You're just tuning in the civic cipher. I'm your host, Ramsey's job.
He is Rams's jaw. I am q ward. You are either just tuning in or still listening to.
You are, and we want you to keep on listening because we are dealing with some trolls, some online comments, some people who don't see things the way that we might see them, and they are parroting very old, archaic, far right, deeply conservative ideals. We call them zombies because they just won't die. And our hope is that you, our listener, will benefit from this conversation we're having today and learn a couple of things that you might be able to use in your conversations in your attempts to
become a better ally. So stick around for all that and so much more. But while we're talking about becoming a better ally, why don't we take a moment and discuss how you can do that about it? So, right now, now, let's discuss becoming a better ally. B A b A BABA. Today's BABA is sponsored by Friends of the Movement supporting Black Businesses and allied businesses. Check fotmglobal dot com and make an impact with your spending again that's fotmglobal dot com.
All right. I pulled these from the Wilson Organizations. Twelve ways to support black people, just some reminders, just some light stuff in case you've forgotten, in case there's some things that have been on the back burner. Number one, keep your Black Lives Matter signs out. We still need that support. We have a long road ahead of us, and the more people see that black people are being supported, the more inclined they are to continue to offer their support.
That goes a long way. Another Number two, joint diversity and inclusion groups at work. These are under attack by the far right. They don't want any DEI. They don't want any critical race theory, they don't want our history taught, they don't want affirmative action, they don't on a lot of stuff. So again, join DEI groups at work and
be vocal there. Continue supporting black owned businesses. Obviously a lot of the problems that plague black life in America can be traced to poverty, and so supporting black businesses certainly helps alleviate that. Stop supporting racist influencers and companies unfollow them. Just don't support. Have difficult conversations with family and friends. That's sort of what we're trying to help you out with today. Hold companies accountable. That means send emails.
If you're a Karen, get on that Karen energy, but do it for the right reasons. Check in with your child school about the district's anti racism efforts and make sure they keep their books in the library. Check on petitions you signed months ago, see if any follow up action is needed. Continue your anti racism learning. You're doing that today, we appreciate it. Reflect on your own problematic actions. Continue to donate to meaningful organizations at the websitesivixipher dot com.
And finally, check in with your black friends and family. All right, let's get back to these these commons selves. One of our posts we talked about police training, We talk about police trank a lot of our posts. You know, I mentioned this, and this is very important because it really does need to be fleshed out. If there is a source of if there was a fix all for there's never going to be a fixed all, But if there was such a thing for black people in this country,
it would be economic justice, restorative economic justice. Right, black people have been robbed of money, not just our lives. And our dignity and our rights and all that, but of actual dollars and cents. And we've been relegated as a group of people to ghettos and you know, as a status as second class citizens in this country. The best jobs historically have gone to one group of people
and have not gone to another group of people. Housing discrimination, redlining, all these sorts of things, ways that people build wealth and pass wealth onto future generations that informs how people get educated. You know, your school district is paid by property taxes. So if you live in a poor neighborhood,
oftentimes there's a black neighborhoods. And I don't want to just say that that only black people are poor, because I'm aware that there is a part of the country where everybody's white and they're all poor and the appellations, right, But if we're you know, talking about the numbers and the data, it certainly suggested that black people are at the bottom end of that spectrum.
On a percentage basis the disproportionate to black people. Yes, of course there are more poor white people because they are more poor because there are more white people. Sure, sure, but you know, on the percentage the per capita it's disproportionately black and brown people.
Yes, but here's here's a critical difference here is that when you talk about poor apple people, they have not been subjected to the same disenfranchisement that black people have. Right, And so this narrative that black people should pull pull ourselves up our bootstraps. This is sort of another common thing that shows up in the comments. It is it's first off, I might have shared this on the show before, but it's based on like, think about it for a second.
It is impossible to pull yourselves up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It is physically impossible to do it. Imagine boots, now, imagine straps, and then imagine pulling yourself up. It doesn't work, right. I believe it was first introduced into media via like a newspaper something in the early nineteen hundreds of late eighteen hundreds, and it was meant to illustrate that it was impossible for I think it was originally intended to like pick on like Italians or
maybe the Irish or something like that. But it is physically impossible to do that. But the idea was to show the government, like, yo, this is not possible. You can we cannot fix the problem that we're not creating. You know, you're creating the problem, and we need you to fix it. Right, So for that to be parroted to black people fix your own problems, there's a when I talk about personal responsibility. There are things that black people that we do own, that we can own provided
that other things. You know, there's a critical process here. Other things need to be taken care of first. But I think that we've shown in our history our commitment to this country, to living up to the American dream, the promise that this country has for all of her citizens as a people. If we're painting with broad strokes, I believe that we've done that. We haven't left, we haven't rioted to any significant degree. It's certainly not to
the degree that we could. I mean, sure we've been frustrated, there have been conflicts, but I.
Think the thing that you would fear is us rioting against a group of people.
Right, And that's what We've never done that, and that's what thank you for saying that. Right.
I think they pointed out the destruction of property right during the summer of twenty twenty, and people showed up with assault rifles to keep us from destroying property that didn't belong to them.
And we're talking about human lives, which we correct should in theory value more.
Also, everything that is feared that we will one day rise up and do has not happened. That there's an entire history that shows that that's not what we're on. We are simply trying to exist and we're trying to prosper and just by being black. Every so often somebody either comes along and tears down what we've built for ourselves or they put in the way hurdles and barriers to keep us from ever getting where we're trying to go, if any cause we're black, and that being the only reason why.
If you want to find out the real reason why there's no healthcare in this country, please look that up and then you will see kind of how black people have been regarded in this country historically.
Right you say that healthcare expound, Please, I don't want I don't want that universal health care.
Universal health care. Why this country does not have universal health care? I want you to look that up. Why does the United States not have universal health care? And dig deep and you.
Might be the only of what they call developed countries that doesn't have universal health care.
But I think that when you find the answer that I'm pointing you toward, you'll begin to see exactly what this country historically, speaking as thought of black people. Now, of course, we're all born, you know, in the past one hundred years, sure, you know, and things have certainly progressed since then. You know, I was born in the eighties, so things have even progressed since the eighties. I will see that entirely. I was able to vote for Barack
Obama he was elected president. I saw everyone come out and join us when we marched for Black Life. I saw that, you know, there was love and that we do have potential in this country. But there is a not insignificant amount of people who still feel that the old way is the best way, and they're in enough position of power to do something about it or a minimum control us on online. So back to the economic restorative justice or reparations or scary words or anything like,
we don't even have to talk about. Listen, Biden wanted to make education free. Let me interrupt.
I wanted to forgive thee not just that, not just that, make it education free moving forward to but yes that too.
Both of the these things once you see that. I don't want to connect some dots and sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but everything that I see time and again, it almost seems like if black people stand to benefit from it, there is a much stronger response to it than if only your majority white people benefit from it from the right and the far right. Okay, now I'm not imagining that. I know that I've seen it now.
Far too much data that supports what you're saying or or articles or Yeah. So that is something that at least in my experience, has been very real. But okay, I don't want to do I may want to make sure that I make this point. So economic restorative justice. So when you talk about I talked about the.
Schools I talked about, Okay, let's talk about voting. Voting happens when p people are able to take time off of what we don't have a national voting holiday. Why do you suppose that is because then poor people would be able to vote? Yeah? Right, So anyway, poor people, black people, black people, liberal, you know, et cetera, and so they you know, you get what I'm saying. So so when when when you're poor and you're living hand to mouth, your ability to let your voice be heard
is compromised. Right, in the past, they had things like poll taxes and literacy tests and you know that sort of stuff, and it's just kind of evolved. Right. Jerry Mandering is the most obvious way of disenfranchising black people in this country, but these other tactics work as well. Right now, when you're poor, let's say you resort to whatever means necessary to feed your family. Okay, these means might not, strictly speaking, be the most legal means, but
you're poor. What are you going to do? I gotta eat, I gotta feed my family. This is what I'm doing. I'm a bus and move right. So you bust a move and you get hemmed up by the police. Okay, what do the police do. They take you to jail, and they put you in jail. Okay. Now, maybe you did have a job and you're trying to supplement that income. Okay, but when you're in jail as a poor person, the only way that you can get out is when you bail out. Okay. Now, I'm talking about all these things
because they disproportionately affect black people. Okay, So if you have money to bail out, Well, then you wouldn't have been shoplifting in the first place.
Right, And if you're a person with me, then you do commit a crime.
Then you have the money to bail out.
You got the money to bail out. You don't even have to spend the night in jail, exactly. You know, our former commander in chief turned himself in and then went home because he had the means to do so. Meanwhile, black people who can't afford bill, and in some instances don't ever even commit a crime, are never even tried
for said crime. They're just arrested and then they bailed and they can't make bail, so they're just hailed a month, awaiting trial for years sometimes right, Okay, So with I forget his name, but in upstate New York, you know what I'm talking about, Let's find his name.
I want to make sure he said his name because he's passed away and it's importan press to say his name. So anyway, so you're in jail, So what happens to the job that you might have had. Well, now you've lost that job because you're held in jail, can't make bill, And then what impact does that have on your family. Now they're fending for themselves, and think of the impact
that has on the community. Right. So again, economic restorative justice, and this is the source of many of the problems that the black people have, and our inability to shape our reality stems from a lot of these economic limitations that are the result, again of a long history of this country disenfranchising black people or actively stealing. And I'm talking about government agencies, right, Okay, let's find another one. So okay, we're talking about I wanted to mention this
one about police training. Okay, so we were trying to dispel the myth that better police training leads to better officers. And where do you move on?
There were so many stories when I put in died, denied bail upstate New York that I can't find this gentleman's name. And I don't mean this lightheartedly. There are too many stories for me to even figure out who
we're talking about. So just imagine this idea. You're arrested, there's proof that you didn't do this thing, but no one ever sees that there's truth because you couldn't bail out, and while you're hailed to be sentenced and tried at some point other people are being arrested at the same time, and these people are being hailed and awaiting sentencing during COVID government institutions, paperwork, logjams, it goes.
On and on.
You can see how a month, several months, a year, multiple years can go by, and because you don't have the means to do anything about it, the system eachs you alive.
Literally. Well, I happen to remember a detail about his case that he was accused of stealing a backpack, which he maintained the entire time that he didn't steal, and so that's what I plugged in. His name is Khalik Browder. So I wanted to make sure that I said his name because he's an example of the aforeman scenario. Okay, so again back to police training, and we talked about
this on the show. So in short, there's data that suggests that increased police training does not lead to changed attitudes. They kind of will adopt a different posture for about a month and then they revert to type. They are back on whatever they were on before. So the diversity training or the whatever the training is that that officersity training, that sort of stuff, It doesn't work based on the data. And and you know we have this in a previous episode.
Please go to civicyper dot com download and check it out. You can't you can't miss it. It's recent enough, probably in the last two months. We did that episode. And then of course we cited some examples of police trainers who the people who are responsible for training the offers ending lives themselves.
Right, be that acting in bad faith or making a mistake either way.
Now, so we use this as an example, and we cited the data and everything like that on one of our posts. Well, some of these comments again, so okay, I just have them right if we want a second where to go, police don't need anything. The people need to act right and force social norms and quit making excuses for bad behavior.
Yeah, and so if as if you behave bad you should be killed. But and you know what, I think even that person thinks that that would be a ridiculous way to end their own comment. Right, people just need to act better, because if you behave bad you should be murdered. I think even that person would agree that that's a ridiculous conclusion to reach.
Yeah, but you know what, even if there was a person really felt like it needs to be that strict, don't break the rules, and then you get to live, even if the person sincerely felt that way. Right. I've been to places around the world. They're called what are they called, I forget the name of the type of state, but it's some sort of state where the penalties for crimes are super severe. So you know, no one commits crimes, but when someone does, it's often the death penalty. Singapore
is a place like this. I've been there been a few times. Actually, I don't you come there, but let's say that this is how you feel, you feel like how the Singaporean government feels. Right, don't do any crime. You won't have a problem. Nothing to see here. We've seen time again, and you just mentioned Q that you don't necessarily need to commit a crime to be at odds with the police. What we call it is often
enough just being black and nearby. Right, this is a real thing, and if you're not a black person, you don't know this experience. At some point you just have to kind of take our work for it. That's a real thing. It's not our imagination. We're not victims, and nobody wants that who wants to be a victim.
Pause, we are victims. Well, we're not playing the victory imagination. We're not making these things up. These are real life experiences that we go through for simply existing in the skin we were born into. I have never done drugs in my life. I was pulled over on a highway and a brand new car. Police dogs came and the police told us that their dog sensed or found or
smelled drugs and the car I just bought. And if it wasn't us, that maybe someone walked by the car with drugs in their posts and brand brushed up against the car. That was not my imagination, folks.
And the last stop was one hundred and fifty miles prior to that. That really happened. I was there, I saw it. So anyway, the long and the short of it is that you can appreciate that no matter what happens, all of these things deserve someone to think about them, and these people really need to be educated. But we're not going to be able to fight this battle in the comments section. That's not how this works. But we do recognize that you, our listener, encounter these talking points
in your day to day lives. You know what I mean, And as these things come up, our hope is that we've given you a little bit more to work with. One last thing before I go. I made a comment recently where I was saying that you and I we we deleted our Twitter accounts because we don't want to
be in spaces where the in word flies freely. And there was a person that responded to that saying, oh, well, I guess you don't listen to rap music and you don't watch black comedy and that sort of stuff, and they have a different idea of what in word flies freely means than I do. Because black people say that word. And we've done an episode on this, feel free to go back and check the archives. Why is the word
so offensive when non black people use it? But the long and the short of it is that for black people, it does not sound like an insult when we hear other black people say it. This has been my experience. Okay, when other people say it, it does sound like an insult. It may as well be two different words, right, And so the N word does fly freely on Twitter because everyone uses it. It does not fly freely in hip hop because where I can sit, you know, it's only black
people saying that We'll leave that one right there. With that in mind, thank you for walking this path with us. This is kind of a weird episode for us to do. I'm being honest. Normally we talk about things that are happening, but we're trying to give you some game.
And for you guys, I know some of you are like, why do you guys even pay attention to that. The truth of the matter is, people pretend that social media isn't real.
It's very real.
Spend all of us spend a large portion of our days there, and when every comment you get reads like that, it makes even those of us that consider ourselves kind of emotionally intelligent and sane pause for a second, like, Hey, am I the one that's tripping here?
Do us a favor. Help us out, Follow us on social media and leave some positive comments. Hit the website Civiccipher dot com, our webs our social media is all Civic Cipher. Rock out with us, man and help us, you know, change the world. How about that? Until next week, y'all.
Peace,