Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am
Speaker 1: your host Ramsey's job. Big shout out to mamak Ward,
Speaker 1: who is indisposed once again. He is out handling big
Speaker 1: business for the benefit of our marginalized communities in this
Speaker 1: country and we love him and support him. He will
Speaker 1: be back on the show next week, so be sure
Speaker 1: to stick around. But in the meantime, in between time,
Speaker 1: true to form, we are going to give you everything
Speaker 1: that you know and love from this show. I have
Speaker 1: a pinch heater in the building. One of our strongest supporters.
Speaker 1: Our origin story starts with this woman, the one and
Speaker 1: only doctor Kumilla Westernberg, joins us. Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and today we are asking you to stick around
Speaker 1: because we are going to be discussing a number of things,
Speaker 1: including some very very heavy videos that came across our
Speaker 1: desk this week that we felt compelled to respond to.
Speaker 1: Our hope is that by going through these articles and
Speaker 1: videos that it kind of gives you an aperture into
Speaker 1: what it feels like to experience discrimination of course, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations around you know, a country, particularly
Speaker 1: with those on the right, that feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of what it is that we're doing and bringing attention
Speaker 1: to is imagined, and that let's say that we have
Speaker 1: a victim mentality and all these sorts of things and
Speaker 1: so on. The heels of a recent conversation for those
Speaker 1: that listen to the show Weekly with Doctor ya Afo,
Speaker 1: where we discussed generational trauma, we want to give you
Speaker 1: a glimpse into what this trauma may look and feel
Speaker 1: like and ask that you do your own thought experiments
Speaker 1: and extrapolate and run it all the way back. It's
Speaker 1: very important that we share these moments and we give
Speaker 1: you these these again, these apertures into the black experience.
Speaker 1: But for some and foremost, before we get there, let's
Speaker 1: take a moment and celebrate some ebony excellence. Today's ABNY
Speaker 1: Excellence is sponsored by Major Threads. For innovative fashionable sportswear,
Speaker 1: check majorthreads dot com. Today, I'm gonna share a bit
Speaker 1: about the one and only LeVar Burton. I grew up
Speaker 1: with LeVar Burton. He used to host a show called
Speaker 1: Reading Rainbow, and then he transitioned into Kunta Kine and
Speaker 1: then later became Jeordie LaForge on Star Trek. I am
Speaker 1: a trekky, I do admit. So he's a guy that
Speaker 1: I know in love for many years, and he is
Speaker 1: an example of ebony excellence because he is speaking out
Speaker 1: about book bands. So I'll read from Cenn. It's not
Speaker 1: unusual for political statements to feature at the National Book Awards,
Speaker 1: as the National Book Foundation noted in its own statement
Speaker 1: ahead of the event. Aside from the finalist comments about
Speaker 1: the Israel Hamas War, several speakers and authors use their
Speaker 1: platforms at the awards ceremony to address efforts to ban
Speaker 1: books in US schools and libraries. LeVar Burton, children's author
Speaker 1: and former host of the iconic TV program Reading Rainbow
Speaker 1: mceed the awards ceremony and opened with a joke quote
Speaker 1: before we get going, are there any Moms for liberty
Speaker 1: in the house, he asked, referring to a conservative group
Speaker 1: behind recent attempts to remove certain books from school shows.
Speaker 1: No good, then hands will not need to be thrown tonight,
Speaker 1: all right. In his opening speech, Burton alluded to the
Speaker 1: climate in which book banning attempts are taking place. He
Speaker 1: goes on to say, it was my mother who taught
Speaker 1: me at a very young age that if you can
Speaker 1: read in at least one language, you are, by her definition, free,
Speaker 1: And that idea of freedom feels especially fraught in this
Speaker 1: global political moment. He goes on to say, there are
Speaker 1: wars and rumors of wars, and the machineries of war
Speaker 1: at work. On the home front. We are fighting for
Speaker 1: control of truth and how we interpret truth in this country.
Speaker 1: Books are being banned, words are being silenced, and writers
Speaker 1: and others who champion books are under attack. So shout
Speaker 1: out to Lavarburg for being an example of ebony excellence.
Speaker 1: All right, so first and foremost, we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about no knock warrants for the uninitiated. And no
Speaker 1: knock warrant is a warrant obtained by police departments that
Speaker 1: allows them to announce they're at the door and then
Speaker 1: immediately kick the door in. And it is a very
Speaker 1: dangerous tactic and it starts a situation off high stress,
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma, and and you don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on now. Police argue that this is an effective
Speaker 1: way of catching criminals that they're reasonably sure will be
Speaker 1: behind the door without giving them the opportunity to run,
Speaker 1: to flee, escape, what have you. However, we've seen in
Speaker 1: recent years the collateral damage that stems from no knock warrants.
Speaker 1: That damage includes the loss of life, which in our
Speaker 1: estimation on this show, is too high a price. We
Speaker 1: expect the officers that are paid for by our tax
Speaker 1: dollars that are the result of indeed, our political representation
Speaker 1: and our voting. You know that we have police departments
Speaker 1: and police chiefs and mayors and so forth, the whole structure.
Speaker 1: We expect that the cost is not too high to
Speaker 1: the public. And what we've learned with Breonna Taylor, for instance,
Speaker 1: is that the deadly ripple effects of these no knock
Speaker 1: warrants coupled with a very in our estimation, toxic culture
Speaker 1: of policing, bullying culture of policing the holier than now.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm right, you're wrong. I'm the law in
Speaker 1: these parts. I can kill with impunity. I have the gun.
Speaker 1: You don't you do what I say? And if you don't,
Speaker 1: you know it can cost you everything. That type of
Speaker 1: culture coupled with a tactic that doesn't really lend itself
Speaker 1: to police doing actual police work. It just it starts
Speaker 1: off on the bully level already insure as that we
Speaker 1: end up with stories like Breonna Taylor, stories like Marvin Guy,
Speaker 1: a gentleman in Texas who's now serving life in prison
Speaker 1: because when the police kicked in his door, he thought
Speaker 1: that they were burglars. This is indeed a tactic that
Speaker 1: burglars use too, kicking the door and say this is
Speaker 1: the police, and then everybody gets on the ground and
Speaker 1: then they tie everybody up and then rob the house.
Speaker 1: So Marvin Guy was defending his house. He shot back
Speaker 1: and an officer, you know, he was protecting his home
Speaker 1: and the right to bear arms in this country. One
Speaker 1: officer was killed and he had no idea that this
Speaker 1: was the police. He had no He just heard commotion
Speaker 1: and screaming. And now he has to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of his life in prison because an officer died. And
Speaker 1: it's in Texas, and that's the way it goes. A
Speaker 1: mere Lock is another name I feel compelled to mention
Speaker 1: because we talked about him on this show. It was
Speaker 1: a video for that one as well. He's kicked in
Speaker 1: the door. A mere Lock was not named in the warrant,
Speaker 1: but he died as a result of a no knock warrant.
Speaker 1: He did not have a weapon, he was not resisting,
Speaker 1: he was sleeping on a couch in my recollection of
Speaker 1: that event. So why are we talking about no lock
Speaker 1: warrants today? Well, a video has finally been released in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Was a woman who went through a very, very traumatic experience.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask a question after we go
Speaker 1: through this video. I'm not going to play the whole video,
Speaker 1: but i'd certainly want to give you a glimpse into
Speaker 1: what's happening. Of course, you can only really hear what's
Speaker 1: going on here, but again, this glimpse into no knock
Speaker 1: warrants and indeed, the way that black people are treated
Speaker 1: and traumatized, it boggles the mind if indeed you are
Speaker 1: a person with a degree of empathy and compassion. So
Speaker 1: I'll read a bit just so you can follow the story.
Speaker 1: This comes from NBC News Chicago. A Chicago police sergeant
Speaker 1: has been fired. So there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: justice here, and she filed lawsuit and in one let
Speaker 1: make sure I mentioned that. But this sergeant has been
Speaker 1: fired for his role in a botched twenty nineteen raid
Speaker 1: at the home of a black woman who was handcuffed
Speaker 1: while naked after police officers were sent to the wrong address.
Speaker 1: I want you to hear her screaming naked. She's not
Speaker 1: a young woman, she's you know this. She lives it alone.
Speaker 1: It is heartbreaking. The Chicago Police Board voted five to
Speaker 1: three Thursday to fire Sergeant Alex Wolinski for multiple rules
Speaker 1: violations and failure of leadership in the raid and an
Speaker 1: apartment of an Jeanette Young. According to a thirty one
Speaker 1: page written ruling, The Chicago Sun Times recorded, Young, a
Speaker 1: social worker, was getting ready for bed in February twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen when several officers serving a no knock warrant stormed
Speaker 1: into her apartment on Chicago's Near West Side, searching for
Speaker 1: a man believed to have an illegal gun. A man
Speaker 1: believed him not a mass murderer, a man believed to
Speaker 1: have an illegal gun because you know you have That
Speaker 1: was it. So we're going to hear the collateral damage,
Speaker 1: how this impacts not only this woman or family, but
Speaker 1: a community. You know, we talk about this up and
Speaker 1: then people don't believe that there are real implications. Here's
Speaker 1: there's almost like this kind of suck it up, Buttercup.
Speaker 1: And then when you take a step back and you
Speaker 1: look at four hundred years of this and you look
Speaker 1: at the trauma that manifests itself in many ways, from
Speaker 1: socioeconomics to healthcare, to environmental racism, to police brutality and injustice,
Speaker 1: the carceral system. You know, I could go on and
Speaker 1: on and on that suck it up, buttercub. It doesn't fly.
Speaker 1: And without context, people get to have these narratives that like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: black people should just do this and completely absolve themselves,
Speaker 1: and indeed, this country from its responsibility to the can
Speaker 1: of black people in the society. Let me continue reading here.
Speaker 1: The botched raid and the city's handling of it prompted
Speaker 1: anger from clergy, lawmakers and civil rights activists, who decried
Speaker 1: it as a racist and an affront to a black
Speaker 1: woman's dignity, which it is. Well, I'll let you decide
Speaker 1: for yourself. Don't let me color. I've seen this video,
Speaker 1: so I have my own feelings, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to compel any of you listening feel any kind of
Speaker 1: way I am. Indeed, I implore you to watch the
Speaker 1: video yourself. Watch it. You're gonna listen, But I want
Speaker 1: you to watch it too, And as I mentioned, Young
Speaker 1: later sued the city over the raid, resulting in the
Speaker 1: Chicago City Council voting unanimously in December twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: to pay her two point nine million dollars to settle
Speaker 1: her lawsuit. Let's get to the video here.
Speaker 3: You get the wrong place. Please let me call some
Speaker 3: that this is not right. I don't want to be
Speaker 3: here about myself. Let me call somebody. This is not right.
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear what you say is her
Speaker 3: until you let me call somebody, because this is not right.
Speaker 3: I have just living here with myself. Nobody by that
Speaker 3: name lives here.
Speaker 1: You can go every.
Speaker 3: Single mail in my house. You're not gonna fight it.
Speaker 2: And you got the wrong place.
Speaker 3: You got the wrong way. Nobody about that name lives here.
Speaker 3: I do not I know everybody myself, he says, I'm
Speaker 3: going in for hour. You got the wrong place. I
Speaker 3: have lived here since two thousand and fifteen. You've got
Speaker 3: the wrong place, and nobody's on this leaves from me
Speaker 3: and my son. And my son said, you've got over.
Speaker 3: My son is twenty two. He is not here. You
Speaker 3: got the wrong place. Nobody about that name has ever
Speaker 3: been here at this so crazy you standing here now
Speaker 3: in your tech picture in my house and you won't
Speaker 3: let me call a man. And I keep telling you
Speaker 3: you got the wrong way, you got the.
Speaker 1: Wrong Okay, I'm gonna stop it right there. So doctor Westenberg,
Speaker 1: has that hit you.
Speaker 2: It's devastating.
Speaker 1: The fact.
Speaker 2: That the warrant was provided and you said it or
Speaker 2: a man who has a gun.
Speaker 1: Potentially potentially.
Speaker 2: I'm really wondering it. What is policy? I think we
Speaker 2: need to go back to policy. But one thing, sure,
Speaker 2: and look at why are you giving the right to
Speaker 2: go into someone? What's the criteria? And there isn't anything
Speaker 2: else that I have heard that would say that at
Speaker 2: that moment and that time was the reason to go
Speaker 2: and try to apprehend the man. The next thing is
Speaker 2: that when they walk in, obviously they're not looking at
Speaker 2: a man. Okay, yes, I don't know what the size
Speaker 2: of the apartment was, but they could have be escalated
Speaker 2: and said miss, we're looking for a man. We don't
Speaker 2: want to harm you. I apologize because coming in, will
Speaker 2: you please just step over here. I don't know if
Speaker 2: they touched her or not. I haven't seen the video.
Speaker 1: She was handcuffed. She was to see Megan yet handcuffed?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, will you just step over here
Speaker 2: and quietly wait. We just want to search the apartment.
Speaker 2: If they have to do that, if they have to
Speaker 2: do that. And they could have offered her something, picked
Speaker 2: up some piece of fabric to give to her to
Speaker 2: clothe herself, to clook herself. So there was no sensitivity,
Speaker 2: the escalation or anything demonstrated here. And they did not
Speaker 2: handcuff a man. They handcuffed a woman. Okay, why if
Speaker 2: they're looking for a man. It simply does not make
Speaker 2: sense at all. Sure, I don't see any grounds for
Speaker 2: the whole the whole situation is wrong.
Speaker 1: I once upon a time. First, I want to credit
Speaker 1: attorney Ben Crump for this video because that's where it
Speaker 1: came to mine and q's attention. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: I was walking in a place where I live. It's
Speaker 1: called Mill Avenue, and Mill Avenue was just where you
Speaker 1: went on a Friday Saturday night walk up and down
Speaker 1: the street, hangouts. There's nightclubs, this sort of stuff. I
Speaker 1: wasn't old enough to go in, but you could go
Speaker 1: and hang out on the street. I think if you're
Speaker 1: in Vegas, Fremont Street. If you're there's these little strips
Speaker 1: in a lot of cities around the country, and you
Speaker 1: can just go and enjoy night life. You don't have
Speaker 1: to do anything crazy.
Speaker 2: So Mill Avenue is a college commute to college. Yes,
Speaker 2: you're going to have young people out.
Speaker 1: So I was there once upon a time, and I
Speaker 1: was wearing a yellow aver Rex shirt. For those that
Speaker 1: you know, know what about aver Rex, it gives you
Speaker 1: an idea how long ago this was. But I was
Speaker 1: wearing a yellow Averrex shirt. I had the sweat band
Speaker 1: on I was. I had like the arm wristband, and
Speaker 1: I had some yellow shoes. I was. I was looking fly.
Speaker 1: This was two thousand and dash right, and the police
Speaker 1: hold up on me and they made me get on
Speaker 1: the ground. I was in it with a group of
Speaker 1: friends police and on Mill Avenue. The police had bikes
Speaker 1: and horses just so they can move around a little
Speaker 1: bit better, hold up on me, started screaming at me.
Speaker 1: I was terrified, and get on the ground. Get on
Speaker 1: the ground, right. So I'm on the ground and then they,
Speaker 1: you know, get me all wrapped up and I keep
Speaker 1: trying to ask what I did, and no one's really listening.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, What do I do? What
Speaker 1: I do? My friends are standing around watching this happen
Speaker 1: to me, helpless, because of course each of these people
Speaker 1: is they have a gun, and you know, I'm from Compton, California,
Speaker 1: so I know, you know, this is a life and
Speaker 1: death situation potentially. Let me do my best to get
Speaker 1: out of it alive, right, So I'm not going to
Speaker 1: push back too much. But again, there is a modicum
Speaker 1: of dignity that I believe that every every creature endowed
Speaker 1: with consciousness deserves. This is my belief. And when that
Speaker 1: line is crossed, even for myself, there's a point where
Speaker 1: you push back and you just insist, like this is
Speaker 1: not right, this is not fair. We hurt the woman
Speaker 1: an Jeanette Young saying this in the video, this is
Speaker 1: not right. Turns out they were looking for a white
Speaker 1: man in a yellow Isn't that funny? And that wasn't
Speaker 1: enough for them to let me go. Of course, ye
Speaker 1: I was searched, I was detained all these sorts of things,
Speaker 1: and of course I didn't have anything on me, none
Speaker 1: of that, you know what I mean. But they used
Speaker 1: it as an opportunity to see what else they could
Speaker 1: shake out, and I think that again we're talking about
Speaker 1: police culture coupled with these tactics. As you mentioned, these
Speaker 1: tactics are okay, what in the world a no knock
Speaker 1: warrant on an apartment when you're looking for a man
Speaker 1: with a gun. You can't flush a gun down a toilet,
Speaker 1: and you can do a bit of police work and
Speaker 1: still find it without having a handcuff an older black
Speaker 1: woman naked in the living room of her house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's absolutely I don't see anything
Speaker 2: that's appropriate about this. And the police officer was fired
Speaker 2: and she receives some monetary that's nice, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there were just no grounds, and I would say from
Speaker 2: the very beginning, somewhere along we need to look at
Speaker 2: policy and what are the guidelines for establishing that type
Speaker 2: of warrant.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. There's another thing here, though,
Speaker 1: and this is part of why this was particularly upsetting
Speaker 1: to me. I know a black woman that I look
Speaker 1: up to and there's times when she lives alone, and
Speaker 1: if this happened to her and she was I mean
Speaker 1: no disrespect because I'm talking about you. You are that
Speaker 1: woman in my life, But if she was powerless to
Speaker 1: fight back or to affirm her dignity in that moment.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's the sort of thing I would
Speaker 1: in Heaven and eartholver right, it's very very upsetting to
Speaker 1: listen to a woman screaming and she was right, and
Speaker 1: no one's listening to her, and they just assume that
Speaker 1: she's you know, it's guilty until proven innocent sort of
Speaker 1: mentality that a lot of times. I certainly had that
Speaker 1: when I was shaking down, shaken down on Middle Avenue.
Speaker 2: There's so many factors that I would want to look
Speaker 2: at in that case. I'd like to know how many
Speaker 2: officers entered that I counted for from I'd like to
Speaker 2: know the ethnicity of all of them, you know, that's
Speaker 2: that's significant too. And to have that many policemen there
Speaker 2: for one female simply does not. They just there was
Speaker 2: no courtesy, no graces that were given to her at all.
Speaker 2: And again to take her out handcuffed, this absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 2: She did not beat.
Speaker 1: The profile, but what they were not at all.
Speaker 2: There's no reason and I didn't hear at least to
Speaker 2: that want anything that she did that would warrant them
Speaker 2: to handcuff her and take her in.
Speaker 1: So Here's where I'm asking you, our listeners.
Speaker 2: She fought back when they were, but who's going to
Speaker 2: be she want't.
Speaker 1: Much too old, much too old for that. But here's
Speaker 1: what I want you, our listener, to take with you.
Speaker 1: I want you to reimagine, if you can this happening
Speaker 1: to a white woman, does the same thing happen to her?
Speaker 1: And if your answer is that is less conceivable, even
Speaker 1: if you get just to less concern, then the label
Speaker 1: of racism has at least a leg in that thought experiently.
Speaker 1: So if you'll do that for me, I'll appreciate it.