Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: host Ramsy's job.
Speaker 2: He is Ramses Joh, I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: tuned in once again Pacific Cipher, did you are? And
Speaker 2: the holiday spirits upon us? Indeed, Merry Christmas when you
Speaker 2: whenever you hear this, you've probably already.
Speaker 1: Celebrated, because we're certainly celebraated too.
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas to all of our listeners. Happy holidays, as
Speaker 2: to not, you know, offend or alienate anyone who is
Speaker 2: not of the Christian faith.
Speaker 1: Bless all of.
Speaker 2: Our listeners, all of our brothers and sisters. I hope
Speaker 2: that you know it's a prosperous time of year for everybody.
Speaker 1: And we're looking forward to a prosperous new year around here.
Speaker 1: Please continue to ride with us because we have a
Speaker 1: lot of exciting things in store. But before we get there,
Speaker 1: we have a very I don't want to say exciting show,
Speaker 1: but you know, an interesting show in store for you.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned because we are going to be discussing
Speaker 1: the man behind the efforts to twelve, the movement that
Speaker 1: has been in place to bring about equity to black
Speaker 1: and brown and marginalized individuals in this country.
Speaker 2: You are such a fair journalist, such a journalist. Man,
Speaker 2: Well you need to race with which I'll cutting you off.
Speaker 2: But man, just touched my heart. We'll break them down.
Speaker 2: We'll get there. My son is going to spend so
Speaker 2: much time with his uncle, ramsays, because he has so
Speaker 2: much in the way of character that I want my
Speaker 2: kid to have.
Speaker 1: Man, Man, I appreciate that you won't go wrong. But
Speaker 1: like I said, stay tuned, because we're going to tell
Speaker 1: you all about this gentleman named Ed Bloom. We're also
Speaker 1: going to be We're going to also talk about SRO
Speaker 1: officers student resource officers and how they are problematic in schools,
Speaker 1: with some really interesting examples to share with you. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we are going to discuss, as always,
Speaker 1: some ebony excellence.
Speaker 2: Today's ebny excellence brought to you by Actively Black. There
Speaker 2: is greatness in our DNA Actively black dot com. This
Speaker 2: story comes from Track and Field news dot com. Not
Speaker 2: Back but Better. It was a season of rebirth and
Speaker 2: resurgence for Shakri Richardson, who stormed her way to the
Speaker 2: top of the world championship podium and the one hundred
Speaker 2: meter dash in the campaign that won her honors as
Speaker 2: our US Woman Athlete of the Year. Her twenty two season, however,
Speaker 2: was one of frustration. Moments of extreme speed mingled with disappointment.
Speaker 2: She blistered dashes of ten seven three and ten eighty
Speaker 2: five leading up to Nationals, then failed to make the
Speaker 2: finals in one hundred or two hundred. She only broke
Speaker 2: eleven once that year, a ten to nine to three
Speaker 2: in Brussels that was just good for fifth. The twenty
Speaker 2: three campaign, however, would be astonishingly different. Only once in
Speaker 2: sixteen efforts at one hundred meters heats and finals did
Speaker 2: she runs slower than eleven flat. After a season open
Speaker 2: or four by one leg at Texas Relays, she put
Speaker 2: the world on notice in her first test in one hundred,
Speaker 2: running a ten to seven to five heat and a
Speaker 2: ten to five to seven final in Miramar, Florida, on
Speaker 2: April eighth. A month later, she got on the legal
Speaker 2: list with a ten to seven six win at Doha
Speaker 2: in the Diamond League. Suddenly, the twenty three year old
Speaker 2: Dallas native was back to being the women to beat
Speaker 2: into one hundred. Looking ahead to the Olympic year, Richardson
Speaker 2: remains committed to running two hundred in addition to the hundred.
Speaker 2: I want to be a competitor, not one of those
Speaker 2: athletes who just runs the one hundred. I'm a one
Speaker 2: and two runner. I want you guys to see this
Speaker 2: and I want to bring that out. So I'm excited
Speaker 2: about next year. That's a quote from Shkrie Richardson. She's
Speaker 2: my favorite athlete in the world of track and field,
Speaker 2: and she is and apologetically should carry.
Speaker 1: I love it, have any excellence if I ever saw it.
Speaker 1: All right, So, as promised, we are going to discuss
Speaker 1: a gentleman by the name of Ed Bloom. And really
Speaker 1: this is this is a story that you sent to
Speaker 1: our group chat. Give us a little bit of background
Speaker 1: here cue.
Speaker 2: This is a very very our job, and the position
Speaker 2: that this job puts us in daily perpetually requires of
Speaker 2: us to ingest some of our country's most difficult truths,
Speaker 2: especially with concerns to people of color, not just black people,
Speaker 2: and ironically not just people of color, poor white people
Speaker 2: as well. Having to live a life where the deck
Speaker 2: is constantly stacked against you, and then you are then
Speaker 2: placed in a position where you must feel guilty for
Speaker 2: just responding to that truth. Right you're playing the victim
Speaker 2: or you're you know you're They found a way to
Speaker 2: make it a pejorative for you to be the person
Speaker 2: who has to live at the mercy of those who
Speaker 2: oppress you full time. A friend of mine. The reason
Speaker 2: why this story was so personal to me and why
Speaker 2: I send it to you is because I actually wanted
Speaker 2: us to provide platform for a really good friend of
Speaker 2: mine that I went to high school with named Arian Simone.
Speaker 2: She is the founder or co founder of the Fearless Fund,
Speaker 2: an organization started to help fund female minority led businesses,
Speaker 2: and gentleman name I think Ed Blum or Ed Blum
Speaker 2: I think is his name, has made it his life's
Speaker 2: purpose to get rid of any initiatives that seek out
Speaker 2: to help those who are disproportionately affected by oppression, white supremacy, poverty, etc.
Speaker 2: He has flipped things on their head in a way
Speaker 2: where I think he's calling it or referencing it as
Speaker 2: reverse racism. Those who are getting special assistance just because
Speaker 2: they've always been the targets of racist white supremacists. Legislation bullying,
Speaker 2: fear mongering, intimidation. He'd like to make you think that
Speaker 2: these people are having some type of special benefit program
Speaker 2: because of their race, gender, and ethnicity, when it's quite
Speaker 2: not the opposite, but it's different than the way that
Speaker 2: it's framed. These programs exist similar to affirmative action, to
Speaker 2: kind of give relief to those live under the boot
Speaker 2: of white supremacist capitalism and who always have. So that's
Speaker 2: the reason why this story, before it was national news,
Speaker 2: ended up in our text thread because someone who I
Speaker 2: know and care about was impacted by it, and before
Speaker 2: it was newsworthy, it was just something wrong that I
Speaker 2: saw happening to someone that I knew.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and explain who this man is.
Speaker 1: Share a bit with what you brought here today.
Speaker 2: Okay, ac LU Meet Edward Blum. I hope I'm saying.
Speaker 2: This man's name.
Speaker 1: Might be Bloom, but Blum doesn't sound But you know,
Speaker 1: we don't really care about pronouncing his name.
Speaker 2: Right, think about it. The engineer behind this litigation is
Speaker 2: intent on sowing divisiveness amongst communities of color and an
Speaker 2: effort to dismantled diversity programs and civil rights protections that
Speaker 2: benefit all people of color students for fair admissions is
Speaker 2: the creation wow of Edward. He is not a lawyer,
Speaker 2: but he has a long history of crafting legal attacks
Speaker 2: on civil rights. Before I move on, imagine someone making
Speaker 2: it their life's work to craft legal action against civil rights.
Speaker 2: And that pause or moment of emptiness was intentional, because
Speaker 2: I don't want your imagination to work really hard. It's
Speaker 2: really just imagine what I say. I do not want
Speaker 2: people to have a fair, equitable life, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to make it my work to get rid of programs
Speaker 2: that assist to that end. I'll continue. After losing a
Speaker 2: congressional election in the early nineties, Blum, who was white,
Speaker 2: challenged the Texas redistricting process as discriminating in favor of African,
Speaker 2: African American, and Latino voters. While his success in that
Speaker 2: case Bush versus. Verge was limited to particular districts. Among
Speaker 2: his other challenges to the Voting Rights Blum was behind
Speaker 2: Shelby versus. Holder. That case gutted important protections in the
Speaker 2: Voting Rights Act with drastic effects for voters of color.
Speaker 2: His attacks on laws and policies designed to promote the
Speaker 2: equality of people of color are not limited to voting rights.
Speaker 2: Blum also crafted the unsuccessful challenge to race conscious college
Speaker 2: admissions programs and Fisher v. University of Texas. I wish
Speaker 2: that there were not like countless examples of this guy
Speaker 2: hurt because he lost an election determining that that was
Speaker 2: based on the fact that he was white, and has
Speaker 2: since made it his life's work and his business to
Speaker 2: challenge anything that he feels gives an unfair advantage to
Speaker 2: people of color, well as if there was a such thing.
Speaker 1: Well, him getting the Supreme Court to overturn the college
Speaker 1: admission admissions requirements was a big deal for all of
Speaker 1: us because again, it reflects the values and the sensibilities
Speaker 1: of straight, Christian, healthy white men, and it's another step
Speaker 1: toward this individual creating further creating a world in his image.
Speaker 1: And it also such a legal president right for him
Speaker 1: to do it again and again and again and again.
Speaker 2: I want to read more. It says failing in Fisher,
Speaker 2: Blum badly strategized that he needed Asian plaintiffs. He formed
Speaker 2: Students for Fair Admissions as a vehicle to file litigation.
Speaker 2: The organization's leadership can sense solely of mister Blum. Abigail
Speaker 2: Fisher and Richard Fisher, her father, those students for faird missions.
Speaker 2: Blum recruited members in quotes and filed his challenges to
Speaker 2: college admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina
Speaker 2: with a twist. This time, Blum claims that the consideration
Speaker 2: of race discriminates against Asian Americans. Ramses, why is that
Speaker 2: part important?
Speaker 1: Because these affirmative actions, uh moves done by colleges and
Speaker 1: really by anyone, is meant to bring about in theory,
Speaker 1: it's meant to ensure that the ethnic composition of a
Speaker 1: given body, student, body, workplace, you know, employees, composition, et cetera,
Speaker 1: more closely reflects the population and isn't skewed heavily in
Speaker 1: one direction or another. And so in theory, this would
Speaker 1: be something that would ensure that there was a proportionate
Speaker 1: number of Asian Americans admitted to Harvard University and what
Speaker 1: was it the University of North North Carolina as well.
Speaker 1: And so these race based admissions ensure that everyone has
Speaker 1: a shot and that one race isn't heavily favored over
Speaker 1: any other races. So that's that's my best guest as
Speaker 1: to why it's important.
Speaker 2: And I think he needed non white allies, of course,
Speaker 2: to further push this idea that there was a new
Speaker 2: form of discrimination. So instead of framing it as this
Speaker 2: giving opportunity that didn't exist to students of color, he
Speaker 2: framed it as this is taking opportunities away from other
Speaker 2: students of another ethnicity. Which some of these things seem
Speaker 2: so obviously manipulative that we would hope our legal systems
Speaker 2: could see through them. But this gentleman is, however, evil clever.
Speaker 2: While blooming Out purports to represent the interest of Asian
Speaker 2: Americans man, it's hard to not be. None of his
Speaker 2: goals in litigation have changed. Blum isn't seeking to ensure
Speaker 2: that universities adequately addressed an implicit biased against Asian Americans
Speaker 2: in their admission practices, nor is he asking him to
Speaker 2: asking him to take other affirmative steps to recognize the
Speaker 2: value of Asian American applicants. The relief Blum seeks is
Speaker 2: narrowly focused on what has always been his objective, a
Speaker 2: prohibition of any awareness of race in college admissions. If
Speaker 2: Blum gets with his wish, statistical projections show that white
Speaker 2: applicants will be the primary beneficiaries. Not talking about race
Speaker 2: doesn't erase discrimination. It reinforces the privileges of white applicants
Speaker 2: by ignoring the ways in which deep seated structural racial
Speaker 2: inequality impacts individuals.
Speaker 1: I think this is what I've been waiting for right here.
Speaker 2: So heads up, affirmative action benefits Asian Americans too, absolutely,
Speaker 2: absolutely so.
Speaker 1: His his legal position in recruiting, you know, certain students
Speaker 1: is to say that maybe these Asian students had certain
Speaker 1: grades or certain test scores, or were qualified or something
Speaker 1: like that, and that Harvard ignored those applicants and sought
Speaker 1: out black applicants, and then those Asian applicants were not
Speaker 1: able to be admitted to Harvard, so that room could
Speaker 1: be made for additional black applicants who were as qualified
Speaker 1: or less qualified. This is his his legal argument in
Speaker 1: the courts. And like you said, Q, him basing it
Speaker 1: around Asians students and not around white students was very
Speaker 1: clever of him, because then it shows, well, this is
Speaker 1: not working. And we've seen other people in popular society
Speaker 1: suggests that affirmative action and DEI initiatives and so forth
Speaker 1: and so on is simply trading one form of racism
Speaker 1: for another, when the fact is that's not true, but
Speaker 1: it's a convenient thing for them to say because it
Speaker 1: hits the ear and makes you think, is that true, which,
Speaker 1: of course we know it is absolutely false, but it
Speaker 1: is the basis of their brief, their legal.
Speaker 2: Brief, and starting the conversation with that point is highly effective,
Speaker 2: because now something that seemed right before you set it
Speaker 2: straight forward now seems confusing and makes even quote unquote
Speaker 2: decent people question their positioning, sure, even when it's obviously
Speaker 2: the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: So let's play a game with our listeners. So everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody here, let's let's all do the same thing. Let's
Speaker 1: imagine that we're going to play a game of monopoly.
Speaker 1: Everybody's familiar with monopoly, okay, And in the game of Monopoly,
Speaker 1: let's say that Q and I we both get to
Speaker 1: start the game of Monopoly, and we get to go
Speaker 1: around the board five six times. We get to collect
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars every time. We get to get all
Speaker 1: the what are the apartments in the houses, properties, houses, hotels, hotels,
Speaker 1: what they're called the app So we get all the hotels,
Speaker 1: or we get let's say we get eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the hotels between the two of us, right, and then
Speaker 1: after we've gone around the board six or eight times,
Speaker 1: we say to you, hey, and now you can start playing.
Speaker 1: And for the first couple of laps, let's call this period,
Speaker 1: Jim Crow, let's call it the black codes. You know,
Speaker 1: you're only going to get one hundred dollars you passing
Speaker 1: to go, okay. And then for the next couple of laps,
Speaker 1: you can't buy any any properties. Okay, let's call that redlining,
Speaker 1: funny enough. And then you know you can't collect on
Speaker 1: community chest. We'll call that the war on drugs, you know,
Speaker 1: just the war on drugs, all on and on you.
Speaker 1: You understand that this country has done a lot of
Speaker 1: harm to black people intentionally, legally, it was the law
Speaker 1: of the land. Okay. And let's say after we've gone
Speaker 1: around the board maybe twelve times or so, where you've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of your money because we owned eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the what are they called not apartments hotels? Okay,
Speaker 1: and you're broke, and we have everything that we need
Speaker 1: to clearly win this game. Now there's two options. One
Speaker 1: of them is equal. We say, okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're gonna play this game fair. Everybody gets two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for passing go. Everybody can get community chessed, everybody
Speaker 1: can roll with both dice, everybody can can play the
Speaker 1: game fair. That's equal. Are you gonna win with us
Speaker 1: having eighty percent of the hotels? Absolutely not? And you
Speaker 1: know what's even worse when we compare you to us,
Speaker 1: Why aren't you just like us? Why are the rates
Speaker 1: of this in your community so low? Are the rates
Speaker 1: of that in your community so low compared to who you?
Speaker 1: I can give you one answer. Okay, Now, would you
Speaker 1: rather have equality? Or I should say it this way?
Speaker 1: Is equality going to fix your situation? Or is equity
Speaker 1: going to fix your situation? Now, let me tell you
Speaker 1: what equity looks like. Equity looks like. Okay, let's do
Speaker 1: some things that allow you to catch up to where
Speaker 1: we are. Let's get you a third dice to roll.
Speaker 1: Let's double the amount that you get when you pass
Speaker 1: go and community chest. Let's make sure that we at
Speaker 1: least get you a couple of houses to play on
Speaker 1: the board and get you some property so that you
Speaker 1: have a sporting chance of reaching a point of equality.
Speaker 1: That's affirmative action, that's diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 2: The really difficult thing with this conversation is it's people
Speaker 2: versus systems, and those that benefit most from this systems
Speaker 2: do not want to point out the obvious problems with
Speaker 2: the system. So when you talk about systemic racism, if
Speaker 2: you're talking about systemic racism at a particular company or
Speaker 2: country like the one that we live in, those who
Speaker 2: are a part of that company and or country take
Speaker 2: that personally and buck against it, push back against it
Speaker 2: because they feel like you're coming at them. The Monopoly
Speaker 2: experiment being such a great example because the University of
Speaker 2: California conducted an actual experience talked about that right where
Speaker 2: they would rig a game, but it wasn't a secret.
Speaker 2: They would tell both players when the game started, thank
Speaker 2: you for saying that it was rigged. This person gets
Speaker 2: double the money when they pass go, and they get
Speaker 2: to roll the dice twice. Each time the person with
Speaker 2: all the advantages won. And none of the cases that
Speaker 2: the person with all the advantages think they won because
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 1: Advantages, none of the age.
Speaker 2: That is where we stand here, and that's huge one
Speaker 2: because I was better, I was more skilled, my business acumen,
Speaker 2: I play the game better, right, not just for this
Speaker 2: lucky role because they did a coin flip to decide
Speaker 2: who the first would be the benefactor. None of them
Speaker 2: attributed that coin flip to their success.
Speaker 1: So I want to say this real quick before we
Speaker 1: move on. That is a function of human psychology that
Speaker 1: is not based on a person's whiteness, blackness, whatever. Human
Speaker 1: beings work that way, right, So just because you're white
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you are bad, you know, or any
Speaker 1: of these things. Being human will allow you to move
Speaker 1: in that in that manner, but knowing it allows you
Speaker 1: to offset it. And where we are right now is
Speaker 1: we need to push back against this Edward Blum, I
Speaker 1: like Blom better Edward Blum individual and efforts that are
Speaker 1: similar to his in your workplace with DEI and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, and of course on your campuses
Speaker 1: with affirmative action e