Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am your host, ramses Josh.
He is Ramsay's joh I am q Ward. You are tuned into civic cycling, did you are?
And stick around for this ride Because it's still Black history mok so, we thought we might share some things that typically come up around this time of year, most notably why is there not a white history money? Okay, This is a conversation that black people are forced to answer. Some people have the patients and the insight be fair to answer it, and some folks do not have the patience.
And it's very frustrating because not everyone is a great orator and eloquent speaker, and trying to explain something like this, that is it requires a profound explanation for an enquiring mind.
I think some people also feel that the questions are not asked in good faith.
Sure that too, It's kind of like they're expecting, like I got your moment when they ask the question. And so we are going to help you with that and hopefully you'll be able to help other people with that question and many other questions like it, they'll stick around for that. We're also going to be talking about something that we have to start paying attention to, which is the erosion of black support from President Joe Biden's campaign.
This is not something that we can pretend is not happening, and you know, we're going to do our best to make sense of it, and you know, share our thoughts of course, and then if there is any action steps that make themselves apparent to us in our conversation, of course, we're happy to share those with you. But for now, it's just something that we need to be mindful of as we move into the future. But before we cross those bridges, we are going to start off with some
ebony accents, shall we? I think we shall.
Today's Ebony Excellence sponsored by Actively Black. Visit actively black dot com. There is greatness in our DNA. The story comes from USA Today. When it comes to impressive resumes, look no further than Sandra Douglas Morgan. Her long list of career accomplishments explain why Greaters owner Mark Davis pursued her to run the business operations of his storied NFL franchise. When she was hired in July, she became the first black woman in NFL history to serve as president of
an NFL franchise. She says, and I quote, I do think I underestimated how much attention my higher would receive because I was so focused on the raiders in making sure that the employees knew how I planned on implementing Mark's vision for the future here.
In Las Vegas.
And this was after the team relocated from the Bay Area, most notably Oakland, California, to Las Vegas. She continued, quote, but I am slowly sorry, realizing based on conversations with people throughout the league, that disappointment is historic and that impressive resume includes being in a house, council and litigation attorney at law firms big and small City attorney for nor North Las Vegas, director of external Affairs for ATNT, member of the Nevada Gaming Commission, chair of the Nevada
Gaming Control Board, and member of the board of directors for corporations such as Caesars Entertainment, Family, National Financial, and Allegiance Travel. Now she is first black female president in an NFL. Credible trailblazer for Sisters all over the world. Absolutely keep going, all right, So.
Joe Biden, once upon a time, I remember we was reworking song lyrics so that we could get something off that we really wanted to say. And I remember they reworked the TI whatever you like song to say I want Joe Biden, need Joe Biden so or whatever t I said. So. Yeah, once upon a time, Joe Biden was I don't want to say he was black people's first choice.
Oh no, you hear me use this term often That would be intellectually dishonest. You really have to go through some gymnastics mentally to make that inaccurate choice. It was, once again, which is far too often the case for black vote in this country, choosing the lesser of two evils. Joe Biden made famous to most young progressive black people in this country by his authoring, not just support of
the crime Deal. So Joe Biden was not and is not, a very popular candidate, probably less so now than before.
Now. What I will do is suggest that because Joe Biden was Obama's former VP, he did have some name recognition they gave him with us, and so there was that, But we saw something happen something interesting happened to Bernie Sanders both times, which is, Bernie Sanders effectively got cut out of the equation after being so successful that you could conceive of him as becoming the Democratic nominee. And those of us in the loop have theories that would
make sense. We say, I'm out loud that music spell. People like Hillary Clinton, people like Joe Biden are not as far left as Bernie Sanders. And for folks that will not vote for another Trump presidency, they also will not vote for a Bernie Sanders presidency. So the best chance the Democrats have to win is getting a Democrat who won't scare Republicans so much that they won't vote
for either candidate. And so despite what the Democratic electorate would have wanted, you know, Dave Chappelle said that Hillary Clinton karate kicked Bernie Sanders legs out from under him, and and you know, that's that's kind of what happens. You know, there's a there's more people than the folks that were seeing that that have a degree of influence
on how these things shake out. And so that those of us in the loop feel like that is probably the decision making that took place, and that's why we never got a chance to vote for Bernie Sanders.
Well, I'd argue that we'll never have a chance to vote for anyone similar to Bernie Sanders. And by that I just mean someone who tries to present themselves independent of the two party system that has governed us for the entirety of this nation. You know, you're not allowed to not be a part of.
In someone who is people funded. You know, we're fortunate enough to speak with Kasum Rashid on the show that might have been last week, and he's a people funded politician, and he explained to us the benefits of being people funded. It makes you more accountable to you, to your voters, the people that are voting for you, and you don't have to balance the interest of the people on the ground with corporate interests. And it's twofold.
It not only makes you more accountable, but it gives you more in the way of autonomy. You're bound to corporate interest of those who put you in off.
So that's how we ended up with Joe Biden. But we got the old guy out of there, we got somebody in it. Well, he didn't make headlines the way that he did once upon a time, and he didn't have a nuclear football with him. But you know, here we are, here, we are again. He's still a very popular figure, the old president, but he's not He's not the person that's calling the shots as of the date of this recording. So in any event, Joe Biden wasn't
the person that people were extremely excited about. Like you remember that Obama had people very excited. Bernie Sanders of course, had people very excited, particularly young people. Joe Biden was like, it's not Donald Trump, and that was good enough for most people. That's the extent of it, and that was good enough to get him a lot. And it's like, okay, well, these are all the things you're saying. You picked a black woman for your VP, you appointed a black woman
to the Supreme Court, you gave us Juneteenth. Okay, I see you trying to do a little something here and there, and the things that we really asked for. We're still waiting on those things. But before I get there, I want to shout out one person. He goes by the name of DJ Strider Lee out in Virginia, who brought this topic to us and asked us to cover it.
So I want to shout him out and thanks for putting us on the radio out there, because we love Virginia and all the stations that were on in Virginia. But I'll share a bit from The Guardian. So no Republican presidential candidate has received more than thirteen percent of the votes of Black Americans since the Civil rights era.
The series concerns for the Biden campaign began with a New York Times poll in November, which found the twenty two percent of black voters in six battleground states planned to back Trump. In twenty twenty four. Other polls brought similarly ominous news, twenty percent of black voters nationally backing Trump in an NBC News poll, twenty three percent according to CNN, and just sixty three percent backing Biden according
to Jen Forward Slash University of Chicago. Among some black men, a sense that Biden has not made good on his promises has set alongside a perception that Trump's racist language matters less than his promise of greater economic opportunities. Okay, so we have to talk about that, and we will let me read this next one. Those are still big majorities for Biden, and white voters are far more likely to support Trump, but in a race that will be decided by the at the margins. In sorry, but in
a race that will be decided at the margins. It is a significant shift. In twenty twenty, ninety two percent of black voter supported Biden for president, according to a study by p Research Center. Biden has also seen a sharp decline among Latino voters, with thirty four percent supporting him now compared to sixty five percent in twenty twenty. Quote it's a relatively small number of people, but it's a crucial part of the Democratic coalition unquote, David Smith said.
He goes on to say, quote presidential elections are so absurdly close, and last time Biden won by seven million in the popular vote, but forty thousand votes in three states to put them over the top in the electoral college. He thanked black voters and his victory speech in twenty twenty, which was a sign of how important they were to his victory. In that speech, Biden said, quote, you always
had my back, and I'll have yours unquote. But not everyone is persuaded that he's made good on that bargain. So let's take a moment here and we'll talk about some of the things that we expected. There's still one more paragraph I want to share with you, so we might say this twice, but I want to say this now while we're here. Some of the things that were that we thought would come with a Biden presidency include
police reform. You and I really were looking forward to some sort of meaningful change with respect to police.
May I ask why we expected that from the author of the crime.
You're right hoped, because of course that was sort of the language that went into his campaigns. You know, I hear you, I know that we need to fix this up. And then we got an executive order, which, for those in the know, I understand that that's really just a big nothing burger.
Well a nothing burger. And this is the trouble of being a politician who is on the democratic side of politics for most of my life. Really, the thing that sticks in the craw of those who frown upon President Obama's two terms in office is that we are oftentimes not extremist, oftentimes not willing to break the law and undermine democracy and checks and balances to push forward our own agendas. I think what a lot of voters hoped for with Obama was a black version of Donald Trump.
Come in and do what you want and do it for black people, because for so long nobody has. And when he got there and was just a middle of the road politician, a decent human being and and well meaning,
people were disappointed. And the reason why the other guy is so popular is because he shows up for those who consider themselves weak and like him in a way that is very macho and very aggressive and very I do what I want, and then he does, and then nothing happens, So nothing happens bad to him as a consequence of him just breaking all the exactly Okay, so let's go with that. So on the heels of a Trump presidency, the state of play with respect to American
politics has changed entirely. That we saw how traditional courtesies that were observed once upon a time with respect to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is a great example, and others were not observed. By forty five, we're not even considered he just did what he wanted.
To do, right. But since the state of play has changed, and we all saw it for four years straight, we knew that there's some rules in there that you can interpret how you so choose some rules you might even be able to bend a little bit, and others you can break. Others you can flat out break.
So there were people who said, here's a way to bypass the conservative Supreme Court majority, elect more people to the Supreme Court.
There's no rule preventing that. Now, for Joe Biden to well, I don't know that he said this or not said this, but is in action suggests to me that this was
not something that he was willing to do. For Joe Biden to not take that course of action by stacking the Supreme Court and giving it a decidedly progressive liberal majority again two and then that would have been a fair play, considering the way that Donald Trump was kind of not adhering to tradition with respect to his appointments, and for Joe Biden to not do that, we're just looking around like, okay, well, I mean we have a black woman. Cool, thank you. You know what I'm saying.
But what we wanted was this. What we wanted was that what we want It was these other things we're still dealing with, you know, the philibuster And explain that to our listeners what filibustering is So the filibuster is a political maneuver that prevents a law from being considered on the floor of It might be the House of Representatives or the Senate, I'm not sure about which one
it is. For those who are a little bit more politically connected, you certainly know I never took a civics Well, I did take a civics class, but that was in high school. But I know that it's a political maneuver that if there is a majority, you need a certain type of majority to overrule a filibuster or something like that, like a two thirds majority something like that. Otherwise a person can simply just run out the clock on a bill from being heard.
Do you have something more that's pretty accurate? In plain language? That's pretty accurate. Philibuster is a tactic used in the United States Senate to delay or block a vote on a measure by preventing the debate from ending. The sentence rules place a few restrictions on debate in general. If no other senator you're speaking who seeks recognition is entitled to speak for as long as they wish. So it's a way of just delaying something so that it's never ruled on.
One way or the other.
It's just like if Ramsay said, let's just run the clock out.
And so this political maneuver has stood in the way of black progress since Doctor King was one of the people that was originally suggesting that we need to end the filibuster because it prevents that sort of progress. But now, and make no mistake, the filibuster is not a tool that was written into the language of this country. It's a tool that developed sometime in the early part of last century as a as like a loophole, and then
people just started using it. Right, So these are things, these are action items that we could have seen addressed in this presidency. I want to read a little bit more here because we're talking about the erosion of black support. So this also comes from the Guardian. This is just
me reading more. Has fallen short on a range of campaign promises, from tepid action on voting rights and police reform to failing to decriminalize marijuana possession, an offense for which black people are far more likely to be arrested. There's also a suggestion that some black voters are weary of being taken for granted, for sorry, taken for granted by the Democrats and feel they should have more to show for decades of consistent support. The drop in Biden's
support is concentrated among black men and younger voters. Younger black voters are much more likely than average to support a ceasefire in Gaza or say that the US should not be involved in the conflict there at all. Canceling all student debt is another thing that he failed a deliver new gun legislation. That's another thing that failed to deliver meaningful action. In so far as climate change is concerned.
There's been some, but it's not the aggressive sort of type of energy that we would have seen had we gotten like a Donald Trump type of person character in there that says, look, this is what we need to do. So this is what we're doing now. This is not all bad. I do want to say a couple of good things that Biden has done. It's not really good at championing, singing his own praises, but these are things
that have happened. Lowering the costs of families, everyday expenses are There are more people working than at any point in American history. The more is being made in America. He rescued the economy and changed the course of the pandemic. Of course, he's rebuilding our infrastructure. And then, of course the historic expansion of benefits and services were toxic exposed veterans. So these are just a handful.
There's others, the black unemployment rather than another space where he's shined a little bit.
But now do me a favorite que talk about. Okay, you are a person who brought the October seventh attack to my attention, and you've studied it very closely. Now you would qualify as a younger or younger mentally at least, I'm not sure where where the cut off hits. But a younger black voter. Right, you don't have to say who you will vote for, But is it now more
difficult for you to cast a vote for Joe Biden? Again, you're a younger voter knowing that he is complicit in the genocide of all of those Palestinian children that we've seen, whose body parts have been mangled and heads have been squished by rubble and so forth, has morally could you check a box next to that man's name, knowing that he funded that stood by it, and indeed encouraged them to take whatever action is necessary up to an including
of course, all those children who will never get to grow.
Up unless me and my posterity and my family make the decision to leave this country. I am left with no other choice.
But does it make it does it make it more challenging now to do that?
If I was trying to stoke the fire of emotion, I would say yes, But that's just not true. The alternative is a far worse outcome for me and my family, right, And that's that's it's important for me to expound. In the in the in the political theater, you know, there is no good choice here there.
That's that's what I'm trying to say.
But an actual real life this is almost this is almost as important to state the alternative is far worse.
Still, yep, because of Project twenty twenty five and that that conservative beginning. I'm with you there. What I'm finding.
Dictatorship of a racist bigot. That's a bad look. It's worse people. I have to say that plainly.
So here's what I want to say. As far as people who.
Wake up on election day motivated, excited to vote, I don't know that those people on our side, but see what I'm saying. But there's some people who without that excitement, they just they feel like disconnected. What it six to one half, it doesn't know the other.
And I think that that points to the whys of the erosion of black support for Joe Biden. Now I'm not talking about you and me personally, but I do know that, at least for me personally, it does make it feel like if I check the box next to his name, all of the Palestinian people that I've met since then, it's a slap in their face. And that's hard for me. But as you mentioned, the alternative is far worse and the effects last a lot longer. And so what are you going to do?