Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Sidik Zacher. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's Jah.
Speaker 2: He'd be telling y'all his name is Ramsey's Jah. It's
Speaker 2: a stage name. They do call me q Ward though
Speaker 2: those are my that's my actual first initial, my actual
Speaker 2: last name, ramses Jah stage name. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: The people need to know. Man, I'm in the presence
Speaker 2: of a celebrity over here.
Speaker 3: Man, I love it, and we have another show for you.
Speaker 3: This one is a little interesting, got a little fire
Speaker 3: under it. Anxious to get into this one. You know,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: When you described the show, you really set a stage
Speaker 2: that has a little inkling that it might be all
Speaker 2: right by the end.
Speaker 1: So listen, man, stick around, because this episode we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about a few things.
Speaker 2: Unless you've been under a rock, you have heard about our.
Speaker 1: Countrymen on the right who had sent migrants to various
Speaker 1: parts of the country DC Martha's Vineyard, et cetera, performing
Speaker 1: a political stunt. So obviously we need to weigh in
Speaker 1: on that. So we're going to be talking about that.
Speaker 1: We're I was going to talk about somebody who we
Speaker 1: never thought we'd end up talking about on this show,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, this.
Speaker 2: Guy just came out of left field with some strange stuff.
Speaker 2: Not quite out of left field. I he's been kind
Speaker 2: of moving in that direct. He's been trending that way
Speaker 2: for years for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're talking about Bill Maher. He had a
Speaker 1: lot to say about.
Speaker 2: Slavery, and.
Speaker 1: He's trying to, we'll say, remove some of the responsibility
Speaker 1: of the legacy of slavery from this country's narrative. And
Speaker 1: so we're definitely going to peel back those layers. You
Speaker 1: knew you were going to get right here on civic ciphers,
Speaker 1: So stay tuned for that and more. But first and foremost,
Speaker 1: we are going to discuss some ebony excellence. How do
Speaker 1: that feel?
Speaker 2: Shall we? Shall? So?
Speaker 1: This week's Ebony Excellence is sponsored by Major Threads, where
Speaker 1: high fashion meets timeless men's where check out Major threads
Speaker 1: dot com. Story comes via Black Enterprise nineteen count nineteen.
Speaker 1: HBCU schools are Fullbright institutional leaders.
Speaker 2: All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: The US Department of States Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Speaker 1: Affairs has recognized nineteen historically black colleges and universities. That's
Speaker 1: what HBCU stands for as fulbright historically black college and
Speaker 1: university institutional leaders. The recognition is based on the strong
Speaker 1: partnerships between the Fulbright Program and the HBCUs between the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and twenty twenty two academic years and the
Speaker 1: nineteen HBCUs schools span across thirteen states. The Fullbright Program
Speaker 1: is the premier student exchange program for the US government,
Speaker 1: as an has teamed with a many distinguished diversity related groups,
Speaker 1: colleges and universities. Quote this is an exceptional note of
Speaker 1: distinction unquote. This comes by a Tuskegee president, Charlotte P. Morris,
Speaker 1: who goes on to say, we have always known the
Speaker 1: caliber of students and faculty whose vigorous academic work influences
Speaker 1: our society in a variety of areas. This acknowledgement will
Speaker 1: help our students and the broader communities see the enormous
Speaker 1: value our university brains. So big shout out to all
Speaker 1: nineteen of the HBCUs. That obviously is abny excellence. And
Speaker 1: Maggie B. Noan was not going to let us get
Speaker 1: this week off she do. She wasn't gonna let us
Speaker 1: get this week off without mentioning that. And so we
Speaker 1: dedicated the whole Abny excellence to it, because you know
Speaker 1: that's what we're here to do. So again, shout out
Speaker 1: to all those schools for blazing the trail for future
Speaker 1: Avenue excellence. Now I have to assume that you've been
Speaker 1: under a rock, you know, So I'm gonna paint a
Speaker 1: picture for you and read a little bit of a story.
Speaker 1: This comes via Yahoo newsh Tucker Carlson goes on racist
Speaker 1: rant to celebrate migrants and their relocation to Martha's Vineyard,
Speaker 1: So the story goes, Tucker Carlson went on a race
Speaker 1: rant while celebrating what he called the quote happy story
Speaker 1: of Florida Governor Ronda Santis sending two immigrant field plains
Speaker 1: to Martha's Vineyard this week. As the sun was rising
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. On Thursday morning, two buses carying
Speaker 1: about one hundred migrants from Del Rio, Texas, arrived outside
Speaker 1: Vice President Kamala Harris's residence at the Naval Observatory in
Speaker 1: the city's northwest quadrant. It was the latest political stunt
Speaker 1: by Republicans to protest President Joe Biden's immigration policies by
Speaker 1: sending way of migrants to far flung US locations. Chosen
Speaker 1: to maximize political impact and conservatively only twenty four hours earlier,
Speaker 1: Florida Governor Rondez Santis sent two private planes with about
Speaker 1: fifty migrants from Venezuela and Colombia to Martha's Vineyards Airport
Speaker 1: on Wednesday afternoon, with no warning to local officials.
Speaker 2: So that's the story you want to go first. I
Speaker 2: want to talk about these things being criminal, but I'd
Speaker 2: rather just talk about them being inhumane and cruel and
Speaker 2: just mean, like once upon a time, and I don't
Speaker 2: have to go. You know, back prior to us being.
Speaker 4: Born, when I was in college, September eleventh, two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, I was in the bookstore at Bowling Green
Speaker 4: State University with some of my teammates picking up our books,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, all of the TVs tuned
Speaker 4: to what was going on at the Towers in New York,
Speaker 4: and all of us, no matter who we voted for,
Speaker 4: no matter what our political stance, no matter what our
Speaker 4: socioeconomic background, no matter our race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender,
Speaker 4: no matter any of that stuff, we all not only
Speaker 4: stood in awe, but in very very short orders, stood
Speaker 4: in solidarity. No matter who we thought failed leading.
Speaker 2: Up to that, No matter the number of conspiracy theories
Speaker 2: that were produced after that, no matter what our actual
Speaker 2: stance on how it happened, what happened and all of
Speaker 2: that stuff, whether you supported Bill Clinton or George Bush
Speaker 2: or Al Gore or whatever, in that moment, a lot
Speaker 2: of people died and our country was under attack externally,
Speaker 2: and maybe the only moment in my lifetime there were
Speaker 2: not just some things that we could agree on, but
Speaker 2: there was a monumental singularity in how our country responded
Speaker 2: to what transpired on September eleventh. What we've witnessed in
Speaker 2: the last five six years has in my lifetime been
Speaker 2: the most damning, hartisan, divisive hate field. Politicians used to
Speaker 2: attempt to get bipartisan support on things, because even though
Speaker 2: our political ideals differ, there have always been certain things
Speaker 2: that the country was united on, and we have very
Speaker 2: very clearly reached a point where that is no longer true.
Speaker 2: The realities are different. Even yeah, what we all consider
Speaker 2: to be facts aren't even the same. And I've spoken
Speaker 2: to you, you know, when the mics were not recording
Speaker 2: about you know, do I raise my children here? If
Speaker 2: you've not heard the show before, Ramses and I both
Speaker 2: have mixed children, and being a minority in this country
Speaker 2: has always been challenging, but currently being black and Hispanic,
Speaker 2: Wow accommodation, you know what I mean? And that there
Speaker 2: are not just people who are celebrating this but making
Speaker 2: so light of it that they think it's funny to
Speaker 2: do this to people. Based on whether or not you
Speaker 2: feel like proper immigration policy is in place or not,
Speaker 2: or proper steps were taken or not, you still shouldn't
Speaker 2: wish harm and fear and these levels of discomfort and
Speaker 2: can fusion on people.
Speaker 1: I going to make sure that I add something here
Speaker 1: from what I've read, All of the people that were
Speaker 1: shipped away from Texas to end up in DC and
Speaker 1: March's vineyard, they were all legally going through the legal channel.
Speaker 1: Yes they were applying for asylum, Yes they were. So
Speaker 1: these weren't even people that broke the rules, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean case in point, these were people that
Speaker 2: were manipulated and taking advantage of sure and displaced in
Speaker 2: a way that the most basic human morals right, the
Speaker 2: golden rule, the dow onto others, like come on, man,
Speaker 2: could you imagine these same people getting off of a
Speaker 2: plane that they thought was headed towards I guess in
Speaker 2: their case of vacation, right, like maybe maybe going on
Speaker 2: vacation while the people in the people in your constituency
Speaker 2: freeze to death because they don't have any power. So
Speaker 2: you and your family go on vacation and leave the
Speaker 2: people that voted for you defend for themselves. But when
Speaker 2: you got off of that plane, it was not to
Speaker 2: the destination you thought you were going to, but to
Speaker 2: a country where you did not know the law, the rules,
Speaker 2: or speak the language and had no help. There was
Speaker 2: no one there to greet you or support you. You
Speaker 2: were just now stranded in some foreign place with no connections,
Speaker 2: with no relationships, with no help.
Speaker 1: So let me jump in here too. So to your point,
Speaker 1: these people were put on buses, planes and then buses. Right,
Speaker 1: they were given these like comical silly maps of where
Speaker 1: they were to where they were going, right, they were
Speaker 1: told that they were going to go to Boston or
Speaker 1: wherever their jobs would be waiting for them.
Speaker 2: You know these things.
Speaker 1: And the crazy part about it is, you know some
Speaker 1: of these people had to check in at different offices
Speaker 1: around the country. This is how, in very short order
Speaker 1: to write so in like two days or Monday morning,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to check in and you know, Washington
Speaker 1: State or and you know, uh, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the Carolinas or some destination that you couldn't get to
Speaker 1: in that amount of time, right, especially coming to a
Speaker 1: country where you don't have anything, you don't have a
Speaker 1: place to stay yet, you know, so it was it
Speaker 1: was cruelty the highest order to the people.
Speaker 2: But we knew that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about for a moment, this Republican stunt, for
Speaker 1: what purposes they intended to accomplish.
Speaker 2: Right, And.
Speaker 1: You know, I Charlemagne said something Charlemagne had got He
Speaker 1: said he called it a brilliant move, which that language
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like the type of language I would use,
Speaker 1: but I know what he means. He's saying it's brilliant
Speaker 1: in the way that Hitler was brilliant, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. He was a smart dude, He accomplished a lot.
Speaker 1: He was just evil, right, And this is something that
Speaker 1: is very difficult to divorce from the especially this new GOP.
Speaker 1: These are not people who are uninformed, These are not
Speaker 1: people who are not smart, and these are not people
Speaker 1: who do not know how to play the game. You know,
Speaker 1: the master of it all was the former president. You know,
Speaker 1: that's not He's not as smart as he plays himself
Speaker 1: out to be, but he's not as stupid as we
Speaker 1: think he is.
Speaker 2: Right, and.
Speaker 1: To get all of this attention on this issue is
Speaker 1: exactly what they were going for. But I would posit
Speaker 1: that immigration is not nearly as big of an issue
Speaker 1: as they make it out to be. That's not to
Speaker 1: say that it's not a big issue. It's not to
Speaker 1: say that we need to figure out answers, but they
Speaker 1: make it into this huge boogeyman. Now, bear in mind
Speaker 1: there's a midterm election coming up. Bear in mind that
Speaker 1: they lost a lot of momentum when Roebi Wade was overturned.
Speaker 1: Bear in mind Biden is making a lot of covering
Speaker 1: a lot of you know grounds with his student loan
Speaker 1: forgiveness and this sort of stuff. And so for them
Speaker 1: to pull this political stunt at the cost of these
Speaker 1: actual human beings, because they're trying to be strategic and
Speaker 1: get back some points headed into the midterms, they're playing
Speaker 1: you know, the greatest hits, the rural, southern, poor white
Speaker 1: conservative person's greatest hits. You know, they're talking jobs, immigration,
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: They don't take our guns, don't take our jobs, whole life, right, immigration,
Speaker 2: protect our borders stuff they don't actually care about. Sure,
Speaker 2: but that they know, well, these folks had a president
Speaker 2: who campaigned on building a wall. These folks have the
Speaker 2: ability to donate to this man building a wall. These folks,
Speaker 2: you know, they had four years to build a wall.
Speaker 2: You know, the right company could have knocked it up
Speaker 2: in six months. It's a wall, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And I think that they use that. They probably don't
Speaker 2: even want a wall, They just use it because it
Speaker 2: allows them another boogieman. I mean that they can use it, right,
Speaker 2: And the most hurtful thing about it is that there
Speaker 2: is a base that needs this to be true because
Speaker 2: their whole, the framework of the world is built around
Speaker 2: this stuff. You know what I mean? Now, you and
Speaker 2: I we live in a border state. We live in Arizona. Right.
Speaker 2: Is there crime in Arizona? Sure? You know? Is there?
Speaker 1: Does there need to be you know, uh, immigration reform?
Speaker 1: Who's to say? I would I would say perhaps, right?
Speaker 1: But does immigration does the lack of whatever immigration laws
Speaker 1: that these folks want, does that mean that our reality
Speaker 1: is like hell on Earth?
Speaker 2: Every day. Absolutely not. You know, our kids go to school.
Speaker 2: You know, we're for the most part safe. It's not
Speaker 2: like we're living in a war zone. And the way
Speaker 2: that they play this up, it feels like they're scaring
Speaker 2: people with something that's not really true. You know, again,
Speaker 2: these are asylum seekers. You know, they come here looking
Speaker 2: for work, They promise work, They get on the plane
Speaker 2: and they go looking for the work. Right And one thing, well,
Speaker 2: what I got you. One thing I do want to
Speaker 2: say is imagine how this looks for the folks in
Speaker 2: Martha's Vineyard, the people who, Okay, so there's now fifty
Speaker 2: families here that we are there now in our community.
Speaker 2: They came here under false pretenses and they were looking
Speaker 2: for work. They were looking for something. So now all
Speaker 2: these folks get to be the heroes. They get to say,
Speaker 2: well listen, all right, well shoot, come on, let's help
Speaker 2: you out. And that's what they did.
Speaker 1: They sent them to Martha's Vineyard because the Obamas have
Speaker 1: a house that they sent them to DC because, as
Speaker 1: mentioned Kamala Harris's houses in d C.
Speaker 2: They're being strategic with this.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 1: I as much as I would like to think that
Speaker 1: it backfired because you know, the folks that live in
Speaker 1: Martha's vineyard, the folks that that were on the ground
Speaker 1: really responded to these families for the right, for their
Speaker 1: news outlets, for their you know, pundits, for their talking points,
Speaker 1: on and on and on. They're being celebrated like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how you show it that own.
Speaker 2: The Libs they get the point and say ha.
Speaker 1: Ha, right, And so again they're not doing it to
Speaker 1: get more the votes away from the Democratic liberal voter.
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're not trying to get votes away.
Speaker 1: They're trying to fire up their base. And so to
Speaker 1: Charlotte's point, again, I wouldn't have described it as brilliant,
Speaker 1: you know, but I kind of see the point that
Speaker 1: he's making, and it's it's very sad because again there's
Speaker 1: a there's a human cost here. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: Republicans have been absolutely unwilling to work with anything that
Speaker 1: the Democrats put forward. You know, this is this is
Speaker 1: something that was said by Mitch McConnell says, my priority
Speaker 1: in the Senate is to oppose every piece of legislation
Speaker 1: from this administration. A that's effectually what he said. I
Speaker 1: read it recently. Again, his sole purpose when he walks
Speaker 1: into the Senate. My job is to stop them from
Speaker 1: doing anything that they want to do. Right, he will
Speaker 1: find fault with it. He won't be you know, it
Speaker 1: could be like, Okay, this gets us ninety percent of
Speaker 1: what we want, but if it gets them ten percent
Speaker 1: of what the they want?
Speaker 2: Any answers, No, it's just you know what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: So for them to then say, well, you know, immigration
Speaker 1: is a completely leftist it's Biden's policy.
Speaker 2: But and then most of the people don't even make
Speaker 2: the connections. It's so it's it's theater. The thing is.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately a good amount of people, it's their reality, you know, and.
Speaker 2: Or at least they've convinced themselves of it. Sure, Sure,
Speaker 2: it's not. Actually our immigration policies have zero effect on
Speaker 2: their daily lives. Wow, that's what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 2: Like zero, zero, not.
Speaker 4: Kind of, not a little bit none, And that they
Speaker 4: get so riled up about something that absolutely has zero
Speaker 4: effect on their lives.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the story of that party. Oh, that
Speaker 2: all of the things that they oppose the most have
Speaker 2: no effect on them personally. Sure sure, and their constituents. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: that that vote for them. And that's the sad part.
Speaker 2: They've shown that there are millions of people that support
Speaker 2: their ideology and that support them. They turn out and
Speaker 2: they vote, and they're against their own best.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but there's something here. Okay, So this is
Speaker 1: something that we've said a lot. They vote against their
Speaker 1: own interests, and you know what, to be honest, they
Speaker 1: think that we vote against our own interest you know,
Speaker 1: black folks in particular. Right, So let's say they're just
Speaker 1: voting with their values and we're voting with our values,
Speaker 1: which is fair. Hey, Look, I believe in hard work.
Speaker 1: I believe if a guy makes a billion dollars, he
Speaker 1: should be able to keep it, you know, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I believe in guns.
Speaker 2: The forefathers set it up this way.
Speaker 1: So this is how I want it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean that that could be a belief system whatever, right.
Speaker 2: Conveniently, but it could be.
Speaker 1: And if we're not, if we're going to allow each
Speaker 1: individual to live their reality, if we were to allow
Speaker 1: them that, then that would be fair. The problem that
Speaker 1: I have with that way of thinking and with things
Speaker 1: that end up manifesting like what we're seeing in this story.
Speaker 1: Is that.
Speaker 2: People stoop two levels that by any definition would constitute
Speaker 2: cruel coolness, cruelty.
Speaker 1: Ah, It's like the human component of human element is
Speaker 1: not there.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's this because you're not though wh
Speaker 2: if you're a lib or, you're a Democrat, you're not
Speaker 2: a human. And they dismissed the idea that we ask
Speaker 2: human beings have anything in common. That's why that was
Speaker 2: my whole point. We no longer have anything in common
Speaker 2: to them. Well, we have to, this is my thinking.
Speaker 1: You know, me, I'm always going to be this person,
Speaker 1: but I feel like we have to care about each other.
Speaker 2: Okay, except they don't. This is the problem collectively. They
Speaker 2: don't know this is the problem.
Speaker 1: And so like if again, if it's a matter of
Speaker 1: a difference of Hey, my beliefs are my values you know,
Speaker 1: reflect this, and your values reflect that. I believe that
Speaker 1: human values should move us to care for each other. Right,
Speaker 1: And you know, we've made a lot about conservativism on
Speaker 1: this show that a lot of it really looks like
Speaker 1: the perpetuating of white supremacist institutions and ideas and disenfranchisement
Speaker 1: of black people in the black vote by a gerrymandering
Speaker 1: and by a racist policies and so forth and so
Speaker 1: on that disproportionately harm black communities. They might harm all communities,
Speaker 1: but they disproportionately affect us and oftentimes disproportionately benefit folks
Speaker 1: that are white. And there's this kind of veil over
Speaker 1: it that makes it seem American, you know, when the
Speaker 1: truth is it's it's really white, and this is right
Speaker 1: and masterful the way they do it. The thing is
Speaker 1: some of us can see right through it.
Speaker 2: The problem is.
Speaker 1: That now we're talking about them using other human beings
Speaker 1: for this dog and pony show that's not based in
Speaker 1: a reality as you mentioned, that really affects people in
Speaker 1: that way. You know, they make a big deal out
Speaker 1: of welfare, they make it, make a big deal all
Speaker 1: these sort of social policies. But the fact is, as
Speaker 1: soon as there's a pandemic, guess where we got.
Speaker 2: We got money for days. Soon as there's a war,
Speaker 2: we got money for days. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: When it comes to helping people, you have money for
Speaker 2: everyone else.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to billions that we send to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: exactly my point, but we send nothing to Flint or Mississippi,