Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Sideher I'm your host, Rams's.
Jaw he is Ramsy's jaw. I am q Ward. You are tuned in and hopefully tuning back in specific signing.
M and we still got some more to talk about.
We're gonna spend a big part of this next half of the show and discussing black employment, or specifically black unemployment, and we're going to do our best to connect that to a lot of different facets of not only black life in America, but society in general. And we have obviously the data to support all this, and so there's a lot here.
You know, there's been a lot of.
Conversations about like reparations, a lot of conversations about restorative justice. I think we need to look at the problems too, so that people understand why we're putting forth these solutions. And again there's that and so much more to stick around for. But before we get there, let's disc gus ba BA becoming a Better Ally ba BA and today's.
Bib BA sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
You can sign up for the free bo to wallet from Fotmglobal dot com for black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal dot com.
Q take it away.
Visit actively black dot com. Search Actively Black on every social media platform that you're on. However, if you Google actively Black, you might get some results that are a bit would you say, misleading rams misleading. The sports ath leisure company Fabletics is using the actively Black brand name in their Google ads for Black History Months. There's so much to unpack here from the ig posts from actively
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So in short, this company called fabletics, we need to boycott Babletics and we need to support actively.
Black actively black dot com. Yes there is greatness in our DNA. Yes, So that is your bab bah walking orders for the week. Let's help a brother out, all.
Right, Okay, all right, onto black unemployment.
Okay, let's get it started here, got to set it off, Let's get it. Let's go. It's time.
When you guys can see, I'm just getting more motivated man each time he says this out loud. All right, So I'm gonna share a bit from ABC News.
The black unemployment relate rate is consistently twice that of white workers. And here's why. The unemployment rate among black men jumped to five point three percent in January, rising from four point six percent over the previous month, according to data by the US Department of Labor on Friday. So, in short, what's been happening lately is the economy is doing okay.
Okay, you could blame the president for that, which would be an interesting thing to do, right, because the heroes of the other side of the aisle would not even see that. Not that, not only that, but we've looked at the same data for very very popular presidents like Ronald Reagan or maybe the most popular, the guy who was in office last time. I don't I don't like to say this name much in our inventory, but rates from three to four times as high the black employment.
The black unemployment rates, I'm sorry, are three to four times higher under those very very popular presidents in this most recent one, a lot of black people stepping up in support of him and telling us all the reasons why he did so much about and the data just doesn't.
Not even close.
Now, this in no way is an endorsement of any political candidate, because far be it from us to do that for you. But the fact is that economy is doing better. Okay, So what does that mean for black people specifically? Well, this article was again meant to illuminate how the black unemployment rate is consistently twice that.
Of white workers.
So I have a little.
I figure what it's called but it's like a breakout or whatever. It is a standout, a blurb blurb. There you go from the article, and I'll share that since the US first collected such data in nineteen seventy two, the black unemployment rate has consistently stood at levels twice as high as the unemployment rate among white people. This relationship is undergone occasional shifts up or down, but quickly returned to a level of two to one. Okay, so
it's from the same article again, that's at ABC News. Again, if you want to read the whole thing, the black unemployment.
Rate portant to point out where this data came from. Can you say that again? Yeah, ABC News MSN is where we originally got it.
Even beyond that, yeah, well well yeah, the next of labor, Yeah, the next, the next party.
We'll get there.
But yeah, these are all these are all sources.
As you know a long time listener to the show, we do our best to use journalistic uh journalistically.
So yeah, from the most journalistically credible sources, sources that we can, yeah, or.
At least a source with some journalistic integrity.
Because the truth of the matter is, we've said this before, the truth has a liberal bias to it. So if people want to make a conservative conservative argument against a news source by calling it liberal or liberal media, the fact of.
The matter is that the truth often enough as a very liberal bias to it.
You know, those those of us that subscribe to the same moral moral compass will note that the truth often lands on on on the side of a more liberal.
Argumentative framework. That's probably the best way to say.
All right, So now that we've established this that, since the data has been collected, that there's a black unemployment rate that is roughly two to one consistently, let's discuss a few things. Okay, first thing is how does this look? Well, what's one way that this look? And I know that you wanted you're champing at the bit here, so go ahead, champ no more.
My good man.
That's unfair to make it like I'm just champing at the bit for this. I'm often very eager to kind of share my point of view on the topics that we talk about, and I thank you for making me smile though, because I'm not typically when we're covering these stories and these topics, I'm not normally in studio with
a smile on my face. It is very interesting. You mentioned me traveling all over the world and even living abroad and looking at the differences in the way that societies as a whole treat people that looked like you. And I lived in Barcelona, Spain before, I lived in Palawan, Philippines before, and just recently returned from Tokyo, Japan. Was a couple of weeks ago, and quick story. I go
into this restaurant to use the restroom. Upon coming out of the bathroom, I'm getting ready to leave and one of the gentlemen working there guides me toward a table. I say, no, man, I'm just I was just using the bathroom. Without saying any words. His gesture said, no, fam buy some you gotta buy something. He didn't say any words, but hissition his disposition in the gestures that followed said oh, no, you use the restroom, so use a patron. Now you're gonna buy something. So we sat
down and I ordered a cup of tea. It was the least expensive thing here since I didn't intend to buy anything. And after I finished my cup of tea and then I got up to leave and pay, I realized this place only accept yen, so I had no Japanese in and it didn't take a credit card. All I had was American cash. And this gentleman took out a map and used his finger to draw me a path to a currency exchange and or an ATM. And then he put the map down and went back to work.
And something really, really powerful happened.
In that moment.
I realized that to this guy, I was a patron in the establishment, and that's it. I wasn't the black American guy that might be a thug and might steal and might be trying to get out of paying this check. Nope, he's just a patron, and patrons that come into this restaurant they pay, So let me help him figure out where to get his money changed over so that he can pay. Nothing in him stopped to watch me, nothing
insisted that I come back. After me walking down the street and trying to find this place for twenty minutes or a half hour. When I got back, he sa if he wasn't looking for me, there was security, wasn't waiting. He just went back to work. Nothing in him had any idea that I might not come back and pay this bill, because to him, I was a person first and foremost and really completely because I was very obviously
not Japanese. By the way I was addressed the fact that I was speaking very very noticeable American English, it was clear what I represented, and in this country I would represent more specifically a young black man from Detroit, but first and foremost black before man. In this restaurant in Tokyo, I was just the next check that was due, and since I didn't have the cash, this man wanted to help me find the money to pay my bill.
And my entire experience there when I lived in the Philippines, not as beautiful in Spain, but still different than here noticeably. This idea that we are by nature supposed to be okay with having the lesser experience and every aspect of our life in this country is quite insane. So it's not by chance or by the opinion of Ramses and Q that black people have a harder time here. By this, data dating back to the nineteen seventies has accurately shown that at a two to one rate, black people are
more unemployed for a fifty year almost window. The data is consistent. It might vee a little one year higher, but it comes right back to that same point. Fifty two years that this is not just by chance that the data over that long of a time would continue to show the same results over and over. And what we need to get into is these are the symptoms or what's the disease, what's leading to the exact why exactly of these kinds of acts.
So watch this.
What I love about that story is that it shows how public opinions shape outcomes for black people, right, And we have to do a separate show about how government posturing and programs helps either establish or fortify public opinions. So we recognize that this all goes back to governmental policies. The government says, well, this is what the people want, so let's give the people what they want. I'm talking about Jim Crow and segregation, all that sort of stuff.
The government like kind of wrote the laws what the people wanted, not what was right or otherwise. The government will do things that takes advantage of the most vulnerable of us in society, and it makes Middle America feel like, oh, well, that's just what they're for.
We're supposed to be able to take advantage of those people. And unfortunately, sometimes the government will teach people.
How to do it right Oh, there you go. So that's that's kind of what we're trying to. So do me this favor. Now, share the the what was that the National Bureau thing?
So this information that we came across was kind of ironic. A lot of you don't know, but Ramses and I have both worked in higher education together and in academic and admissions advising, right, so we got to help students graduate, but we also helped students get into school. And we noticed very I'm talking about immediately the day one of both being at this same school applications. You cannot see a face, but you can read a name, and in a lot of cases, names by people in this country
that are African American stand out. They almost scream I'm black. And because people are hiring and admitting these these children, these adults that are trying to get jobs, people that are trying to get into school, those biases creep in, creep into their decision. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African American, say Lakeisha or Jamal, can find it harder to get a job. Despite laws
against discrimination. Affirmative action a degree of employer enlightenment and the desire by some businesses to enhance profits by hiring those most qualified. Regardless of race, African Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and earn nearly twenty five percent less when employed.
Boom. Now, where's the source of that? At one more time?
The National Bureau of Economic Research. Okay, So let's talk about Ramsay's jah.
No, that wasn't que Ward that came up with that, right, that whole paragraph was from that place.
Okay, I didn't write that. So let's talk about.
This lady that's trying to run for president, Nikita. What is it in Amerika?
What's her? What's her actual name?
The people know her as Nikki Hayley.
Do you give me a Nimroda?
I think it's a Nida, but her given name. Yeah, please proceed.
So you may have heard her name in recent weeks talking about the Civil War was not thought about slavery, That America is not a racist country. In fact, she went on to Charlotmagne a you know a friend of the show who went on to Charlemagne show the other.
Day thereafast club, breakfast club.
Yeah, and kind of again tried to suggest that America is not a racist country, all the while using this assumed name of Nikki and identifying in the interview the very racism that she says that America does not stand upon, was not built upon, does not continue to enjoy, the legacy of does not continue to perpetuate. And and see these data, this number of these numbers we're reading is in the same country, right, in the same country.
So so go ahead, what's her name?
Nimurada ooh Rondawa?
Wow?
Okay, Now she admits that she's a brown woman, all right?
Cool?
She looks very white passing, no question. She didn't say that. You wouldn't not you would not know, no question.
And the only thing that you have to do with a name like that is just changed the name something that sounds a little bit more.
What's the word white? Passing?
Yes, And then you can move through time and space kind of like a white woman does. Right, So I don't believe that there's any incentive to do that. If indeed she is a proun proud brown woman, I believe that might be East Indian or she's Indian. Yeah, so that there's there's no incentive.
And tells stories about her experience growing up Indian in the Yrst country that directly oppose the things that she's saying out loud.
Right, So, there's no reason to switch your name unless you feel like somehow that gives you some sort of advantage somewhere. If in fact, you are proud of your heritage or upbringing your parents that named you, that the only reason to switch your name is because you feel like it's going to provide some sort of advantage, some
more comfortable access to something. Right, And what is the barrier that you're trying to overcome called to get to the place where things are more easy, to get to the place where things are more comfortable for you, where you have more access. What does that barrier called? Well, around these parts we call that racism. And guess where we call it racism in the United States of America, and we say it loudly when we say what our
whole chest because it is factual. Indeed, I can point that woman who wants to be the president to the very laws that shape the realities that you and i q Ward and Rams's Jaw are still dealing with right now, and are indeed our families and our communities, and it was the law. In fact, this very country was founded on the fact that we had a slave class. And I put this on almost singularly.
The reason why slavery in this country is different than all other cases of slavery throughout history. That entire quote unquote class of people are slaves, not second class birth class exactly.
So watch this.
So I put a post on our social media the other day, and I might butcher it now, but roll with me. There was no such thing as white people before the Transatlantic slave trade. White people did not exist. Here's what I mean when I say.
That, nor did black people, or did black people.
And the reason that white people, the term white people came about is because European colonizers and enslavers were taking black people and they needed a way to delineate the slave class from the non slave class. Right and again, a slave chattel slavery where if you're my slave because I conquered your tribe or whatever, your children are now a part of my tribe. Our tribe has grown. Okay, if you're my slave because I bought you as a slave. If you have children, those are not slaves. I didn't
buy them. They were born free in the United States of America. That's chattle slavery. Your children and their children and their children will be my slaves in perpetuity. That's the slavery we had here, a slave class.
Okay. Now for this woman to say, I.
Know we're talking about black and employment and that class of slave was not about what you just said conquered or conflict or lower. No, you're black, so you're a slave here.
That's it.
That's how this works. He's watching movie twelve Years a slave. You could be free and then being slave.
Okay, anyway, so it's very hurtful when people like that tried. It's like a slap in our face to say, like, America is not a racist coutry. I don't believe America's a race, especially for a woman who changed her name to get over that hump that we know of as racism, that we call it racism. Okay, Now, with this last minute or so, I want to make sure that we at least hit a couple of points. We're talking about black unemployment. One of the things that's really important that
we discussed on this show is restorative justice. You know what I mean, what is it that this country can do to make things right for this group of people who indeed built this very country with our hands and our sweat, and.
This singular group of people who throughout history it has not gotten anything in the way of reparations are restorative justice.
So now you're starting to understand why we have that conversation about reparations and how reparations in and of itself could serve as investments into black businesses that could affect black employment rates. And you're starting to see how this works. Right, most crimes that we discuss on the show are indeed crimes of poverty. If the same crime if the person was rich, there's no need to commit it, right, no need to commit it whatsoever. Right, And you got to
think about that. Instead of what Tupac said, I said this on the show all the time. Instead of a war on poverty, they have a war on drug so the police can bother me, right, what a bar And.
When the victims of the war on drugs look like us, they make it criminal. Now those who are under the thumb of what they would have called narcotics then what they call opioids.
Now it's a health crisis. See what I'm saying to you. That's what I'm saying, saying, go ahead and say that there, but listen.
Now, hopefully you understand a little bit more of the framework of kind of why we push for restorative justice, economic justice, reparations, things.
Like this, because it works. So we'll leave that one right there.
And as always, i'd like to thank you for tuning in for another episode of Civic Side for once again, I've been your host Rams's job.
He is Ramsey's job. I am q Ward. Please subscribe, like, share, donate if you can, but listen. We understand that donations are not always easy, but some things that are free. Telling people about our show, supporting our show, subscribing, give us a rating, give us a review, give us some positive comments. Please come into the comments and say anything nice, because there's some hearts, thousands of people literally saying those vile,
evil things. Everything was even before the show. We were on live before I saw hateful comments popping up on the screen, not in the live but on other post of ours. So you know, please show us some love when you can.
Yeah, it comes with the territory.
But we are encouraged and we are going to keep going, and we can only do that with your support, So until next week, y'all.
Peace, Peace,