Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome to you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host Rams's job.
He is your host Rams' job. I'm kind of like his sidekick, slash, teammate slash Like I'm the big brother, but kind of the little brother.
Sometimes the big big brother, that's what it is. But they call me q War. Indeed, they do stick around. We got a lot in store for you today. I'd like to let you all know that it is AAPI heritage mark, that is Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage monk, and around here we celebrate this and the accomplishments and contributions of our Asian American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters. And so you hear about more, you hear more about that.
As we flow through the show, We're gonna spend some time talking about why potentially there are seldom consequences in stories where we see folks harming black people, in particular non black people harming black people. There's a few examples that are in the media right now that tell that story better than we could, and so we're going to kind of get into that feel back a few layers
and examine what our path forward might be. And we're also going to spend some time talking about an incident in Elk Grove, California, where a black teenager was harassed by a police officer on camera and give you a glimpse into what it can be like to be black and interact with police. We do this quite often on the show. This is another example. This is not dissimilar to experiences that both me and Q have had, and this is something that we feel gives you an aperture
into that. So a lot to stick around, but first and foremost, let's start off at the top with some Ebony excellence, now we we shall. So today's ABNY Excellence is sponsored by Major Threads, and we're going to talk about Ralph Yarl. There's an update from Sean King and I will read it to you. This is our ABNY Excellence. He's recovering, so it goes Hey, everybody, this is from Sean King. By the way, Hey, everybody, wanted to give you all a beautiful update on the health condition of
Ralph y'arl. He's healing and recovering well. Traumatic brain injuries just take time. And we're asking for your continued prayers. Our remain in close contact with his family. We've decided that they truly need the time and space and conditions not only for Ralph to heal, but for the whole family to heal. Let me stop her hook right here and remind you that Ralph Yarl is the sixteen year old who was shot in the head for knocking on the wrong door, ringing the wrong door. Okay, I'll continue.
This has traumatized all of them. We worked hard to make sure the family has all the right medical, legal, and financial support they need during this time, and are deeply grateful for all the donors and supporters that chipped in to help his family. Here's an update directly from his aunt, doctor Faith Spoon Moore. She says Ralph is getting better every day. He has more good days than bad days. Ralph is currently experiencing headaches that can be
debilitating at times. Our prayer is that with time that will also improve. He is a fighter and we are truly blessed to still have him here with us. Last ten days have been a whirlwind of emotions, but from being thankful that I still have my nephew to feeling an overwhelming amount of anger that we live in a country where this type of hate still exists in some Ralph is looking forward to being able to play the bass clarinet soon and we cannot wait for that moment either.
We truly appreciate all the love and support that we have received from everyone. Thank you all for the prayers, and I want to also shout out Alicia Keys for setting up a trust for him. But those familiar with the story and that have donated, he received a lot of money to kind of help him with his recovery, So I got to mention Alicia Key's name there as well. So Ebanyax since goes out to Ralph yarrel on his road to recover.
Lessons in love to Ralph and his family.
All right, Q, I got a question, why aren't there consequences for harming black people? Wait, let me let me ask it differently, Why when the assailing is a non black person or white passing person. Better said, why are there seldom consequences for a person like this harming a black person? Because we know that there's consequences when a black person harms a black person.
When a black person harms anyone, Sure, sure, very good?
Yeah, but why do you think that is? I'm being funny, but go ahead, people.
People might consider it, you know, lazy two to on the nose, But our country just has a very tragic and disheartening history of going out of its way to devalue black lives.
Great answer to.
Reason that affirmation exists in the first place, black lives matter.
So we wouldn't just I mean, for those that listen to the show, we wouldn't just get that off. We actually have some stories here that caused us to ask ourselves that very question. Why aren't there consequences for harming black people? Right?
And you're you're asking a white supremacist supremacist system to punish white supremacy.
Yeah, it's the least I can do. It's all order, I get it, all right, So let's talk. Let's let's frame this for folks that are listening. So the data and all that stuff supports that at least the criminal jet this data that is recorded criminal justice system data. I don't want to say criminal justice, implying that there is justice there, but folks who are arrested for crimes, not necessarily folks who commit the crimes of folks who
are arrested for the crimes. Data shows that the there is a conviction and the sentences are longer when the victim of the crime is white and the the assailant is black.
The accused the accused assailant.
Sure, and that the the inverse is true when the white person harms a black person. The criminal justice system tends to be a lot more lenient if it's white and white or black and black. It is, it's not such a drastic thing. However, Black people are punished at an extremely higher rate than white people across every part of the spectrum and criminal justices. Okay, so there's some background for you. I'm gonna read this. This comes from the Grio. Shout out to the Grio.
They gave us a good interview not too long ago.
Uh So, the Grillo has a story. The headline is NYC woman who drove into BLM crowd gets no jail and plead you. Okay, I'm gonna read a little bit here. A New York City woman who plowed her car into Black Lives Matter protesters managed to evade jail time by cutting a plea agreement with the prosecution. According to the New York Post, Kathleen Cassillo, fifty three, received five hours of community service under the deal with the Manhattan District
Attorney's office. Castillo drove her BMW Sedan with her twenty nine year old daughter inside, into a crowd in December twenty twenty, injuring six people. Video capturing the moment showed several protesters flying into the air. All right, I'm gonna stop right here. There's a little bit more. I'm gonna get back to it. So on this show, of course, we've talked about the lack of accountability in the criminal justice system, particularly with respect to police. Police can operate
with impunity terrorized black neighborhoods. This has always been true in this country. There's nothing new, but there's never been any accountability. And indeed, the nexus of the Black Lives Matter movement rose up in response to this abuse of quote unquote authority. Granted George Zimmerman, the man who killed Raymond was not a police officer, who's a security officer or neighborhood watch or something like that.
Let's rewind, because I don't want us to confuse even security officer with citizens on patrol, vigilante neighborhood watched like self appointed keeper of the peace to followed stopped and murdered Treymon Martin in the name of standing.
His round like after pursuing, Yeah, yeah, I understood, I'm with you. The thing is the way that the country approached George Zimmerman, or indeed the conservative facet of this country and the criminal justice system there in Florida. They approached him the same way that folks tend to approach police officers. You got blind support. You can do whatever you want. The victim is black, or the deceased is black, he must have done something wrong, right, So we talk
about that a lot on the show. There's no accountability there. We talk about this is why the Black Lives Matter movement began. The affirmation exists is not to say that black people don't have more problems than just police problems. We recognize that, but to have accountability, to establish that black life has value and if you take it, you will be pursued. If a black person kills a black person and the law catches the person who does the killing,
that person will be sent to jail. If the police officer kills a black person, oftentimes there is no accountability and so This is kind of the nexus of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is really just a rebranding and a rebirth of the movements plural that have existed in black communities in this country, going back to you know, the Black Codes and Jim Crow. You know, when we had to figure out how to deal with early forms of policing, you know, terrorism from Ku Kut's Klan and
so forth. So police we get it. Today we're talking about citizens. Indeed, this particular citizen driving her car through a crowd of deal and protesters, sending people flying into the air, and they said that she gets five hours of communities.
Or hours, not days, not months, not years, hours end of community service, and they're hurtful. I often cringe at the idea of actual progress. You know, I kind of joke that I'm the pessimist to rams optimism. I just I find myself grounded in the reality that I live in. I see no such progress. Well, five hours.
You know, we had this similar conversation with I believe her name is Kim Potter's. The officer that shouted Taser, Taser, Taser, pulled out her gun and ended Dante Wright's life is Dante Writer Dante White, right right, okay, and she went to prison for sixteen months.
I want to say something like that.
It was like a three year sentence, but half of it had to be and served in half the other half was out.
Like, first of all, she was convicted. The jury, the court determined her to be guilty of the crime she was accused of, and the sentence for said crime first said conviction, the quote unquote accountability for having committed this crime. Okay, we were past determining whether or not she did it. She did it, She's guilty. Was three years, and even that was too much to ask because they let her out. Yeah, she's might be on house arrest or something like that right now.
So here's the thing. It shows you exactly what the criminal justice system, one of the more visible facets of white supremacy in this country, shows you exactly what the criminal justice system thinks of in terms of the value of black life. If you kill a black kid, we'll call it three years. If you run some black people over,
and we'll call it five hours of community service. So you see the insult there, and you see why the affirmations that we have are necessary and that we need to sear these statements into the consciousness of this country, because if you ran your car into a pack of I don't know, wolves, bears and anything. Dogs doesn't yeah, dogs anything, people would be outraged. People. There's no way that you would get five hours of community. It just
wouldn't happen. And so again, we make this comparison all the time that the criminal justice system in this country there's two there's two, there's two sides of it, and we often experienced the one side very separate systems. Now I want to read a little bit more here, just because on this show we have to tell as much as the story as we can't. So every argument has
two sides. She I'll read her sign. Okay. Prosecutors with District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said they consented to the new conditions because Casillo had no prior record, didn't flee the scene, did not plot to harm those protesting, and took responsibility for what happened.
Yep, they said, she did not.
What she didn't have a prior record, she didn't flee the scene, did not plot to harm those protests.
Okay, So.
Yeah, so what does that mean when you run your car too? So she this is what is says, all right. It goes on to say Casillo told police she feared for her and her daughter's safety when she acted that faithful day. So her and her twenty nine year old daughter in a car. They're afraid for their safe They're in a car to protests, so they run peace people over, sending people flying into the air. All right, I'll finish.
A demonstrator outside the courtroom disputed castillos are sorry Casillo Casillo's assertions that she panicked and hit the gas because the crowd of protesters was quote aggressive. This is why I chose wolves. But dogs works too, because people care about dogs. If a dog is being aggressive, or you think a dog is being aggressive, there are people who still come to the defense of that dog, and they'll say, well, the dog was afraid. The dog had a writ every right to be aggressive. The dog.
He doesn't mean you get to run the dog over. There are people who would lose their minds. So we live in a country where people would flip out over animal abuse and.
What was the name of the I believe a black child fell into a gorilla enclosure at a zoo and to keep the child from being hurt that either tranquilized or shot the gorilla, and people were outraged. There's a one hundred chance that this child is going to be harmed or killed. I believe that child was black because I cannot imagine our country being as angry over someone trying to protect a white child in those same circumstances.
I will raise you this next story here, This one comes from Time magazine. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is trying to pardon a man convicted of murdering a DLM protester.
This is just this past week. The fate of an Army sergeant, Daniel Perry, who was found guilty of fatally shooting a protester at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in twenty twenty, is up in the air as the Texas Pardon Board reviews the conviction for a possible pardon at the Governor's request, and Perry's attorney pushes for a retrial. So the governor has requested that they look into this. Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit about this story.
On April seventh, Perry, a thirty five year old active duty sergeant at Fort Hood, was convicted of murdering connection with the death of Garrett Foster, twenty seven, who was killed after Perry shot him during a protest in Austin,
Texas in July twenty twenty. Perry claims he acted in self defense because he feared for his life after Foster, who was carrying an assault rifle, when Florida's open carry law allegedly made him feel Right, now, do you see how in both of these stories, the feelings and the security of the white individuals, it's very much centered despite being in my estimation unfounded. If I have the protection of a car, none of the windows are broken, and you know I'm still in a car, right, and then
I floor it, run people over, who's the aggressor? Well, the criminal justice system seems to think HMT most likely the person that got run over. Sure, right, but we you know we have to five hours community service will call it square. In this instance, this man is literally going to get away with the murder.
At the governor's request.
And we already know the story about Ralph Yarrel. Right, And you know you may be saying to yourself, well, the wheels of justice are turning slowly. No, because the wheels of justice wouldn't be turning at all. In the case of Ralph y'all, the young man or the boy who knocked on the wrong door and was shot in the head in the arm, the police didn't even want to arrest what's his name, Andrew Lester. They had to
arrest him two days later because of public outcry. I was going to say, the police didn't arrest not they didn't want to. They didn't exactly went to the police station, went in a statement. I was afraid. That's why I shot him twice. That's why I opened the door door.
That's why I went and got my gun and then opened the door and then shot him because I was terrified.
So there's another story. It's just like this, and you'll start to understand this sort of pattern. I had the privilege of speaking with a Maud Aubrey's mom a few days ago for a show I do with the Black Information Network, and we talked about how she's honoring her son's memory and making sure that people continue to say his name, that he wasn't just a person who was born to live those few years and die and be
remembered as a person who died. In her estimation and her belief that He's worth more than just being remembered for dying, and I think that that's more than fair. But the story there is.
That there were some people in Florida who saw him in a neighborhood and in a like abandoned house or a house that was like a construction site or something like that, just investigating, checking it out.
It's cool to see how stuff comes together. I know I built houses before. Well I didn't build myself, but I had houses built, living them ultimately. Interesting to see how they lay the floors in and bring the walls and stuff, and my neighbor's houses as they were going up as well. Anyway, maybe wrong place, wrong time, but some folks didn't like that, so they went and got their guns.
But even if he was full on trespassing, it wasn't there posted signs don't come over here. The punishment for that isn't. Death is not and should not be murder by citizens on patrol.
Exactly what gives you the right to end the life of you know? Before we get there this story for those that are not familiar, they jumped in their trucks. This is in the South in Georgia, so they're in their trucks chasing them down, They jump out the trucks, they start wrestling.
He tries to run away.
Yeah, and I hope you never have to watch the video. But they shot him on and he died in the street. And I think it took two months before the police actually went back and the rest they knew what happened.
To day they came and they were like, yeah, we shot him, actually obstructed justice. Yeah, like actual members of local politics and local law enforcement went out of their way to make sure these men didn't get in.
Trouble for it exactly. So you know, the question we ask is why aren't there consequences for harming black people? Again a question that we've asked with respect to police officers, and now we're asking it with respect to just ordinary citizens who feel like driving their car through a crowd of protesters, or bringing assault rifles to be on in protests, or ringing doorbell or going to the store to get skittles and walking to a friend's house in the case of tray On, or in a mod Aubrey's case.
And not only not being held accountable but being held up as heroes. Yeah, that happens to sending book deals and going on tours and signing autographs and posing with politicians after murdering people that look like that.
It's like a sickness. Man, there's like a sickness that exists in this country. But the reason we wanted to talk about this is because it's important that you understand the context of the affirmations that we chant Black lives matter. It's important that you understand why the accountability is important. It's important that you understand that we demand and insist that this country value our lives and the lives of our children the way that we value our own lives.
And until that day happens, stories like this will continue to explain exactly where this country it's