Keep on riding with us, says, we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop Weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am still your host Rams's job.
He is still rams this job. I remain qward. You are tuned in, hopefully still tuned in or just now tuning in Pacific Cipher.
Either way, we appreciate you and we still got a lot more in store for you. We are going to be talking about how to celebrate June teenth. This is a very new holiday for the country. Not really new for black folks, but it's new for the country and for those who are allies of black people. You know, we feel like this is something that can be approachable.
This is something that you can participate in, and you just kind of have to bear in mind the population you're dealing with in the particular sensitivities of that population. But I think you know, any good faith effort will be well received, and if not, we're all here to learn. So stick around for that much more. But before we get there, it's time to discuss ba Ba becoming a better Allied Baba and Today's Baba A sponsored by Friends
of the movement. You can sign up for the free voter wallet 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. I'm going to take this one this week if I can. I want you to check out the twenty twenty four African American Conference on Disabilities. The AACD is the premier comprehensive disability conference in the United States that addresses the intersection between
race and disability. The conference examines the avenues for self advocacy to ensure the effective provision of services, resources, and enforcement of civil rights in the African American and disability communities. This is from their website. We need your financial support
and sponsorship for our conference. Your sponsorship will make a difference to help defray the costs to attend the conference for individuals or families and financial need so they can attain information and gain access to resources for themselves or their family members with disabilities. There are a limited number of scholarships for families to attend the conference. For more information, please contact Ronaldo Fowler. That's our Fouler at Disability Rights
AZ dot org. Or you can go to the website Disability Rights AZ dot org again Ronaldo Fowler Our Fowler at Disability Rights az dot org or Disability Rights az dot org. Either way you can get more information. We're actually going to have an individual up on the show, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, to discuss the intersection of black life in America and certain cognitive disabilities.
My language, I'm still learning how to describe these things, but I want you to know that I do have a little cousin who is autistic, and he is right at the intersection of being black and autistic. And there's a lot to learn there, So stay tuned for more. Right now, let's talk about Juneteenth. So you know, I do you know I'm gonna say this man, you know, Biden, Biden, There's no such thing as a perfect man. Not that I would ever excuse Biden's policy.
Far from it.
I would never excuse his policy on how he's dealing with Israel. That is, that is an excusable when they call him genocide Joe like, I understand that, and I would absolutely go along with that right But factually speaking, Joe Biden is the reason that Juneteenth is a national holiday.
And that's something that is very hard for me and for a lot of black people because this is a conversation we've had on this show and a lot of the speaks, this speaks the speaking engagements that we attend Q and I and you know, and we've been in private conversations behind closed doors where we discuss what it was we wanted from our president in exchange for our vote in twenty twenty versus what we got we did
get Juneteenth, which I maintain that's not nothing. That's not zero, because it is possible to get in there and do zero.
Sure that was not even on our list of things.
That right we weren't even checking for, however, but credit where it's due. Juneteenth is a national holiday now, not just something that we celebrate ourselves. And as a result of that, it can be celebrated nationally. Like there are people, well they'd get the day off from work, you know, on Memorial Day, you do Memorial Day activities. On Saint Patrick's Day, you do Saint Patrick's Day activities. It is possible now that on Juneteenth you can do Juneteenth activities.
And we can circle back to Biden and all that.
But oh, we will.
I know that because I saw your face. Man. But but uh, right now, and talking about Juneteenth, you know, I want to remind you that Q and I do this show every week because we believe that allyship is special. We know that once upon a time our people were slaves. That's that's a reality that I have to live with
every day. You know, if your people came here on the Mayflower, if your people came here on some boat or some great excursion westward to make a life and a name for themselves in the New World, or whatever your story is, I'm sure it has more dignity than the story where I say, yeah, my family, we came and chained, We were slaves and lived short, hard lives and never knew true happiness. And that DNA has made me into the living, breathing being that I am now.
Make no mistake, I'm proud to be who I am. I've found a way to be happy with it. Indeed, we all have. I think that's part of our superpower as a hero. But I'm not going to kid myself and say, yeah, that's the move, that's the story. Let's run that again, right. That's why I work hard, That's why all of us work hard so that our children and their children don't have to have that be their story,
don't have to endure that themselves. So when I look at what could have been true of my life coming from slaves, I'm aware that there were allies even back then that were not Black, that were pushing to end slavery. Allyship has been part and parcel to every major advancement in you know, black people's status in this country, non Jewish people. You know. Q and I we do episodes
of the Black Information Network. We were having a conversation not too long ago about a Jewish gentleman who is working to erode affirmative action and opportunities.
To bring about he's not working to he's a successfully Yeah, you're successfully done away with it.
Yeah, And he's continuing to attack the Fearless Fund and.
Any other initiative that looks to advance the causes and the well being of the disadvantage.
And it's so funny because he's a Jewish man, and that feels so strange. I know that you can't paint every group with the same brush, but I always felt like there might have been a special kinship there. So to know that that was particularly that made me particularly sad. But in any event, we're talking about allyship, and the fact of the matter is that we would not have had affirmative action in the first place had it not
been for allies. Right, So I'm saying all this to establish that allies are very important, and indeed, the reason we created this show is because we felt like there was a need for us to be able to communicate with allies, potential allies, allies who had you know, maybe they had carried long and become weary and they needed information and to know that they were appreciated, and a
hundred other reasons. We also know that that can be a very scary place because if you don't know the type of support that I need, and historically the people that look like you have shown up and tried to either steal the spotlight or just put on a show and not really follow through, or had some like decidedly underhanded intentions like hey, look, you guys are going to be getting a lot of money. Let me help you spend the money, and then just disappear with the money.
Because we can talk about the history of black banking, exploitation, exploitation, that's the word I'm looking for. You know, over time, it causes people to be wary, to be concerned. Right, and so whereas there are people who would be allies coming to the table saying hey, I want to help, I want to you know whatever, if they don't know how to do that, they can end up getting chastised.
And that can be a very deflating moment when a person says, hey, look, I showed up to help you guys, Now you're yelling at me, So now I won't do anything right? And to that we push back, Q and I, we push back and we say no, stay the course. This is a learning process and everyone is different, and everyone's timetables are different, everybody's learning curve is different. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. We don't want you to make mistakes, but don't be afraid that comes with
it is we're running this experiment with you, right. We don't know where the boundaries are either. We know them when we feel them, and we will tell you. But don't be afraid to explore how far this can go.
And in that spirit, to our brothers and sisters who are celebrating our cultural celebration, our you know it's it's a really interesting thing to celebrate things black in this country because the only place on earth where black exists as a I don't like to use the word race, but race or ethnic group is the United States of America.
And the social construct of black and white being created just to separate, to make plainly delineate these other people who are allowed to be human beings, and these are those that are less than. It is a very very interesting place to try to be proud of one's blackness. And when you are proud of it, put people push back and say ignorant things like why is there no
White History Month? Why is there no celebration of whiteness? Well, the construct was built in a way that everyone white is first and foremost Jewish or Irish or German, or English or Spanish or Scottish, and I can go on and on, whereas seven to eight generations of black people are black because we don't know before that that was
stolen from us. So it is infuriating too at every step of every bit of progress that we've made for there to be someone like the litigator that we spoke about earlier, Bloom that shows up and says no, no, no, not even today. We allow you your self dignity, your self esteem, your self reliance, your self, your self respect. It is an infuriating thing to be put in that position and to be made to feel like you are now somehow the person that is wrong for trying to
be proud. Let us realize that now that this is a national holiday, we've invited a lot of people to the party, and some of them will show up and be clumsy because they don't know any better. They don't mean any harm. They do want to act the participate in not just our celebration, but in our progress. The idea that allyship doesn't exist is a false pretense, and that is us acting in bad.
Faith sometimes right, So.
We don't have to, you know, as you would do a child, pop the hand of those that misstep. Instead, grab their hand and help them get on the right track.
And I love this. Yeah, this is yeah.
I mean, we have to be as inclusive as we would hope others would be for us.
You know, it's funny because Q and I we had this conversation when we were putting together the show. We're kind of preparing to discuss this, and I love that analogy in that approach because it actually does speak to kind of like best practices. Right. So on the one side, for those listening that would be allies that would say, hey, you know what, we're going to do something to honor June Teeth, the spirit of June Teeth like you would for Memorial Day or whatever else, you know, the fallen
soldiers or you know, anything like that. Right, we are going to show up and we are going to take a moment to really understand what it is that we're selling. We're gonna be intentional about this day. For those people, we need you to be unafraid to engage. I'm unafraid to make mistakes. With that said, don't look for mistakes to make, you know, find something you're comfortable with, but do something right. And we have we have some things that you can start off with.
Right.
And for those of us who, let's call us, the people who are closest to the actual Juneteenth Holiday, namely black people, I say to us, I don't really need to say it. I can just echo what you just said, which is, let's be mindful that people are new to this party and they might be a little clumsy, but this is where we are. This is what we're doing. And the truth is this is what we want. We
do not want to be at the margins. We have been relegated to the margins the whole time, and now we have a hot This is not doctor Martin Luther King Day where he's talking about little black boys and little white girls. No, this is something that puts our history into the minds of the country every single year.
I wouldn't be shocked if the other side tries to find a way to renounce or denounce or remove this holiday from the calendar.
Listen with strange. Stranger things have happened, But for now, this is what we got. So let's talk about how to celebrate JUNETEA first thing.
Cookouts that's the one, yeah, traditionally and the two traditionally Yeah, that's that's kind of what you do.
So what happens is family and friends gathering, share food and drinks, and these can include you know, red food and drinks. You know, I want some kool aid. You know, I want some cool I want some cool are and some people see them as symbols of resilience enjoy, while other people see them as symbols of suffering and sacrifice. Some traditional cookout foods include barbecue, fried chicken, potato, salad, watermelon, you know, soul food, you know, all that sort of stuff.
Right, Watermelon being on that list is crazy, Like reading fried chicken and watermelon on that list is crazy, except when you really know, first of all, how good fried chicken and watermelon are. Oh yeah, but you realize that even the idea of those being decidedly black and being positioned in a way that feels racist was another societal construct. Most of the country, all of the country, I'd like to argue, enjoys fried chicken.
Human beings, mel yeah, human beings. Yeah. So listen real quick, we've had this episode, we've done this for we might need to bring it back, but just so you know, the reason why watermelon specifically is associated with black people. Once upon a time, black people were not allowed to have vanilla ice cream, so watermelon became associated with kind of like a treat for black people. And then, you know, post slavery, Jim Crow South watermelon farmers that became a
professional a lot of black people started to do. So those racist caricatures of black people eating watermelons comes from that time, and it's a testament to black independence and black resilience. But of course, as we mentioned, it was taken away from black people and rebranded as a bad thing, and then now black people, even myself, i'd be afraid
to eat. If someone put a piece of fried chicken and watermelon on the same plate and gave it to me and there are white people around, it probably wouldn't eat it.
I showed up for one of my first DJ gigs ever, and a part of my rider was that this place would feed me. And the first meal that I showed up at this Irish establishment was fried chicken and watermelon, and I'll never forget it because the area I didn't have like a dressing room or a backstage area. The area was the platform that I DJ'ed on. They put a table in a chair so people could watch me eat, and I remember looking around like are they serious? But
see there's the mistakes that people could make. And then a chef came out and said hello to me, and he was Mexican. He absolutely meant nothing by it, and the food was incredible. Let me start there, but I had that moment of pause. I'm on stage in a room where I am the only black person and there is a plate of fried chicken and a plate of French fries and watermelon. And I was prepared to be offended because, of course, but I met the chef. I could tell from her very first words that he did
not mean it in any sort of way. But like you said, this was stolen from us, rebranded and put me in that awful position to have to feel that way.
You know, what's funny about this is that there are so many people in this country. Most of them are why that eat food and don't think about how it looks. It's not even a thing. They don't have to doesn't even But you know, I remember I told the story about when I walked into my studio at the old
radio station and there was a banana. Someone had put a banana on the mixer and I was about to tear it all down, like oh, somebody got something to say, let's go, you know, but you know, anyway, you understand, don't be afraid to make mistakes, be prepared to learn from them. Engage. We're all here together, especially those of us who are allies, and well we can grow some other things that you can do. I'll just get through this really quickly before we run out of time. Festivals.
These can include music, food, dancing, parades, and protests. We're going to be doing a live during.
Yes on Juneteenth, Kendrick Lamar is doing a live concert at the Forum in Englewood. We will be live on YouTube watching this concert, reacting to it, and having some conversation and back and forth with our listeners and supporters.
All right, Some more things you can do to celebrate unitem include prayer and religious services of course, educational events, cultural activities, which can include visiting museums, cultural sites, or historic neighborhoods to see murals and historical markers. Many museums also offer lectures, performances, and other live programming. And supporting black communities. This can include supporting black owned businesses, black
organization and individuals in your community. You can also reflect on how you uphold white supremacy and how you plan to dismantle it.
You can also come and view our live on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash civic SciTE.
Okay, that's it, and oh there's a ton of books out there you can read. And we're working on a book too that you'll be able to read soon enough. But lots of things that you can do here to help celebrate team. Don't be afraid to make a misas, but that'll do it. For that, We'll leave it right there. I'd like to thank you as always for tuning into Civic Cipher. I have been your host Rams this job.
I am qward. I am forever grateful to our listeners. Thank you guys for helping us grow and supporting us. Visit civiccipher dot com, download episodes, share them, like, comment, subscribe, tell your friends about us, and continue to support us. We will try to continue to show up for you, guys and be a voice in rooms that we are in that you are not. Civic Cipher on everything across every platform you can think of civiy Cipher Civic Cipher.
You can follow me at Rams' job at I am q ward and don't forget if you have any questions, any topics, if you want to make a donation, you want to download this or any previous episodes. Let's say you missed half of the show or you tuned in halfway through, you can also hit civiccipher dot com to download that. And let's keep the conversation going, y'all until next week.
Peace,