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Those are just tuning in the city, sack around your host bramsay, John is John, I am Hugh wardon de fac I'll say there's a lot more to stick around for, so be sure to do just that. We're gonna be talking about, funnily enough, the second.
Half of the show, who gets to decide God dies and why?
And what? Probab We're gonna make a whole segment out of that quick question. Listen, man, listen, listen. There's so many layers layers to that heard process and answered that question right now. I have no idea how we're gonna do a whole segment on that. We're gonna try to figure it out. Another thing that we're gonna do, and I want you to stick around for, is we're gonna check out the origins of the no trespassing sign.
There's so much stuff that's racist. In fact, there's an account called everything is Racist. Follow it because everything is racist, or so it seems. But first and foremost, let's discuss b A b A becoming a better ally baba. So today's Baba is sponsored by Unknown Union, the fashion house situated at the intersection of meaning, innovation, and culture. More
info check out Unknown Union dot com. All Right, for today's baba, we got a line from one of our followers, Miss Romo's Creations at Miss Romo's Creations, who wanted us to highlight a teacher named Alice Soy h and her account is Music with Miss Alice. She says she's an amazing, amazing educator who advocates for our API brothers and sisters, spreads joy to children and adults alike, and has inspired her and many other educators to do better at decolonizing
their classrooms. We missed this baba during the teacher Appreciation Week, but today we're going to highlight her. So I will read some of what I got from my research of Alice Soy again at Music with Miss Alice, all right, and this is what she says. In my own activism, I have shared my voice alongside my students and continue to challenge the notions of what music education is within
our field and to onlookers from outside the field. I ask students constantly to reflect on what it means to build community and to create cross cultural connections between different communities. In addition, I asked students to question the separate histories they learn that divide communities. As an Asian American music educator of mostly black and Latin X students, it is important to understand how BBIA or the term global majority may unite us, yet we still have our own nuanced
identities and stories. I have shared stories of racial discrimination and stereotypes I have faced as an Asian American woman with my students, and also histories of black and Asian solidarities that continue to this day that are not always highlighted. So again, I want you to check her out, Alice Soy. She's breaking down barriers and be colonizing classrooms, and we want to make sure that we shout her out at music with miss Alice keep going, you are becoming a better ally.
Shout out to all of our teachers, all of y'all.
All right, who gets to decide who lives or dies? Okay, first off, before we get into this Q, there's been a ton of stories that we haven't been able to talk about in the news, resulting in people black people dying, and you before we started with the show and turn the MIC's on and everything you came up here earlier, and you had a lot to say about how these high profile incidents of individuals sometimes sibili taking the lives of folks who are unarmed, not really posing a threat,
maybe having an episode or just shouting, like what Karen's do all the time, how these black people are losing their lives. And you made a connection to some politicians, mostly right wing politicians. I'm using that for campaign fodders or as to suggest that this is the type of behavior that we want in America. So paint that picture a little bit before we get into the actual stories.
I don't remember how long ago, Rams, but I told you that a bunch of our people, and not just our people in the broad scope, but like specifically friends of ours, people that we interact with during our last during the during our last president's time in office, say things that I think they thought were woke or hyper enlightened or like, y'all can't see me on the radio, But yeah, I'm.
Saying, fist pump.
I'm glad that they showing their true colors, because you know, I would rather have somebody be racist out loud and show me how they really feel.
And I remember that time.
And I'm like, nah, because that's wild dangerous. I like the fake, polite, fake decent, performatively nice racist person that pretends that they're not racist when me and my children are around, because that's way safer, like way safer. And I knew that it was not just a slippery slope an avalanche. Once that type of behavior became something that people's palate was able to taste and not spit it
out immediately, we were going to be in trouble. Once people did not have to pretend to be decent anymore, it was not going to be a better life for us. People's private thoughts in their homes cannot kill me, so they could call me the N word or just be flat bigoted racist in their own homes as long as our society required of them to pretend to be decent people in public. And we used to and now we do not anymore.
Yeah, it's real out loud.
And it's become like a badge of honor for them. Now let me show you how racist I am, because what I realized during the last presidency is that y'all really rock with that. And this is how I've always felt. Anyway, to let me go and get this off my chest because it's clearly that my people are riding with me. So now we have it's not even it doesn't even make sense to call it the extreme right wing anymore.
It's just republican politics, to wear racism on your chest like the Superman symbol, as a way to get elected, as a way to raise money, as a way to garner support from the tens of millions of people who have shown Yo, I'll rock with that, y'all spitting right now when it's the mixtape coming out? How do I subscribe? Do it again?
You know what I mean?
So now we're at a place where our country has shown us once upon a time I can just grab her by the would have automatically disqualified you as a candidate, like you can't even consider running after I said that out loud, except that person then became the president, after everyone knew that that was how he felt, and people wonder why I was frustrated and angry and terrified. As so many people start to buy into the idea that
all politicians are the same. All politicians are politicians, so there are some things that, by nature of the job, that they have in common, just like all cars are cars. They all got tires and an engine and a gearshift, you know what I mean, Yeah, all cars or cars. All politicians are politicians. Sure, but we understand that the
fiesta and the ferrari aren't the same. Right. So, once that nature of politician was acceptable to the palette of the public, we were in trouble because pretending to be decent means that at one point, because you thought the country would turn their nose down at you if you were a racist, bigot, you'd have to pretend not to be just to stay in the good taste of decent people.
We have now retrograded back to a place where you and I talked about this on the show as well, people posing in front of burnt hanged black people as a family, because even those people consider themselves to be decent back then, because that's what because that was acceptable by society, Society had to determine that those things weren't acceptable for those people to feel bad. If society hadn't out loud thought and felt different, those practices would have continued.
Even watching us go backwards to that, and nobody cares because and I'll say this as often as I get in front of this microphone. It has become intellectually beneath a lot of black people to call overt racism racism. We are hyper woke ourselves now, and to prove how intellectually superior we are, we have to act like the idea of racism and white supremacy holding us back. We have to act like that idea is beneath us. We have to act like we've arrived at a place where
that's no longer the case. And we think that you're lazy if you think so, and you're just not working hard on us. Racism doesn't exist. The man isn't holding
you back. It's you, no, maam. It absolutely still exists, and as long as we are the ones saying that it doesn't, playing in into the idea that it doesn't turning, our news is down at the conversation about reparations, so called allies, people who we elect, who we get into office, have a conversation with them about reparations, and watch how fast their tone changes. Well, you know, we don't want to put a dollar amount on it. Why not, we've
got we've we've crossed the bridge too far. Now now that we're talking about paying us some money, we've gone too far, And as I watched the country like slip away from the ideas of progress, of inclusion, of equity, of unity, even right, I've heard somebody say this before, and it's a really tragic truth. Nine to eleven at least united us. And we've heard all the conspiracy theories, we've seen the documentaries, even if they all played out true and that was orchestrated. Man, did it give us
someone else to point at man? Did it give us an enemy to be united against?
Man?
Did it put us all on the same page, on the same team, if you will.
Everybody had the flag.
Everybody had the flag. Flag did not mean what it means today.
I had a flag on my dodge neon going to my second year.
I got the flag player all of us.
So so watch this. The people that you're talking about, the politicians that you're talking about, they have now found And I see this time and again. It started way back with George Zimmerman and just kind of super duper localized politics. But you know, we saw with Rittenhouse, you know, the former president hosted him. Remember Kyle Rittenhouse got out there and shot a protester at a BLM rally.
I think he showed multiple protesters who killed one of them.
We've seen people get shot for knocking on the wrong door. We've seen Greg Abbott, the governor in Texas, wants to pardon a man convicted of killing another BLM protester. And then there's the ones that have happened this week.
Okay, and that governor wants to pardon that person on the basis that they're white and killed a black person. That's it. Not He didn't think they were wrongly convicted. He didn't think that it was trumped up charges. He didn't think that, you know, the prosecutor, you know, misplaced some evidence or did something corrupt.
It just became political beyond the scope of lawn. Since he's governor, he has the right to do that. And that, I think shows you exactly what black life is worth and what we don't want ought to our children. We want our children to know that black life is worth something. If someone harms you, they will be punished.
Is that at all still possible in this country? And I mean that as a serious question, not as something for us to think about for a second, pregnant, pause out loud, and move on from Is that still possible?
I'm always going to say. I think it's always going to say that that's just who I am. I think it's otherwise. You know, why we do this show because we think the world could be a better place. There's got to be some part of it, some corner it still believes that in each other's humanity, in the fact that we're brothers and we're sisters, and some of our brothers and sisters have lost their way, and I believe the basis of their behaviors is fear.
How come it seems that those numbers are growing.
Because we got work to do. That's the I mean, you know, but while we're here, while we're here, while we're here, let's make sure that we tell these stories. So for those that don't know, one of the stories that happened since our last episode that we've been able to cover because we didn't cover it last episode was Jordan Neely being killed by Daniel Penny. So I'm going to read this. On May twenty twenty three, round two
thirty pm. Jordan Neely, a homeless, thirty year old black man, was killed by a white twenty four year old ex marine who placed him in a choke hold while they were riding the F train in Manhattan on the New York City Subway. At least two others restrained Neelie's limbs. Freelance journalists and witness Juan Alberto Vasquez recorded video of the incident. I want to let you know, I'm reading
this from Wikipedia, all right. According to police, witnesses said Neelie was acting in a hostile and erratic manner, telling ris that he would hurt anyone on the train. Basquez said that Neelie was shouting that he was hungry and thirsty, that he did not mind going to jail or getting life in prison, and was ready to die. Basquez said that Neeli did not physically attack anyone, while police sources said that other witnesses reported him throwing trash at passengers.
A man approached Neelie and put him in a choke hold. The choke hold lasted for several minutes, and at least three minutes were recorded on video. According to Basquez, the choke hold lasted for fifteen minutes. An onlooker warned about fatal harm being done to Neely, saying you're going to kill him now. After the choke hold, the onlooker said he's all right, he ain't gonna die. Basquez said that Neelie was moving and defending himself during the chokehold, and
Vasquez did not believe that he would die. Neeli was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he's pronounced dead. According to some sources, he died on the subway car's floor. Okay, so we have a story here where again I'm you know this because this has been national news for some time.
Forgive it.
That's just our news cycle we're on once a week for an hour. But story where there's a homeless man, black man, very tiny man. Uh. Many of you have probably seen the video. If you haven't, there's no need to watch this video. It's exactly how it sounds. There's a human being whose life it's snuffed out, So don't go out of your way to watch it. I'm not trying to say that his life it's not worth you knowing about, but both there's a lot more videos of
his life that you can watch. Yeah, we're talking about his life. That's what I'm trying to think. Video because I don't want to.
I don't want to.
I don't want to make it seem like I don't want you to know this, but I do want you to know.
Videos talk about this the type of thing that could cause you mental and emotional trauma after long after you've seen it.
Yeah, it's not good.
So they're plenty of videos of this young man if the idea is to honor his life and know more about him, of him dancing and even in what may be considered a compromise mental state, bringing light and joy to people, not harming people, just like he wasn't harming people day he was murdered, thank you. So the video is just hard to watch, not it's not making less of his worth or his life.
We on this show, for those who don't know, we take turns watching videos because we don't want to ourselves become overwhelmed with death and black harm against black bodies, black and round bodies. We have to do this every week, so we try not to do it. But this week I had to watch two human beings lose their lives on video and it just stays with It keeps you up at night. It's not cool. So that's what I mean, all right, So what happens is we have a mentally
disturbed man who was having an emotional breakdown he was hungry. Well, let's point to economic reasons for this episode, right, Economic means, societal means, it's formentable. We just need to get every body on the same page in terms of identifying what the problems are. And I know, I know, I know, but that's what we need to do.
Well, you say we need to do it like it's like it hasn't happened. We're not still trying to identify what the problems are. That's we we all know, indeed, but it is not a mystery. The point is figured it out yet we.
Need to We need to ensure that our elected representatives know to equate crime rates with poverty rates rather than the equate crime rates with race.
That's not in their best interest, of course not. But that's what we need to get intellectually beyond them. That's that's where we need to outdraw those conclusions.
That's where we need to go. And what I'm saying is the person is walking around on the subway saying that he's hungry. Listen, I'll tell you like this. I believe I'm a good man too. I believe that you're good. I believe you mean no harm to anyone. Okay, I believe that the circumstances in your life ensure that you don't have to harm anyone. No one will be worse off because your presence in their life. I do believe that if it was we changed a couple of circumstances.
Let's say it's the end of the world and water is scarce and food is scarce, and you've got two babies to feed, and I got two babies to feed, that might change. Things might get a little bit more dicey and tougher. Decisions might have to be made because I need to ensure the continuation of my family and that my children have the resources they need to grow up. And you might end up undertaking some actions that you wouldn't if you had some economic insulation. Let's say it
that way. I believe that everybody listening would agree with that statement. Doesn't matter what color you are, right, So that helps you to point to economic factors over just these people are just bad people, so it's okay to kill them.
Yeah, but even the people that say that no better, it's just not in their best interest for anyone else to know better. Well, we're going to.
Teach you better. So again, mentally, to start man on a train, hungry, telling everybody's hungry, yelling, fed up, frustrated. It's put in a chokehold. His life ends, and the person who killed him has a two million dollar word chest based on donation Legal.
Defense Fund right because he was made a hero. Yeah, and there is a hero Republicans.
So let me let me read this other story. Michael Anthony shoots Banko Brown for suspected shoplifting again economic condition.
Another awful video. He was at a walgrind. If you didn't see, yeah, you don't.
Have to watch this one. But he was at a Walgrens. You're not shoplifting to come up at Waburn. You're shoplifting because you need some stuff.
Walgreens.
Don't say nothing that costs more than twenty dollars. Okay, not shoplifting at the jewelry store. Do you know what I'm saying? All Right, So I'm gonna read this Timsey. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who was also black, to make sure I say that I need to point out some things about the killer as well, released the footage Monday to show why she declined to bring charges against Michael Arlwaine Anthony for killing Banko Brown at the store on
April twenty seventh, what Anthony says was self defense. The video starts off. The video starts off with Anthony blocking Brown, carrying a bag of alleged stolen items, from exiting the store. Anthony then goes after Brown, repeatedly punching him and placing him in a chokehold. At one point, Anthony lifts Brown off his feet and throws him to the floor, getting on top of him as the two thrash around. Finally, Anthony lets him up, prompting Brown to grab the bag
of merchandise and start for the exit. At the door, Brown whirls around and appears to make a move at Anthony. It's pointing and talking and yelling and that sort of thing. So you point your finger and Anthony pulls a gun, opens fire, and kills the alleged thief. So what I want to say while we got this little bit of time is that, you know, I don't know what was in that bag. I assume it's stuff that's necessary, it doesn't matter. But you know, food is something that's commonly
even economic factors. So we see animals, burns flying and take a piece of bread cats steal a piece of meat. I think it's cute human beings do that, and we're saying it's if they're black. We saw what happened with Hurricane Katrina. These last two people, we are unarmed. As I mentioned, they ultimately pose no threat. So where's the line of I'm afraid and I get to kill you? Because that could be different for everybody. That needs to be clearly different.
Black, and the chances that I'll be held accountable are far less. So if I don't like you or if I quote unquote fear you, I can kill you and I'll be fine.
Well, this is what I put Do you get to kill someone because you're scared? Not if you're black? Often yes, if you're white, absolutely, if you're the police, And I want everybody else to know that. We've seen the video of Makai Franklin Baltimore as well, and we're following that story too, So as more things come out about that, we will follow up with that where we can. All right,
it's time for the Way Black History Fact. Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Underground Beach Club from the Streets to the Beach for the finest in beachware. Visit underground beachclub dot com. All right, no trespassing. Parts of this reading comes from the Constitutional Rights Foundation, and other parts come from the Atlantic Make try shout out
both of those publications. All right. The end of the Civil War marked the end of slavery for four million black Southerners, but the war also left them landless and with little money to support themselves. White Southerners seeking to control the freedom of former slaves devise special state law codes. Any Northerners saw these codes as blatant attempts to restore slavery are called black codes for the uninitiated, and black
codes later gave rise to Jim Crow. Okay, little thought had been given to the needs of the newly emancipated slaves. Shortly before the end of the war, Congress created the Freedmen's Bureau. It furnished food and medical aid to the former slaves. It also established schools for the freedmen. By eighteen seventy a quarter million black children and adults attended more than four thousand of these schools in the South. The Freedmen's Bureau also helped the former slaves in the workplace.
It tried to make sure that the former slaves received fair wages and freely chose their employers. The Bureau created special courts to settle disputes between black workers and their white employers. It could also intervene in other cases that threatened the rights of freedmen. White Southerners resented being ruled by union military governor and Freedman's Bureau officials. They sought
to resort restore self rule. During the summer and fall of eighteen sixty five, most of the old Confederate states held constitutional conventions. President Johnson's reconstruction plan permitted only white persons to vote for convention delegates or to participate in the framing of the new state governments. Not surprisingly, none of the state conventions considered extending the right to vote to freedmen. South Carolina's provisional governor declared at his state's
constitutional convention that quote, this is a white man's government. Quote. The newly formed slave legislatures quickly authorized many needed public projects and the taxes to pay for them. Among these projects was a creation, for the first time in the South of free public education, but the public schools excluded black children. The state legislatures also began to pass laws
limiting the freedoms of former slaves. These laws mirrored those of colonial times, which placed severe restrictions on both slaves and emancipated blacks. Neither of these groups could vote, serve on juries, travel freely, or work in occupations of their choice. Even their marriages were outside.
The law.
That means you could rape their wives. White Southerners also feared that if friedmen did not work for white landowners, the agricultural economy of the South would collapse. During the last months of eighteen sixty five, a rumor spread among freedmen the federal government was going to grant quote forty acres and a mule un quote to every ex slave family on Christmas Day. Although the federal government had confiscated some Confederate lands and given them to freed slaves, it
never planned to do this on a massive scale. Nonetheless, expecting their own plots of land, lacks and large numbers refused to sign work contracts with white landowners for the new year. At the same time, Southern whites passed around their own rumor that blacks would rise in rebellion when Freeland failed to appear on Christmas Day, all These economic worries, prejudices, and fears helped produce the first Black Codes of eighteen sixty five. These codes consisted of special laws that applied
only to black persons. The first Black Code, enacted by Mississippi, proved harsh and vindictive. South Carolina followed with a code only slightly less harsh but more comprehensive in regulating the lives of persons.
Of color.
Before eighteen sixty five. From the colonial period onward, the only case of pure trespass in the modern sense that was available nationwide came from South Carolina in eighteen eighteen and again in eighteen twenty one. South Carolina landowner had sued hunters who were ignoring his demand that they leave his land. The state High Court sided with the hunters, holding that the right to enter private lands was quote universally exercised unquote and noting that merely riding over the
soil caused no injury to the landowner. The opinion cited state statutes in support and went on to say that granting landowners the power to exclude hunters would provoke an insurrection no idle words in South Carolina. Now we stop here for a second, as I mentioned the law said that you cannot say that someone was trespassing on your land if they were hunting. Right now, this is before eighteen sixty five. We all know what happened in eighteen
sixty five. So I promised the story of the no trespassing sign where it came from the origins of no trespassing. So watch this. After black codes were enacted, trespassing laws were enacted to prevent foraging and to force the hand of free black Southerners into working for the white plantation owners they once served. In other words, you're free, but you have no forty acres, you have no mule, You have to figure out a way to make money to feed yourself. You have no land, you have nowhere to go.
So rather than traveling and foraging or those who don't know foraging is like picking berries off a tree and that sort of thing.
You also can't work where you are.
Right right, And on top of that, you had to call your boss aster They made sure to write that in the laws too. But instead of living off of the land, like the courts insisted was a human right, Friday eighteen sixty five, they enacted trespassing laws, and what they did was twofold. It ensured that black folks could not eat fruits that grow off of trees or berries that grow on bushes. But it also ensured that there
was one more law that could be broken. If you were just existed in the wrong space, you could be arrested for that and sentenced to prison. And those that know about the thirteenth Amendment know that when you're in prison, you can perform manual labor and the state could then lease you to a farm owner or a plantation owner for whatever period of time you're infraction got you, which of course was severe. So if you were trespassing, that's
a five year sentence. So now you're a slave for another five years effectually, So not only can you not go and pick berries to eat, but now you can be arrested and returned to slavery. So this gives you just a glimpse into what it was like in those times, but also a glimpse into the history of the no trespassing sign. So when people say everything's racist, I don't think they're too far off face. And that's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher. So once again, i'm your host. Rams's job.
Joh, this is exhausting, man. Yeah, it was a long time I mean, like, I mean, what was it.
It wasn't a long time ago, but it was long enough ago. We don't need to have that way us down there.
Was it long enough ago that the laws are that much different from that now?
Fairpoint? Yeah, because I mean I got hemmed up the other day. This is private property and it wasn't.
This is a public road. I'm just saying that's why a public servant is there.
At least don't come and protect my house because it is indeed private property. Anyway, I want to thank you all for listening. Do us a favor. Hit the website Citycipher dot com donate for those that listen on the podcast. There's a new way to donate there as well, and again that is on the website site excite for dot com. The price of a coffee, you could help support the show. And we're trying to do something special here until next week.
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