121220 Challenging Harmful Myths ft. Freshmaker

about circulating the bag. Yes, supporting black businesses by black people and allies of black folks, and the importance of supporting black businesses, and today's episode I feel as important for a number of reasons that will become apparent as we continue to flesh out today's topic. So we'll call this episode the MythBusters Episode. I like the way that sounds, and the reason for that is there's a lot of myths that exist in the world that are very harmful

to Black people, black communities, black progress, et cetera. And you know, if I have a voice, and I have my brothers at my side, I feel like it's important to use this platform to set the record straight.

black people. And in many cases it's a place that takes black culture and repackages it for non black people. And we all felt as a community, not just me, but we all felt that it was important to rise above that title of entertainer, rise above you know, the you know, the shuck and the jib and the dance and the club that sort of a thing, and really give a voice to real issues that affect black folks.

And so in these stations, these platforms that are you know, using Black culture to make a profit and repackaging black culture for you know, other groups of people. You know, these folks didn't want to be fair weather friends to the black community, and so they gave me and us this hour of time so that we can share messages with the community at large that will hopefully advance the

standing and the plight of black folks. So they're not just exploiting black culture, they're also contributing in a meaningful way. With that said, today's episode again is one where we're going to talk about prevalent myths that affect the black community and the one that I've been waiting for a very long time to get off my chest talk to the people. I'm gonna have to talk to you all today. It's one about black fathers. I knew it, Black fathers, and if you know, every time I hear this, it's

a heartbreaking thing. And I understand why a lot of folks think this. The myth, if you're not familiar, is that black men are not there for their children. Black men have babies and then go to jail or abandon them, otherwise abandon them or die or whatever whatever it is.

And so there's this issue that plagues black communities, and for some people, especially in political circles, it is their sole argument or there's like this sole element that they use to suggest that black people are responsible for their own problems. If they would just stay home and raise their k kids, than all of the problems that affect black folks will be solved if black people stay home

and raise their kids. So, as of twenty fourteen, we can definitively say that any statement like that, any sentiment like that, is exceptionally insulting and a slap in the face to the black community. But before we get there, I want to share our stories, our positive stories about black men in the community. Q. Let's start with you. Do you have children? Qut, yes, sir, I do. Can you tell me about your children? Q.

I was beyond repair. And this kid not only gave my life purpose but helped me. We all want to be something when we grow up. The only thing I knew I wanted to be when I grew up was a father. Everything else I hoped, you know, I hoped that would make it to the NFL, or maybe one day I'll be an architect or whatever. But I knew for certain, not because someone told me, not because I read it somewhere, not because people encouraged me to think

it was a good idea, But I knew. And I'll speak on my relationship with my father later, but I knew that a good father, not just a father, but a great dad was what I wanted to be when I grew up. And Grayson Anthony viaf floor Ward made that destiny real. And then recently and I went and bought a shotgun because of this one. I have a beautiful daughter now, ico Estella via floored Ward, and she's beautiful, So I bought a shotgun. I'm gonna look at my phone because I'm on live. I'm gonna look at my

phone on this one. So I bought a shotgun. I know y'all got signs. I know y'all think they're awesome. Her dad has a shotgun. Okay, I love you, bo And yeah, my babies and I love them.

into the house, right right. So it provided me with an incredible experience to now, you know, my daughter will be a year old on Christmas. You know, Grason just turned three. Neither of them have woken up without me there, and that's an incredible I'm very very proud of that being their truth and my truth. There's no version of life that exists. There's no full day or full week or full weekend that where you look around and it's like,

where's Dad? And if I'm gone for too long? Even you know, here doing this show as soon as the door opens, even Iko, who's ten months old, she hasn't even seen who it is yet, but when the door opens, she screams out, Daddy, it's the coolest thing in the world.

I thought Dad was mostly disciplinarian and provider, obviously a teacher, but I relished in disciplining only because I really did learn a lot of lessons when things were taken away from me or I was forced to learn through discipline from my father.

that ever stayed home was black. I'm sure the first man that ever left his family you have too. So I think history is very important, but I do want to speak to some of the things that, in my estimation, contributed to this damaging concept idea of the black the broken black family, because you got to think with this this and if you think to yourself, black families in the eighteen hundreds, you know in this you know that in the in the slave field or in the slave field.

So even earlier in the eighteen hundreds, you know, families were broken up, but where they could stay together, it was a family, right, they were broken up by the slave masters. Okay, so we're gonna we're gonna say they were sold off like cattle. But you know, after that, communities developed where black families, you know, raised black children

and black spaces and everything was fine. There was black commerce to piggyback off the show that we did not too long, excuse me, And you know, no one was complaining about black men abandoning their families back then because

it wasn't true. The same holds true in the twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, and it's in the late seventies early eighties where there's this war on drugs again this is my estimation, and there's a mass incarceration, a deliberate attempt by the United States government to disrupt the black community, which started in the late sixties, early seventies and continued into the eighties where it really took hold with the mass incarceration that

took place during that time, where they sically black men were scooped out of their neighborhoods and uh relocated into prisons. These are all well documented things. These aren't things that I'm making up. These are certainly not conspiracy theories. And as always Google it is free, So I employ you to google it if you don't believe what I'm telling you.

But this contributed to this idea that black women were welfare queens, black men were absent from the homes, and the broken black family is the fault of black people. And I it's it's impossible to fully measure the devastation of the War on drugs on black on black communities and brown communities be and and that delivered attempt by the government, this government to disrupt black families, black communities. It was a deliberate attempt to do so. And that's

those are those are topics for a different show. Right now, we're talking about this myth, but it starts somewhere. And then that's why I wanted to make sure that we talked about the history, because history is very important. But yes, there were some examples after that of broken black homes, you know, and obviously crack babies, a crack epademic, things like this. I'm from Compton, California in the eighties, so i was born in that. I saw that. It's it's

a very personal thing for me. One of my sisters was born underweight. If that tells you everything that you need to know, I saw it with these eyes. And then I grew up and I learned how that happened and who was responsible for that? Do you understand? And so oh still, I knew from my own experience that black fathers were largely present and even in communities, even in my community back then in Compton, California, when I

moved to Phoenix. You know, I'm a black person. I you know, I have a shared culture with other black people, and so I tend to congregate with other black folks at church, at the cookout, at you know, just you know, whoever can you know, speak your language and you know, identify with certain cultural markers, and you know, those are your people, that's your clan, and that's who you grew up with.

google nothing else, please google this. The United States has an entity that tracks diseases family structure, basically these pillars that hold up society. You know, human beings, how they behave, and things that affect them. And one of the things that they track is the familial unit, the nuclear family. You know, how is this dynamic growing? How many children are women having on average? You know, things like this.

That's monitored by the Center for Disease Control. Well, in their study in twenty thirteen, which admittedly is some years ago, but it's modern enough for us to be able to challenge this myth in this episode. I know I'm talking a lot, but let me make my point please. As it turns out, they did a study of men in the capacity of a parent, and their findings concluded that black men were actually doing better than everybody. Again, you can google that, and that's something that was more consistent

with my reality. Black men were very much involved with raising their children, more likely to change diapers, more likely to engage in playtime, more present overall, to do school runs, et cetera, on and on and on, and the reason why. One of the reasons rather why black men were underrepresented is because of the fact that black mothers and fathers tend to be unmarried at a higher rate than other folks.

And I could make a case, and I think I will if you will allow me to, if you allow me to, that economics might have something to do with that. You know, some some folks want to wait to get married.

Some folks want to you know that they You know, their marriage is an economic institution, no matter what, no matter how you look at it, and for some people it works out great, and for some people it's expensive, especially if you want to take into account a wedding, especially if it changes the way you file your taxes or what you can claim or what you know, what

your refund looks like, et cetera. And so there are I believe, economic conditions that all so contribute to the fact that black women and men tend to be unmarried to each other more often. But when you look at the men's involvement with their children, it's actually greater than everyone else. And so what happens is when you look at the numbers the wrong way or otherwise don't account for the full story, you end up with a very damaging, harmful,

hurtful myth about black men. And I'm sorry I've monopolized so much at the time. And I won't talk about my children yet, but I will talk about my babies because I got a microphone and I love those two. But I want to get your thoughts on this Q. What do you think?

It's based on the fact that the crime and the proximity of a community where all the people are black is going to be black.

Now the opioid crisis that's happening now because the people that are the victims of that look different, it's not viewed as criminal anymore, but it's viewed as a health crisis. Right, So when the people that suffer from these things look like us, the what is they get labeled and pushed in front of us in a way that's different. Again, I'm gonna speak of the what, and I would like my brother Fresh to give us a little insight on

the why. It's not the absence of the black father, because I tend to say that white couples break up and divorce two And you know, my father more specifically was not present for me, but he was very present for my younger brother and my younger sister. Different mother, different relationship and different relationship with their mother. Right, I have no idea. I was three when he left, so I don't know what kind of beef, what kind of misunderstanding.

I don't know what my mom did now. Of course, as a kid, my mom is perfect and my dad ain't crap because he left her. But now that I'm an adult and I've been through some things with some women, I'm smart enough to know my dad and my mom could have had whatever type of problem that they had. Now he was absent in my case, maybe it's because he couldn't be there, maybe because he didn't want to be.

But you hear the experience of Jerome Raw's Ward fourth and Tasha Ward now Tasha Evans, and they have a much different experience because he was very present, very loving, very involved, and very proud of his children. And what I learned when I met my brothers and sisters that didn't grow up in the house with me, is that my dad was also very proud of me, you know what I mean. So fresh, other families break up, Other

couples break up, other couples and families divorce. Other fathers of other ethnicities leave or not, But they're not labeled as because they're this right, Because all of our things, all of our problems, all of our shortcomings are because we're black. Right, That father isn't present because he's a black father. So the what is our normal human interactions and our normal things that happen to and around us are labeled as the black fathers are not president, Black

on black crime and black this? How come that happens to us?

what's in your community. So I would say that's one of the reasons where you hear more about it on on our end because we're kind of like easy punching bags in that situation, like we don't control airwaves in such a capacity to where we can beat a lie across the street, you know.

about it. Not everybody you know has that and has that in them, right, But let's say you're just not there financially, you're going to more than likely back up as a form of responsibility, like I need not to pull you with me if I don't necessarily have solid ground.

So but the numbers could reflect that negatively also. But I do think that what you see in the twenty thirteen study is a response to the generation prior absolutely, whereas like just basically, I'm not going to allow my children to have the same you know, upbringing that I have, whether my dad left voluntarily or involuntarily, I'm definitely going to make sure that my children have the father that maybe I didn't get a chance to experience.

That's a it's a whole show. It could be, Yeah, absolutely, But I want to say this, when this narrative exists where black men don't take care of their families, they don't raise their kids, When that exists, to me, that's another thinly veiled dig at the masculinity of black men. And the worst part about it is we will believe it now again. I've believed that for a long time, despite the fact that my reality didn't reflect that. I know my dad, I was with him his whole life,

I got to bury my father. My father loved his son, He loved all of his sons. He kissed his sons and his daughters. He hugged us. We ate with my dad. He disciplined us, he provided. He was a dad, you know, And you know, I don't know how to be any different to my children. In fact, the lessons the voice that I use, this is the voice of doctor Rudolph

Wayne Taylor. That's the voice to my children here. So I believed these these myths, these emasculating myths, and one connection that I've been able to make, and this is a show I definitely want to do. So stay tuned for that, which, by the way, if you're just tuning in to Civic Cipher, I'm your host, ramses Joah. My name is Q Ward, and we're joined with Josan Emmanuel aka Freshmaker. Hey what's up? And today's episode we're talking about uh myths. We're being MythBusters and we're talking about

at present, the myth of the absent Black Father. Originally I came across a piece and and you know, some folks say it's a work of fiction. Some folks still believe it's a fact or a work of nonfiction rather, and either way, it's it's very important to in terms of explaining the philosophy of indoctrinating slaves new to this country. It's called Willie Lynch Letter. And again I do want to do a whole episode on it, so we're not going to talk too much about that. But remember I

told you earlier, I connect patterns. I see things where maybe they don't exist. There's paranoia here and this idea of emasculine people. I heard Dave Chappelle one time mentioned that he noticed that all of the strong black men on TV at at one point or another, they end up in address. And when he said it, I'm like, man, you're right, Willie Lynch Letter. There's a part of this letter, and and please read it yourself. I should put this

up on our social media. Be sure to follow us too, by the way, at Civic Cipher or hit the website at Civiccipher dot com. And if you want to go back and review this at Curshing, download the episode there as well. But I'll paraphrase in the Willy Lynch Letter, Basically, this man named Willie Lynch teaches slave owners how to indoctrinate their slaves that are fresh from Africa, so that

they can be productive units of labor. He mentions horrible things, things that you know if they had happened to like dogs or animals or anything like that, but they happen human beings. And sorry, one part of this letter, he mentions how you're supposed to destroy the the idea of the man, the male in the family. And what you do is you tie his arms to two horses, and you tie his legs to two other horses, and you whip all four horses, and then they rip him apart.

And you you're supposed to do this in front of the black woman, the slave woman from Africa. You're supposed to do it in front of her, so she sees him ripped apart. And then you make sure that her child is there to see that as well. So when she sees the male image destroyed in front of her, she is going to raise her children in reverse roles. She needs to see that cruelty. So she needs to raise her son now to be weak, to no longer pose a threat, to be an orderly unit of production.

She needs to raise her daughter to be strong, to stand out front so that she can serve as a buffer between the master and the black man, and so that he is one step further from that sort of brutality supposed to rip this man apart in front of his family, and then they're supposed to be second man there.

If I remember correctly, that you're supposed to tarn feather, which I think that means you just kind of cover him in hot tar and then throw chicken feathers on him and he has to like it melts his skin and he has to like peel it off or something. It's meant to like make a mockery of him. But the idea again is to destroy the image of a strong black man. And the idea is that this cycle perpetuates itself. These women continue to raise the men to

be weaker and the women to be stronger. And there are arguments that this is how you get that black Mama sort of dynamic in the black family, how you get that very often times you know a matriarchical, a matriar archic goal. I don't know if I'm saying that right, famelial structure, but you take elements like this and you string them all together. And again, admittedly I may see

patterns where maybe none exist. But to live in a world where they say black men are not there to raise their children, when in fact, you know, when when I had my sons, I was so happy I couldn't even leave my sons. You know how mad they would be. They would come find me like yo, yo, where are you finna go?

are a woe is me type of people. But again, when you're up against systemic racism, when you're up against economic imbalance, when you're dealing with when you know, the war on drugs is a war that you know, it's taking soldiers, you know, you know, and you're you're going up against a government that's well funded and has police forces and legally has the right to execute you in the middle of the street, as we've seen over and

over again on video. And then you're working against stereotypes as well that pit you in a position where not only do you come from an environment where there's a great deal of hopelessness oftentimes if you come from impoverished black communities and brown communities as well, but also that uphill battle that you're fighting it more than like, you know, it's going to take the rest of your life and

then your children's life. So there's that's not something that you it's not like you're born into like tremendous wealth and you know, or even some degree of privilege. You know, you're it's it's all fighting from here on out. We got to fight for everything. All my life, I had to fight, you know what I mean, Like that's that's

a genuine sentiment. I just think that having a very harmful myth like that, perpetuated over and over again for years decades, has certainly not done black folks, black families any favors. You know, people are so quick to forget black was not not even black Wall Street. I think that's a convenient example because it's top of mind. But

there are so many other Black communities that were that. Yeah, yeah, and and these these were communities that engaged in politics, in finance, you know, self sustaining communities that from these communities. You have historically black colleges and universities that were born

out of these communities. And there was at every single point, historically speaking, a concerted and deliberate attempt either by militias, by the government, or just by you know, Billy Bob and and you know, the whatever his constituents are, just to run them out of town, you know, like that sort of the thing. And you know, a lot of folks fail to consider because even if that were true, even if it was true that black men have children

and then abandon them. The the fact that people are so quick to, as you stated, say Okay, that's a black issue. Black people need to get it together. They don't have nothing to do with me. You know, this is your own fault. These are your problems. Deal with your community, and not accounting for the fact that there's so many other things that can influence that sort of behavior, which again it's not true. It's a myth. Google it. Black men are doing. Best of all. You can read

it from the Wall Street Journal. You can read it from the New York Times. You can read it from the CDC itself. They have the numbers. You can draw your own conclusions from there. But even if it were true, it's there's so many elements that go into where black people are, what station black people are at at this point in life. And if anything, I believe that's a testament to the resilience of black people, to the compassion, to the fact that you know, we hear, we've heard

this a lot recently. Black people are still even now, not looking for revenge. The only thing on the table is equality and after all the things that have taken place to black people. You know, I was born into in Compton, California, as I mentioned, in a poor community ravaged by drugs, and that was my That's where I started in life, and I'm not angry about that. I wish it was better. I'm out here fighting the good fight, obviously,

and I have a lot of allies. Whichever station you're listening to right now, I count them an ally by giving a voice to this type of show. But it remains the case that it's an uphill battle, and you know, no one is mad, no one wants revenge, just equality, fairness, and equitable go. And that's all that we're looking for despite all of these tremendous injustices against black people and

brown people in this country. And I feel like it's very important to make sure that we again get this out there so that people understand and can research on their own and begin to change the narrative. Take back the black family, own the black family, love the black family. Take back black leadership, own black leadership, follow support black leadership.

That's another one that's very important, and I think that those two go hand in hand because the black man, by by emasculating the black man, by by spinning this narrative that black men are not home. I think that's a challenge to black leadership, and that's not something that is helpful because you know, whenever, you know, we saw it during the protest, you know, I know that we were out there together when everyone was doing all the marches earlier this year, and that's something that we heard

a lot. A lot of folks were fired up. They wanted to get out there and do whatever they wanted to do, you know, hold up signs, march, you know, yell at the police, whatever that was. But there was black leadership out there, and people had a tough time recognizing that. And I think that again, that's sort of the concept, the idea of a strong black man, black leadership, et cetera, that starts with a strong black family, and unfortunately that's been taken from us unfairly by this harmful

myth and so again the MythBusters episode. So yeah, I think that's something that again needed to be discussed, and I think that moving forward, we're going to have to carry that with us into all of our conversations. We're going to have to make sure that when we overhear people, excuse me, make a joke, black people are otherwise, but especially black people because we need to know this about you know, take care of your kids or you know that sort of thing that they need to at least

understand the reality of the situation. Of course, it's cool to joke around about stuff, and you know, we always you know, black people seepe time like those sorts of jokes in our own communities. If you're not black, please don't make any jokes about that. It's it's not a good idea to do that.

me for being late. As you know, we were operating on CP time. And then everyone kind of had a chuckle in the audience, and he says, and for those of you who don't know what CP CP time stands for. CP time stands for jokes that white people can't make.

And I thought that was the funniest thing. I just thought that that dude is just you know, so anyway, long and short of it is, you know, even stuff like that can be you know, harmful if we don't really understand what it is that we're saying and where it's going and who's hearing it. Because for us, we understand that we can say things like CP time, We can say things like you know, go and take care

of them kids, or what they change them times. You know, we understand that or have the capacity to understand that it's harmless. We understand that we're playing with a trauma, right, a trauma or a stereotype or something that's not true you know, or that you know, whatever. You know, if you've been through that, you can talk about that. You can't talk about that perfect perfect And then other people who are on the outside looking in that you know,

exchange might become their reality. I think a great example is the in word. You know, black folks will use the in word with each other all the time. You know, it's just a thing that happens. It's cultural, and that's the end of it. One day we'll have a show on that, sure and discuss how we feel about that, But for now, our purposes just to explain that it exists.

And you understand that if a person in this example will say, as a white person is a casual listener to that conversation, this white person might think, without knowing anything else, oh well, these are my friends. This is how they talk. And I can talk like this too because I'm friendly with these people, and they'll get in there and do the same thing. And so again you need to understand that those jokes, those sorts of things.

You know, the more educated you are, the more you will be able to insulate people who don't know better from that, or you'll be able to educate them. And again, today's message, and the one that I wanted to get out above all others, was that black men take care of their take great care of their kids better than

everyone else. More involved again, more involved with feeding, more involved with babing, our bathing, changing diapers, getting kids ready for school, drop and them off at school, spending quality time with them. That's the thing that is not widely known, not as widely known as the very very harmful stereotype that exists about black men, but certainly again is a reflection of my reality and ques reality as well. And ultimately,

when you have children, I do believe it, you're definitely too. Definitely, So so yeah, I wanted to make sure that I ah left everyone with that now before I get out of here. Uh. Last the last show that we did, I had a chance to run over some black owned businesses that I didn't get to really you know, spend a lot of time like really letting folks know about what the businesses did, just because we ran out of time. So I want to touch on some of those again.

One of them is called the Change Society. It's a nonprofit black owned business that creates opportunities to connect people

with causes and one of the excuse me. One of the most visible events that this company puts on is called hashtag lunch Bag, and what they do is basically, they get a bunch of people together, create lunch bags and hygiene kits and take these hygiene kits and lunch bags and distributes them to homeless folks, people who you know, spend their life on the streets and have to do a lot of walking around. And if you want to get involved, you can visit the Change Society dot com,

the Change Society dot com. You can certainly support them. Again, black owned business and Q you were talking about a black owned business before as well, and I think that you didn't get a chance to go into detail about.

you know, just gym clothes basically. And it's a black owned company and certainly deserving of your support. They employed black people and uh, I'm I'm proud to say that they are some folks that I've been able to support as well. The Million Dollar Teacher Project is another one and they're one of the sponsors of the show, so you can look them up as well. And for Oh, Monarch Theater and Barsmith are also black owned as well.

If you're ever in Phoenix and you're wanting to do something at night, there are some night clubs that are available to you as well, So lots of black owned businesses for you to engage with and circulate the bag,

as fresh Maker puts it. And if you want to know more information on any of those businesses, you can of course check our websites civiccipher dot com and download you can download the show or our last episode where we got a chance to go on a little bit more detail about some other black owned businesses that I think are important for you to check out, just so that we can work together to you know, move the common agenda forward. With that said, we're gonna wrap things

up around here before we head head out. We're gonna want you to check out the website once again, civiccipher dot com to submit any questions the chair for the show, any show topics. All your donations are appreciated. This show is funded entirely by you, and so again donations are appreciated. You can do so again at civicsipher dot com and be sure to follow our social media at Civic Cipher. Q Where can they find you on social media?