speaker 2: just don't get me started, because ram is from Compton.
Speaker 2: I'll be getting excited. I'm gonna just read. The certation
Speaker 2: establishes the league as part of the by Black network
Speaker 2: and distinguishes the Big Three as the first and only
Speaker 2: professional sports league to be certified. It says a quote,
Speaker 2: myself and the entire league are honored to be officially
Speaker 2: certified by by Black and the US Black Chambers. This
Speaker 2: is from ice Q, the Big Three CEO and founder.
Speaker 2: Quote From day one, league has been dedicated to providing
Speaker 2: opportunities for black players, fans, investors, and partners, and we
Speaker 2: are proud to be a part of a nationwide network
Speaker 2: of black business owners. Supporting black enterprise is a long
Speaker 2: lifelong passion of mind and the Big Three, and we
Speaker 2: will continue to build upon its success and uplift other
Speaker 2: black entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: En quote.
Speaker 2: For more information, visit Big Three dot com.
Speaker 1: Shout out to ICEQ. Shout out to ICEQ. I threw
Speaker 1: up the west side to yay yay. You know, it
Speaker 1: is one thing to play the game, it's another thing
Speaker 1: to own the board. The lesson that we've learned and
Speaker 1: an announcement will make very soon and be all right.
Speaker 1: Moving on, today, we have to talk about how America
Speaker 1: and in particular, the police continue to fail Black women
Speaker 1: in particular. We know that the police are not perfect,
Speaker 1: you know, but today we're going to center black women
Speaker 1: because often enough, Black women.
Speaker 3: Get the worst in terms of outcomes, the most of
Speaker 3: the brunt when it comes to most everything, especially bad stuff.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're trying to change that narrative. You know,
Speaker 1: everything bad should happen everybody, and everything good shoud happen everybody.
Speaker 1: Everybody deserve to have a fully balanced life. If anything,
Speaker 1: only good things should happen to everyone. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, but if there's.
Speaker 2: A group that only good things should happen, to go
Speaker 2: ahead and say it, like, come on, black they deserve it.
Speaker 2: They lead in the nation and everything and every statistical
Speaker 2: category that shows greatness and triumph and perseverance, perseverance and resilience. Sure,
Speaker 2: black women are leading the nation. And we discovered recently
Speaker 2: the world and a lot of outstanding categories business, enterprise, entrepreneurship,
Speaker 2: college education, college graduation.
Speaker 1: And yet and still come on, there are many many
Speaker 1: categories that are the worst of the worst, that are
Speaker 1: black women lead in as well. And these things need
Speaker 1: to be remedied because there's historical.
Speaker 2: And that's no fault of their own, by the way,
Speaker 2: exactly on those bad categories.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna tell a story here. Today's story we're
Speaker 1: going to pull from the Guardian. Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: little git, this is a little grizzly here and there,
Speaker 1: and there's some trigger warnings here, so if you are
Speaker 1: sensitive to abuse, just giving your heads up here. So
Speaker 1: from a Guardian. Woman who escapes month long captivity says
Speaker 1: other black women killed by abductor. That's the headline, right.
Speaker 1: A twenty two year old black woman in Missouri who
Speaker 1: escaped after a white man abducted, tortured, and held her
Speaker 1: captive for weeks in a basement has said several other
Speaker 1: black women were killed by her captor. Less than a
Speaker 1: month after police dismissed community concerns about a serial killer
Speaker 1: as completely unfounded. The woman escaped on October seventh, after
Speaker 1: about a month in captivity, still wearing a metal collar
Speaker 1: locked with a padlock that authorities had to remove. She
Speaker 1: told Kansas City police that thirty nine year old Timothy M.
Speaker 1: Hazlet had imprisoned her in a basement room in Excelsior Springs,
Speaker 1: a city just northeast of Kansas City, where he whipped
Speaker 1: and raped her repeatedly. She escaped while Hazlitt was dropping
Speaker 1: off a child at school, and she sought help from
Speaker 1: neighbors when she told that her friends did not make
Speaker 1: it out and were killed by Hazlit. Around the time
Speaker 1: she went missing, several prominent community leaders raised concerns about
Speaker 1: the disappearance of multiple black women and girls. So I
Speaker 1: want to start, I want to stop right here, because
Speaker 1: this is really we're talking about a story. You know,
Speaker 1: this is just a story. We don't we don't really
Speaker 1: focus on stories unless they help us illustrate trends or
Speaker 1: narratives that we are trying to establish in the minds
Speaker 1: of our allies. Right, So, we wouldn't tell a story
Speaker 1: just to tell a story unless it was reflecting of
Speaker 1: a trend. And I think this last sentence I read
Speaker 1: really suggests what we're trying to convey in this segment,
Speaker 1: So I'll read that again to you. Around the time
Speaker 1: she went missing, several prominent community leaders raised concerns about
Speaker 1: the disappearance of multiple black women and girls. And so
Speaker 1: if you back up a little bit further in that
Speaker 1: reading that I just did, remember that the police dismissed
Speaker 1: community concerns about a serial killer as completely unfounded. Right.
Speaker 1: And so what you see here is folks not listening
Speaker 1: and black women being kind of in the middle of it, right.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is something that is if
Speaker 1: I were to say that it was taught, that might
Speaker 1: not be the right way to say it, right, because
Speaker 1: no one teaches you to ignore black women. That you
Speaker 1: don't go to a class in school. Your parents don't
Speaker 1: sit you now if you're a normal, reasonable person from
Speaker 1: a background, normal background that's not like super racist or
Speaker 1: anything crazy like that. No one's your mom or your
Speaker 1: dad don't sit you down and say, hey, make sure
Speaker 1: you ignore black women when you get older. But I
Speaker 1: think that this country has a tendency to espouse certain women,
Speaker 1: look a certain way, to romanticize or you know, amplify
Speaker 1: and jealousize certain women. And there are other women who
Speaker 1: completely get ignored and so if I said Disney Princess,
Speaker 1: what pops into your mind?
Speaker 2: Cinderella.
Speaker 1: Okay, now here's another thing. This happened to me last night.
Speaker 1: I was in a grocery store in a place called
Speaker 1: Fountain Hills, Arizona, right, And I was walking through the
Speaker 1: grocery store and I ended up in an aisle where
Speaker 1: they sell beauty products or whatever. I don't need to
Speaker 1: be on this aisle whatsoever, but I just was there.
Speaker 1: While I'm there. You know, if you know me, you
Speaker 1: know I got all this hair. So I'm always checking
Speaker 1: for the latest conditioner because it does get a little
Speaker 1: cocoa pappy up top, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you all know what that means. Nappy
Speaker 1: rhymes with cocoa paps. You know what I'm saying, naps
Speaker 1: coco paps. So anyway, so I'm looking for some conditioner,
Speaker 1: just new brands, you know, stuff I might want to
Speaker 1: try in the future, just to kind of ease my
Speaker 1: way when it comes to coman and maintaining this crown
Speaker 1: of mine. Right and right next to that is the makeup.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at the makeup as my hand is
Speaker 1: reaching for the conditioner bottles. I'm like kind of going
Speaker 1: through them, and I'm like, WHOA, Okay, I get it. Makeup.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to put it on, and it's supposed to
Speaker 1: match your skin, right. I don't wear makeup, but you know,
Speaker 1: something just clicked in my I never really thought of
Speaker 1: it before, you know, but this is kind of what
Speaker 1: that makeup is for. I don't know what the name
Speaker 1: of the type of makeup it is, but it was
Speaker 1: the makeup that was the color of your It was
Speaker 1: like human flesh colored like a whole range, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't find a color that would match my skin right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, what WHOA hit me like a
Speaker 1: ton of bricks. They built this whole thing without me
Speaker 1: and mine or people like me and mind. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not a woman, so of course they didn't have me
Speaker 1: in mind. But if I was my sister, who is
Speaker 1: my same skin tone, she wouldn't not have found her
Speaker 1: a makeup product that would have worked for her in
Speaker 1: that store. Now this happened to me yesterday. I did
Speaker 1: not know that I would be telling that story today,
Speaker 1: because you know, Maggie brought this story for us, and
Speaker 1: you know we're talking about it. But little subtle things
Speaker 1: like that here and there. I think accumulate over time
Speaker 1: where we recognize, Okay, these people get get celebrated, lifted
Speaker 1: up in these other people we just we don't know
Speaker 1: that they're in the shadows of our minds, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 2: Can I piggyback?
Speaker 1: Almost say?
Speaker 2: Can I push back? No? No, go ahead, but I'll
Speaker 2: say piggyback. And I think you'll get why you chose
Speaker 2: one term of the open shirt. You said that America
Speaker 2: doesn't teach or we don't teach maybe into in your
Speaker 2: yeah black women, right and maybe not? And so what's
Speaker 2: so as much as you go into a class and
Speaker 2: the instructions are.
Speaker 1: To do so.
Speaker 2: Once upon a time, I had a disagreement with my
Speaker 2: children's okay, and raised my voice, and my son said, Dad,
Speaker 2: you can't be mean to my mom if in that
Speaker 2: moment I don't apologize to him and her and just
Speaker 2: out of sure ego and anger or whatever, try to
Speaker 2: justify the way that I spoke to her. Aren't I
Speaker 2: teaching him that it's okay to speak to wow and
Speaker 2: or other women like that?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: So I didn't instruct him, Hey, this is how you
Speaker 2: talk to a woman. But but that moment, my example
Speaker 2: to him is I was upset, so I can do this. Then, Okay,
Speaker 2: when I get mad, I go to my mom, to
Speaker 2: my teacher. That's how I got to do it. So
Speaker 2: in that moment, I don't care how upset I was.
Speaker 2: I have to humble myself and I have to stop.
Speaker 2: And however her and I are going to resolve this.
Speaker 2: It can't be like that because I cannot tell him
Speaker 2: how much I love or her how much I love her,
Speaker 2: because it's not just how he feel how she felt.
Speaker 2: If she would have said, you shouldn't speak to me
Speaker 2: that way, I can't be like, well, I'm mad, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I can't. But then I'm now teaching her
Speaker 2: and my son that this is the version of me
Speaker 2: they should accept. The circumstances don't matter, especially for the
Speaker 2: five year old who I just tried to explain to
Speaker 2: that that was okay. So even though I'm not giving
Speaker 2: him explicit instruction to do so, if in that moment
Speaker 2: I do anything other than tell him your daddy is
Speaker 2: wrong and your daddy is sorry, and then to his
Speaker 2: mother in front of him, tell her that I was
Speaker 2: wrong and that I'm sorry, I'd be teaching my son, Hey,
Speaker 2: when you get upset, you can get that off, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So sure, there's not a class
Speaker 2: that says so, but when the entire society does it,
Speaker 2: everybody looks around and accepts it. Okay, we've now taught
Speaker 2: everyone that this is acceptable behaviors not explicitly instructed.
Speaker 1: So, first off, incredible example. I'm glad you shared that.
Speaker 1: That was as spot on as anything you've ever said.
Speaker 1: The next thing I want to say is that I
Speaker 1: think to your point, what we have is exactly that
Speaker 1: we have grown up in a world. All of us
Speaker 1: have grown up in a world where we tend to
Speaker 1: run after a spouse, celebrate whatever things that look a
Speaker 1: certain way, and ignore step over, you know, block out
Speaker 1: things that don't look a certain way, people that don't
Speaker 1: look a certain way, right, And the way to remedy
Speaker 1: that is to discipline ourselves, each of us in our
Speaker 1: own mind, in our own paths in life, to recognize
Speaker 1: the humanness in everyone that we see. Now, I obviously
Speaker 1: am super rainbows and unicorns that since the day I
Speaker 1: met Yeah, that's that's me.
Speaker 2: Maybe one of the first things I ever said to
Speaker 2: him in front of other people man, you really see
Speaker 2: the world as rainbows and butterflies. This was like a
Speaker 2: month into our friendship. That's an standing outside downtown in
Speaker 2: front of what's now his nightclub. But at the time
Speaker 2: we were just patrons, and all of us laughed really
Speaker 2: hard because it was so obviously true. Ramses does see
Speaker 2: the world with a different pair of glasses, and the
Speaker 2: rest of us, sure it is to be applauded though,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be like him when I grew up.
Speaker 1: I remember that night I was doing my guitar thing
Speaker 1: walking down the street and then yes I did Endaji and.
Speaker 2: Beanwa with us that night too, shout out to the.
Speaker 1: Fellas, and I ended up buying that nightclub. Absolutely right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, back to this. The uh, the crazy
Speaker 1: part about this is that through subtle things like that
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, you know, examples of folks doing things
Speaker 1: or not doing things in front of their children and
Speaker 1: in front of each other. You know, you were born, you,
Speaker 1: our listener, were born into a society that just does this.
Speaker 1: So we're not faulting you, but we are charging you
Speaker 1: with changing that. Fixing it right. A black woman missing
Speaker 1: deserves the same type of love exposure et cetera as
Speaker 1: anyone else. A black woman who says there is a
Speaker 1: problem deserves the same type of response, you know, grace, latitude,
Speaker 1: everything that comes along with being a human being. They
Speaker 1: deserve that too, right, And as I read more into
Speaker 1: this story, you'll see that that just simply wasn't the
Speaker 1: case for a very long time, and the consequences of
Speaker 1: that are dire. If you are a person who believes
Speaker 1: that human life is special and precious and valuable and sacred,
Speaker 1: then you should respond to this in the same way
Speaker 1: that anyone else would. And if you've had to be
Speaker 1: led to this point to say, oh my gosh, don't
Speaker 1: feel bad, because we black men are not immune to
Speaker 1: that either. Right. I had to get into media. Then
Speaker 1: I had to do a story on Gabby Patito to
Speaker 1: find out, well, you know what, As it turns out,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of Oh, there's that many missing black
Speaker 1: women and Native women. Native women are go missing. We'll
Speaker 1: get to the numbers. But I didn't even know that,
Speaker 1: and I worked in media for years, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So it's not we're not faulting anybody, but
Speaker 1: we now have now that we know this, we have
Speaker 1: to listen. And we have to hold other people accountable
Speaker 1: so that they listen. And we have to prioritize our
Speaker 1: sisters and our mothers. And you know what, I would
Speaker 1: bet my life at the end of it, when I
Speaker 1: go to heaven, that old woman who looks akin to
Speaker 1: doctor Westenberg or my grandma or something will be sitting
Speaker 1: on that throne in the clouds as God herself. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? That would not surprise me at all,
Speaker 1: right one bit. And I do my best to cultivate
Speaker 1: my relationships with especially with older black women accordingly. Now
Speaker 1: I'll continue, she told the Kansas City Police. Oh sorry.
Speaker 1: Last month, the Kansas City Defender, a nonprofit newsroom, published
Speaker 1: a video of Bishop Tony Caldwell, saying that he had
Speaker 1: received information that the missing women had all been kidnapped
Speaker 1: from Prospect Avenue in Kansas City. That police dismissed the
Speaker 1: concerns is completely unfounded, saying in a statement, there is
Speaker 1: no basis to support this rumor. The case is just
Speaker 1: the latest example of a predominantly white police force refusing
Speaker 1: to take seriously reports of missing and murdered Black, brown,
Speaker 1: and Indigenous victims, especially women and girls. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to take a moment and shout out the Kansas City Defender.
Speaker 1: There's a very special individual who founded and runs that.
Speaker 1: We had the pleasure of sitting down with him and
Speaker 1: talking with him. His name is Ryan Sorel, and he
Speaker 1: is a person who fights the good fight. If you
Speaker 1: get your news about the country or you know anything
Speaker 1: like that, I know it sounds like Kansas City, and
Speaker 1: you might not be in Kansas. In fact, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that we have any stations in Kansas. So you
Speaker 1: definitely are in Kansas if you're listening to this or Missouri.
Speaker 1: So please search out this publication because it is not
Speaker 1: just Kansas. It is just an awesome voice to have,
Speaker 1: and it is a national publication just based in Kansas
Speaker 1: has since gone national. Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri. Right,
Speaker 1: So this next part comes from NPR kidnapping investigation raises
Speaker 1: new questions about reports of missing black women. The NPR
Speaker 1: interviewed Ryan Sorel at the Kansas City Defender, and the
Speaker 1: reporter asked, what is the hope of the community about
Speaker 1: where this investigation is going to go from here at
Speaker 1: this point? And Ryan said, they did not reach out
Speaker 1: to us to ask where do we get the information.
Speaker 1: They didn't reach out to the bishop that initially made
Speaker 1: the video, They didn't reach out to any community members.
Speaker 1: The black community generally was silenced in essence because of that,
Speaker 1: and so that was also deeply concerning to us. And
Speaker 1: that is another aspect that is deeply troubling about the situation.
Speaker 1: To be frank and honest, we are doing investigatory work ourselves,
Speaker 1: because that's truly how this information came about, and it
Speaker 1: was from us in the community. In other words, no
Speaker 1: police support, no police help. You know, police officers have
Speaker 1: police departments rather have like investigators and detectives and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Well, the Kansas City Defender had to
Speaker 1: be their own investigators and detectives and so forth to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this story. And it's not
Speaker 1: to say that that has doesn't happen elsewhere, but we
Speaker 1: see things like this happen in black communities, which is
Speaker 1: why black media is very important, which is why black
Speaker 1: listening to black voices is very important. You know, because
Speaker 1: the power structures that exist in the world exist to
Speaker 1: support the movement of money, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, the movement of money benefits the wealthy, and
Speaker 1: for those of us who cannot see that, we think
Speaker 1: that these things exist independent of cases like this. And
Speaker 1: the truth is they ignore things like this because it
Speaker 1: doesn't serve their ultimate agenda, which is to keep people
Speaker 1: with money and power in those positions. Almost nobody knows that.
Speaker 1: It's the wildest thing. Now, I do want to share
Speaker 1: some statistics with you, So this comes from CNN. According
Speaker 1: to a twenty twenty one FBI data report, black people
Speaker 1: make up thirty one percent of missing persons reports, but
Speaker 1: only fourteen percent of the US population. Okay, so that
Speaker 1: means that Black people go missing at nearly a third
Speaker 1: of Black people make up the missing person's report, only
Speaker 1: fourteen percent of the population White people.
Speaker 2: To say that, again, a third of the people missing
Speaker 2: are black. That's what I'm trying to, like to start,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: White people meanwhile, make up fifty four percent of missing
Speaker 1: persons reports and seventy six percent of the US population.
Speaker 1: So black people go missing at higher rates, you know, proportionately,
Speaker 1: an insanely higher rate. And some black families are still
Speaker 1: searching for answers even after their missing loved one is found, Like,
Speaker 1: how did this happen for so long? And a lot
Speaker 1: of times after a very long time, if you find
Speaker 1: a missing person, the circumstances are not good anymore. You
Speaker 1: just find them, you know, they don't get to pick
Speaker 1: up and continue. The FBI is National Crime and Information
Speaker 1: Center says the largest disparity among Black people make up
Speaker 1: about a third acting active missing persons, and those numbers
Speaker 1: look like this twenty nine thousand, three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: seven people versus white people which is fifty thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred and forty four, Asian twenty one hundred and nine,
Speaker 1: and Native Americans which is one thousand, five hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty four. And also the NCIC includes people who identify
Speaker 1: as Hispanic or Latino in the white category. In other words,
Speaker 1: this is a real thing. You know, we're not just
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the people that go missing at
Speaker 1: higher rates, but we're also talking about the people that
Speaker 1: don't get listened to, they don't get reported in the news.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, I think the result of that
Speaker 1: rather is that if you were a predator, you would
Speaker 1: perhaps pray on the most vulnerable, the people who are
Speaker 1: least likely to get a strong reaction from news, strong
Speaker 1: reaction from the community, strong reaction from those with power
Speaker 1: and influence. Oftentimes people with power and influence don't look
Speaker 1: like us. But the victims of these sorts of kidnappings
Speaker 1: and you know, this type of brutality, they look like
Speaker 1: our women and children, They look like Native women and children,
Speaker 1: they look like you know, marginalized groups. And so again
Speaker 1: having a bit of empathy, giving a bit of a voice,
Speaker 1: and listening, listening. This is about listening to black women,
Speaker 1: and this has kind of been the charge of this
Speaker 1: whole segment. Listening goes a long way. And we mentioned
Speaker 1: healthcare and that's another one that you know, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people fighting that battle on that front.
Speaker 1: And so again we just thought that kind of bringing
Speaker 1: this to your attention today would certainly help paint the
Speaker 1: picture a bit further than we've been able to do
Speaker 1: before and now