Speaker 1: Yet that's right, y'all. Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, rams Is Jack to call me q Ward,
Speaker 1: and today we're going to have to talk about the
Speaker 1: elephant and the donkey in the room, both of them.
Speaker 1: Unless you've been living under a rock, you recognize that
Speaker 1: we are in a state of uneasiness because of our
Speaker 1: nation's uncertain future. But you know, on this show, what
Speaker 1: we want to do is provide some context and do
Speaker 1: our best to explain or discuss or work our way
Speaker 1: through the things that we know, not to necessarily speculate
Speaker 1: on things that we don't know. And so for today's episode,
Speaker 1: obviously it's a special episode. Every single you know news
Speaker 1: show is doing special episodes based on the election. But
Speaker 1: what we're going to do is discuss some of the
Speaker 1: things that stood out to us, to me, especially about
Speaker 1: what has happened this past week. And so we'll start
Speaker 1: at the top trump Ism, you know, the Donald Trump
Speaker 1: fanatics and his fan base. So I want to start
Speaker 1: this off by saying, I recognize that there are some
Speaker 1: people who are Democrats and there are some people who
Speaker 1: are Republicans, and if the Republican Party just happens to
Speaker 1: be the only political party that you can identify with
Speaker 1: or at least most closely aligns with your belief system.
Speaker 1: That is not bad, that's not a sin, that's not
Speaker 1: a crime. You know, some people they have to certive
Speaker 1: conservative values and that that party speaks to those values,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. But Donald Trump has obviously and very
Speaker 1: publicly gone against many of the ideals of that party,
Speaker 1: many of the ideals of democracy. I would even take
Speaker 1: it as far as to say humanity. And what we're
Speaker 1: left with in this moment is his fanatics, the groups
Speaker 1: of people that he's galvanized to vote for him who
Speaker 1: are passionate about him. Now that's not to say that
Speaker 1: all people who voted for Donald Trump are Donald Trump fanatics.
Speaker 1: They're not. They don't get an excuse, you know, they
Speaker 1: certainly don't get a prepass from from I think from
Speaker 1: you know, people like me, a black man who just
Speaker 1: is a little bit more sensible and just is of
Speaker 1: the persuasion that we have to share this country, this city,
Speaker 1: the state, this planet with each other. You know, those
Speaker 1: people don't get off the hook. But I do recognize
Speaker 1: that if that if you tend to vote down ticket,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're a diehard Republican that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is the only option that you may have had.
Speaker 2: You're so kind. I have to set it up. I
Speaker 2: have to set it up. You're so kind, man, I
Speaker 2: gotta do.
Speaker 1: Let me set it up. So, but there are some
Speaker 1: people who are very much on the Trump train, if
Speaker 1: you will. Those are the people that you know, they
Speaker 1: wear the Maga hats and they you know, they're proud
Speaker 1: of the person they voted for. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: Republican people who they just don't believe in democratic values.
Speaker 1: They don't want whatever they've been taught to be afraid of.
Speaker 1: Not to not to place blame, because we're all taught
Speaker 1: fears in different ways, but you know that's what they learned,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up, and and you know that's the
Speaker 1: reality of the situation. But there are some folks h
Speaker 1: and everyone has to admit, there are some folks who
Speaker 1: are fanatics. It's almost like a cult, you know.
Speaker 2: It's not almost like anything. He has a he has
Speaker 2: a a very pronounced zealot base.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So we've seen what has happened with this Trump train,
Speaker 1: this trump uh trump Ism many times over the past
Speaker 1: four years. His fanatics are willing to do whatever he says.
Speaker 1: They they found their guy. Typically they're white males, sometimes
Speaker 1: they're Karens, and they feel like they've gotten their country
Speaker 1: back and they've gotten back there. But everything that they
Speaker 1: thought they lost under the Obama administration, they have discovered
Speaker 1: a new sense of pride and a renewed sense of selfishness.
Speaker 1: I would imagine, you know, if I'm if I'm being
Speaker 1: kind about it, and a sense of ownership in this country,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and that their belief system is
Speaker 1: the only belief system that is valid, right Ah, But
Speaker 1: I think that you know, this what we've seen in
Speaker 1: the past few days of people, you know, standing outside
Speaker 1: of ballot offices with guns, you know, people echoing his
Speaker 1: his sentiments about how the election processes rigged, the same
Speaker 1: election process that elected him and l and largely with
Speaker 1: even without even a moticum of proof, they just will
Speaker 1: get out there, you know, one or two conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: is all they need to do to all they need
Speaker 1: to grab their gun and go out. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really the definition of fasci fascism, fascian fascistism
Speaker 1: is that how you say that whatever it is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, That's that's what it is. When you take
Speaker 1: a gun and you go and try to, you know,
Speaker 1: keep track of what's going on.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: When we have bipartisan committees that are you know, monitoring
Speaker 1: the votes and so forth and so on, then you
Speaker 1: have these fans, these fanatics rather and my worry is
Speaker 1: that on the other side of this, we're going to
Speaker 1: have to deal with these people. Now the most the
Speaker 1: scariest thing about this is, you know, not just dealing
Speaker 1: with these people, right. I wanted to take a moment
Speaker 1: to identify that this group of people exists. But now
Speaker 1: you know, you said I was being kind earlier. I
Speaker 1: also want to talk about the other approximately seventy million
Speaker 1: people that voted for Donald Trump. My understanding is that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the candidate who has received the most
Speaker 1: presidential votes in the history of this country, but the
Speaker 1: second most voted for a candidate in this country is
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And he's had four years to show everyone
Speaker 1: exactly who he is, exactly what he stands for, exactly
Speaker 1: what he stands against. He's insulted everybody under the sun,
Speaker 1: including people who have been sick. I'm not talking about Muslims.
Speaker 1: I'm talking I'm not talking about Mexican I'm talking about people.
Speaker 1: You know, the virus didn't discriminate against anyone, and his
Speaker 1: cavalier attitude toward you know, the deaths of so many people,
Speaker 1: and the same attitude reflected in his cabinet and in
Speaker 1: his family and so forth, has not kept any of
Speaker 1: these people from casting a vote for him. And my
Speaker 1: worry is that we're going to have to come to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that there was no blue wave
Speaker 1: as we expected it. You know, it came down to
Speaker 1: the come down, and that's very sad. For a while,
Speaker 1: I was very sad about that because I expected humans
Speaker 1: to human and I don't mean that to sound negative.
Speaker 1: I meant it to sound positive, like it's in our core,
Speaker 1: the core of who we are, to be social creatures,
Speaker 1: to understand that we need each other and to you know,
Speaker 1: see the best in each other. And the fact that
Speaker 1: he has, you know, used fear and intimidation and wielded
Speaker 1: that successfully to get people to look beyond their own
Speaker 1: capacity to love and find love and find commonality with
Speaker 1: other folks and succumb to fear and cast a vote
Speaker 1: for him. Almost seventy million people's worth is very scary.
Speaker 1: Because we still have to share whole country with these people,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're waving Trump flags or blue shirts
Speaker 1: matter flags on the back of their trucks. Q. Have
Speaker 1: you had any thoughts about these things yourself?
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's why it's very, very difficult for me
Speaker 2: to feel any sense of accomplishment or relief. Okay, even
Speaker 2: as you know the polls, which the people who make
Speaker 2: these polls should be fired, Like this is second election
Speaker 2: in a row where the poles have made it, have
Speaker 2: made it seem like one candidate would win this thing
Speaker 2: rather easily, and it's been in you know, contentious to
Speaker 2: the very last vote for now the second election in
Speaker 2: a row. So he makes you wonder who these people
Speaker 2: are talking to, you know, where are they collecting this
Speaker 2: data and how is it so inaccurate? But even so,
Speaker 2: even with a Joe Biden win, the second highest vote
Speaker 2: tally for any presidential candidate in history belongs to Donald
Speaker 2: Trump four years after he's been the president.
Speaker 1: Already got impeached, got impeached, scandal after scandal, everybody's in
Speaker 1: jail at work for him.
Speaker 2: This I've never in my lifetime, and especially in my
Speaker 2: adult life as a voter walked into the ballot box
Speaker 2: with a with a good versus evil mentality. It's always
Speaker 2: been Democrat versus Republican, and I've always been able to
Speaker 2: peacefully disagree with my countrymen who had conservative Republican principles.
Speaker 2: And in most cases it was either very very Christian
Speaker 2: or very very rich, and they could explain to you
Speaker 2: in a way that would make perfect sense to you,
Speaker 2: even if you didn't agree with it, and even if
Speaker 2: you didn't feel the same way. When you finished hearing
Speaker 2: them speak and articulate their position, you could say, okay,
Speaker 2: understand that, and go to work and sit next to
Speaker 2: that person the next day, and go to lunch with
Speaker 2: that person, go to family gatherings and company picnics and
Speaker 2: all that stuff with that person. Because they weren't voting
Speaker 2: in direct conflict with your personal livelihood. They just shared
Speaker 2: different political views than you, and that was always okay.
Speaker 2: There was a wave one hundred million early voters largely
Speaker 2: in favor of Joe Biden, tons of mail in ballots
Speaker 2: largely in favor of Joe Biden, but the fact that
Speaker 2: nearly seventy million people cast a vote in favor of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is excessively disheartening, and for what it's worth,
Speaker 2: because people that I know and people that I like
Speaker 2: and care about are a part of that zealot base
Speaker 2: of his. I know because they keep messaging me, trying
Speaker 2: to educate me on all the wonderful things about their president.
Speaker 2: The Republican Party, as we've always known it has now
Speaker 2: ceased to exist absolutely because his constituents, his colleagues, the
Speaker 2: Republican patriots that he serves with, have not stood in
Speaker 2: his way at a single turn, have not stood opposite
Speaker 2: of him on a single issue. So it is no
Speaker 2: longer the Republican Party. It's Trump the Trump Party. And
Speaker 2: unless when he unless he loses this election and his
Speaker 2: whole family and their whole collective goes to prison, someone
Speaker 2: from his family, someone from his circle, will represent that
Speaker 2: party from now on. So please know that in four years,
Speaker 2: someone either last named Trump or that serves with him
Speaker 2: or works with him, is going to be running on
Speaker 2: the Trump ticket, not the Republican ticket, but on the
Speaker 2: Trump ticket again. And that if one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: million people voted, one hundred and fifty million people voted,
Speaker 2: if close to half of them voted for him, let's
Speaker 2: believe that half the country feels the way that he does.
Speaker 1: And that's the part that's very scary.
Speaker 2: Bro, Like, it's hard to even with a win, feel
Speaker 2: good when that's the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me say this.
Speaker 2: Please go ahead.
Speaker 1: So in Arizona, where we live, we made news for
Speaker 1: the state going blue, which felt good. You know, wasn't
Speaker 1: something that we were necessarily expecting or counting on. Certainly
Speaker 1: when I was watching the polls, I didn't believe anything
Speaker 1: until the last second, you know, But when I found
Speaker 1: that that Arizona had gone blue, I thought to myself, like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe at least here in this you know,
Speaker 1: the state that's close to California, that's in between you know,
Speaker 1: New Mexico and California, you know, there's some compassion, some decency,
Speaker 1: some humanity, and some moral standards that are being upheld
Speaker 1: by the people out here for that office. And I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding myself. I do recognize that Arizona is a
Speaker 1: red state. Next election, fully expect Arizona to keep voting Republican.
Speaker 1: But at least where we lived, there was a rebuke.
Speaker 1: The majority of folks, you know, stood up and said, no,
Speaker 1: we don't want to do this. Anymore. But the fact
Speaker 1: that it came down to I think somewhere around eighty
Speaker 1: thousand ballots one way or the other, when there's I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly how many voters there are, registered voters
Speaker 1: there are, but it's a very small number of millions
Speaker 1: for relative to population, suggests that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people out here who look past all of the things
Speaker 1: that you mentioned and still cast a ballot for that
Speaker 1: man who has made life very difficult and traumatic for
Speaker 1: people who are not rich, or maybe people who are
Speaker 1: not Christian, and you know, and a lot of folks
Speaker 1: really feel like this is a Christian country. But this
Speaker 1: country was founded by folks who escaped religious persecution. But
Speaker 1: they wrote it into the laws. And if you believe
Speaker 1: in this this country and this democracy, then you'll recognize
Speaker 1: that there is no state religion. You know, you're free
Speaker 1: to practice. There's freedom of religion in the Constitution. And
Speaker 1: so these two things, it's very difficult for me to
Speaker 1: reconcile it. And then knowing that I have to get
Speaker 1: out and take a walk. And I know which neighbors
Speaker 1: put those Trump signs in.
Speaker 2: Their yards, not just in their yards, look at the
Speaker 2: six foot flags they put in the back of their trucks.
Speaker 1: Too, you know. But there's a distinction there. There's some
Speaker 1: people who are like, look, I'm a Republican, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, and then there's some people who are like,
Speaker 1: I'm a Trumper, you know, and the Trumpers are the
Speaker 1: ones with the flags. In my opinion, by and large,
Speaker 1: Republicans are people that support you know, they got you know,
Speaker 1: the Senate person they want, and the congressmen or women
Speaker 1: that they want, and then they have the president that
Speaker 1: they want who reflects their belief system. And I've done
Speaker 1: my best to try to get to a point where
Speaker 1: I can understand that if the world stayed the way
Speaker 1: that it is right now, it wouldn't affect them negatively
Speaker 1: and they would be fine. And they just don't care.
Speaker 1: Not that they're actively trying to harm me with their
Speaker 1: vote or you know, disenfranchise me with their vote, but
Speaker 1: that it's not on their radar. And that's again a
Speaker 1: kind way of putting it, extremely kind, but that's you know,
Speaker 1: you have to get to that point in order to
Speaker 1: have this sort of a conversation with a platform like this.
Speaker 2: Now, you guys see why Rams is going to heaven.
Speaker 2: That type of grace. Well, that's very and that type
Speaker 2: of understanding is what the good Book would have us do.
Speaker 2: And that's the way that the good Book would have
Speaker 2: us think. I wish I could say I agree with you, brother.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, sometimes you have to be diplomatic, and
Speaker 1: of course this is one of those times, because no
Speaker 1: matter what, I still have to live with not just
Speaker 1: the million and a half or so people in the
Speaker 1: state where I live, but also those seventy million people
Speaker 1: that I share this less than seventy million, but approximately
Speaker 1: seventy million people that I share the country with. And
Speaker 1: if I carry the anger and the fear and the
Speaker 1: you know, or any anything that's this basic, any basic
Speaker 1: emotion with me moving for it, I can remember, I
Speaker 1: can certainly insulate myself from further.
Speaker 2: And please know, I don't want you to be aggressive
Speaker 2: or angry or afraid. I do want you to be aware, though,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to extend so much grace that
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and that's it. That's a fair that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Yeah, that's a fair thing to float. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think that you know this this actual show.
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher was founded It was created by me stepping
Speaker 1: away from an old radio station and creating a new
Speaker 1: platform because the old radio station did not want to
Speaker 1: give a voice to black and brown folks that were
Speaker 1: on the streets protesting the murder of George Floyd. And
Speaker 1: when I stepped away, I wrote an open letter. A
Speaker 1: lot of folks know about this, but I wrote an
Speaker 1: open letter resignation, and built into that letter was forgiveness
Speaker 1: because I recognized that some people they just can't see
Speaker 1: the forest from the trees. Some people they are extremely
Speaker 1: afraid of what could go wrong, and they don't focus
Speaker 1: on what can go right. This is the problem that
Speaker 1: socialism has. You know, people don't think, Okay, we have
Speaker 1: the best minds in the world, in this country. We
Speaker 1: can engineer our way through all these problems. Socialism at
Speaker 1: its core, the essence of what it is, the thrust,
Speaker 1: the spirit of it makes perfect sense, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. The mechanics are things that we have to
Speaker 1: work our way through. Capitalism isn't perfect. Socialism may not
Speaker 1: be perfect too, but we can certainly work the angles.
Speaker 1: And if the philosophy behind the system is sound, then
Speaker 1: I think that it's worth an investment of our engineering
Speaker 1: talents to work our way through the problems. The same holds
Speaker 1: true with, you know, kind of dealing with folks who
Speaker 1: cast a ballot in the other direction, cast a ballot
Speaker 1: for a man who really did not value anybody that
Speaker 1: didn't look like him or have his amount of money,
Speaker 1: but certainly lied his way through four years to just
Speaker 1: that he did, you know, all the things that he
Speaker 1: made people afraid of, he didn't even do anything like
Speaker 1: I think he has eight miles of that wall and
Speaker 1: he's been president for four years, you understand, And there's
Speaker 1: two thousand plus miles that he had to build, and
Speaker 1: Mexico was supposed to pay for that, and I think
Speaker 1: he paid for those eight miles or we did or something.
Speaker 2: I know he Yeah, he didn't pay for anything.
Speaker 1: You knew that before you said it wasn't a go
Speaker 1: for me, a gofund me at any event. It's this
Speaker 1: energy that I feel is very important to kind of
Speaker 1: keep at the center of a conversation or at the
Speaker 1: center of my being when dealing with these folks. And
Speaker 1: I admit that that is a very difficult thing to do,
Speaker 1: because never before has an election felt so personally disrespectful
Speaker 1: to me To my family, to my family's future, to
Speaker 1: my children, to my friends, white, black, Hispanic, Native, Asian,
Speaker 1: pick a country, Muslim, Buddhist. It never for It's like
Speaker 1: America and everybody else can die. And that's what the
Speaker 1: vote is because that's who the guy is. And there's
Speaker 1: no there's nothing there.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that he did that's so brilliant, however,
Speaker 2: is that it's not even America. It's not even go America,
Speaker 2: and forget everybody else, it's go him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's not just people that look like him that
Speaker 2: have his that are in his tax bracket, no, very person.
Speaker 2: It's far more personal than that, him and his friends.
Speaker 2: And then that's it, his family, his friends, and him.
Speaker 2: If it benefits them, sure, if it just so happens
Speaker 2: to benefit you. Please know that you were just collateral. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you were just adjacent to right. He put out a
Speaker 2: he put out a building of his that's on fire,
Speaker 2: and you lived there. He was not saving your life.
Speaker 2: He was protecting his investment. So please don't think that
Speaker 2: there's anything that he's doing with anyone's interest in mind,
Speaker 2: beside his self or besides his own. He's not in
Speaker 2: it for you. And I mean that to everyone who
Speaker 2: can hear this. No matter what you look like, no
Speaker 2: matter how much money you make, He's not in it
Speaker 2: for you. He's in it for him.
Speaker 1: So let me suggest this, Okay, that brings me the thought.
Speaker 1: I think it was like ninety of Republicans cast a
Speaker 1: ballot for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen. Then he had
Speaker 1: his presidency, complete with impeachment and thousands of lies, hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of deaths, scandal after scandal for years, and
Speaker 1: everyone saw it. It was in full view of everyone. And
Speaker 1: then ninety three percent of Republicans voted for him, And
Speaker 1: there was an increase in black mail voters voting for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and there was an increase in Hispanic voters
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. And I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: that's said here because I don't think it's fair just
Speaker 1: to put this on one group of people. And granted, those folks,
Speaker 1: those black male voters and those Hispanic voters, certainly weren't
Speaker 1: the majority of folks voting for him, and they obviously
Speaker 1: didn't make that big of a difference, you know, in
Speaker 1: his campaign. But the fact that there was an increase
Speaker 1: suggests to me that there's some deep seated psychological issues.
Speaker 2: It's called brainwashing. Yeah, there you go right upwards of upwards,
Speaker 2: right ninety and I think higher than ninety percent of
Speaker 2: black women voted against him. I think over ninety percent.
Speaker 2: A couple of things that are glaring is that any
Speaker 2: minority can support him when he's so outwardly and openly
Speaker 2: on camera in front of everyone, speaks down on every ethnicity,
Speaker 2: on every migrant group, all immigrants, all, the fact that
Speaker 2: he tries to align himself with Christians and evangelicals, this comedy,
Speaker 2: when we've seen the way that he actually thinks, the
Speaker 2: way that he speaks when he doesn't think anybody's paying attention,
Speaker 2: you know, grab him by the you know what. That
Speaker 2: came out while he was trying to be elected, and
Speaker 2: he was still elected. So we're not wondering how this
Speaker 2: country feels and thinks, right, You often hear people wondering
Speaker 2: out loud, how specifically Hispanic and more specifically Mexican people
Speaker 2: can vote for this man when his entire campaign the
Speaker 2: first time around was based on building a wall to
Speaker 2: make sure Mexicans could not come into this country. The ideology,
Speaker 2: the brainwashing.
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks they I think they think
Speaker 1: that they are like him.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, there's no, Yes, that's absolutely it.
Speaker 1: They think that they're white.
Speaker 2: You ever seen you ever seen a nerdy kid turn
Speaker 2: cool and then start treating other nerdy kids like crap?
Speaker 2: It's that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not me.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not that he's talking to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all you did was take your glasses off.
Speaker 1: My dude, you're still you. You still you come down.
Speaker 1: That's how it looks.
Speaker 2: And all your cool new friends still look at you
Speaker 2: the same way. Right, you benefit them in some way
Speaker 2: now because there's a Yeah, there's a reason you're you're
Speaker 2: you're that they let you into the club. But yes,
Speaker 2: you know, millions of people who come from these whole countries,
Speaker 2: as he calls them, into this country, and who have
Speaker 2: made a life for themselves and who have accumulated some
Speaker 2: wealth and tasted this American dream now look back and
Speaker 2: down on their own people. How about that, because they're
Speaker 2: now a part of this thing that they're now trying
Speaker 2: to protect from the vent whoever they are. They're gonna
Speaker 2: protect what they have now from any outsiders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we just want y'all to know that we
Speaker 1: see you, all right, So let's talk about some good news.
Speaker 2: We got some good news.
Speaker 1: Wolf See.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, talk to me. I need it.
Speaker 2: So I'm anxious.
Speaker 1: This past week, one of the big winners was marijuana.
Speaker 1: Marijuana has been made legal, either recreationally or medicinally, and however,
Speaker 1: many more states, but the number of states is growing.
Speaker 1: Every single marijuana build that was on every ballot in
Speaker 1: the country past, and I think it might have been
Speaker 1: Mississippi that had two ballots and the more liberal ballot
Speaker 1: was the one that was uh was that won in
Speaker 1: their election. And so here in Arizona there is now
Speaker 1: recreational marijuana that people will be able to use. Now,
Speaker 1: let me first start off, I think people are able
Speaker 1: to grow now too personally, if it's a small amount.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Now let me start by saying that in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: I've never smoked marijuana. I don't intend to. I've never
Speaker 1: drank alcohol, I've never done any drug, never smoked anything
Speaker 1: likewise in my whole life likewise, So this is not
Speaker 1: a you know, yeah, finally we can all smoke wheat.
Speaker 1: But I do recognize that that has been used by
Speaker 1: police and by the prison industrial complex to hold black
Speaker 1: and brown bodies and exploit them for profit labor and
Speaker 1: criminalize people and give them records and limit their you know,
Speaker 1: prospects for you know, making a life.
Speaker 2: And to keep the prison industrial complex full and thriving.
Speaker 1: Sure, exactly. And so there's I want to say all
Speaker 1: these things because there's two schools of thought behind this
Speaker 1: proposition two seven. Now, a lot of folks didn't know
Speaker 1: myself included that there's a big company that sponsored this bill, right,
Speaker 1: and this company, I forget the name of the company,
Speaker 1: but it's basically a big medical marijuana monopoly whatever that is.
Speaker 1: If you google it, it's them. They authored the bill.
Speaker 1: And the bill does not come with expungement or exoneration
Speaker 1: or whatever for folks who have already arrested for having
Speaker 1: possession of marijuana small amounts, but they can't apply for it.
Speaker 1: And then it because of the people who authored the bill,
Speaker 1: obviously it serves their interests and it limits you know,
Speaker 1: mom and pop sorts entering into the marketplace. So people
Speaker 1: who have in the past made the living selling drugs,
Speaker 1: selling marijuana at least now cannot easily move into a
Speaker 1: legitimate practice. But these guys with their money are going
Speaker 1: to be able to sell marijuana, no problem, right. And
Speaker 1: also I think thirty one percent of the profits from
Speaker 1: the sales of the of the marijuana will go to
Speaker 1: police pensions. And the reason why that is particularly offensive
Speaker 1: is because there is a significant amount of black folks
Speaker 1: who are disproportionately affected by marijuana charges and brown folks
Speaker 1: as well, and a significant amount of those populations that
Speaker 1: also support defunding the police. And so the bill on
Speaker 1: its face goes to support police pensions. It's not buying
Speaker 1: tanks or anything like that. But I think that all
Speaker 1: those things deserve to be mentioned because there are some
Speaker 1: folks who don't like the way that this has come about. Now,
Speaker 1: I am of the persuasion that it's a baby step,
Speaker 1: and any step in the right direction is good because
Speaker 1: even if no one is getting released from prison, you know,
Speaker 1: even if this money is going to a a monopoly
Speaker 1: and it's going to police or whatever, what happens also
Speaker 1: is that no one else will be arrested for you know,
Speaker 1: think like young people when they're experimenting, which I know
Speaker 1: it's only for twenty one or older, but you know,
Speaker 1: who cares. Whatever. This has been something that's been used
Speaker 1: against black folks and brown folks, and largely when it's
Speaker 1: not black or brown folks, you know, you get a
Speaker 1: slap on the wrist or you just get to go home,
Speaker 1: you know. And so in my opinion, I think that
Speaker 1: it's still good even though it wasn't as good as
Speaker 1: it could be. And so for that, I think that
Speaker 1: at least where I stand right now, I'll call it
Speaker 1: some progress anything any.
Speaker 2: Thoughts, let me first start with where I agree. Okay,
Speaker 2: any step in the right direction, I'm with it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: To ever get to the point where people's records are
Speaker 2: being expunged and people are being let out of prison
Speaker 2: for nonviolent drug related sentences or charges has to start
Speaker 2: with this, sure like, you have to start here, no
Speaker 2: matter who it benefits. You've got to make this stuff
Speaker 2: legal before we're letting people back on the streets for
Speaker 2: having done it. Sure, so one hundred percent with that.
Speaker 2: I also want to say, and this has been said before,
Speaker 2: but it's just been said at a time that was
Speaker 2: insensitive and tone death. Not all cops are bad. That's
Speaker 2: actual fact. I know some people that love me, that
Speaker 2: have fought for me literally and you know morally, that
Speaker 2: are police officers. They do have a very very difficult,
Speaker 2: very dangerous job. The idea that something's going to go
Speaker 2: to their pensions for you know, they make it to
Speaker 2: the end of their career and they get to retire,
Speaker 2: they didn't die. You know, that's not something that I'm
Speaker 2: against either. Like you said, it's not going to let's
Speaker 2: get the drones with the missile launchers on them or
Speaker 2: the tanks so we can ride through the streets and
Speaker 2: intimidate people. You know, I'm not, on its face against
Speaker 2: that part either. The thing that's funny. Also in the
Speaker 2: news this week, Oregon decriminalized some much harder drugs, all
Speaker 2: of them. And all of this speaks to what typically
Speaker 2: needs to happen for people's basic humanity and empathy and
Speaker 2: just regular common sense logic to kick in is that
Speaker 2: the people being victimized by something have to look like them.
Speaker 2: So when I was a kid, I'm from Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 2: My partner here, ramses Jah Civic Cipher is from Compton, California.
Speaker 2: We are from communities that were hit the absolute hardest,
Speaker 2: where the riots happened, where black people were taken to
Speaker 2: prison in droves on drug related charges. In the eighties,
Speaker 2: that was not seen as a health issue.
Speaker 1: Talk to them.
Speaker 2: That was seen as a criminal issue. So the war
Speaker 2: on drugs turned our communities into factories to keep the
Speaker 2: prison industrial system full and flourishing. And they told us
Speaker 2: just say no. What's the problem. Say no to drugs,
Speaker 2: go to school, be a good citizen. And then about
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years later, that drug pandemic started to
Speaker 2: hit people that looked a little different. And then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we saw drugs as a sickness. We
Speaker 2: saw addiction as a sickness instead of as a crime.
Speaker 2: And now it's not just say no, it's how do
Speaker 2: we get these people help?
Speaker 1: Specifically, he's talking about the opioid UH crisis.
Speaker 2: Very specifically. But at their at their core, the same
Speaker 2: types of drugs, right, they're they're they're concocted differently, sold
Speaker 2: to a different subgroup.
Speaker 1: But and the dealers are corporations, correct, But the human
Speaker 1: beings are addicted. But the victims are going through the
Speaker 1: same challenges and changes, except they look different, their parents
Speaker 1: look different. So their illness gets the attention in the service,
Speaker 1: the empathy that it deserves, not imprisonment. How about that?
Speaker 2: So you know, eventually all of these things seem to
Speaker 2: get where they need to be. It's just that we
Speaker 2: keep saying black lives matter because so many different instances,
Speaker 2: not just being killed by police, but the entire way
Speaker 2: that our countrymen are law enforcement and all of our
Speaker 2: branches of government have viewed us historically, keeps reminding us
Speaker 2: that our lives don't matter. So we just saying it
Speaker 2: as a reminder. And I'm not trying to move walk
Speaker 2: back to other topics, but imagine for hundreds of years
Speaker 2: us never taking up in arms seeking any sort of
Speaker 2: revenge for the way that we've been treated by this country.
Speaker 2: But we keep fighting for this country, right because we
Speaker 2: talked about Arizona being a surprise and having you know,
Speaker 2: at least for now, even if just for a day
Speaker 2: turning blue. But again, I'm from a small city in
Speaker 2: the Midwest. May heard of it called Detroit, Michigan. Wayne
Speaker 2: County showed up yesterday. Detroit, Michigan showed up yesterday. And
Speaker 2: if the count is final and Biden takes Michigan, you
Speaker 2: can think a bunch of people that look like us
Speaker 2: as well. We fight so hard and love this country
Speaker 2: so much, regardless of how it fights against us and
Speaker 2: how our peril seems to at times be the goal.
Speaker 2: So back to the topic. Great first step, but I
Speaker 2: had to speak to some history and to some deeper
Speaker 2: feelings than just what the what the headline will read.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I do want to diggle deeper in uh
Speaker 1: in Oregon, with their decriminalizing all small amounts of hard drugs, right,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks will listen to that, think what
Speaker 1: they decriminalized hard drugs and wonder, like, Okay, their community
Speaker 1: is going to be overrun with hard drugs, right.
Speaker 2: Just like the community here is going to be over
Speaker 2: run with marijuana.
Speaker 1: Now, So watch this. We take a step in Arizona,
Speaker 1: they take a step a little further in Oregon. Right
Speaker 1: in five ten years, will recognize that the way they
Speaker 1: did it was the right way. And how it works
Speaker 1: is if you're caught with a small amount of marijuana,
Speaker 1: they treat it like a ticket. You pay a fine.
Speaker 1: The money from that fine goes to drug rehabilitation programs,
Speaker 1: or you can go to a drug rehabilitation program if
Speaker 1: you can't afford the ticket. And the idea there is
Speaker 1: not to treat these people like their criminals, but to
Speaker 1: treat them like they have an addiction. They have a sickness.
Speaker 1: They have an illness the same as any other illness.
Speaker 1: They're not harming anyone, you know, and obviously larger amounts
Speaker 1: if you're doing something nefarious and trying to make money
Speaker 1: or profit off of it. You know, it's regulated the
Speaker 1: same way alcohol is regulated, you know. But the idea
Speaker 1: there is it puts a lot of these folks out
Speaker 1: of business and empowers like the alcohol companies that make
Speaker 1: alcohols and now the marijuana companies that do that. And
Speaker 1: so we're going to be able to watch this experiment
Speaker 1: unfold and take the parts of it that work, leave
Speaker 1: the parts that don't work. And this is what I
Speaker 1: was speaking to earlier about everyone's fear of socialism and
Speaker 1: the fact that we can actually engineer our way through
Speaker 1: some of the shortcomings or whatever and find a balance,
Speaker 1: strike a balance where everyone has because I think that
Speaker 1: if everyone studies what socialism is and really understands it
Speaker 1: at its essence, it's not a horrible thing.
Speaker 2: At its essence, it's not a bad thing at all.
Speaker 2: It's like saying it's not horrible. It's like it's kind
Speaker 2: of bad, but it's not horrible. No, it's not even
Speaker 2: kind of bad. And certain people in this country, to
Speaker 2: protect their own interest, have made that word on its
Speaker 2: face negative. People hear it and they think that it's
Speaker 2: a bad word, having no understanding at all of what
Speaker 2: it means. Capitalism has massive shortcomings.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so much blood on the hands of capitalism.
Speaker 2: But it has a wonderful pr department. It has the
Speaker 2: greatest marketing campaign in history. So even people who don't
Speaker 2: benefit from capitalism fight for it. And not just people
Speaker 2: that don't not just people that don't benefit from it,
Speaker 2: but people who are crushed under it, are smashed under.
Speaker 1: It, fight for it. There's a there's a good chance
Speaker 1: that I make enough money to where I don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about these sorts of things. And because I'm
Speaker 1: a human being, I still recognize the value of my
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters who are also human beings, and in
Speaker 1: my family of course, but you know, my whole human family.
Speaker 1: And again I employ if you don't know much about capitalism,
Speaker 1: just Google is free. But I do want to talk
Speaker 1: about something else. We're talking about brothers and sisters and family.
Speaker 1: And you know, this past week has presented some challenges,
Speaker 1: some some challenges that I thought I was done with.
Speaker 1: Turns out. I wasn't, But I want to start with you,
Speaker 1: should we block people from our social media maybe our
Speaker 1: life too, with different political beliefs?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, explain.
Speaker 2: I went to college in Bowling Green, Ohio, Wood County. Right,
Speaker 2: the town name of it, wood Wood County.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 2: The town twelve blocks long, twelve blocks wide. Maybe maybe right?
Speaker 2: The total population of Bowling Green during the school year
Speaker 2: when I was there about twenty two thousand. Twenty thousand
Speaker 2: of those were students at the university, So when school
Speaker 2: was in a session, you're talking about a town with
Speaker 2: about twenty twenty five hundred people. And my first Ethnic studies,
Speaker 2: Black Studies was the class I had a classmate who
Speaker 2: I was the first black person he'd ever seen in
Speaker 2: real life. So he did not have a specific or
Speaker 2: personal disdain for black people. We just didn't exist or
Speaker 2: matter in a way that was tangible and literal. Our issues,
Speaker 2: our problems did not exist in his world, so there
Speaker 2: were things that he didn't understand about me, and vice versa.
Speaker 2: He's the first white classmate i'd had, just based on
Speaker 2: where we were born in the world, we thought and
Speaker 2: believed differently, but we became after a very very heated
Speaker 2: argument in from the class that we later had to
Speaker 2: restage for the university because our professor, doctor Jack Taylor,
Speaker 2: thought it was so profound that people needed to see it,
Speaker 2: and he actually made us take the opposite position when
Speaker 2: we reperformed this argument in front of people.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 2: And both of us grew, as you can imagine, tremendously
Speaker 2: from this experience. If he and his family voted differently
Speaker 2: than my family, it would have been very very easy
Speaker 2: to understand why. Right, none of our personal interests were
Speaker 2: even similar, except you know, we were both Christians. But
Speaker 2: that's an entirely separate conversation. To have most people I've
Speaker 2: learned vote different than me, well, i'll say, prior to this,
Speaker 2: prior to this goddess in office. Now, the understanding for
Speaker 2: me had always been that most people voted different for
Speaker 2: fiscal or religious reasons because they felt the Republican Party
Speaker 2: spoke more to the Christian in them or the business
Speaker 2: owner in them, and it was very very easy for
Speaker 2: them to justify having different beliefs when it came to
Speaker 2: the conservative versus liberal approach to politics. Smaller government, less taxes,
Speaker 2: less regulation, you know, anti abortion, huge huge topic. Anti abortion. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I learned even people who don't have a actual care
Speaker 2: in the world about it either way, they understand how
Speaker 2: to pour gasoline on their base by standing on that topic.
Speaker 2: So different political beliefs have never been an issue. I
Speaker 2: worked with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation after college. When I
Speaker 2: was living in Baltimore. I went to the Republican National
Speaker 2: Convention every year for three years, and I was so
Speaker 2: ignorant at the time. When I saw black people there,
Speaker 2: I was blown away. I didn't know a black I
Speaker 2: didn't know that there was a such thing as a
Speaker 2: black Republican. But I met a bunch of wonderful people there.
Speaker 2: They just voted different than me. So no, we shouldn't
Speaker 2: block in real life or on social media people that
Speaker 2: have different political views than we do.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm glad you said that, because I feel
Speaker 1: like we absolutely should block people given the right set
Speaker 1: of circumstances. Allow me to explain.
Speaker 2: I'm paying attention.
Speaker 1: I think that I recognize that other people have different
Speaker 1: value systems, values, belief systems, et cetera. And for the
Speaker 1: most part, everyone is entitled to you know, the way
Speaker 1: the world feels to them. You know they are entitled
Speaker 1: to a mechanism to make sense of it that you
Speaker 1: know helps them, you know, through whatever they're going through. Right.
Speaker 1: But it would be easy for me to say that
Speaker 1: your politics are your beliefs and leave it there. But
Speaker 1: I think that your politics are more than just your
Speaker 1: belief especially in an election like this past one. I
Speaker 1: think that your politics are a reflection of your morals,
Speaker 1: and they're a reflection of your character, and again especially
Speaker 1: in this past election. And if our friendship is based
Speaker 1: on your morals and your character, then I don't have
Speaker 1: to be friends with you. If I believe that your
Speaker 1: politics are a reflection of your morals and your character.
Speaker 1: Now you can pretend to be whoever you want to
Speaker 1: be in front of me, or you might even genuinely
Speaker 1: think that you're my friend because I'm one of the
Speaker 1: good ones, or I'm one of the ones you can
Speaker 1: get along with, etc. But make no mistake, if your
Speaker 1: politics harm Hispanic people, and I would have been born Hispanic,
Speaker 1: the same person, but I would have, you know, been
Speaker 1: you know, born on a you know, with the different
Speaker 1: genetic code or whatever, but the same consciousness, the same heart,
Speaker 1: the same whatever it is that makes me me essence
Speaker 1: and you would cast a vote or champion uh an
Speaker 1: idea or whatever. However your politics are manifested in your
Speaker 1: social media, that would harm me if I look different,
Speaker 1: or if I worship different or whatever. I believe. Again,
Speaker 1: that's a reflection of your morals and your character, and
Speaker 1: I don't. There's no law that says I have to
Speaker 1: associate with you at all. And if I have the
Speaker 1: freedom to create the world that I would like to see,
Speaker 1: I recognize that I, you know, run the risk of
Speaker 1: creating an echo chamber for yourself, you know, by blocking
Speaker 1: these people and whatever with different views, and it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to grow, you know, by not seeing other people's perspective.
Speaker 1: But I also do recognize that there's a certain peace
Speaker 1: of mind that comes with knowing that I can be
Speaker 1: me in a safe space. I can express myself. And
Speaker 1: if your ideas are you know, inclusive, you know, loving,
Speaker 1: you know, et cetera, on and on, then there should
Speaker 1: be no issue with that. Now the reason that I
Speaker 1: have to add some some conditions is because I also
Speaker 1: recognize that on the other side, that could also be
Speaker 1: the case now in the real world where we live.
Speaker 1: Trump folks don't really get you know, No one's making
Speaker 1: a big deal out of trump people blocking you know,
Speaker 1: non Trumpers, because it's not a thing. But non Trumpers
Speaker 1: definitely block Trumpers. It's a thing that happens just because again,
Speaker 1: their fanatics are kind of way out there, the conspiracy theories, etc.
Speaker 1: So I will say this whenever I do end up
Speaker 1: in a discussion with someone who has a different political
Speaker 1: belief system, subscribes to a different political ideology, what I
Speaker 1: will do is, instead of speaking to them about the
Speaker 1: issue itself, I will speak to them about the human
Speaker 1: component underlying that underscores the issue, the human component, and
Speaker 1: if in fact we can find some common ground on
Speaker 1: the human component, then we're fine. We've established that there's
Speaker 1: a baseline. It doesn't get fall below this level. Okay,
Speaker 1: you might think pro life, you know, I might think
Speaker 1: pro choice or whatever it is. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, we do recognize that life is precious
Speaker 1: and sometimes it looks like this, and sometimes it looks
Speaker 1: like that, that's what you believe, this is what I believe,
Speaker 1: and we're fine. But if there is no floor and
Speaker 1: you're like, uh, you know, you know whatever, you're celebrating
Speaker 1: the fact that this hasn't happened, and so I don't
Speaker 1: want to freak anyone out, but you're cele grading the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, one of the Trump trucks ran
Speaker 1: into an abortion clinic smashed up the glass, and you're
Speaker 1: reposting it and saying, yeah, this is mega country or
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, then we have a different
Speaker 1: appreciation for what that baseline should be. You obviously have
Speaker 1: gone below it. I feel like there's a minimum standard
Speaker 1: of decency there. A great example is when Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: if he was a friend of mine, reposted that those
Speaker 1: trucks trying to run off the Biden Harris truck in Texas.
Speaker 1: There was all a Trump Trump train is what they
Speaker 1: call it. They were trying to get this Biden Harris
Speaker 1: van to crash and tell us bus, okay, you're trying
Speaker 1: to get these people to crash their staff. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: was not on that bus and Kamala Harris was not
Speaker 1: on that bus. They were just normal people happen to
Speaker 1: be democratic. So Donald Trump reposts this and says.
Speaker 2: I believe that that was their staff in a route
Speaker 2: to one of their events that had to be canceled.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, because of that, yes, But Donald Trump reposting that,
Speaker 1: and so I think that there is a level at
Speaker 1: which you can say to yourself, you know what, this
Speaker 1: is not good for my mental health, This is not
Speaker 1: good for me spiritually. This is not a person that
Speaker 1: I would ever want to associate with if this is
Speaker 1: their character and a reflection of their morals, which I
Speaker 1: do believe your politics is. And for me, that block
Speaker 1: button comes very easily at that point. I usually can
Speaker 1: be very patient with folks prior to that, but at
Speaker 1: that point, I think that if I'm able to create
Speaker 1: a world where I'm friends with the people that I like,
Speaker 1: I'm friends with good people, people that have similar values,
Speaker 1: people that you know, whatever, then and if I have
Speaker 1: a mechanism to do it, I eat the block button.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is the way to go.
Speaker 1: I'll shoot that shot all day.
Speaker 2: So the question that you asked me was should we
Speaker 2: block people on social media or in real life I
Speaker 2: that have different politics than we do? Right? If you
Speaker 2: think Amazon should be taxed at a higher percentage than
Speaker 2: unlucky weirdos, okay, and I don't. I don't think I
Speaker 2: should block you for that. You're yeah, You're right, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2: If you think that Muslims should not be allowed in
Speaker 2: this country, and that all Mexican people are criminals and
Speaker 2: rapists that are storming our borders, and that black lives
Speaker 2: don't matter. We're not talking about a difference political beliefs anymore. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're not talking about a difference in politics anymore. We're
Speaker 2: talking about a difference in the type of human beings
Speaker 2: that we are. And in that case, you should be
Speaker 2: blocked and reported and deleted in whatever else. Right, James
Speaker 2: ball once said we can disagree and still love each other.
Speaker 2: A lot of people post that part of the quote.
Speaker 2: A lot of people on the other side of this
Speaker 2: post that part of the quote. No matter how this
Speaker 2: election turns out, we can still be friends. Right, But
Speaker 2: if you voted for him, our disagreement is rooted in
Speaker 2: the oppression of my people and in the denial of
Speaker 2: our humanity and our right to exist. And that's the
Speaker 2: part of ball one's quote that they leave off in
Speaker 2: this case, if you support that man. And I have
Speaker 2: to always bring this to my children. My son and
Speaker 2: daughter's mother is not an American citizen. She is a
Speaker 2: Mexican woman. Now she's a green card carrying permanent resident.
Speaker 2: But either way, my son and daughter have cousins, aunts, uncles,
Speaker 2: great grandparents that are not American citizens or permanent residents.
Speaker 2: So even if you guys try to make it like well,
Speaker 2: look at Lebron James, look at all the look at
Speaker 2: Barack Obama, look at all the progress that black people
Speaker 2: have had and made in this country, we're so past
Speaker 2: that chapter, right because he doesn't say build that wall
Speaker 2: with regards to Africa, but trust me, if we shared
Speaker 2: a border, he would. But I'm speaking about my children, who,
Speaker 2: up to him, would not be allowed to be here.
Speaker 2: So if you support him, you directly support the oppression
Speaker 2: of me and mine. I won't even make it so
Speaker 2: broad as our people, me and you are with the
Speaker 2: swiftest of left thumbs be blocked and removed. Please understand that.
Speaker 1: Well, that'll work for me, but obviously that's not the
Speaker 1: first choice. Usually you talk to folks, you try to
Speaker 1: dig a little deeper, and you know that's the process,
Speaker 1: but you know, ultimately you decide what's best for you. Uh.
Speaker 1: These are just our thoughts and as always we appreciate
Speaker 1: you tuning into civic cipher. I'm your host, Ramsey's Jah.
Speaker 2: They call me Qward and that just so happens to
Speaker 2: be my name.
Speaker 1: Be sure to keep up with us at Ramsey's jaw
Speaker 1: at I Amqward on social media. Of course, you can
Speaker 1: also follow the show at Civic Cipher and hit the
Speaker 1: website civiccipher dot com to submit questions, topics and of
Speaker 1: course to donate. We appreciate all your donations. We'll see
Speaker 1: next week, same time, same channel. Praise will then peace