If you're just tuning into civic cipher, I'm your host, Ramsey's job. He is rams this job. I am q woard.
You are tuned in, hopefully tuned back in.
Indeed, and we are having a fantastic time and in fellowship and becoming educated by the one and only THEO. E. J. Wilson, a man known for his many viral moments online and a man known for his experiments that have yielded some results and some insight into what it means to be really the victim of an algorithm and to find yourself in an echo chamber, which is often the case for
our especially our far right leaning brothers and sisters. So we're having an educational conversation with him, and we have a whole lot more of that in store. In particular, we're going to get his thoughts on CRT his show I was there. We want to talk about that first and so much more. But first and foremost, it is time to discuss Ba Ba Baba becoming a better ally. So Today's Baba is sponsored by Friends of the Movement.
You can sign up for the free voter wallet at fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending again that is Fotmglobal dot com and Today's Baba. We would like you to do this very special thing for us. We want you to know the name, follow the social media and support the candidate Kassim Rashid that is spelled Qasim no U Qasim r A s hi D. He is a Pakistani born American author, an activist, and an attorney.
He's a member of the Democratic Party and he's currently running for the Democratic nomination for Illinois eleventh Congressional District for twenty twenty four. Kasim Rashid is a human rights lawyer who built his career fighting for survivors of domestic violence, asylum seekers, and low income communities. He and his family immigrated from Pakistan to the United States when he was five. As a child, Cassim grew up in Section eight housing
in DuPage County. Cassim's parents, who were both teachers, instilled in him a deep commitment to service and humanity and upholding justice. His website is Kassim Rashid dot com that's q A s I M R A s h I D and you can donate to his campaign. His social media is at Kassim Rashid at present. I believe he is saying that he is being shadow banned, still getting plenty of views, but please give him a follow give
him your support. I know that q Q brought him to my attention, so I know you're a huge fan of this guy. But he is a very measured man, very I believe to be compassionate at least based on what I know, and a person who's fighting to make the world a little bit better. He could use your support in this moment. So again, Cassim Rashid dot com. All right, back to the lecture at hand, to quote the one and only Snoop Dogg, mister.
Great philosopher Snoop, the great philosopher Snoop Dogg, mister THEO. E. J.
Wilson. Okay, So decolonizing the narrative.
Mm hmm. That is.
A very eloquent way to say what I know that you've been saying. But you know, for the benefit of our listeners, give them a little bit about what that means and where that comes from.
Well, you can't have colonialization without a narrative that supports it. It's a manifest destiny holdover. We are dealing with the fallout of ahistorical society as as as America truly is. This is the land of forgetten brother, This is the land where even white folks was beating out of speaking their native language. Don't you speak that German, that Gaelic, that Polist, that Italian? Right? Let alone what happened to black folks? Let alone happened to the indigenous folks and
then boarding schools. And so we have a narrative that has been put in place that we have been lowed asleep by.
And you got to do it.
If you are somebody who slaughtered a whole bunch of indigenous folks and whipped a whole bunch of Africans, how do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night? You have to fabricate a bedtime story that makes it easier for you and your children to fall asleep. Knowing that there are so many black and indigenous bodies under the empire and specifically critical race theory, let's talk about it. Yeah, like or, which is not what we're dealing with. I mean,
it's all for the sixteen nineteen projects. It's American history, but it's all the American history. Right, it's been called indoctrination by those who have been indoctrinated, and specifically they were indoctrinated by military Rutherford and the Daughters of the American Confederacy.
Wow, say it.
The Daughters of the American Confederacy. They are the only ones to lose a war and win the narrative. And this was a movement started way back during the reconstruction era to frame the South in a better light. And the Daughters of the American Confederacy are the only ones to have power to rewrite the history books of the
North and the South. And so by the time we get to the time that my parents were in school, it's no coincidence that there was like a page and a half about slavery, and everything was about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. They even took Northern history and removed the bodies from it. Right. And the Daughters of American Confederacy, they've had children's camps, they've had literal you know, I mean dance songs. They preserved like anti
Bellum history in paintings. There's these friendly portraits of Roberty Lee reading books to children, right, and they've had the run of the day up and until now. Where they got folks who are their descendants. Who are we writing history books in the state of Texas calling black folks involuntary immigrants?
Yeah, we talk about that quite a bit, right, So you got.
To know where it came from. And like most people who are against critical race theory have no idea about Mildred Rutherford and the daughters of the American Confederacy and how she is responsible for the indoctrination that we are fighting to break with narratives like the sixteen nineteen project that's decolonizing the narrative.
Listen, that is a masterful explanation. And what I've learned, Cull chime in here. What I've learned is that when you have a degree of eloquence to a statement, you know, brevity and eloquence. I think that intersection, it moves the needle, It gets people interested. Not to say that it won't be challenged, but I think that it can go a little bit further. And Q brought up a great point. I firmly believe in a lot of in principle what
the movement defund the police stands for. I believe that there's the ideas have a lot of merit, but the packaging, the freezing, and this was Q's position, go ahead, Yeah, there was.
The resistance was so prepared for a statement like defund the police. They got to jump on that and make it sound like we were all doomed if something like this was to come to pass. Even though if they gave you bullet points of everything that defund the police meant and wanted to accomplish, most intelligent people would.
Say, you know, those are some good ideas. It might right, but defund the police.
The packaging, the marketing turned people off so fast that we even got to get to the meat of what was trying to be accomplished.
At least a lot of individuals never got to that point.
You know that that packaging made it easy for those who opposed it to oppose it was just well, let me I heard it.
I was like, man, I wish we could have said that different or better.
Right, And how I would have said it is deburden the police. There you go.
So that's why I'm a fan of lightening their load. I'm a fan of light just lightning load. And here's why it becomes relevant to I was there because we filmed. I was there in Minneapolis, and that you know, I was housed for the filming fourteen minutes away from George
Floyd's Square. During the entire filming of that, and on my off days, I would hang out in George Floyd's Square with the sister who's in charge of that, her name is Janelle, and we talked about what it was to live in a community police zone and what we were really trying to get. In fact, when I was there, no pun intended. In Minneapolis filming.
The ballot measure to actually disband the police was voted on, which, of course that ballot measure failed. But it's literally all about the fact that, you know, we don't call the fire men to take the kidnapt the tree no more. They not for that. Right here in Denver, we have and Ramsey's posted about this, not the I think it's stars, but we have ride alongs with mental health professionals that when it is a mental health call and somebody is in crisis, they get out the car first. The police
is there just in case it hits the fan. I don't know if I can curse here, but just in case things hit the fan, right because their burden is too heavy. They are a hammer. Everything looks like a nail, and so you can't be surprised when they end up smashing stuff. So deburdening the police, dispersing the their responsibilities so that they can focus on the things that we really need them for, like interceding when a mass shooter, for example, takes place, which they failed in uv all day,
but they picked up. Actually, if you've been looking, people like these police officers are, we're not going to beat uvald APD, right, So that's what we need cops for. Right, And I'll end my diatribe with this. I got locked up in Florida when I was an undergrad. I was actually protesting on behalf of Palestine back when I was in college. I'll get there, you how dare I see what's really happening? But when I was locked up, I you know, and I mean these cups were super tight.
I remember they come into this bar and holding cell and I just listened to the police and these were working class Joe's working too many hours, not getting paid enough, And what the cops were talking about was just like I need more money to make ends meet, and this job I have ain't cutting it. So when those working class joes who have the job of policing her defund the police, it was like, I'm already not making enough
as it is, and that's the bird. And that's how literal wording something can change the outcome.
Yeah, so this is why I was again a fan of the way that you know that that kept coming up in our our earlier conversations at decolonizing the narrative. So let's do this. I really do want you to talk about I was there where people can go and get that check that out, you know, I want to make sure that we plug that. So so let's do that before we move to this next part.
Okay, Now, basically this is a History Channel special. It's twelve part twelve episodes on History dot com and if you just type in the search button I was there, you'll see me in a trench code with a really bad background. It's amazing what they did with that show. I got that show in the middle of the pandemic.
Bro.
I have an agent that I attracted from the Ted Talk to do nonfiction television, and this agent slid this project on my desk. They said, we need somebody who can carry a show. We need somebody with on camera charisma, but it's not necessarily a big name, and we think you should audition for this. So when I auditioned for it, they was like, what you know about history? And they gave me like five examples, And I didn't know that
my five examples blew everybody out of the park. But as a history buff already kind of, I had already been lecturing at the college level, and with the other things, including a background in stunts, I used to actually get trained and beat how to be a stunt man for the movies because the show is quite physical sometimes. It all led to me getting the part, and I was able to help in writing four episodes when it came to historical correctness, which made me an asset to the team.
And it's a bunch of folks who really want to do the right thing at the History Channel, including talks that I was in about decolonizing the narrative, and so great folks I was there, History dot Com.
Got it understood. Okay, So I did want to ask this strange question. Okay. One of the things that comes up for me and Q at least uh is that you know we're activists, but we work in a broadcast space, and so people ask us a lot of times, you know what inspires your creative approach, your novel approach to activism. Well, you are the sort of person that we feel those things apply to. We only do this because we this
is what we do. You know, we're broadcasters. If if there was no need for black people to fight for equity in this country, we'd still be giving away CARDIB tickets. No problem there. We were having the time of our lives. We did this because it was necessary, an extension of our profession. But we get asked that question a lot and we don't ever have a really good answer for it.
But in your case, I've seen you flex your creative muscles again, primarily with the story, the origin story at least for you, and my view of going underground and kind of learning how algorithms work and how this divide has been established and is still growing in this country. So I guess my question, to make it as succinct as I can, is what inspires your novel approach to activism? Your unique brand of activism? Where does that come from?
I think that all of this, to me is spiritual to a certain extent. Okay, when I was at Florida A and M University. It's when I kind of shook off my last bit of Christian doctrination and found the metaphor behind all the religious hubbuh. And this was a time in which I was expanding artistically.
Anyway.
My roommate was a rapper, and he was a battle rapper, so he was, you know, dropping bars about you know, you know, shooting brothers up and whatnot. But man, he was creative and I started getting into rap because of him. And slowly, over time that evolved in the spoken word, and I realized that I will never write a poem greater than I am. I have to evolve to a certain level in order for me to be a certain level of impactful with my art. So this was a
spiritual thing that I expressed through my art. And that journey began at Florida A and M University. And I noticed that there's a lot of times spiritual stuff wasn't touched in the ground. It was high for Lutin. It seemed philosophical but boring. I wanted to see if I could make my art be impactful in the real world. Now after college, I got beat up by the cops horrible story, but in regaining my footing, in regaining even my masculinity, even regaining my sense of identity, poetry was
paramount in that. And so all of this began as an exercise in figuring out the most impactful way to be a spoken word artist.
Actually, OK, so.
I'll say that one of my professors at Florida University, doctor Dana Dinard, he said, speaking to brothers' minds is not enough. You have to speak to their souls. And I was like, what does that look like? How what's the mechanism behind that? And that's really all I was
trying to uncover. So there's many ways of which I do that, but the ability to articulate the idea, to create not just a good feeling, but a paradigm shift was what I practiced as a slam poet, and that skill carried over into activism and journalism.
You know what happens. I appreciate the response because what happens is there are a lot of people who listen to the show every week, and you know, they they wonder what more can they do, and they don't know how they can make an impact or whatever. And I think that your story and to a degree, our story. It illuminates just kind of starting where you are and doing what you can with the gifts that you have available to you. And you know it takes, you know,
every everything to move everything forward. But obviously a person with such a visible platform, you know, and and a wider audience, those sorts of questions, I think that they translate to our listeners, our more active listeners, especially in a way that's really meaningful and impactful. So I appreciate your response. Now, you mentioned something. We've been talking about
this on the show as well. You mentioned, you know, you're protesting once upon a time what was going on in Palestine and Q and I we do our best what was and is there? It is, yeah, and so we have been doing our best to be responsible journalists and to respect, you know, all of our brothers and sisters that we share this planet with, regardless of their faith. And for a person like you who has a long standing appreciation for what's been going on over there, I'll
admit that I'm new to this conversation. I want to ask. I feel it's important to ask, what are your thoughts on what's going on in Gaza as of late?
We are watching a paradigm shift, and we are watching the bill come do for Western imperialism. And what I mean by that is that for the last eighty years, the rightful compassion for Jewish people, after surviving the Holocaust and losing what was that two thirds, almost of all Jews in Europe bought the experiment of Israel a lot of good will and humanity. That will is running out as we speak, and it is because of the fact
that in doing so, a devil's bargain was struck. In partnering with the British Empire long before nineteen forty eight, long before there was a Nakba right, which is what the Palestinians called their great tragedy when seven hundred thousand of them were displaced. Zionism targeted Palestine, but it did
it in a time of imperialism. And the author of the first book about Zionism, whose name was Theodore Herzel, who wrote an Austro Hungarian the Judenstadt, which is the Jewish State, first articulated Gavid legs and in eighteen ninety seven Hell the first Zionist conference, and he jockeyed all over Europe for a colonial partner. Is where it was always supposed to be under the protectorate militarily of a colonial power.
And so.
In that devil's bargain, a seed was planted and it could only create fruit that grew after its own kind. And now we are in harvest. Now we are seeing this time and space has created this birth that we are watching. This is what this has been all along. And I will say that the humanity of the Jewish people is challenged by the inhumanity of how is real was caused to exist, not the idea of Israel. See eat me As a Garvyite, sometimes I can understand and
oppress people needing a home. As a Garvyite, sometime I can understand how wanting a place to call your own is a thing that all of us in the diaspora can appreciate. But the fact is the colonial side of the experiment has been denied to even Jewish folks themselves and those of us who sympathize. It's making itself nakedly clear and sadly that do was coming, that bill is coming due in blood.
I thought I had a question, but you spoke to everything I wanted to ask, that that goodwill didn't just run out it was misused in a very very unfortunately brother, Yes, sir, in a very very you know, manipulative way, right right. Well, always feels like we never have enough time on this show. That just means we got to keep talking. I mean we have I hope we can beg j'all come back and talk to us.
Bro. Yes, indeed, thank you mister Wilson for your time today. I apologize that it took so long, but we have a full on We're on over seventy radio stations, so for those of you who've been listening to the show for a long time, we appreciate your support. We are nationwide. And then oh yeah, way back again time. Yes indeed, so this is Civic Socer once again. I'm your host, Ramsey's job. He is Rams' job. I am q Ward. You guys are listening to the Civic Cipher. Welcome to some,
Welcome back to others. Mister Wilson, go ahead and shout out your social media so people can check in the O. E. J.
Wilson all one word on Instagram and I am kid Charisma on TikTok.
Guys, don it k I D D K A R I Z M A H on TikTok word and until next week, y'all pass