Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
I am your host, Ramsey's.
Job is Ramsey's jaw. I am q ward. You are listening to Civic Cipher.
Indeed you are, and we have a lot for you to stick around for, so please do Today we.
Are going to be covering some round We.
Have had to depart from our normal programming to cover some really important topics. Please check out the last couple of episodes on civiccipher dot com where we talk about generational trauma, we talk about how algorithms divide us. The OEJ Wilson and io Apha helped us out with both of those shows. We talked about pronouns and why those are important with Maya.
But she was moving around the world making sure that.
We had don't let Ramses make that sound all grand. He was I was just going to work.
He was moving around the world. And so now we're both back in the studio and we have a lot to catch up on. So we're going to spend some time talking about some police stories that have made the news that we feel you should know about. We are.
For those new to the show, we are people that certainly.
Pay those attention to how we police treat people, particularly people from black and brown communities, people who are black and brown themselves, and so we're going to bring you up to speed on some things that.
Are going on there.
Also, we're going to take part of the show to rethink the car sool system. We've had some conversations Q and I in our group chat, and we put together the show, and there are some really important questions that have come up recently that have certainly caused me to expand my concept of criminal rehabilitation and punishment. And I think that it's worth listening to so all that and so much more to stick around for to day. But first and foremost, let's start, like we always do, with
some Ebony excellence, shall we shall. Today's EBNY Excellent sponsored by Major Threads for innovative fashionable sportswear checkmajorthreads dot com. I'm going to share a bit from USA today about a fourteen year old who invented a soap to treat
skin cancer. He was named America's Top Young Scientists, so Herman Beckel, a ninth grader from annan Dell, Virginia, won the prestigious award from three M and Discovery Education, which is considered one of the country's top middle school science competitions.
Quote.
I believe that young minds can make a positive impact on the world, Herman said in his submission for the award. I have been interested in biology and technology, and this challenge gave me the perfect platform to showcase my ideas.
He said.
He spent four months competing against other finalists to be named America's top Young Scientist. The competition was created to tell students between the fifth and eighth grades create innovative ideas that change the world. Heman, I've been calling Hermann. I apologize. Heman developed a compound based bar of soap designed to treat melanoma.
The bar of.
Soap costs about fifty fifty cents to make, and he helps to refine his innovation and create a nonprofit organization to distribute the soap to communities in need over the next five years. According to three M and Discovery Education, so Human Bekel, a fourteen year old black child, is doing something special over there, treating skin cancer with soap and obviously the amounts of research and science and all those sorts of things that are beyond my reality.
Young black ingenuity and that we've been paying specific attention to, you know, recently, is blowing me away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a special thing. So again, shout out to him and Beckel. We appreciate you, brother.
All right, so let's get to some business.
When Ramsen says that you guys can't see us, my stomach starts to hurt at because get back to some business kind of always means the same thing in the space that we're in, very unfortunately, but it's kind of a perpetual thing and it's not it's unfortunately not unique to today.
Sure, sure, And you know the funny thing about that, Q, is that these stories, these national stories, they'll pile up if we take a week off. In your case, you're taking a couple of weeks off, and you're the only person that I feel really comfortable tackling these things with. I know I'm the only person you feel really comfortable tackling these things with it. You know, we for those that don't know, we share this content. Sometimes I'll take
a subject, sometimes you will take a subject. Sometimes I'll watch a video some times Q will rarely do we both watch the same thing, just because we have to preserve our mental health. We don't want to become overwhelmed with death and violence against black and brown bodies. You know, we have our processes and Q is my brother, and you know, when he's not here, it's harder to make these lifts. So we're going to cover a few stories today. This first one comes from San Jose, California, and I'll
share a bit from ABC News an article. So a San Jose police officer has resigned after the police department found numerous disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias. According to a statement by the San Jose Police Department, the text message is related to a twenty twenty two shooting incident in which the officer shot a college football player who had wrestled a gun from a perpetrator during a fight in a local Takorea.
I think I'm saying that right Takorea.
Yeah, And the statement released from the SJPD, Mark McNamara was identified as the officer. Stateman said that the department found the messages during an unrelated criminal investigation into one of their other officers quote, there is a zero tolerance for even a single expression of racial bias at the San Jose Police Department. This according to San Jose Police
Chief Anthony Mata. Chief Mata added that the investigation quote also determined that a current employee who was on the receiving end of some of the messages, engaged in other concerning dialogue with the former officer. The other employee, who has not been identified by the SJPD, was immediately placed on administratively pending an internal investigation. According to the statement,
all right, so let's back up here. In March twenty twenty two, then twenty year old Kean Green, who is black, was at the Takoia in San Jose when a fight ensued. One of the perpetrators pulled out a gun, which Green wrestled out of his hands. He was then shot four times by McNamara, who was responding to the scene as Green was backing out of the door of the Takorea. Following the shooting, Green filed a federal lawsuit against McNamara, SJPD, and the City of San Jose for excessive force and
the city's related liability in the incident. In another message sent by McNamara after he was deposed by Green's legal team, he said, quote, I hate black people. In the ten page document released by the SJPD containing McNamara's text messages, he frequently used racial slurs when referring to Green and
his legal team. Green, who was a college football player at Contra Costa College and still dreams of a career in the NFL, said during the press conference he had to sit out the entire twenty twenty two football season and has been suffering from depression since the shooting. So obviously, well, you know what, first your early thoughts, you please, So.
Before getting into this specifically, you know, Ramses and I have been put into a space of being in the opinion of the expert with regards to this specific type of trauma because of the amount of time we spend.
Dealing with it.
Yeah, and I think that has made us, you know, more open to the conversations that we've had to have recently with regards to mental health and being open about it. The show has kind of thrust us into saying out loud and being very transparent that this is a hard
mental lift for us. Ramses, you know, spoke earlier about us kind of sharing the load with and ingesting this type of content, these stories, the videos that accompany them, so sooner than later, Ramses and I are going to take a documented mental health retreat somewhere in the world where we probably take a camera with us or a camera person with us, and do some introspective mental soul searching and healing so that we can do a better
job at this for you. Because when I say, my stomach starts to hurt when we start talking about this, I was not We chuckled a little bit, but I was being very very serious. It makes me sick. And you know, we're looking at kind of where people's humanity
departs when hate is interjected. And listening to this guy say he hates black people, and watching people on the news say they hate this group of people or this other and other being the key word has made it very easy for people to oose their sense of human decency and empathy with regards to people who don't look, love,
or pray the same way that they do. So I think it's important to kind of highlight that in general, not just specific to this story, but I'm listening to this language I hate insert group of people, and in their mind. That means that we can mistreat, kill, disrespect, detegrate. The list goes on this group of people that we've deemed beneath us or less than So here's the funny part of this story is trying to veer away from
this story type. But those are the type of feelings that you're reading this cause to stir up.
And but I say, I'm glad that you mentioned that, because these stories that we have in the first part of the show here, these are all police officers, and they feel this way, and they're empowered to directly impact the community, and they are often enough are insulated from consequences. And while we're looking at this officer Mark McNamara, hopefully that's the last time I ever have to say his name.
Don't want to make him famous. But you know, when we look at people like this.
You start thinking, Okay, well, I know I would guess that there's at least two people in this department that feel this way, as you know, based on just the fact that he was texting someone openly this language.
Yeah, they're comfortable sharing this with a colleague. So now there's at least two people. Now we can make the argument and after having covered this sort of stuff so for so long, we can make several arguments that it's the culture of policing in general across the entirety of the United States, and the exception is the good cop. You know, the system. It does not exist to help all of us the same. Right.
But back to this, this officer was not a lone actor, and this officer had been empowered and indeed carried a gun and was justified in every street level physical punishment he ever doled out to anybody because of the fact that he was an officer, and he was able to do that for that long and felt this way. There is no instance in my life, not one, not one instance where you will ever hear me say I hate
insert group of people. For those that know me, for those who've seen me and Q on the Breakfast Club, on the cover of a magazine on CNN, wherever you've seen us, Google whatever, you see that. I have a huge tattoo on my arm and it says I love you, and.
That is intended for whoever's reading it.
But whoever's reading whenever I hold a microphone, you could read it. So when I know, I know that it is not possible for me to ever say that when I look at a police officer, knowing that there's at least two based on this story.
And this is on record, by the way, that I hate to keep steering away from this story specifically, but Ramses in particular right extends a level of grace and benefited the doubt to people who don't deserve it because he is not inclined to ever lead with hate, even to people who have wronged us, people who have aggressively wronged us. He provides a space actively of reconciliation for them. So it's important for me to interject there. This is to sound good or for a good SoundBite on this
particular story. Listen to every episode we've ever had, and you'll hear me interjecting where I feel like there should be some stronger negative emotion and Ramses just does not
come from that space or that place. So imagine that, even with the proverbial thumb being pressed down on us or boot or however you want to you know, mention, imagine that that he still comes from a place where there's grace, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation as a possibility, and he leads with that with empathy with you know what I mean. So again, it's very, very hard because the reason he hates black people is not because black people
have traditionally wronged him and his right. This hate was indoctrinated and taught to him by someone else and people like him. There's nothing on the application. There could be something during the interview right to root people like this out, and not just in a way of a question, but if a criminal did something, you give them a live
detector test. If you're giving someone this type of authority, maybe as a part of the interview process, hooked them up to a lie detector and asked them their thoughts on black and brown people, And how about we disqualify them if there's something that indicates that they might hate a specific group of people, that they have the authority and the power to not just arrest and affect their livelihood forever, but too unlive.
Which has a ripple effect across the whole community. Just the thought, and it's a brilliant thought. And here's something else I want you to remember. We're talking about this officer in San Jose who's texting his fellow officer, I hate black people. And we have a couple of other stories that we need to get to all from the police, and we cover a lot of this on our show.
But remember, these are the officers that got caught Mike Fropp.
Think about that, if these text messages hadn't come to light based on another investigation, this officer who hates black people would still be patrolling the streets of San Jose doing whatever officers do to people that they hate.
Impunity by the way, Oh yeah, fully protected by the law and the community.
It says, you know, blue lives matter and thin blue line, and it's hurtful and it's not fair. Let's move on. This next story is coming from the route. You don't know about the route. Check out the route right. That's awesome, Okay. Dexter Wade's preliminary autopsy shows his body was carelessly mishandled before a secret burial, according to Ben Crump. Now, I've talked about this show on the Black Information Network Daily podcast.
Check that out.
I have a lot of thoughts there, but it's important to mention this here on Civic Cyber because this is really where I wanted to talk about it. It's just that now we're finally getting to it, so we appreciate your patience.
For those that don't know a little bit about the backstory.
There was a black man who was run over by a police car who was I think suing some other some unrelated thing. He just lost his life, just accident. The police then took him and buried him. He had idea and I'll read that part of it, but they buried him without his mother knowing. His mother worried about her son for seven months until she found out that he had died, and the police covered it up.
So that's the backstory.
Let me read a little bit about the how his body was mishandled just a bit here right again from the route. An independent pathologist released the initial findings from the autopsy of Dexter Wade, the Mississippi man fatally struck by a police car earlier this year and buried by the county unbeknownst to his family. The findings we built Wade had identification on him at the time of his death.
Doctor Frank Peretti, hired by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, released the initial findings following the exhumation of Wade's body. Breddy noted that Wade had several identifying items on his person, including his health insurance card and the idea which contained his home address. Peretti said Wade was quote completely run over by the police car that struck him back in March. The report he was I think they let his mom
know in August sometime, all right. The report also said that Wade's body was in an advanced state of decomposition and that he suffered multiple blunt force injuries to the skull, ribs, and pelvis. His left leg was also amputated. Now you see why we got to take turns with these stories. Sorry, if that was a bit much, I didn't. I didn't know that was coming, all right. Wade wasn't embalmed when the county buried him in a Heinz County Pauper's grave weeks following the incident.
Quote.
The tragic news we received from the independent pathologist today was heartbreaking for everyone who knew and cared for Dexter Wade, especially his mother. The fact that Dexter had a state ID card and several other identifying items shows us that there was a concerted effort to keep the truth and the manner of his death from his family. There's no excuse, not even incompetence for not notifying a next of kin
of an identified man's death. Crump said in his statement, all right, now, real quick, I want to add a couple more things here. His mother, dextra Wave's mother also lost a brother to the same police department, and I believe that there was a lawsuit there. I don't have the notes here just now, so if I'm not correct here, I don't owe me to it.
But I believe there was a lawsuit there.
And my thoughts were that the police didn't want the mother to know because they feared a second lawsuit.
Right.
So, when we talk about police accountability, police cover ups, these are the police that get caught, et cetera, et cetera.
We have another such story. It's also important to note that, you know, one of the things that Q and I really try our best to do is we try to acknowledge the fact that we're both men and we are not black women, and we respect the fact that black women feel more of the feelings that there are to feel when we tell stories like this, and today we're talking about one such black mother who lost her brother and her son and for seven months had to walk
around with that not in her stomach, fearing the worst, only to find out that not only was her son not alive anymore, but he was taken from her in a horrible manner, and she wasn't allowed to be present when they exhumed the body.
They believe they had.
A funeral recently, form a proper funeral, and the manner of death and the cover of overshadowed what would normally be a very tragic event, very heartbreaking event. And it's doubly so now. And I thought back to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie, having the courage to go through that and to share that story. And so in this moment, and as often as we can, we want to make sure that we acknowledge the pain that black women suffer under the framework of this society, and often enough by
police in this country. And so I just wanted to make sure that I stated that. And we're not going to have enough time to get to it. But I had another one, Elijah McClain. He was the young man. He's a sweetheart. Please look up his name, Elijah McClain. He was from Colorado. He was such a good person.
And this kid was on the spectrum.
I believe that if that's not, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's true. But he got the most positive energy, energy and personality as a result, so that he was a very caring kind soul. And it's cold in Colorado and he was wearing a ski mask. Neighbors called the police on him. We showed up, lost his life, and there's now a second officer that's been acquitted for his death, and that obviously has caused a lot of people to
be upset. So we're talking about accountability, we're talking about, you know, consequences, and we're talking about people that.
Ultimately ended up getting caught.
In the case of Elijah McClain, people made a big enough deal out of it in order for there to at least be an investigation into it. But as is often the case, there will be no consequences for at least two of the officers that were directly involved in his death.
And unfortunately, that's.
Such a hard thing to try to comprehend and reconcile.
Listen, imagine the amount of stuff that we couldn't get to. We picked three because we thought we could get to it. This list goes on and we're just going to keep sharing it.
With him