Speaker 1: And now.
Speaker 2: Watching my mic back like we can strike with waters
Speaker 2: from headquarters behind him and the sides in the border.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're just tuning in to civic cipher, I
Speaker 1: am host Rams's job. I go by the nine key
Speaker 1: ward host indeed, and let need you to stick around
Speaker 1: a little bit more because we still have a lot
Speaker 1: more show in store for you. We will be talking
Speaker 1: about the killers of Ahmad Aubrey and their sentence, which
Speaker 1: is a rather different outcome. And you know, to be journalists,
Speaker 1: we have to be fair to you know, make sure
Speaker 1: that we tell the stories, all the stories in the
Speaker 1: right way. And so we'll spend some time talking about that. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, I come across a lot of data, a
Speaker 1: lot of statistics and things like that. So I do
Speaker 1: want to tell a story. I believe that it is
Speaker 1: the celebration of the black mind. So we're going to
Speaker 1: do that for our way black fact and discuss I
Speaker 1: named Thomas Fuller aka the Virginia Calculator in a few
Speaker 1: more minutes. But first up, we are going to discuss
Speaker 1: how to become a better ally, all right, so we
Speaker 1: work in mediad indeed, yes, yes, sir, And so this
Speaker 1: is going to get a little technical for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't really follow media, but there's a company.
Speaker 1: It's called Nielsen. Nielsen is the company that gives us
Speaker 1: all of our ratings. Let's just know how we're doing. Right.
Speaker 1: Nielsen has chosen to become a better ally, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna shout them out. I'm going to read this for you.
Speaker 1: This is from inside radio dot Com. We're radio nerds,
Speaker 1: so we read this sort of stuff, but we had
Speaker 1: to share it all right. In a move that will
Speaker 1: potentially make radio ratings more accessible to more station owners,
Speaker 1: Nielsen has launched a new program geared at helping diverse
Speaker 1: owned media companies raise their profile with advertisers and agencies.
Speaker 1: This diverse media equity program will also include helping minority
Speaker 1: own radio stations to be measured even if they are
Speaker 1: unable to afford a subscription, as well as the launch
Speaker 1: of the first ever report on diverse owned media reach
Speaker 1: and audience profiles quote. Nielsen is investing in diverse owned
Speaker 1: media by getting rid of historical barriers and traditional measurement.
Speaker 1: CEO David Kenny said in a statement, advertisers and the
Speaker 1: media industry recognize the need to be more inclusive and
Speaker 1: want to ensure they reach an audience that is increasingly diverse.
Speaker 1: We are leading the charge to develop a consistent framework
Speaker 1: and metrics to help demonstrate the value of diverse own,
Speaker 1: diverse owned media. What that means basically is information is expensive.
Speaker 1: To get ratings to know how your programs are doing,
Speaker 1: that's expensive. Right, They're making those ratings more accessible to
Speaker 1: black owned radio stations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And for those that follow me a little bit more closely,
Speaker 1: you might know that I work with the Black and
Speaker 1: Information Network as my Monday through Friday and then my
Speaker 1: Saturday or Sunday or whatever day that civic cipher errs
Speaker 1: in your city is sort of our passion project. You
Speaker 1: and our passion project here one time for the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network. Yes, indeed, got to say that. So that
Speaker 1: data making its way to black owned radio stations and
Speaker 1: minority owned radio stations, whether or not they can afford it,
Speaker 1: is a huge win because it helps those stations have
Speaker 1: get more up to speed, have a little bit more
Speaker 1: we're talking gospel sting, We're talking stations that you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really they could do better, They can make
Speaker 1: better decisions. These aren't you going to change the landscape
Speaker 1: and it's not being unfair. This is this is a
Speaker 1: brilliant move and it's a it's a kind move, and
Speaker 1: it deserves to be shouted out. So shout out to Nielsen.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you want to learn how to
Speaker 1: become a better ally, you know, take a page out
Speaker 1: of that book right there. All right, moving on, let
Speaker 1: us talk about this story from CNN dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: A jury has found the three white men who killed
Speaker 1: a Maud Aubrey in twenty twenty guilty of all charges
Speaker 1: in their federal hate crimes trial, backing the prosecutor's case
Speaker 1: that the men chased the twenty five year old through
Speaker 1: the streets of a Georgia neighborhood because he was black.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say these people's names, because I
Speaker 1: got beef. The men were found guilty of interference of rights,
Speaker 1: a federal hate crime, and attempted kidnapping. The verity comes
Speaker 1: nearly two years to the day after Aubrey was killed
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood outside Brunswick on February twenty third, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and it's months after the three were convicted in a
Speaker 1: state court in November of all right, so let's bring
Speaker 1: ourselves up to speed, so we knew that they were
Speaker 1: convicted in the state court. Right then they had to
Speaker 1: go to trial, like a federal trial or something like that,
Speaker 1: and they were gonna accept some sort of plea that
Speaker 1: would have allowed them basically a lenient sentence. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a court or.
Speaker 3: The idea was that they'd confessed that they did this
Speaker 3: for the reasons that they did it, Okay, so accepting
Speaker 3: a lesser charge for doing so Okay, Hey, we killed
Speaker 3: that guy because he was black, and we'll admit that.
Speaker 1: But you guys got to take it easy on us. Cool.
Speaker 1: I think you for saying that, because it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then they were like, nah, we're not going
Speaker 3: to take it easy on you for that what you're
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: But I remember that that came out in the news
Speaker 1: and a lot of people and sort of our circles
Speaker 1: were kind of worried. I thought it was hurt. It
Speaker 1: was bad, Yeah, because I was sure.
Speaker 3: That that was the worst thing I'd ever heard of, Like, wait,
Speaker 3: what m somebody I think must have felt like I felt, though.
Speaker 1: Well, unlike you know, the Kim Potter judge, unlike the
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse judge, this judge in Georgia, or wait a minute, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the judge in Georgia. I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: the judge is now, but that judge in Georgia was
Speaker 1: a g right. I remember we talked about on the show.
Speaker 1: He made the court sit in silence for the amount
Speaker 1: of time that the men chased off a mod just
Speaker 1: so that everyone in the courtroom would know how long
Speaker 1: these people were making the decision to end this man's
Speaker 1: life and otherwise interfere with his liberty. Right. This is
Speaker 1: one story where we can look at it and say
Speaker 1: we don't want to say it's good, because it's not good,
Speaker 1: but we can say, now you're doing your job. I'd
Speaker 1: like to say it's good well and should be normal normal.
Speaker 1: That's that's what That's what I'm trying to say. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not that I want to make it good
Speaker 1: like hahaha, but it's just it's fair.
Speaker 3: It's not celebratory in a trivial way. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 3: I didn't want to use work goods. It's the sense
Speaker 3: of accountability that should exist. You should not be able
Speaker 3: to murder people with impunity because you felt like it. Yes, like,
Speaker 3: that's not how this is supposed to go, except for
Speaker 3: when the victims look like us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, disproportionately black people and they don't get the the
Speaker 1: perpetrators look like them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can turn back the page to the story
Speaker 3: we just or the segment that we know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I can. Yeah, No, absolutely, we can rewind.
Speaker 3: We gotta view, we can rewind. We have we keep
Speaker 3: our shows. Yeah, absolutely, so we can rewind. Okay, never mind, Well.
Speaker 1: That reminds me too. By the way, quick blood. If
Speaker 1: you just tuned into the show, or you catch it
Speaker 1: halfway through, you missed last week, or you want to
Speaker 1: catch up on another Apple, so hit the website, Citecyper
Speaker 1: dot com because we do take the radio show and
Speaker 1: we make it available for download on your favorite podcasting
Speaker 1: platform via our partnership with the Black Information Network pacifica
Speaker 1: radio network, iHeartMedia, you know, you name it. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot of partners and we have a lot of listeners,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate that because we never expected for things
Speaker 1: to get to where they are, and now we're starting
Speaker 1: to feel a little bit more indispensable in the media space,
Speaker 1: at least for the things that we talk about, and
Speaker 1: that's because of the support of our listeners. So we
Speaker 1: hope we continue to do right by you and we
Speaker 1: continue to be fair in this space. That's why I
Speaker 1: love the fact that you're realistic and I'm optimistic, because
Speaker 1: I can't have my head in the clouds and we
Speaker 1: can't just be dooming gloom all the time either. So anyway,
Speaker 1: back to the story, here's a quote, thank God for
Speaker 1: this good morning that Wanda and Marcus have prayed for.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining Wanda and Marcus are the parents of them all.
Speaker 1: It is because of their conviction to get full justice,
Speaker 1: not partial justice, that we get to celebrate this moment.
Speaker 1: Attorney Ben Crump told reporters the gentleman who took Ahmud's
Speaker 1: life had agreed to plead guilty before a trial, but
Speaker 1: the judge overseeing the case rejected the deal after Aubrey's
Speaker 1: family raised concerns that the resulting sentence could lead to
Speaker 1: favorable imprisonment conditions. That's what I was trying to say earlier.
Speaker 1: US Attorney General Merrick Garland, responding in Washington Tuesday to
Speaker 1: a reporter's question about Cooper Jones's statement appeared to choke
Speaker 1: up as he answered, quote, I cannot imagine the pain
Speaker 1: that a mother feels to have her son run down
Speaker 1: and then gunned down while taking a jog on a
Speaker 1: public street, Garland said at a Justice Department news conference.
Speaker 1: My heart goes out to her into the family. That's
Speaker 1: really all I can say about this. Now. I know
Speaker 1: we're not talking to these people because I don't imagine
Speaker 1: these people listen to the type of stations that carry
Speaker 1: this show, and if they do, they certainly probably aren't
Speaker 1: listening to our show. But I do want to say
Speaker 1: something so that it is said. I've heard this before,
Speaker 1: and I may have even shared it on the show before,
Speaker 1: but many people in this instance had taken issue with
Speaker 1: Ahmud Aubrey his jog quote unquote, and his attire whilst
Speaker 1: jogging right that he did not look like a jogger.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's funny, we went on a jog earlier. You
Speaker 3: stole it from out of my brain. Ramses, go ahead
Speaker 3: talking about it. We went for a jog today in
Speaker 3: one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the state of Arizona. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we did not look like we were dressed appropriately for
Speaker 3: a jog either.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing I have.
Speaker 3: On almost slacks and a hoodie and a hat and
Speaker 3: a jacket, and I didn't. I actually did have on
Speaker 3: some runners, and I did not have on jogging or
Speaker 3: workout clothes. So I'm sure we could have been none
Speaker 3: of us painted with the same brush.
Speaker 1: But what were we doing. It was a bona fide jog.
Speaker 1: We're taking care of our fitness. We went out to
Speaker 1: talk and discuss business and you know, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of business together, and then you know, throw some
Speaker 1: ideas around about the show and get some exercise. That's
Speaker 1: what we were doing.
Speaker 3: And turns out we did some pretty dangerous and I
Speaker 3: didn't think about it in that scope until now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's why it was so it's important to
Speaker 1: share this too. There was a woman that drove by
Speaker 1: us today. You want to tell the story.
Speaker 3: Yes, there was a young lady I'll call her, but no,
Speaker 3: a young lady that's old enough to be our mother's
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 1: There you go, and a.
Speaker 3: Very very expensive automobile who gave us a very joyous
Speaker 3: smile and a very courteous wave as she passed us.
Speaker 1: Okay, stop, stop now. If you're listening to that story,
Speaker 1: you think, well, yeah, that's that's normal. Nothing crazy there.
Speaker 1: But if you're us in that neighborhood, maybe not dressed
Speaker 1: in what. I don't know, who goes shopping for running clothes.
Speaker 1: I just run in the clothes that I'm wearing. That's
Speaker 1: I You know, I don't I play basketball and jeans
Speaker 1: why not? You know, I'm not an athlete, so I
Speaker 1: don't need to prove anything. But if you're us and
Speaker 1: you hear that story, you're like, wow, that's amazing that
Speaker 1: that's woman who's that age and that type of vehicle
Speaker 1: and that type of neighborhood was happy when she saw
Speaker 1: you and she waved. This lady was not black, by
Speaker 1: the way. Oh yeah, no, she was not black. It
Speaker 1: was such a surprise, right, It goes a long way.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a surprise because thirty forty cars
Speaker 1: drove by us, Yeah, she was the singular smile and
Speaker 1: wave that we got. Yeah. Now, another thing that a
Speaker 1: lot of folks said who took issue with a mod
Speaker 1: Aubrey or his jogging in the neighborhood mentioned that he
Speaker 1: stopped at a house that was under construction. And I
Speaker 1: did say this on the show before if you had
Speaker 1: any concerns about that, Well, what was he doing in
Speaker 1: that house? You shouldn't have been in that house looking
Speaker 1: at the house under construction. He could have been stealing. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to check your prejudices right now. Right, if
Speaker 1: that's what you believe, you shouldn't have been in that house, right,
Speaker 1: which in your mind is very sensible. Why would anybody
Speaker 1: go into the house that's under construction unless they were
Speaker 1: up to no good? Right in your brain, that seems
Speaker 1: like a very reasonable and very sensible question to ask. Right,
Speaker 1: We're going to challenge your prejudices right here, Q and
Speaker 1: I are going to do that. Do me a favor.
Speaker 1: Swap a mod Aubrey for Kelly. What is Kelly's last name? Anderson?
Speaker 1: Kelly is the same age as a mode Aubrey, twenty
Speaker 1: five year old. Let's make her white. Let's give her
Speaker 1: blond hair and blue eyes. Let's make her young, Let's
Speaker 1: make her attractive. Okay, So now we've just changed the person, right,
Speaker 1: same story, though she's out in a neighborhood where people
Speaker 1: may not know her. She goes into a construction site,
Speaker 1: checks it out, leaves the construction site. Now, are you
Speaker 1: still saying, well, you know, she shouldn't have been in
Speaker 1: the house. You know, she had to have been up
Speaker 1: to no good? Are are you still saying that? Because
Speaker 1: now she's a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes. Right,
Speaker 1: So does personal accountability matter or is it skin color?
Speaker 1: Did you learn something about yourself after I said that?
Speaker 1: This is what we've been trying to say. Now. I
Speaker 1: know on the show, I've shared that once upon a
Speaker 1: time I had a house under construction. Once upon a
Speaker 1: time before then, even I dreamt of building a house, right,
Speaker 1: I wanted to build this really cool house that I
Speaker 1: could have. You know, I've always been into music and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. I wanted a studio. I thought
Speaker 1: that'd be so cool. Now I have one. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is kind of how. This
Speaker 1: is how I imagine my future. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: folks might recognize you have to imagine things before they
Speaker 1: manifest themselves in reality. Right. And one of the ways
Speaker 1: that I went about doing this was by engaging wherever
Speaker 1: I could. I needed the visual, I needed the tactile
Speaker 1: response so that I could know how to piece things
Speaker 1: together in my mind, how to formulate a plan and
Speaker 1: bring it into manifestation. So I was interested in construction
Speaker 1: techniques and how how do you you know, incorporate class
Speaker 1: in brick into the same architecture, you know, like those
Speaker 1: sorts of things, because those are things you know growing
Speaker 1: up in the southwest of the United States, those are
Speaker 1: things that you know, we work with the building materials
Speaker 1: that are here, that are that are going to last. Right,
Speaker 1: So I took an interest in those things. Then later
Speaker 1: when I actually bought a house, right, I paid the
Speaker 1: money to the proper, to the need, the home builder.
Speaker 1: I designed my house. I picked out the colors, looked
Speaker 1: like a castle, was right on the lake. I was, man,
Speaker 1: I was doing my thing, man anyway, So I did
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and of course it takes a while
Speaker 1: for them to actually build the house. I bought the
Speaker 1: plot of land. They had my money. You know, everything
Speaker 1: was on the up and out, and this house was
Speaker 1: so far away. But because I'm me and I needed
Speaker 1: to see it and I needed to feel it, right,
Speaker 1: what I do. Whenever I got some free time, I
Speaker 1: took that long drive out there to go see my
Speaker 1: house and see how far along they had gotten. And
Speaker 1: I'd be there on that plot of land where I
Speaker 1: was going to bring my son. I was going to
Speaker 1: bring my girl and my family, and we were going
Speaker 1: to live. Right. I would see that plot of land,
Speaker 1: and then I would see when they put the sticks
Speaker 1: in the strings, and then I would see when they
Speaker 1: poured the cement, you know, And I saw where the
Speaker 1: driveway was going to go, you know, and then I
Speaker 1: saw the wood frames go up. I would go back
Speaker 1: and back and back, and I would see all the
Speaker 1: supplies laying in the backyard for the pool and every
Speaker 1: you know, I saw it all, and i'd go and
Speaker 1: I would go and I would go, and what happened?
Speaker 1: People would see me there? What is this guy doing
Speaker 1: over there? Does he live around here? Who is he?
Speaker 1: You know? Well? Is that guy up to no good?
Speaker 1: You know? Those are the looks that I got. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the story that we are seeing here,
Speaker 1: because as we now know, this man didn't steal anything.
Speaker 1: This man was in fact running, you know, and this
Speaker 1: man's life is now over because of these three men.
Speaker 1: So I just want to make sure that I said that.
Speaker 1: Now let's get back to the these guys that took
Speaker 1: his life. Did you hear about the the court proceedings
Speaker 1: where they like went through their social media history and
Speaker 1: pulled up all of their like racist jokes and things
Speaker 1: like that to help kind of establish the character of
Speaker 1: these men.
Speaker 3: Social media, cell phone records, their normal, their normal, daily
Speaker 3: day to day conversations with their practitioners and neighbors and
Speaker 3: friends and colleagues.
Speaker 1: One of these guys an.
Speaker 3: Ex cop right, who disgustingly provided no objection to the
Speaker 3: way that these guys thought and spoke. That's actually what
Speaker 3: stood out to me the most when they're talking about
Speaker 3: the records of these conversations. There's no record of any
Speaker 3: of these people been like, Yo, that's kind of wild
Speaker 3: what you said there.
Speaker 1: Par for the course, And you know what, you might
Speaker 1: be listening in Oregon. You might be listening in Vermont,
Speaker 1: You might be listening in Texas, you might be listening
Speaker 1: in San Diego, might be listening anywhere in the country.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are. We appreciate that listenership and the support.
Speaker 1: But you might be thinking that doesn't happen here, and
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you that it probably does.
Speaker 3: You can remove the probability, it's not probable, it absolutely happened. Sure,
Speaker 3: I try to sadly, it absolutely happened. You know, I
Speaker 3: try to give where you are too, but.
Speaker 1: I think I think one of these guys was was
Speaker 1: an ex cop, right, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not
Speaker 1: the eldest, the older of the three gentlemen, like there
Speaker 1: was a guy and his son, and then the neighbor
Speaker 1: driving a truck. The older gentleman yests upon a time
Speaker 1: a police officer. Yes, some relationship with the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: That I'm sure sure, And so it's funny how there
Speaker 1: are so many people in this country that will take
Speaker 1: this word police and blindly back it. It can do
Speaker 1: no wrong, or they might have some concessions. They will
Speaker 1: see that hey man, you know there's a few bad apples. Ever,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll force that big. You're bound to get
Speaker 1: some folks or kooky and whatever. But overall they do
Speaker 1: a great job, right, instead of looking at it like, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, we have a system in place that
Speaker 1: affords opportunities for advancement and fails to punish or thoroughly
Speaker 1: vet You know, folks who have harmful beliefs and ideologies
Speaker 1: who cannot execute the job fairly equally across the board.
Speaker 1: You know, there are people who say, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously there's a call, very loud call to defund the police.
Speaker 1: There's a group of people who say, no, defend the police, right,
Speaker 1: And I believe that the police does not really need defense.
Speaker 1: I'm being funny here, because they are the I believe
Speaker 1: it's the second largest military force on the planet, or
Speaker 1: the third. If you take the police departments in the
Speaker 1: United States and put them together, that is the you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of tanks, you know, helicopters and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But you know, there are people that
Speaker 1: you know defend the police, right, I get it, I
Speaker 1: get it. You know you might know someone who's a
Speaker 1: police officer. But remember, you know, the person. We're not
Speaker 1: talking about the person. We're talking about the institution, the
Speaker 1: machine they are a part of. Right. It is killing
Speaker 1: us literally, and then if it hasn't killed us, it
Speaker 1: very much shapes the world in which we live. Right.
Speaker 1: I was reading a report on the cash bail system,
Speaker 1: just to continue down this path, on the cash bell
Speaker 1: system in the United States, and basically the cash bell
Speaker 1: system works like this, you could be arrested for allegedly
Speaker 1: doing something. Right. I read a story the other day
Speaker 1: about a woman who her puppy. Her dog gave birth
Speaker 1: to puppies at the neighbor's house.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: She went to the neighbor's house and says, hey, my
Speaker 1: dog is here with the puppies at your house. I
Speaker 1: need my dog back. The neighbor says, no, this is
Speaker 1: my dog and those are my puppies. So the lady's
Speaker 1: like no, and then they have to blow back and forth.
Speaker 1: These neighbors call the police on the woman who owns
Speaker 1: the dog. Woman has to go home. Please show up
Speaker 1: at her house and arrest her, take her to jail.
Speaker 1: Judge gives her a sixty thousand dollars bond, right which,
Speaker 1: if you go to a bail bonds company I didn't
Speaker 1: know this, you have to pay them ten percent. So
Speaker 1: you give them six thousand dollars that you never get back,
Speaker 1: regardless of if you're guilty or innocent, and they will
Speaker 1: put up the rest of the bond for you to
Speaker 1: get out of jail so that you can fight that
Speaker 1: case from a position of power, a better position than
Speaker 1: being Incarcerat better positions, your position of power, ain't it so?
Speaker 1: So what happens is this woman can't afford that six
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, not everybody has that money there, So she's
Speaker 1: in jail, hasn't been able to even plead whether or
Speaker 1: not she's guilty or innocent, hasn't even been able to
Speaker 1: tell her story right, doesn't get to see a judge
Speaker 1: for weeks because she can't make that bail right, and
Speaker 1: loses her job because she's in there, almost loses her house, right,
Speaker 1: And that cash bail system incentivizes police to make arrests.
Speaker 1: There's a brilliantly made case. If you want to learn more,
Speaker 1: check out our daily story on the Black Information Network.
Speaker 1: It's called Our Daily Story with Ramsey's Job. And you
Speaker 1: can hear, you know, stories like this and others where
Speaker 1: you do deeper dives, but you know, it gives you
Speaker 1: a sense that there's a broken system there, and not
Speaker 1: everybody can fight back against it. I can't say it
Speaker 1: any better, right, And a system designed to profit off
Speaker 1: of arrest off of poor people and keep poor people incarcerated.
Speaker 1: It's quite unfortunate and it's really hard to beat it.
Speaker 1: And remember that scenario that I said didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with guilt or innocence. It just is something
Speaker 1: that sucks you into it and if you plead so
Speaker 1: that you can get out. Now you have a criminal charge,
Speaker 1: and that's with you forever, you know, and so forth
Speaker 1: and so anyway, and you're incentivized to plead because yeah,
Speaker 1: if the sentence might be two months, but it might
Speaker 1: you know, it might be sixteen. You can beat the case. Plead,
Speaker 1: I get no time, sure, I'll do that, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: or time served, and then the next time you get
Speaker 1: picked up on now you have a record. Anyway, we
Speaker 1: could go on, and then of course we're talking about
Speaker 1: overly policed, disproportionately poor neighborhoods in the country. Man. We
Speaker 1: can talk about the criminal justice system. We can talk
Speaker 1: about police the institution, and we can say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: they got a lot of money. Let's take this money
Speaker 1: and put it into preventative measures. So that precludes the
Speaker 1: necessity of so many police.
Speaker 3: Preventative measures are less profitable. And we live in the
Speaker 3: capitalistics science. So that's what the bailbonds people say. And
Speaker 3: nobody ever gives them a hard time about letting people
Speaker 3: out of prison before their child date. But if you
Speaker 3: want to end the cash bail system, they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're being soft on crime. Wait a minute, isn't that
Speaker 3: exactly what you guys do.
Speaker 1: All right, never mind, I think my points are too crisp. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time for the way Black history. Fact. In fact,
Speaker 1: we went over a little bit. Q. Here's with some
Speaker 1: way Black history. Thomas Fuller, often called the Virginia Calculator.
Speaker 1: Let me pause for a second.
Speaker 3: His often called name is cold blooded the Virginia Calculator,
Speaker 3: that's the one. Was born in seventeen ten on the
Speaker 3: slave coast of West Africa, when pre colonials scrambled for
Speaker 3: slaves replaced their earlier trade in gold. Fuller was snatched
Speaker 3: from his native land, sold as a slave, and brought
Speaker 3: the Colonial America and brought two Colonial America in seventeen
Speaker 3: twenty four at age fourteen. Although considered literate or illiterate
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, because he could not read or write in English,
Speaker 3: he consistently demonstrated an unusual talent for solving complex math
Speaker 3: problems in his head. Northern Virginia planters Presley and Elizabeth Cox,
Speaker 3: both of whom were also illiterate, quickly recognized his surprising
Speaker 3: abilities and put them to use in every phase of
Speaker 3: management of their two hundred and thirty two acre plantation
Speaker 3: farm about four miles from Alexandria, Virginia. Can I say
Speaker 3: wow wow?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Working as a field slave most of his adult life,
Speaker 3: it was generally believed that Fuller must have taught himself
Speaker 3: how to calculate early in life, probably as a child
Speaker 3: in West Africa, in an environment where slaves were forbidden
Speaker 3: to learn to read and write. He explained his skills
Speaker 3: is coming from an experimental I'm sorry applications around the farm,
Speaker 3: such as counting the hares and a cow's tail while
Speaker 3: or counting grains and bushels of wheat and flax seed. Allegedly,
Speaker 3: he also figured out new way of multiplying how far
Speaker 3: apart objects were, wading into complex astronomy related computations now
Speaker 3: carried out by computers, The Virginia Calculator was.
Speaker 1: A bad man.
Speaker 3: Not Surprisingly, his owners refused numerous offers to purchase Fuller
Speaker 3: because they had come to depend on his amazing abilities
Speaker 3: to measure things with his mind alone. I'm going to
Speaker 3: pause for a second because I hope people listening to
Speaker 3: this can wonder at him and marvel at him, and
Speaker 3: also comprehend how sad and sick and sinister the people
Speaker 3: were who owned him.
Speaker 1: And had the capacity to sell him.
Speaker 3: In seventeen eighty, when Fuller was seventy years old, a
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania businessman and a couple of associates, on hearing of
Speaker 3: his extraordinary genius, traveled to Alexandria to meet him. Out
Speaker 3: of curiosity, they asked a few questions. Two were noteworthy,
Speaker 3: how many seconds were in a year and a half
Speaker 3: and two how many seconds had a man lived who
Speaker 3: was seventy years old seventeen days and.
Speaker 1: Twelve hours old.
Speaker 3: When he correctly answered forty seven million, three hundred and
Speaker 3: four thousand, and let me make sure I'm reading this right,
Speaker 3: ramses two point two billion, and I'll say it exactly
Speaker 3: two billion, two hundred and ten million, five hundred thousand,
Speaker 3: eight hundred, respectively, in less than two minutes. Each time
Speaker 3: one of the men objected, citing his own calculations were
Speaker 3: much smaller, Fuller quickly responded, stop, massa, you forgot the
Speaker 3: leap year when the observer adjusted for the extra day
Speaker 3: every four years. They grudgingly accepted Fuller's answer. Their observation
Speaker 3: of Fuller's computations or computational abilities rather, were later submitted
Speaker 3: to the Abolitionist Society of Pennsylvania. I've never met this man,
Speaker 3: but this part is really sad to me. Fuller died
Speaker 3: on the Cox Farm near Alexandria, Virginia, in seventeen ninety.
Speaker 3: He was eighty years old. The Columbian Sentinel of Boston,
Speaker 3: Massachusetts newspaper noted it in its obituary of Fuller, Thus
Speaker 3: died Negro tom this self taught arithmetician, this untutored scholar.
Speaker 3: Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those of
Speaker 3: thousands of his fellow men, neither the Royal Society of London,
Speaker 3: the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even Newton himself
Speaker 3: need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science.
Speaker 3: That brilliant, magnificent man lived his life as a slave,
Speaker 3: as those that owned him acknowledged his brilliance and used
Speaker 3: it to further their own purposes.
Speaker 1: I want to say something again. I know, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to our voices today, that you perhaps don't believe this,
Speaker 1: but there are some people who believe that black thought
Speaker 1: is inferior. They may not say it out loud, they
Speaker 1: might not even know that they think that, but they
Speaker 1: regard it as inferior. Q you're a brilliant man. I've
Speaker 1: known that for decades. I don't think think anybody would
Speaker 1: suggest to me that I'm not certainly if they're certainly not,
Speaker 1: if they're related to me. I got a good family man.
Speaker 1: They really like me, And I think it's important to
Speaker 1: celebrate the black mind. You know, we we we discuss
Speaker 1: contributions to society. We certainly we discuss a lot of
Speaker 1: like like civil rights activists, like those sorts of things,
Speaker 1: you know, But and we discuss science and medicine or
Speaker 1: ebony excellence. We talk about all these sorts of significant contributes,
Speaker 1: but just to focus on the black mind for a
Speaker 1: second and say that it is just as valuable and
Speaker 1: just as capable. You know, Granted, we're all different people.
Speaker 1: We're a full race of people. So there we have
Speaker 1: a full spectrum of intelligence, of abilities, of charisma, of
Speaker 1: looks of anything that you could have at you know.
Speaker 1: But I think that a lot of times our black
Speaker 1: minds and our black thought gets overlooked, and unfortunately, our
Speaker 1: words too, unless we're rapping. And so that's a big
Speaker 1: part of the reason why civic cipher exists is because
Speaker 1: you're not hearing rap music right now. You're hearing black
Speaker 1: people actually talk about something that we feel matters, and
Speaker 1: hopefully you feel like it matters too. Amen. With that said,
Speaker 1: I think that that's going to conclude for today, So
Speaker 1: once again, thank you for tuning in the Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Rams' job.
Speaker 3: I still go by the name q Ward today. Maybe
Speaker 3: we'll stick with that, maybe not.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I like you. It's been working. We've
Speaker 1: got some years in on the airwaves. I'm ad at it.
Speaker 1: Do us a favorite hit the website Civiccipher dot com.
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Speaker 1: we mentioned, the show is growing and grows with your support.
Speaker 1: We're trying to do something special here.
Speaker 3: It only grows with your support, by the way, exactly,
Speaker 3: and so don't be afraid to shoot us and chips, y'all.
Speaker 1: And until next week, peace.
Speaker 2: Y'all, mayo we hand to live these brothers. A fabulous
Speaker 2: is our lady showing you where from traveled. This will
Speaker 2: speak to you from sunlight to move busting on stage
Speaker 2: like gonna fight s.
Speaker 1: Ve my mic back. You're like that Jost journals too.
Speaker 2: We can strike borders with waters from head border that's
Speaker 2: behind and the beline sides up and the border the
Speaker 2: press hastings.
Speaker 1: We bring it to you as it happens the streets.
Speaker 1: Love pop to him from music.
Speaker 2: Your rapping the street compared the slash we expando. You're
Speaker 2: to fight the slander with the proper propaganda.
Speaker 1: What's happening? You gotta question the nast