Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop weekly studios. Once again, I'm your host, Rams's jah who is jah am q Ward? And today, if you don't know, we are still kind of recapping the many ways in which doctor Martin Luther King Junior has been whitewashed and his legacy has been co opted to support all kinds of crazy narratives and crazy campaigns and pieces of legislature and so forth. A piece of legislation I mean to
say that doctor King would not stand for. And so it's up to us and people like us to continue to cement in the minds of you our listeners exactly what doctor King stood for and to ensure that those folks really do believe that doctor King was a good man, know a little bit more about him. And so today's show, of course, is dedicated to making sure that that is a dablished. But before we continue, let's discuss Baba becoming a better allied Baba and Today's Baba sponsored by Friends
of the Movement. You can sign up for the free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to sport black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal dot com. And for today's BABA, we want you to consider donating to the Kingcenter dot org.
So I'll share a bit about the King Center. Established in nineteen sixty eight by Missus Kreta Scott King, the Martin Luther King Junior Center for Nonviolent Social Change aka the King Center has been a global destination, resource center, and community institution for over a quarter century. The King Center is a five oh one c three and nearly a million people each year make the pilgrimage to the national Historic site to learn, be inspired, and pay their
respects to doctor King's legacy. Again, we'd like you to make a donation, so you can do so at Civil Rights Museum dot org and you can make a donation at the Kingcenter dot org. And the Civil Rights Museum dot org is the National Civil Rights Museum. It's located
in Memphis, Tennessee. It's headed up by doctor russ Wiggington, and that kind of encapsulates the last few moments of doctor King's life because the museum is on the grounds of the Lorrain Motel where doctor King was assassinated, and so they discuss really what he stood for, the direction in which he was moving, and they've turned that museum building and a building across the street and some other
The campus has expanded since first being initiated. But there's a lot to learn about doctor King's legacy and really the whole movement for social justice and civil rights, and again you can check them out at Civil Rights Museum dot org. And don't forget about the King Center, which
is the Kingcenter dot org. So I think that in order to honor the legacy of doctor King, I wanted to take some time to review some of the things that MLK said and just kind of let them diffuse into the community so that folks know that this wasn't just a non violent, peaceful protester. This was a man who was a great thinker and someone that was able to touch on many things that still affect the black
community today. But unfortunately he was assassinated before he got to the point where he was able to really get that off and show folks that a lot of the ideas that we're dealing with right now are not new.
In fact, some of them were very much pronounced during the time of doctor King, some even reflected in some of his words, and so again I thought that was important because a lot of times folks will say to you know, people on the streets that are protesting, or people that you know have a very charged way of describing their black folks on the other side, you know, whatever their opposition is, a lot of times folks like to point to doctor King and say, well, doctor King
was nonviolent, and therefore.
You know, I think they mistake that for him being a.
Passivist, exactly exactly, And again I thought that it was necessary for us to have this conversation. One of the things that has been touted more recently is his statement that a riot is the language of the unheard, and I think that that's a profound statement. And a lot of folks who don't know this, but some of the protests that doctor King took pardon or organized, they had
some folks in there that would act up. And when those folks acted up, you know, that gave the authorities and police and so forth license to get in there and use the water hoses and the dogs and all that.
Sort of stuff.
If you see this old footage, I don't want you to think that a water hose is going up against the water holes like that is easy. You know, it's like, oh, he got sprayed with some water his wedd He's fine. No, those things hurt anyway.
Law enforcement also didn't always wait for sure those people to act up and give them license. They showed up a lot of times ready to ready for that.
Yeah, and we've seen that and would.
Create that excuse even if it didn't exist.
And we've seen that in more recent protests too, and Etcide examples. But you know, Google's there if you want to look at that. But in the past there were some people that would act up, and folks don't That part hasn't translated. I think a lot of people have this idea that everything Doctor King took.
Part of was super peaceful.
Everybody showed up, they prayed, and then they went home. But this statement that he made that a riot is the language of the unheard is profound because not only does it reflect that during his time there were riots and there was you know, people that were lashing out in a physical manner to challenge authority, the status quo, etc. But it also reflects the hopelessness that a lot of people experience. You have to think that.
Before people take to the streets, they've already had to live through whatever it is that they've lived through, and it's likely that they've also gone through all of the proper channels to try to suggest some.
Sort of alternative or you know, air out their grievances or get someone to remedy an issue that they're dealing with. And then after living through it and after going through the proper channels, you know, these things sometimes can take years. Oftentimes they do. Then they take to the streets to protest, to show that there are many of us, and we are going to protest, and we're going to stand in solidarity, and we are going to challenge. We're going to show
that we are all committed to this cause. And then if that happens, and it happens again and again and again, and there's no progress, there's no forward progress. And absolutely there can be a lot of hopelessness in a group
like that. You know, when you get out there and you listen to someone talking someone again, you know, in the in the more recent protest that I've taken part in, I've heard, of course, mothers that had to bury their children at you know, the hands of injustice one way or another, and that sadness in that that hopelessness is something that permeates, It translates to the crowd. Because we're all human beings. We have we have the capacity, if
we're healthy mentally, to empathize with each other. This is what kind of helps us survive as a species. And so that hopelessness and that feeling that no one's listening is something that is not new. I think that that statement by doctor King that you know, a riot is the language of the unheard. I think it really has manifested itself in my life and I've seen examples of that in my immediate surroundings, where you know, I think
that it's just worth mentioning. So that's one thing that doctor King said that doesn't get brought up enough, even though it's been brought up recently, it doesn't get brought up enough because again people, I think there's this idea that all black people need to be like doctor King and then all their problems will go away. You know.
And obviously, if you're listening to my voice, maybe this is not a sentiment that you know, maybe you're not that short sighted, but there may be people in your life and your immediate family that think that black people's problems are just their own problems, and admittedly some problems are black folks to deal with.
Stop acting black ramses and you'll be.
Fine, do you understand? And then the example, unfortunately, is that if you act like doctor King or some black person that reflects their worldview, that somehow things will be better for you. And it's just it's very unfair and very shortsighted. And so again this conversation is necessary another such statement, and I want to get your thoughts on this que however difficult it is to hear, however shocking it is to hear, We've got to face the fact
that America is a racist country. That was said by doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
What do you think I think that when you use Martin Luther King Jr. As the reference or even the vehicle for that statement. As long as I can look at that statement as having been made fifty years ago as a person, as a member of the group that benefits most from racism, it's always easier to look at it as a really really difficult blemish on our countries, beautiful on our countries, otherwise beautiful resume, but as a blemish from yesteryear. Man, they're very I won't say very.
People tend to be more comfortable and can reconcile easier when they speak about racism as something that used to be a problem in America. Right, racism from the past, sure, contemporary. Now you're pushing it. You might even be tripping. It might even be your imagination, right if you just and then there's a laundry list of things that they say. Comply, act right, be respectful, be polite, don't do anything wrong,
you'll be fine. In our country's lack of ability to properly reconcile, straightforwardly apologize and straightforwardly try to correct its original sin is why it has no chance of going away at any point. If you think about apartheid in South Africa, South Africa had to say, man, we was tripping. Yeah, and of course not in those words, right, But South Africa had to face itself and say, these are all the things that we did wrong to you, to you, to you, and then South Africa as a country could
self heal and self repair. But they couldn't deny what was going on and think that there was going to be any progress made. Our biggest issue is that denying the original sin, and even those that accept it pretending like it's something that happened to our great grandparents and not something that still happens to our children.
Watch this.
So I was reading an article the other day about a woman named Ruby Bridges. Ruby Bridges was the little girl that had to be escorted to school by the National Guard, then the National Guard of the Secret Service when.
They segregated her school desegregatoro.
Now Ruby Bridges is alive and well, still breathing air on this planet. She's in her seventies.
No, that had to be one hundred years ago.
Right now she is a live and well.
So again to your point that you know America, you know, doctor King says it is a racist country, and you know we're still dealing with that. Again, I think that the fact that there are people like Ruby Bridges. I mentioned doctor Camilla Westenberg earlier. She came on the show before and she told a story. I'll never forget it. I listened in real time on the air as she
told me this story. She said that when she was a little girl, she could not drink from water fountains, she could not use the bathroom, certain restaurants she could not go into and it was normal. She said, she could not try on hats, God forbid, shoes to see if they fit. And the kicker, she's still alive. I love her with all my heart. Talked her on the phone two three times a week.
Yeah, I mean it gets it's personal.
Yeah, And this is what she said, And this is something that's perhaps the most personal thing of all. She said when her and her family would go on road.
Trips, they had to carry like a like a bucket with them in the car so that if they had to use the bathroom, they would have some degree of dignity because they were not allowed to use bathrooms like that.
And that's just the way it was. And so there are people alive right now that have experienced that. So for people to and then for people to look back and say it was a racist country. So even if you wanted to say Ruby Bridges, doctor Westerberg, those folks that are in their seventies, that it's from a different time nowadays, and this year, you know, you know that's a thing of the past. You know, we're very much dealing with it. Obviously this year we've had to deal
with multiple murders, shootings from the police. You know, we've had to come to terms with again, come to terms with the statistics, because numbers don't lie, you know, no matter how many how many people try to fudge the numbers on Fox News or tell a different story with the numbers. If you take things you know for what they are, and you do your own research and just look at them and draw your own conclusions, you end up with facts.
Facts that.
Black people are three times as likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses as white folks. White folks as a percentage, are use drugs at a higher rate across the board, with the exception of crack cocaine, and that is marginal. So overwhelmingly white folks as a percentage, obviously as a number because they're more of the population, but as a percentage even use drugs more frequently. So how is it the case that black people end up incarcerated at three
times a rate? And then we'll take it a step further. The sentences given to black people are so much heavier, so much more frequently. And that's just drugs, the war on drugs everything else.
Is the really crazy part about the data is that this information comes from our government. Yeah, we're not creating this. We're not going around talking to our friends and polling for our own statistics. The US Department of Justice will give you these numbers. Google is free and will say out loud that it's disproportionate, except it doesn't change. Right.
And now we're getting to the point that we're making with this statement that this is a racist country. There are systemic you know, I know that that's a trigger word for a lot of folks that don't really sympathize with black folks's plight, you know, a lot, and sometimes folks don't even know, you know, it's it's very easy.
And that's the part that has begun to really really poke at my spirit. Had I had the opportunity to take you to Bibb County, Macon, Georgia, USA, where Reverend Estella Seacrest, my mother was born and raised Georgia, and we got to see this because people think Georgia is Atlanta. There's Atlanta, yeah, and then there's a massive state that's nothing like Atlanta. Atlanta's my mother's from Macon, She's not
from Atlanta, yeh. And the Southern experience for someone born in the nineteen forties, And then you think about my grandmother. It's a much different experience than ours, and and and it was much more on its face, flagrant, violent, blatant racism. Through our lifetime, it's been a bit more passive. The idea of racism has been a bit more under the table instead of slapping you in your face. Now, in recent times, it's gotten horrible, and the statistics will bear
this out. During this last few years, for very very obvious reasons, hate crimes and overt racism have escalated to their highest numbers since the nineties. But you know, you speak about our people not seeing it and being so
disconnected from it, that's a lot. You know, you talk about voting in the election and just all the things that we're dealing with, voter suppression, right, because my mother's eighteen pre nineteen sixty five, So the experience of people that look like us just deciding they're going to have something to do with deciding who's going to run this country was a lot different when she became of age
to vote than it was for me. So a lot of these things, no matter how hard they try to deny, I are making themselves a parent in front of everyone, and people either have to choose to see it or choose not to or decide not to rather they see it willful. Yeah.
Yeah, So you know, if you're just tuning in to Civic SCCER once again, I'm the host. Rams is joh My name is ke Ward. Yes, indeed, and today's show we're talking about doctor Martin Luther King because we feel like, or I certainly felt like he's largely misrepresented, and not that that's bad, it's just there's more depth. He's not misrepresent represented, that's the right word, definitely, because there's a lot more to him than just you know, we shall overcome.
Doctor King was a was a thinker, a brilliant man, of course, but doctor King, a lot of folks look at him like he was a patriot and if all black folks do what doctor King did, everything will be fine, and you know, every body is going to get along in harmony. But doctor King was very critical of this country and the direction that it was going in. And I think that it was his being critical that ultimately led to a lot of the changes, but then led
to his ultimate assassination. You know, obviously, if you play the middle, you know you're not going to upset anyone, but you know, towards the end of his life again he got a little bit more. He doubled down on a couple of things, and you know, started to take on new initiatives that would really empower black communities a little bit further. And the conspiracy theory theories start at that point. You know, a lot of black folks can kind of see it, because that's just kind.
Of the world for us.
But you know, I don't want to get lost in that rabbit hole for now. The episode is to kind of revisit some of the things that he said so that we can add some depth to this to this man, and so that folks can understand and that a lot of what it is that black folks have been championing or campaigning in you know, this past year, in recent years, a lot of those things are nothing new. In fact, some of them are reflected in some of doctor King's language.
One such statement is large segments of white society are more concerned with tranquility and the status quo than justice and humanity. And I personally in it now in my life is you know, doctor King was dead and gone before I was even born. I still agree with that statement. You know, the status quo. As long as everything looks like it looks now, we're fine. We don't need to engage. What are they mad at? You know that they had
a black president? You know, all these things, And it's a mechanism that a lot of white folks and just people that maybe don't live around a lot of mixture, racial mixture, that kind of you know, have put up their walls and determined that the world looks the way it looks, and they wanted to keep looking that way. They can insulate themselves from this, and they can take the responsibility out of their lap and try to place
it back into the laps of other folks. And you know, one thing that I know is that if there's something that needs to be done, you know, black folks for the most part, will get it done.
You know, we've seen that.
You know, but again, that challenge when it comes to systemic things and to trying to move the needle on a political in a political arena, or to take on huge systems that were built to oppress you, that's a long standing fight. And so again that statement, large segments of white society are more concerned with tranquility and the status quo than justice and humanity. I think it still holds up.
Well, that's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher once again. I'm your host, Rams's.
Joh he is Rams joh I mq ward. Thank you guys for tuning in with us again for another u ah man, another one of these very very difficult journeys through some very very difficult truths.
Yes, indeed, but you know we're still here, We're still standing, and we're still doing it for you.
Uh.
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Peace