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 Cipher.
I am your host. Rams's job is Rams's job. I am q Ward.
You are tuned in the Civic Cipher and we appreciate that we are still going to be talking about some things that really matter. This time, we're going to shift the lens away from you know, collective struggle, to one community, in particular our Mexican American and Latino Latina LATINX brothers and sisters. It's been a tough time around political season typically is because everybody has a new thing to be
afraid of, which is the border. I'm not saying that everything is right with the border, but there's a lot of fear that I believe is unnecessary, and we're going to kind of delve into that by discussing the migrant workers who lost their lives while they were working to make this country better. But before we get there, it's time to discuss ba BA becoming a better ally bla BLA. Today's bab bla A sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
You can sign up for the free voter whileer from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's fotmglobal dot Com. Today's story comes from the Black
Information Network. So a once widely used test overestimated how healthy black people's kidneys actually were, and automated formula calculated results for black and non black patients differently, causing a delay in diagnosis for organ failure and evaluation for transplants. A few years ago, the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephronology SORRY Nephrology pushed for labor laboratories
to change how they calculated kidney function. The US Organ Transplant Network followed suit by ordering hospitals to use only race neutral tests when adding patients to kidney waiting lists. In an attempt at restorative justice, the Transplant Network gave hospitals a year to find which black patients could have qualified for a new kidney sooner and adjust their way
time to make up for it. Roughly fourteen three hundred black patients were moved up the list between January and March of twenty twenty three.
So I know that this is the BABA. The behavior is the.
Hospitals going back and adjusting same who's been on this list black that could have benefited had the data been right.
Let's get them prioritized.
But this also kind of shows the harm in how the medical industry fails Black people using bogus data, trying to say that we're superhumans or inhuman all kind of stuff. And it's based on slave experiments during slavery that again are just bogus. So shout out to all these people making it right. All right, So today we're going to take a moment and if we can. I know that last week you shared a story about Grayson and there are a lot of people that were very interested in that.
A lot of people.
Wrote in and sent emails and hit us on the social media and all that sort of stuff. But if we have some time, I'd like to get you to give our listeners an update. But before we get there, we're going to discuss the people who lost their lives in.
Baltimore. Okay, so I'm going to go through this.
Dorlan Roniel Castillo Cabrera, twenty six, of Dundalk, lost his life in the Key Bridge collapse. Originally from Guatemala. A friend described Castillo Cabrera as a giving person who was quick to offer rides and other assistans stance to fellow members of the Latino community. Okay So originally from Guatemala. Miguel Luna, aged forty nine, was from the town of California in Al Salvador. He immigrated to the United States about nineteen years ago, according to CASA, a nonprofit supporting
immigrants of which Luna was a member. Alex Alejandro Hernandez Flintes was age thirty five and he was the foreman of the crew working on the bridge that night. Former coworkers described him as a fireball who took his job seriously and climbed the ranks at Brauner Builders, going from a laborer to driving a company truck. Hernandez was a devout Christian who often encouraged his coworkers to turn on
religious radio stations as they drove from job to job. Hernandez, who was born in Mexico and lived in Essex, left behind a wife and four children. Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval Ah thirty eight, grew up in Aza Coppa, Honduras. He immigrated to the United States one seventeen years ago and often sent money back to his hometown, even sponsoring a soccer league. He had a wife and two children and lived in Owings Mills. Dorlean, Oh Sorry, Jose Minor Lopez
was in his thirties. Was described as a loving family man and an intentive father. He immigrated to United States nineteen years ago from Guatemala in order to create better opportunities for his family. He had four children, including a young daughter. His uncle Wilmore Raoul Ortayana said, and other people have identified him as one of the victims on the bridge. The Mexican embassy told the son that three Mexican man Carlos Hernandez, Alejandro Hernandez and Julio were related
to one another. So it's important for us to say the names of these gentlemen.
He can talk about Dorlean.
Yeah, yeah, yep, we did. Yeah, so he was the first one we talked about.
Actually, So.
What I think is interesting here is that this shows a picture that brings some balance to the national dialogue. This gives people a glimpse into exactly who the people crossing the border either are or can ultimately become.
Right there. I think think it's a mixture of both sure sure who they are and who they can become.
And one of the really unfortunate things about where we are right now as a country is that we're looking at our southern border. It's a political issue. It's very politicized, certainly on the right.
You know.
Famously, Donald Trump told his Republican colleagues, Hey, don't work with if the Democrats don't work with Joe Biden. I want to campaign on stronger borders. And so if if Biden is able to create a stronger border right now, that's one last thing I can campaign on. I need that to now I'm I'm giving you the translation. Okay, So now he's basically going to use this, as he did in the last election cycle, to stir up fear.
Stir up is the perfect words exactly what caring in my mind. Yeah, yeah, And.
The best way to do that, to really lean into the fear part of it is to villainize, villainize and demonize the people who are coming here right now. Again, I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert on the border, but I do recognize that we do need you know, control or you know something, you know some way to you know, get these folks in and back out, because there are people don't come here to live, They just come here to work, right, and there are a lot of people that benefit from that.
There's big money involved.
But when it's a political issue, people that don't live this close to the border, they just look at it like, oh, it's an invasion. And that's the word that is used on Fox News and other right wing media outlets, despicable, right. But when you look at these people that we're talking about today, all of these people came from other countries south of our border, and I would argue that these people lost their life.
Building a better America quite literally literally right as gentlemen.
I saw lives in the Owyens Mills. I used to live in the owys Mills. So you're talking about something that hits really close to home. Myself and Thomas who you know, you know, it's real sugs. We all live together in these meals. I saw that name drive years ago.
Wow.
Q has some some really interesting friends. But yeah, there's definitely something here that makes me feel like, how would I say this? This is a very unfair time for our Latino Latina LATINX, the migrant community. It's a very tough time, you know. Uh And and I also want to provide some more context. You know, I live in Arizona, and so I was here when I think it was SB seventy two something like that basically gave the police the power to stop anyone that looked looked.
Like they were illegal. Goodness gracious man.
And and you know, start the process of deporting those people, right. And the problem with that is that where we live, this used to be Mexico. A lot of people forget that. You know, a lot of the people that live here they always lived here. And a law like that, it gives the police the ability to harass people who maybe they're not here illegally. The people who are here illegally. I know people like this. We both know people like
this who've been trying to get their citizenship. For you, they came here and when they were two years old and now they're thirty seven, and they're like, it's decades long process. And now with this legislation being passed, these people can pick on me.
It's a very scary time. Right. So, just kind of knowing that our.
Brothers and sisters in that community are living with that again, we felt like it was very important to.
Share this.
Snapshot into what that actually translates into.
You know, there's good. I just want to add Ramsey sent this story to me just realizing how important these conversations are to have and a part of the foundation of Civic Cipher when when Rams just presented the idea, the idea was never just to have our voices heard, but it was almost ingrained to the very foundation of this show that when other people needed amplification and support and a space to share their voices and have their messages and their and their hurt heard, and and and
you know, for lack of better broadcast, that Civic Sipher would be a vehicle for that. So I just think it's very important that you guys know who Rams this is and that from the very start of this that that was something that was important to them absolutely.
So I do want you to know that for this we spent the better part of the week doing our best to try to find someone from this community, an activists who you know, would work in this space to kind of share some perspective and give us some insight and give us some data and what's going on on the border and those sorts of things, and we did our best, and everyone that we had booked something came up or whatever. And it's not like us to speak
for anyone who is, you know, capable of speaking for themselves. However, it just didn't come together, and we felt like, because this moment was right now, it was really important to explain how this might feel in that community. And again, when you know the stories, the real stories, when you know, hey, look my uncle or my cousin or my you know, these family friends of mine or these people that I know, they're hard working, good people. They come across they work,
they work in fields. You know, it's not like these people are coming over here and you know whatever, whatever it is that people say, most of the people that are coming here for economic opportunities are not coming over here to start trouble. Unlike what the President said, they're sending Mexico sending their worst, some bad dudes, you know, criminals and rapists. Mexico isn't sending people. It's not like they're letting people out of jail and shipping them up
to the border. That's not real. Based on the stories of the real people that live this close to Mexico, what's real is that you know, people are here doing honest work. People are doing their best to try to navigate a system that is not an easy system to navigate. People are here, you know, working and doing jobs and contributing value to society. And that is our lived experience, that's our reality.
We see it every day.
And these borders, these imaginary lines that human beings in positions of power draw to delineate us from them and to other people, results in, you know, a value system, like a kind of like a de facto value system,
and then that's something that's held over people's heads. And again, with a system that does not allow people to now have a gate the how would I say this the proper way of doing things as easily as you should be able to and as quickly as you should be able to, you end up with a lot of people just kind of in limbo that are still doing good work, that are still contributing, that are still providing a lot
of value to a society. And so when we use the example of these gentlemen who were working maintaining the bridge, and there's other people like them, you know, there's people like them everywhere. You know, we're Baltimore is on the other side of the country from where we are, and you know, we have people there from Mexico. So imagine how deep into the country you have to be. Imagine how ambitious for work that you have to be to
end up in Baltimore. And then when you lose your life doing a job that makes this country better, I think that, you know, the news suggested that this was like the sixth busiest port in the country. That's not nothing. And who's working on it, who's maintaining it, And it's really easy to think about, you know, things like this that take place behind the scenes, you know, and you know or to not think about it. You know, you
get up, jump in your car, go to work. At the end of the week, you go on a vacation, you know whatever, and you pay a little thought to who's taking care of these bridges, why are these roads so smooth, or why aren't these roads smoother or whatever, you know what I mean, unless it becomes a problem. You know, you're not really focused on that. But a lot of the nice things that we take for granted, the things that kind of play in the background, there
are actual people doing that. And you know, a lot of there are a lot of people that do it in the front too, Make no mistake, you know, there are a lot of people that do it in the front,
and obviously we interact with those folks too. But you know, I would argue that the real badone of a society are people just like this, people who get taken for granted, and they work long, hard jobs in some instances, and it's thankless work because again, you know, it's it's really easy to be just kind of operating in the shadows.
And then in the meanwhile, you know, in front of the cameras and in front of the people and the crowds and the audiences, our politicians are suggesting that people just like this are the reason that the country is not further along, These are the reason that the people that the country is not as safe as people want it to be. And it's it's just a really hurtful
time to live in. And unless you know this, and unless we share this with you, it becomes it's almost like we're committing the injustice at that point, And as Q was mentioning, you know, we created this show knowing that we would have to share this show. Some people know my older brother is raka irascience of the dilated peoples.
And one of the things that he told us is, don't forget about all the people who are out there protesting on your behalf when you build this show and you have it on seventy five radio stations around the country,
which is quite an accomplishment. Of course, remember that not everybody is going to be in a position to have a radio show that's all over the country like that, to be able to say what's going on in their community and not be able to explain to potential allies how it feels to be who they are, how it feels to live in a world, in a country at least, where this type of rhetoric is shared openly and go and these things go unchecked and everybody seems to be,
you know, really cool with it being that way. It's just really not a fear predicament to be in. And so, you know, that was something that we decided, you know, very early on, that we were absolutely going to do.
But you know, when my brother told me that we should make sure that we build that in you know, you know, when it was stop Asian hate, of course, we had to do our best to amplify the Asian voices that could invite everyone to the table and discuss ways that we can protect our Asian American and Pacific
Islander brothers and sisters. Of course, the same is true with the lgbt q I A plus community, with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, and so forth, and so on and time and again with our Latino Latino LATINX brothers and sisters as well, And this time felt particularly timely, so because I don't want this to just kind of be a news piece where we're like lamorizing the passing of these people and it's sensational. I do want to share the names again because I don't think that these
people should just be remembered for dying. I believe that they're full human beings and they deserve better than that. So once again, dor lean Roni al Castillo Cabrera lived to be twenty six years old, and again his friends described him as a giving person who was quick to offer rides and assistants to fellow members of the Latin community. Miguel Luno was aged forty nine when he passed. He is from Al Salvador and he came to the US
nineteen years ago. Alejandro Hernandez Flentiss lived to be thirty five the foreman and people described him as a fireball who took his job seriously. He was a devout Christian and he left behind a wife and four children. Maynor Yasir Suazo Sondeval lived to be thirty eight years old. Grew up in Honduras and he came to the United States about seventeen years ago. It sent money back to his hometown. He sponsored a soccer league, and he had
a wife and two children that he left behind. Jose Mignor Lopez was in his thirties and he was described as a loving family man and an attentive father. He came to the United States nineteen years ago from Guatemala to receive to create better opportunities for his family. He left behind four children, including a young daughter and Carlos Hernandez was one of the victims who died on the bridge as well, and the Mexican Embassy said that he was related to some of the other folks there. So
rest in peace, y'all. We won't forget you around here anyway. That's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher. So once again I'm your host, Rams's joh and I need you to.
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