Keep on riding with us while we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. This is Civic Scipher, an army host. Rams's Jaw.
He is Rams, this Jaw I am q Ward and you are thankfully tuned in once again to Civic Cipher.
And we appreciate that. Please stay tuned because we've got a lot more to talk about. We are going to be spending a significant amount of the show discussing SRO's Student Resource officers and whether or not they helped, whether or not they hurt. Give you a hint. They don't help, they hurt, and we're going to share a couple of examples please brace yourself that are jarring, and we're going to ask for another thought experiment from you that you
put yourself in the position of a parent. But before we get to that point, show, I would like to discuss Baba becoming a better Allied Baba and Today's Baba sponsored by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for the free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's fotmglobal dot com. All right, we got a letter, a nice letter, kind letter from someone named Pat Cosgrove, and I would like
to share it with you. Hey there, my name is Pat Cosgrove. I live in Chez Whitney neighborhood in Virginia Beach with my wife and our two sons, eleven and thirteen. I am a sixty year old white dude that is
very thankful for your show. I am in the twilight of my career at NASA, where I've been working with the folks for the last seven years to figure out the missing pieces to make humans a multiplanet species, mostly because I hope and pray those breakthroughs will have the potential to bring humanity to another level in our social evolution for the world of my sons and their children.
Things I appreciate most about you. You bring to light or amplify what is often unreported or underreported continued abuse of people of color, Way Black History, fact Baba and Ebony excellence are invaluable to me in hearing more of the history and ongoing efforts too in some cases survive and thrive in this ideologically mucked up society we share. I've been an advocate and friend of the movement for a few decades. Now awake to the impact of my
own biases and prejudices. I dream of a day where people of color have the same opportunities for education, economic success, healthcare, media coverage, and equal justice under the law. Here's my problem. I do not do social media, and I don't know how to drop some love for you for the shows. So I thought I would start here with an email Ramses and Q, I hear you, I feel you, I admire you, I am thankful for you. Keep up the
good fight, be caring and protective of your being. You're making an important difference in our progress to become more selfless, loving human beings. Nothing but respect at coswork. Well, thank you, Pat. We appreciate that that letter was more energizing than you know. Anybody that wants to do more, you can hit our website Civiccipher dot com and we love you all. Sounds like you have something to say, go ahead if I may.
I hate to get us off track, I hate to get us off clock. I hate to get us off topic.
Pat.
I hope you're listening today. Ramses and I often struggle, Yeah, with some very very obvious truths about this country that we ironically love. Rams and I are DJs by profession, long before civic cipher was a thing. Hip hop is what brought us together and what we've learned from our journeys as fathers, as musicians, as DJs, as curators of vibes, as as as MC's and not in the hip hops, but literally masters of ceremony, for you know, banquets and events, concerts.
We've watched tens of thousands of people come together and hug and dance and high five and drink and eat together and laugh, regardless of how they look, how they pray, how they love their socioeconomic status. We saw them be very, very united, even strangers, complete strangers, high fiving and hugging and dancing and enjoying one another's company in the presence of great music or sporting events or all these different things.
And then this really strange and really discouraging thing happens when it's time for us to slide our faders down and the concert is over, and the buzzer sounds and the game is over and the lights come up in the club or the concert is over, without anyone instructing us to do so we all split back into our silos. All these different ways that we love, all these different ways that we pray, all these different ways that we think and live our lives become important again and divide
us again. And with what we speak about on this show, it forces every listener to take a position because these are not trivial topics. We're not talking you know, what's the best date spot in the city that you're in. We're talking about a lot of times, oppression, white supremacy, racism, you know, people being unalived, people being held back, people being stomped on, people being marginalized, people being intentionally divided.
And it forces people to take a position, and at times the position that we take with regards to our systems. And it's so important to say that we're talking about policing. We are talking about the system of policing, not individual police officers.
Right.
We see examples of individual police officers doing really, really horrendous things, and we have also on this show pointed out individual police officers doing actual good, heroic things. But what we when we say policing, we're not talking about the officer that you look at when you write down
the street. We're talking about the system, because even in absence of the people, the system is what perseveres an absence of there being racist people at a company or in a city or in this country, the systems that are in place benefit a certain people. These this is this is this is data that backs this. This is not Ramses and Q's opinion, and we have to criticize those systems, which in a lot of cases causes people that benefit from such systems to be personally offended because
they feel personally attacked. So we get so much in the way of hate comments, emails, direct messages, whatever you want to call it. A letter like this, I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating. I hope that I did a chance to meet you. I hope that I get
a chance to shake your hand. I hope that we get a chance to have some actual face to face dialogue because it's a very very small drop in the bucket, but it's a very necessary one that someone like you would take the time out of your day to write us this letter. I had to take time out of our show to express more than just reading the letter and moving on, but to say thank you, because I told ram Us today in the studio before these microphones
cut on how hard it is to keep going. This job that we do is so incredibly difficult, much more than you could imagine, because the amount of progress that James Baldwin spoke about us and not having amount of time, it takes the amount of time that it has already taken.
And to see now in a lot of cases, and if your eyes are open and you're being aware, you can see our country taking steps backward in so many areas, so many powerful, rich and influential people going out of their way, like this Ed Blum guy to take us back to a time where there was less progress, less equity, we shared less, we cared less about each other, there
was less empathy. Right because even the quote unquote decent people at times in our country's history did vile things, some of them because in doctrination and ignorance, some of them because of a lack of empathy. Right, you other group of people and made them less than you made them savage, made them less deserving of God's grace, of anything prosperous in this world. And you made children be
okay with watching other human beings lives be taken. And then like Ramsa said, going to celebrate after food and beverage. It was a party. This letter kind of just stopped me. And again, I'm apologizing to Ramdas, I'm apologizing to our listeners because we have a job to do, but I had to speak specifically to something that bothers me. Man, we have so much more in common than the small list of things that divide us, all of us. No matter who you vote for, no matter how you love,
no matter who you pray to. It almost requires a level of arrogance and ignorance to look at someone and somehow determine them to be less than you because of whatever you perceive to be different. Because at our core, so many of the things that we live this life for are the same. A better life for our posterity, a good life for ourselves, health, happiness. It's not really more complicated than that. Can we take our kids on a trip, can we go on vacation, Can we eat when we're hungry?
And can we have our dignity? Yeah?
Can we have our or dignity? Can we be safe? Can we have shelter? It's not complicated, but we found a way in the name of this falsely perceived scarcity of resources, of hoarding resources, dividing one another, hating each other, not having empathy or sympathy, not wanting the best for brothers and sisters in the name of needing more for ourselves and those that horde the majority of the resources and the majority of the money would have it that
way intentionally. Monopoly would have it that way intentionally. The worst possible outcome would be us loving each other. The worst possible outcome would be the empathy that we show
to each other the most. The worst possible outcome would be us uniting on the idea that we should all have, that we should all eat, that we should all thrive, Because then those who are in the severe minority, those who have and hold the most of our resources and our finances, would then actually be living as the minority that they are, and somehow, in their mind, even with having enough for five generations, us having just enough for ourselves is a problem. There's a reason why this cycle
has existed and perpetuates as much as it does. Someone benefits from it. At some point. Take a moment and look around and try to figure out who that is. Because it's not us, it's not you.
Yeah, you know, what I want to add something. I'm glad you did that because one of the things that happens on our social media, which, by the way, follow us on social media at Civic Cipher help us out there too, you know. But one of the things that happens is a lot of times people think that we have like victim mentality black people and us in particular. And it's kind of a hurtful thing to say because we were doing okay when we were just DJs, you
know what I mean, We're doing just mine. This show cost us money to do. It doesn't make money. It's not like we.
Need when we were actually much better off.
Yeah, this is this is a heavier lift too. It's it's heavier work to do. And the crazy thing is nobody would choose this life. Who would choose a life where you have to like argue with people with more power than you about your right to exist, you know, and your your your your life mattering, and what the difference between equality and equity if I'm going to be judged by your standards, you know, and these sorts of things, and it just doesn't feel fair ever, And so letters
like this, they really do, they really are energizing. I meant what I said, and it was worth it for us to take a moment to say thank you to Pat. But I do want to make sure that we talk about this just because again, both of these videos you can find on our social media. Again that's at Civic Sipher. I'm sure a quick one here. There was a post originally posted by doo hugely. We put it on our page, but along the short of it is summed up by
at Your Rights Camp. A video circulating on social media depicts a school resource officer in Garden City, Kansas, slamming a student to the ground during the response to a recent fight between two students. The Garden City Police Department and the school district acknowledged the indiscident, stating that the student who appeared to land on his head was evaluated and cleared by EMS at the scene. Police emphasized that the incident is under investigation and every use of force
is documented and scrutinized. They assure collaboration with the school district to maintain a safe environments for students and staff. Garden Sydney Public Schools said the district was cooperating fully with the Garden City Police department and their investigation into the matter. The shocking video went viral, various comments about the incident going around social media. Civil rights attorney Ben Crumb said, why was this level of force on a
child necessary? To see the results of the investigation into this incident at a school in Garden City, Kansas, do me a favorite again. Go to our social media it's at Civic Cipher. You'll see there's a video of a police officer grabbing two students that are arguing. That's where the video picks up. The officer grabs the black student and slams them on his head, and then his body goes limp, and then the officer starts doing the officers thing where they start grabbing your limp body and trying
to wrangle you like you're a hog or something. But the student is clearly unconscious because he landed on his head. And now I want you to reimagine it. Don't get mad, cute, reimagine it with a sixteen year old, blond haired, blue eyed female. Now that may be what your kid looks like, but my kid looks like the one in the video.
That's hard to imagine. Mostly be because your mind, whoever you are, a listener has no actual visual reference for it. If I told you to try to imagine a horror clone, your mind has no idea what that means, because it's not something that exists. I just merged the words cyclone and hurricane. However, intentionally, if such a video existed, we'd see it. There are people who would go out of their way to make sure that we saw it, to try to paint some sort of false equivalence, But there
is no reference. There is no example, because that does not happen.
I want to share something else with you. We've talked about SROs twice before on the show Student Resource Officers. These are the police that are on the campuses at the schools. Once SROs started getting introduced onto school campuses, the number of incidents with respect to black children, specifically that resulted in arrests, expulsions, disciplinary action by the school rose dramatically. And I know what you're probably thinking, Well,
it's the black students that are doing these things. And what I want to tell you is that there is evidence that shows that these people have prejudices and biases against black students. This is why the officer went and grabbed the black student, not the white student, and these aggressive actions take place against black students because black children are made to grow up a lot faster people who
are threatened by black children. Right, So police feel justified, and these disciplinarians feel justified in using man's strength with full test testicular fortitude on children, slamming them on their heads. Right. And you might say, well, student resource officers make the
school safe, and so forth and so on. And the fact of the matter is that these days you can make an argument about mass shootings, but we've seen that SROs don't make an impact on mass shootings at schools, and really who's suffering it ends up being black people, brown people, and these are the people who already are depending on where they live, interjected based on proximity into
what's called the school to prison pipeline. Now, again, we've talked about this twice on the show before, So I employ you to go back and check out our episode with Janelle. Would just search Janelle Wood because Janelle came up on the show. She's with the Black Mother's Forum, and she gave a very very in depth interview on SROs and how they are very very problematic if you are black or brown if you are a person who's not black or brown or otherwise not affected by this,
I'm asking you for a little bit more empathy. I'm asking you to do a little bit more research, and I'm asking you to imagine, just imagine that you were born and this was your life and you got to do your best with it. That's what me and Q do every day, and we need your help. Shows about allyship, So that's what we need you to do. I got to share another story. This one's going to be a
little bit worse. Fair warning, Cheyenne Laramie County. All right, body camera footage is the body camera footage that we're about to play is what was left from Deputy Benjamin Jacquot. I guess the child JD had an Individualized Education Plan IEP due to a diagnosed neurodivergent disability that the deputy
was aware of when the assault took place. According to the document, when the incident happened JD, this is the child, JD had been pulled aside by a teacher and Freedom's Principle to discuss comments the child made to a cashier at the school lunch room at that time. The complaint alleged that Jacquo was the officer was near the principal's office while he was speaking to JD for a random
security check. The complaint notes that neither the educator nor the principal had asked for an intervention from Jaquo during the conversation with the child. Real quick, just to let you know an IEP, my first son, Christian has right now still in IEP until he's done with high school. He had an IP all through since he was in kindergarten. Okay, so this one hits kind of close to home. And this child again was eight years old when this happened. Okay,
so I'm going to read this next paragraph. I'll play the video. Quote. At the time of the assault, Deputy Jacquo, who was white, weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds, the document said, and eight year old JD, who was African American, weighed sixty eight pounds. Upon information and belief, following the sault, Deputy jack Quo deleted portions of his bodycam video of the event in an effort to conceal
his wrongdoing. So we're gonna play this video. I want you to know that this man is pressing this child into the ground. This child is screaming, he's asking him to let him go. He's saying sorry, you'll hear it. And this child looks very close to my younger boy. Go ahead, you.
Again, fight me again, fite me again?
No, if you just bid me? So you want to try it again?
Huh?
Would you like that?
Would you like now? Now you cross your legs right now, cross your legs.
No, no, no, you don't get to win this. Now it's all me. Do you understand me? I guess where it's going now. You just try and fighte me? So now, what what do you think?
You heard him say that he'd be sorry he gives up. He's eight. Kids are kids? Man? Do you need the police to deal with an eight year old? I guess if he's black, there are people that will make that argument. So I guess that's all the time we have for today. We'll leave it right there. Once again, thank you for tuning in the civic cipher. I have been your host. Rams's jah Q has decided that he's going to take
a moment for himself. So again, if you are on social media, please send a kind word to Q because he actually had to watch that video. He's the one that was running the board, and I know that was the first time that he saw it. Because for those that know the show, we take turns watching the videos and unfortunately, when the type, when the time comes, we both have to watch it. So yeah, hit our website.
It's at civic cipher. If you want to make a donation, support us in any meaningful way, download this or any previous show, you can do so at civiccipher dot com. Follow us on a social media at civic cipher, leave a comment, engage with us, and of course you can check out the videos that we discussed today. Yeah, and until next week, y'all. Pace