Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your host Rams' job. He is Ram Joh.
I am fighting off a very very aggravating cough right now. I just had a very very soothing cup of tea and had a little halls meant to lift.
This before that. Hopefully we can make it through this thing.
But if y'all hear me struggling and just pray for your boy and it's a civic side.
Yes, the one and only you word on the mic with us, And we got a lot to talk about today. If you've been paying attention to the internets, you know that we had to cover the Alabama river Front brawl.
Oh yeah, I read and seen and heard a couple of things about that.
Yeah, that's that's a big deal. So we're going to talk about that and why it's perhaps significant. We're also going to be talking about the country singer Jason al Dean with his song Try That in a Small Town. We unfortunately couldn't get to that last weekend just because of the way things time out, but we felt it was certainly appropriate for this week, considering there was an act of solidarity to try to get that song to
number one. We'll talk about the data and the numbers prior to that song coming under fire and under public scrutiny, and then the conservative push to make it number one to like kind of double down on the messaging and the coded dog whistle kind of messaging of that song. So we're going to be talking about kind of what solidarity looks like and what to think about, what to consider and as always, we're trying to create better allies here. But these are some scary truths that we're gonna have
to talk about, so bear with us, y'all. But first and foremost, we are going to start to show off, as we do with some Ebony Excellence. Showy we show. So today's Ebony Excellence is sponsored by Major Threads for innovative fashionable sportswear. Check major threads dot com. Today we're talking about Romeo Miller aka Masterpiece Son, and we're reading from that black enterprise. Romeo Miller partners with Tesla engineer
to start electric car slash tech venture. All Right, Romeo Miller is making his name in the entrepreneurial space with his new tech venture, partnering with Richard Pattison, a former Tesla engineer who helped create its famed model s Sadan Miller will lend his business expertise and resources to the new business Tryon and Shango, described by Afrotech as a quote automotive and tech powerhouse that is committed to a
green future. Quote. Tryan and Shango extends beyond the car industry to focus on environmental sustainability and advancement through technology. Will extend to electric homes so that every fast of life is greener while simultaneously being more efficient. Miller sung Patterson's praises as a groundbreaking automotive engineer and an Instagram post, adding that he is black history and there's a quote here.
I always envisioned a future with one hundred percent green energy, and Richard has the innovations and I have the connections to make that possible. Detailed the father of two, He goes on to say, let's go to work, and I'm glad to be a part of the Tryon and Shango tech team. It's official. Y'all going to have to call me tech Bay now. Loll I'm assuming that was from a post somewhere, because normally people don't say, loll out
loud but crowded, Romeo Miller, I think that's an Instagram capture. Yeah, yeah, we'll take it. And Yeah, anybody that's breaking new ground, anybody with an entrepreneurial spirit, anybody that is innovating and allowing for there to be a black seat at the table, We're going to applaud them. And so today it goes to Romeo Miller and Richard Patterson. All Right, we won't keep you waiting, so let's talk about this Montgomery river
Boat riverboat brawl. I'm assuming that if you are to any degree tapped into the culture, that you've seen the videos. I myself, I don't like to watch videos of people fighting. Ever. The most I'll do is probably a boxing match because they have the gloves on and typically the people are okay at the end of it. But I don't enjoy seeing people get hurt. It never moved me at all. So I don't watch like the Ultimate Fights and the
street fight videos. And when World Star Hip Hop was putting all those people fighting videos up, I just was It makes my stomach turn. It's like seeing people be mean to animals or something. It just doesn't do it for me. It's sick to me. If that's your thing, I'm not mad at you, but to me it I can't get jiggy with it. But this fight was everywhere, and once it started to go everywhere. Bear in mind too,
that you're hearing this episode. We record the episode before you hear it, so we're going to give you as up to date information as we have in our thoughts on it. But you might be hearing this a few days after we record it, and so forgive us if it sounds a little dated, but this is kind of still happening right now, so we're going to do our
best anyway. This video, or rather these several videos from different vantage points, were everywhere on social media, and so I don't want to describe the fighting, but I do want to try to understand why it's important. And Q and I we decided that we would have our first conversation about trying to figure out what was going on on the air for the benefit of you our list.
So we haven't had this conversation yet, right you. We haven't exactly, So this is our first time kind of taking a stab at this of kind of what's going on. But I will kind of paint a small picture, very very small picture for you. Along. The short of it is, there was a boat of a big boat, I don't know what they're called, riverboat maybe riverboat, Yeah, that was trying to dock at its docking space. And there was a group of people who happened to be white. They
were occupying the riverboat's docking space. The riverboat had a full crew, and on and on and on. A security guard jumps off of the riverboat or maybe you worked at the dock, I'm not sure, worked for the riverboat company. Who knows. But the security guard went and tried to get these folks to move their boat, the white folks to move their boat. This is very black and white brawl, which is kind of why it probably got so much attention.
The security guard goes to the riverboat folks and says, hey, can you move your boat? They I guess, I guess they were like taking their time or just not moving it or not moving it fast enough. So the security guard, after having already told them that they need to move their boat, can't continue to keep the river boat waiting in the river. So he goes back and then just starts unhooking the boat to move it out of the way.
That's when the people come that own the boat. There's a group of them again all white, and then they attacked the security guard and they jumped them. There's four or five people just beating up this this man. And then you know, afterwards, there was a lot of people witnessing him getting beat up for doing his job. A lot of these folks were black and they didn't like how that played out, so then they came to his defense and then hence the brawl, and it was very
divided along racial lines. I want to so that's that's the long and short of the story. But I want to remind you that here on this show, we push and we'll always push for solidarity, fellowship, brotherhood, sisterhood, community and respecting and honoring each other across our cultural tribal lines and whatever. It doesn't matter what color you are. We think that you're our sisters and our brothers because the same consciousness that was given to you was given
to me by the same source. Right, so we see that there's a lot more commonality than our differences, and we choose to produce this show from that space in our mind and hearts. Okay, now that we got a little bit of a picture painted your early thoughts. Q.
I just want to first give our listeners some more context, because the video tells a story. It tells a pretty clear story by itself. Dennis Pickett, I think the brother's.
Name was was the co captain of the riverboat, and because the riverboat could not dock, he had to get from the riverboat to the doc to ask these gentlemen to move their boat out of the way.
They refused. The reasons why they refused are comically obvious.
Yeah, I know what you're going to say. I'm not going to say it. Then I'll say it. There's a first off, I think that this is a cultural moment for black people. So I was talking to a lady friend of mine. She's white. Okay, we asked our good friend of the show, Tessa Ferrell, to come up on the show, but she couldn't make it this week. But we wanted someone who was white to sit in on us while we have this conversation. But I did have
this conversation. I asked a lady friend of mine, she's white, or she asked me, rather, why is this so special? Why is this so important? Why are people sharing this video. It's a fight I mean, never seen a fight video get this big before. And there's a couple of reasons.
Obviously the scale, so there's all break bro whatever, and it's racial, right, But I think that the biggest reason that this fight video is so it's a cultural moment is because it shows solidarity, Black solidarity in the face of white Maybe oppression is not the best word, but white entitlement. That's the word I wanted to use when you were saying, you know exactly why they didn't want to move the boat is there's a sense of entitlement. This is something that black people brush up against with
some frequency. This is why there's such a big pushback against Karen's quote unquote and then Kevin's. The male version of Karen's is that there's this sense of entitlement that you get to do whatever you want to do. I am a second class citizen and I'm relegated to the margins of society having to wait for you. You're hind is to finish whatever it is that you're doing, take your lion's share, or occupy whatever. You know what I'm saying.
You can waste my time, you can smoke where there's no smoking whatever, whatever you don't like, you feel entitled to or whatever you do like, you feel entitled to be able to do it, even if the rules are firmly established. Right, this is a I thought this was America. That's something that typically that's a phrase typically associated with that sort of forgive me how this sounds, but that the white sort of entitlement that we've brushed up against
in our lives. Now, nobody's blameless. Nobody gets through life blameless. Black people we do things. Hispanic people do things. We all do things, But that is something that's almost singularly a white male phenomenon. I thought this was America thing. And then with the Karens it's often something where it's like, you know, like let me speak to the manager, like there's some kind of flipped on its head.
It's not the white entitlement position of I can do whatever I want to do. It's you're doing something I don't think you should be able to that. Yeh, So I'm going to call the authority or ask for the manager, even if that's something is sitting and having a couple of coffee. Sure, sure, and it's that that type of energy. So maybe sometimes it's entitlement. Maybe sometimes it's like an overreach.
I'm going to involve myself in some business that doesn't even concern me because I see somebody doing something that I don't agree with. In this case, was very, very flagrantly the entitlement. Yeah, I don't. First of all, I can do what I want because I fit the description right. Secondly, you're not going to be the person to tell me I can't do it anyway, even if there are signs that say I can't be here. I don't have to
listen to you black man. Yeah, because I'm me white man and this is America.
That's what Kramer said on Stay American South in Alabama.
So yeah, my thoughts on it because I see a lot of people that are angry that people are celebrating this, and I think it's an intentional way of missing the point and completely ignoring how this thing started.
Right.
I don't know the proper phrasing, but it's something along the lines of if I punch you, I don't get to dictate how you respond to that. It's crazy, right if I hit you, but I didn't. I only hit you once, so you can't hit me back. Ten times. Well, sir, neither of us were bothering each other. Once you strike me, how I respond, it's your problem.
Not mine. Right.
This man was not attacked by a single person. This man was attacked and jumped or did not attack a single person. He was attacked, did not. He's not the aggressor or the attacker. He was simply doing his job and he was asking these men for forty five minutest. Let me tell you that part too, because the video might seem like he just walked up and said move and then they didn't move, so that he just started doing stuff.
No, no, no, no.
That was a forty five minute interaction of these gentlemen deciding we're not moving because we don't feel like it, and who are you to tell us to move?
Yeah, that part's important. I didn't know that.
Yeah, forty five minutes of them saying, we don't care what the rules are, and we don't care who you are, and we don't care about that boat, and we don't care about none of this because we're us and we could do what we want here in America.
Yeah, and I want to continue down this line of thinking. So you got to think there's a white man who owns a boat, So that suggests there's some degree of mobility, which kind of exacerbates that entitlement condition being told by a black man that he has to dock a boat where there's a black I guess it was a party
or something on the boat, the riverboat. So the it does exist, it's not as prominent, so you might not be able to draw from personal examples in your own life because it's not prominent enough for you to maybe have seen it with any real frequency. But being black, you definitely know that it's a thing because I'm Black every day of my life, so I brush up against
black stuff the time. I'm the person often prompting the blackstone, And if you're not black, you might not have these apertures or these opportunities to see this type of subtle aggression that does happen with some frequency in black life. We are made to understand who we are and where we stand with a degree of frequency.
I've also seen a lot of people upset that race was interjected into this story, right, But as if it's not obvious, So I'll tell that they don't see they told a story like this, right, because what you just said is important We've acknowledged before that there are some people by nature of not being black, that especially if they're a fluent and living in the neighborhoods or areas where they don't have neighbors or friends that are black,
that are well to do, decent kind people that aren't racist, but that also never have any experience whatsoever what we're talking about, and they don't see it, so it doesn't exist, and or it doesn't affect them, so they don't have to acknowledge it and they don't see it every day, or they don't see it ever, even if they are aware that it exists. So I try to paint a different picture. Everybody's white. It's school kids. One of them
is getting jumped by the school bullies. If all the other kids jumped in to help, everyone would understand why that's a win everyone except if the kid is black and the everyone that jumps into help is also black, then somehow they're the bad guys, and now that should not be celebrated. Then, so the idea that race doesn't belong here, like, what are we talking about? It's the only reason that there's a controversial position to have here.
Right, you're either.
Racist drastically ignorant, unattached, and unaware. If your position is opposite of a round of applause. For the bystanders who jumped in. These weren't this guy's friends. He wasn't in a gang. He didn't bring people with him to assault these people because he knew they were going to jump him.
No, he worked there.
A gentleman doing his job was jumped by a group of people. The bystanders saw this and helped him. The story is that sense.
So let me help for the benefit of our listeners again. I'm Ramses. I live in Phoenix. I don't live in Alabama. I don't know anybody who does. But if I saw those white men and women jump that black man, after seeing them stall for forty five minutes, I would know exactly what was happening there. I don't need to know that man in order to defend him, because I've been in that position, my family's been in that position, We've all been in that position. I know exactly what they're doing.
They're hurting that man because they feel like they can do it and they can get away with it. That's it, and I can't make that live in your head. You have to take my word for it, as your brother, it is a real thing, except in this case, they don't have to take your word for it. It's on visa. Yeah, they saw it. That was the response.
And that's the singular reason why I can hurt this name because I feel like it and nothing's gonna happen to right right right if the brilliant thing about it taking forty five minutes, those people that showed up were there. They just couldn't get to the guy. So they witnessed him get beat up. Not just get beat up, but but just before it was physically jumping. He was being bullied,
even before they touched him. Right, listen, you guys, I'm the captain of this ship that's trying to dock here, or this boat that's trying to dock here, and I just need you guys to move. You don't have to go home, you don't you know what I mean. You don't have to get out, you don't have to. I just need you guys to move.
Because this is this is our parking spot. This is where we se a big boat out there. This is where we need to do.
This boat with all these people on it who now need to get off that's all. They didn't feel like it. They didn't want to. And once again, you have to go there to know that we don't have to move specifically because you're the one asking. I believe if the white captain of the Harriet two riverboat asked those white men to move, understanding that they were in the wrong because you're in the wrong, they would have.
There's less of that, there's less of that power dynamic when white is not a factor or the race is not a factor. Now I do want to I want to add this. They were in the Deep South. They were in Alabama, so historically that frames this this conversation.
And before you go rams if you feel like what I just said was wrong, right, even if the captain was white and got off an ask and they still would have said no, Now you're actually doubling down on why these men were so far out of pockets so just blatantly and flagrantly wrong. Well, you know what, what every decision that they made that day.
One of the things I've had to learn in just dealing with people that I know personally in the conversations that I have because I have a lot of friends now after doing the show that come to me for stuff, and they're like, hey man, so this thing happened. How do I make sense of it? How do I make heads or tails of it? Some things you just have to Believe me. I'm not lying to you. Who would want to be born like this and have to fight for stuff their whole life? Who wants that? I want
to happy. I want to be on a beach. I want to have fun. I don't want to What kind of life is that to be born to fight? Well, you think I enjoy this.
We have to be careful even when we're having fun. Thank you just being alive.
So believe me when I say that some things you're just going to have to You're gonna have to take my word for you to have to trust me. I'm not making it up right now. Another thing I do want to point out here is that there's another thing that kind of underscores this brawl, and that is we've seen videos for years. Remember Trayvon Martin was killed in twenty twelve. That was the beginning of the Black Lives Matter hashtag and movement. Twenty twenty was when George Floyd happens.
There was an eight year gap there and in between that a lot of people forget it wasn't just uh tray Von and then George Floyd. Police were killing everybody all the time on video all the time. I work in radio and I was doing hip hop radio. So I did my best to talk about every single one of those people who died, and they couldn't tell their own stories right.
Likewise, we got a lot of pushback about that.
Exactly. I remember how me and you worked together, George fo Right. So so anyway, something that kind of underscores this brawl here is that you have now a group of people who are sensitive in a brand new way to anti black violence. We've witnessed it on video over and over and over and over in filando and uh, you know, I mentioned Treymon, and before twenty twenty, we had why do all these names always escape me? Tony, I can't help you too many? Well, okay, I can't sit here No I'm not joking.
I can't sit here and recall all of those names, even if they seem synonymous with what we're talking about, even though they seem like they should live in our headspace. There's a dumbness that we have to develop or we would lose our mind, because if we wanted to do every show about police killing one of us unarmed, we could Every show we've ever done could have been about that. Yeah,
a new person every time. I'm not talking about talking about Brianna again, We're talking about Trayvon again, We're talking about again, I'm talking about a new story. If we just I could find you one right now, how about that.
I know we have the list, you know what I mean, we're not covering so that we can talk about this Ramases and I.
Too, for you guys to see us in public and meet us and see us smile. It is a task because we get enough content in this space for every show we do to be about that, and we still couldn't get to all.
Of them, not at all, not even close. Well, suffice to say that this moment, this riverboat moment, was the result of us as a people seeing a response, a worthy response to anti black violence. And so a lot of times in our history we've been like we shall over come, you know, We've been like, Okay, our changes are going to come around the corner, that sort of thing,
and this one was kind of like direct action. And I think that that's what kind of made it important so to my friend that I had the conversation with. I think that somewhere in the middle here is the truth. Obviously we don't condone violence, but there's a framework for you