Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us while we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop
Speaker 1: Weekly Studios. This is Civic Scipher, an army host. Rams's Jaw.
Speaker 2: He is Rams, this Jaw I am q Ward and
Speaker 2: you are thankfully tuned in once again to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: And we appreciate that. Please stay tuned because we've got
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about. We are going to
Speaker 1: be spending a significant amount of the show discussing SRO's
Speaker 1: Student Resource officers and whether or not they helped, whether
Speaker 1: or not they hurt. Give you a hint. They don't help,
Speaker 1: they hurt, and we're going to share a couple of
Speaker 1: examples please brace yourself that are jarring, and we're going
Speaker 1: to ask for another thought experiment from you that you
Speaker 1: put yourself in the position of a parent. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that point, show, I would like to
Speaker 1: discuss Baba becoming a better Allied Baba and Today's Baba
Speaker 1: sponsored by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for the free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to
Speaker 1: support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make
Speaker 1: an impact with your spending. Again, that's fotmglobal dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, we got a letter, a nice letter, kind
Speaker 1: letter from someone named Pat Cosgrove, and I would like
Speaker 1: to share it with you. Hey there, my name is
Speaker 1: Pat Cosgrove. I live in Chez Whitney neighborhood in Virginia
Speaker 1: Beach with my wife and our two sons, eleven and thirteen.
Speaker 1: I am a sixty year old white dude that is
Speaker 1: very thankful for your show. I am in the twilight
Speaker 1: of my career at NASA, where I've been working with
Speaker 1: the folks for the last seven years to figure out
Speaker 1: the missing pieces to make humans a multiplanet species, mostly
Speaker 1: because I hope and pray those breakthroughs will have the
Speaker 1: potential to bring humanity to another level in our social
Speaker 1: evolution for the world of my sons and their children.
Speaker 1: Things I appreciate most about you. You bring to light
Speaker 1: or amplify what is often unreported or underreported continued abuse
Speaker 1: of people of color, Way Black History, fact Baba and
Speaker 1: Ebony excellence are invaluable to me in hearing more of
Speaker 1: the history and ongoing efforts too in some cases survive
Speaker 1: and thrive in this ideologically mucked up society we share.
Speaker 1: I've been an advocate and friend of the movement for
Speaker 1: a few decades. Now awake to the impact of my
Speaker 1: own biases and prejudices. I dream of a day where
Speaker 1: people of color have the same opportunities for education, economic success, healthcare,
Speaker 1: media coverage, and equal justice under the law. Here's my problem.
Speaker 1: I do not do social media, and I don't know
Speaker 1: how to drop some love for you for the shows.
Speaker 1: So I thought I would start here with an email
Speaker 1: Ramses and Q, I hear you, I feel you, I
Speaker 1: admire you, I am thankful for you. Keep up the
Speaker 1: good fight, be caring and protective of your being. You're
Speaker 1: making an important difference in our progress to become more selfless,
Speaker 1: loving human beings. Nothing but respect at coswork. Well, thank you, Pat.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that that letter was more energizing than you know.
Speaker 1: Anybody that wants to do more, you can hit our
Speaker 1: website Civiccipher dot com and we love you all. Sounds
Speaker 1: like you have something to say, go ahead if I may.
Speaker 2: I hate to get us off track, I hate to
Speaker 2: get us off clock. I hate to get us off topic.
Speaker 1: Pat.
Speaker 2: I hope you're listening today. Ramses and I often struggle, Yeah,
Speaker 2: with some very very obvious truths about this country that
Speaker 2: we ironically love. Rams and I are DJs by profession,
Speaker 2: long before civic cipher was a thing. Hip hop is
Speaker 2: what brought us together and what we've learned from our
Speaker 2: journeys as fathers, as musicians, as DJs, as curators of vibes,
Speaker 2: as as as MC's and not in the hip hops,
Speaker 2: but literally masters of ceremony, for you know, banquets and events, concerts.
Speaker 2: We've watched tens of thousands of people come together and
Speaker 2: hug and dance and high five and drink and eat
Speaker 2: together and laugh, regardless of how they look, how they pray,
Speaker 2: how they love their socioeconomic status. We saw them be very,
Speaker 2: very united, even strangers, complete strangers, high fiving and hugging
Speaker 2: and dancing and enjoying one another's company in the presence
Speaker 2: of great music or sporting events or all these different things.
Speaker 2: And then this really strange and really discouraging thing happens
Speaker 2: when it's time for us to slide our faders down
Speaker 2: and the concert is over, and the buzzer sounds and
Speaker 2: the game is over and the lights come up in
Speaker 2: the club or the concert is over, without anyone instructing
Speaker 2: us to do so we all split back into our silos.
Speaker 2: All these different ways that we love, all these different
Speaker 2: ways that we pray, all these different ways that we
Speaker 2: think and live our lives become important again and divide
Speaker 2: us again. And with what we speak about on this show,
Speaker 2: it forces every listener to take a position because these
Speaker 2: are not trivial topics. We're not talking you know, what's
Speaker 2: the best date spot in the city that you're in.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a lot of times, oppression, white supremacy, racism,
Speaker 2: you know, people being unalived, people being held back, people
Speaker 2: being stomped on, people being marginalized, people being intentionally divided.
Speaker 2: And it forces people to take a position, and at
Speaker 2: times the position that we take with regards to our systems.
Speaker 2: And it's so important to say that we're talking about policing.
Speaker 2: We are talking about the system of policing, not individual
Speaker 2: police officers.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We see examples of individual police officers doing really, really
Speaker 2: horrendous things, and we have also on this show pointed
Speaker 2: out individual police officers doing actual good, heroic things. But
Speaker 2: what we when we say policing, we're not talking about
Speaker 2: the officer that you look at when you write down
Speaker 2: the street. We're talking about the system, because even in
Speaker 2: absence of the people, the system is what perseveres an
Speaker 2: absence of there being racist people at a company or
Speaker 2: in a city or in this country, the systems that
Speaker 2: are in place benefit a certain people. These this is
Speaker 2: this is this is data that backs this. This is
Speaker 2: not Ramses and Q's opinion, and we have to criticize
Speaker 2: those systems, which in a lot of cases causes people
Speaker 2: that benefit from such systems to be personally offended because
Speaker 2: they feel personally attacked. So we get so much in
Speaker 2: the way of hate comments, emails, direct messages, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it. A letter like this, I'm not
Speaker 2: being hyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating. I hope that I did
Speaker 2: a chance to meet you. I hope that I get
Speaker 2: a chance to shake your hand. I hope that we
Speaker 2: get a chance to have some actual face to face
Speaker 2: dialogue because it's a very very small drop in the bucket,
Speaker 2: but it's a very necessary one that someone like you
Speaker 2: would take the time out of your day to write
Speaker 2: us this letter. I had to take time out of
Speaker 2: our show to express more than just reading the letter
Speaker 2: and moving on, but to say thank you, because I
Speaker 2: told ram Us today in the studio before these microphones
Speaker 2: cut on how hard it is to keep going. This
Speaker 2: job that we do is so incredibly difficult, much more
Speaker 2: than you could imagine, because the amount of progress that
Speaker 2: James Baldwin spoke about us and not having amount of time,
Speaker 2: it takes the amount of time that it has already taken.
Speaker 2: And to see now in a lot of cases, and
Speaker 2: if your eyes are open and you're being aware, you
Speaker 2: can see our country taking steps backward in so many areas,
Speaker 2: so many powerful, rich and influential people going out of
Speaker 2: their way, like this Ed Blum guy to take us
Speaker 2: back to a time where there was less progress, less equity,
Speaker 2: we shared less, we cared less about each other, there
Speaker 2: was less empathy. Right because even the quote unquote decent
Speaker 2: people at times in our country's history did vile things,
Speaker 2: some of them because in doctrination and ignorance, some of
Speaker 2: them because of a lack of empathy. Right, you other
Speaker 2: group of people and made them less than you made
Speaker 2: them savage, made them less deserving of God's grace, of
Speaker 2: anything prosperous in this world. And you made children be
Speaker 2: okay with watching other human beings lives be taken. And
Speaker 2: then like Ramsa said, going to celebrate after food and beverage.
Speaker 2: It was a party. This letter kind of just stopped me.
Speaker 2: And again, I'm apologizing to Ramdas, I'm apologizing to our
Speaker 2: listeners because we have a job to do, but I
Speaker 2: had to speak specifically to something that bothers me. Man,
Speaker 2: we have so much more in common than the small
Speaker 2: list of things that divide us, all of us. No
Speaker 2: matter who you vote for, no matter how you love,
Speaker 2: no matter who you pray to. It almost requires a
Speaker 2: level of arrogance and ignorance to look at someone and
Speaker 2: somehow determine them to be less than you because of
Speaker 2: whatever you perceive to be different. Because at our core,
Speaker 2: so many of the things that we live this life
Speaker 2: for are the same. A better life for our posterity,
Speaker 2: a good life for ourselves, health, happiness. It's not really
Speaker 2: more complicated than that. Can we take our kids on
Speaker 2: a trip, can we go on vacation, Can we eat
Speaker 2: when we're hungry?
Speaker 1: And can we have our dignity? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Can we have our or dignity? Can we be safe?
Speaker 2: Can we have shelter? It's not complicated, but we found
Speaker 2: a way in the name of this falsely perceived scarcity
Speaker 2: of resources, of hoarding resources, dividing one another, hating each other,
Speaker 2: not having empathy or sympathy, not wanting the best for
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters in the name of needing more for
Speaker 2: ourselves and those that horde the majority of the resources
Speaker 2: and the majority of the money would have it that
Speaker 2: way intentionally. Monopoly would have it that way intentionally. The
Speaker 2: worst possible outcome would be us loving each other. The
Speaker 2: worst possible outcome would be the empathy that we show
Speaker 2: to each other the most. The worst possible outcome would
Speaker 2: be us uniting on the idea that we should all have,
Speaker 2: that we should all eat, that we should all thrive,
Speaker 2: Because then those who are in the severe minority, those
Speaker 2: who have and hold the most of our resources and
Speaker 2: our finances, would then actually be living as the minority
Speaker 2: that they are, and somehow, in their mind, even with
Speaker 2: having enough for five generations, us having just enough for
Speaker 2: ourselves is a problem. There's a reason why this cycle
Speaker 2: has existed and perpetuates as much as it does. Someone
Speaker 2: benefits from it. At some point. Take a moment and
Speaker 2: look around and try to figure out who that is.
Speaker 2: Because it's not us, it's not you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what I want to add something. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did that because one of the things that
Speaker 1: happens on our social media, which, by the way, follow
Speaker 1: us on social media at Civic Cipher help us out
Speaker 1: there too, you know. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: happens is a lot of times people think that we
Speaker 1: have like victim mentality black people and us in particular.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of a hurtful thing to say because
Speaker 1: we were doing okay when we were just DJs, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, We're doing just mine. This show
Speaker 1: cost us money to do. It doesn't make money. It's
Speaker 1: not like we.
Speaker 2: Need when we were actually much better off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is a heavier lift too. It's
Speaker 1: it's heavier work to do. And the crazy thing is
Speaker 1: nobody would choose this life. Who would choose a life
Speaker 1: where you have to like argue with people with more
Speaker 1: power than you about your right to exist, you know,
Speaker 1: and your your your your life mattering, and what the
Speaker 1: difference between equality and equity if I'm going to be
Speaker 1: judged by your standards, you know, and these sorts of things,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't feel fair ever, And so letters
Speaker 1: like this, they really do, they really are energizing. I
Speaker 1: meant what I said, and it was worth it for
Speaker 1: us to take a moment to say thank you to Pat.
Speaker 1: But I do want to make sure that we talk
Speaker 1: about this just because again, both of these videos you
Speaker 1: can find on our social media. Again that's at Civic Sipher.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a quick one here. There was a post
Speaker 1: originally posted by doo hugely. We put it on our page,
Speaker 1: but along the short of it is summed up by
Speaker 1: at Your Rights Camp. A video circulating on social media
Speaker 1: depicts a school resource officer in Garden City, Kansas, slamming
Speaker 1: a student to the ground during the response to a
Speaker 1: recent fight between two students. The Garden City Police Department
Speaker 1: and the school district acknowledged the indiscident, stating that the
Speaker 1: student who appeared to land on his head was evaluated
Speaker 1: and cleared by EMS at the scene. Police emphasized that
Speaker 1: the incident is under investigation and every use of force
Speaker 1: is documented and scrutinized. They assure collaboration with the school
Speaker 1: district to maintain a safe environments for students and staff.
Speaker 1: Garden Sydney Public Schools said the district was cooperating fully
Speaker 1: with the Garden City Police department and their investigation into
Speaker 1: the matter. The shocking video went viral, various comments about
Speaker 1: the incident going around social media. Civil rights attorney Ben
Speaker 1: Crumb said, why was this level of force on a
Speaker 1: child necessary? To see the results of the investigation into
Speaker 1: this incident at a school in Garden City, Kansas, do
Speaker 1: me a favorite again. Go to our social media it's
Speaker 1: at Civic Cipher. You'll see there's a video of a
Speaker 1: police officer grabbing two students that are arguing. That's where
Speaker 1: the video picks up. The officer grabs the black student
Speaker 1: and slams them on his head, and then his body
Speaker 1: goes limp, and then the officer starts doing the officers
Speaker 1: thing where they start grabbing your limp body and trying
Speaker 1: to wrangle you like you're a hog or something. But
Speaker 1: the student is clearly unconscious because he landed on his head.
Speaker 1: And now I want you to reimagine it. Don't get mad, cute,
Speaker 1: reimagine it with a sixteen year old, blond haired, blue
Speaker 1: eyed female. Now that may be what your kid looks like,
Speaker 1: but my kid looks like the one in the video.
Speaker 2: That's hard to imagine. Mostly be because your mind, whoever
Speaker 2: you are, a listener has no actual visual reference for it.
Speaker 2: If I told you to try to imagine a horror clone,
Speaker 2: your mind has no idea what that means, because it's
Speaker 2: not something that exists. I just merged the words cyclone
Speaker 2: and hurricane. However, intentionally, if such a video existed, we'd
Speaker 2: see it. There are people who would go out of
Speaker 2: their way to make sure that we saw it, to
Speaker 2: try to paint some sort of false equivalence, But there
Speaker 2: is no reference. There is no example, because that does
Speaker 2: not happen.
Speaker 1: I want to share something else with you. We've talked
Speaker 1: about SROs twice before on the show Student Resource Officers.
Speaker 1: These are the police that are on the campuses at
Speaker 1: the schools. Once SROs started getting introduced onto school campuses,
Speaker 1: the number of incidents with respect to black children, specifically
Speaker 1: that resulted in arrests, expulsions, disciplinary action by the school
Speaker 1: rose dramatically. And I know what you're probably thinking, Well,
Speaker 1: it's the black students that are doing these things. And
Speaker 1: what I want to tell you is that there is
Speaker 1: evidence that shows that these people have prejudices and biases
Speaker 1: against black students. This is why the officer went and
Speaker 1: grabbed the black student, not the white student, and these
Speaker 1: aggressive actions take place against black students because black children
Speaker 1: are made to grow up a lot faster people who
Speaker 1: are threatened by black children. Right, So police feel justified,
Speaker 1: and these disciplinarians feel justified in using man's strength with
Speaker 1: full test testicular fortitude on children, slamming them on their heads. Right.
Speaker 1: And you might say, well, student resource officers make the
Speaker 1: school safe, and so forth and so on. And the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is that these days you can
Speaker 1: make an argument about mass shootings, but we've seen that
Speaker 1: SROs don't make an impact on mass shootings at schools,
Speaker 1: and really who's suffering it ends up being black people,
Speaker 1: brown people, and these are the people who already are
Speaker 1: depending on where they live, interjected based on proximity into
Speaker 1: what's called the school to prison pipeline. Now, again, we've
Speaker 1: talked about this twice on the show before, So I
Speaker 1: employ you to go back and check out our episode
Speaker 1: with Janelle. Would just search Janelle Wood because Janelle came
Speaker 1: up on the show. She's with the Black Mother's Forum,
Speaker 1: and she gave a very very in depth interview on
Speaker 1: SROs and how they are very very problematic if you
Speaker 1: are black or brown if you are a person who's
Speaker 1: not black or brown or otherwise not affected by this,
Speaker 1: I'm asking you for a little bit more empathy. I'm
Speaker 1: asking you to do a little bit more research, and
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to imagine, just imagine that you were
Speaker 1: born and this was your life and you got to
Speaker 1: do your best with it. That's what me and Q
Speaker 1: do every day, and we need your help. Shows about allyship,
Speaker 1: So that's what we need you to do. I got
Speaker 1: to share another story. This one's going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit worse. Fair warning, Cheyenne Laramie County. All right,
Speaker 1: body camera footage is the body camera footage that we're
Speaker 1: about to play is what was left from Deputy Benjamin Jacquot.
Speaker 1: I guess the child JD had an Individualized Education Plan
Speaker 1: IEP due to a diagnosed neurodivergent disability that the deputy
Speaker 1: was aware of when the assault took place. According to
Speaker 1: the document, when the incident happened JD, this is the child,
Speaker 1: JD had been pulled aside by a teacher and Freedom's
Speaker 1: Principle to discuss comments the child made to a cashier
Speaker 1: at the school lunch room at that time. The complaint
Speaker 1: alleged that Jacquo was the officer was near the principal's
Speaker 1: office while he was speaking to JD for a random
Speaker 1: security check. The complaint notes that neither the educator nor
Speaker 1: the principal had asked for an intervention from Jaquo during
Speaker 1: the conversation with the child. Real quick, just to let
Speaker 1: you know an IEP, my first son, Christian has right
Speaker 1: now still in IEP until he's done with high school.
Speaker 1: He had an IP all through since he was in kindergarten. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this one hits kind of close to home. And
Speaker 1: this child again was eight years old when this happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to read this next paragraph. I'll play
Speaker 1: the video. Quote. At the time of the assault, Deputy Jacquo,
Speaker 1: who was white, weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds,
Speaker 1: the document said, and eight year old JD, who was
Speaker 1: African American, weighed sixty eight pounds. Upon information and belief,
Speaker 1: following the sault, Deputy jack Quo deleted portions of his
Speaker 1: bodycam video of the event in an effort to conceal
Speaker 1: his wrongdoing. So we're gonna play this video. I want
Speaker 1: you to know that this man is pressing this child
Speaker 1: into the ground. This child is screaming, he's asking him
Speaker 1: to let him go. He's saying sorry, you'll hear it.
Speaker 1: And this child looks very close to my younger boy.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, you.
Speaker 3: Again, fight me again, fite me again?
Speaker 1: No, if you just bid me? So you want to
Speaker 1: try it again?
Speaker 4: Huh?
Speaker 1: Would you like that?
Speaker 4: Would you like now? Now you cross your legs right now,
Speaker 4: cross your legs.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, you don't get to win this. Now
Speaker 3: it's all me. Do you understand me? I guess where
Speaker 3: it's going now. You just try and fighte me? So now,
Speaker 3: what what do you think?
Speaker 1: You heard him say that he'd be sorry he gives up.
Speaker 1: He's eight. Kids are kids? Man? Do you need the
Speaker 1: police to deal with an eight year old? I guess
Speaker 1: if he's black, there are people that will make that argument.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's all the time we have for today.
Speaker 1: We'll leave it right there. Once again, thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in the civic cipher. I have been your host.
Speaker 1: Rams's jah Q has decided that he's going to take
Speaker 1: a moment for himself. So again, if you are on
Speaker 1: social media, please send a kind word to Q because
Speaker 1: he actually had to watch that video. He's the one
Speaker 1: that was running the board, and I know that was
Speaker 1: the first time that he saw it. Because for those
Speaker 1: that know the show, we take turns watching the videos
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, when the type, when the time comes, we
Speaker 1: both have to watch it. So yeah, hit our website.
Speaker 1: It's at civic cipher. If you want to make a donation,
Speaker 1: support us in any meaningful way, download this or any
Speaker 1: previous show, you can do so at civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 1: Follow us on a social media at civic cipher, leave
Speaker 1: a comment, engage with us, and of course you can
Speaker 1: check out the videos that we discussed today. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: until next week, y'all. Pace