And now vote my might back.
You're like that journal time, we just strikes with waters from headquarters behind him and the border.
If you're just tuning into civic side around your host Rams's job. Q Ward is out today, but he will be back with us next week. Our sit in guest is Lisa's Sun, and please stick around because we do have a lot more to talk about. So far, we've been discussing political party gatekeeping and really revisiting a topic that we discussed last week, which is, you know why
black people tend to vote Democratic rather than Republican. And for those that didn't get a chance to tune into that show, the answer was, effectively, it's the lesser of two evils. And we were very critical of both parties, of course, but the Democratic Party in particular, because we had to illuminate that we understood that the Democrats have
not always been there for us. But today Lisa has been helping us understand that there are even deeper, deeper levels there and what we can do about it, which effectively is to engage in the political process. Before we continue that conversation, let's discuss how to become a better ally. So today I got a story from Insider dot com, and this highlights a guy named Timothy Walmsey Walmsley, that's how I say it, and he is the judge who sentenced the three men who were found guilty for Ahmud
Aubrey's murder. One thing that he did that Q and I really liked this week is he made the courtroom sit in silence for one minute before reading their sentences to put into context how long they chased Aubrey. The reason we thought this was important is because I think that this act illuminates the thrust, the real gravity of the statement black lives matter. We all know what a black person looks like, and I do believe that most human beings recognize that you know, a person matters. You know,
matter matters. Anything you can interact with in a physical space matters. But it's that word life lives that I think is lost on a lot of people. And I think that him taking a moment and having the courtroom pause for that one minute, what they had to do was imagine the terror that a mode Aubrey needlessly went through before he was executed. He was actually chased for close to five minutes, but the judge only took one and in that moment, everyone had to stop and they
could only think about his last moments. That was what the order was, and then he handed down his sentince. And I think that for all of us, just to take a moment, you know, when we're angry, when we lost sight whatever, to take a moment and to understand what it is that we're dealing with human lives. I think that could go a long way for all of us.
And so we wanted to shout out Judge Timothy Walmsley for taking a moment in his courtroom, which we don't find very often, to give a little bit of life back to that black life. So once again shout out to you all. Right back to the lecture at hand. As Snoop Dogg would say, you mentioned earlier, pack funding.
Or lobbyists, corporations, special interests.
All these things. I want to know what is pack funding? What does that mean?
Pack funding is usually the case of an organization, a political organization that has like a filing of a C four where they can endorse political candidates as well as providing independent expenditures or financial you know, donations. And these packs can be corporate influenced or not, so it depending
on your social platform. If you are for women's pay, you know, equal pay here what we say, and then the pack is more supportive for women's issues, right, then that will be a pack that will support a candidate with that platform. But unfortunately a lot of these packs are more influenced by special interests in corporations, so it won't be really favorable for grassroots or social issues that will benefit the communities unfortunately.
Okay, another term this is I believe this is necessary. You use the term lobbyists and then you use the term special interest Well we'll talk about both of those in that order. So lobbyists, what is.
That a lobbyist? You had to like register with the state Secretary office to say that you're a lobbyists so that you have permission or access to talk to the elective officials on behalf of you know, organizations like the school or the union or whatever. But again, a lobbyist can also come from the automobile industry. They can stand lobbyists of their representative to talk.
To the is a lobbyist like a lawyer, then.
They can be.
They can be and they go and speak with an elected representative and explain the interest of the group.
That they're representing. So again, these lobbyists can be corporate influenced like industry of the poultry industry, the beef industry, the agriculture industry, they all have lobbyists.
Now special interest.
Special interests you know, for me, I think special interests or the lobbyists are very similar. But a special interest group will again will be a nonprofit organization as well as well as corporation that have a very particular focus, you know, special interest group that that benefits corporation very specifically. They're a little bit more specific at least that's my interpretation.
So they can be again any particular could be in academia, like academia research, like they come out with something and then corporation can come in and patent it and then have special interests you know, promoting it through our elect officials at the state capital or the federal mostly at the federal level to convince them this is a good thing, you know, or talking to the FDA are various, you know, administration's departments to push laws that will favor them to
make this chemical or this product. And the laws. So I'll just give you example like Cosmetics and they have over thirteen hundred ingredients that span thirteen hundred ingredients they cannot use in their cosmetic But here in the United States, guess how many ingredients that we are not allowed to use.
Many eleven because of powerful lobbyists.
Or exactly because they have heavily influenced are elected fish, especially the FDA or other administration effects of food Drug administration to say that this chemical is safe. All right, this is dangerous and it's not that dangerous. Well, the case may be, and of course the pollution. I mean, the list can go on and on. These people that represent corporation, they can be specialists, special interests, they can be lobbyists, and they can also support a pack.
I have a question for you now. You seem to know a lot about all of these terms that get thrown around on news shows, and you know all these sorts of things all the time. I mean, you also know a lot about political party gatekeeping. And if this is too personal, just say you don't want to talk about it. But I have to ask, have you personally experienced any political party gatekeeping? Have you personally come up
against these powerful interests yourself? And if so, what have you done or what do you plan on doing to change that. As an elective representative, what could you possibly do? First question is has it happened?
Has any political party gatekeeping, anybody tried to sabotage your bid anything like that that you're aware of.
Any candidate that runs for public office under the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or any party has experienced gatekeeping.
So the answer is yes, correct.
But I don't really see it as a victimization event, but of a huge learning curve because when you're running for the very first time, you don't have all the answers. You don't have all the answers, so you're going into this machine that's been around much longer than you have, and it's far more powerful and has more money. So you have to be very quick to learn what is
going on. And the very first impact that I've received was the fact that I wasn't endorsed and I wasn't very well known because I was such a new face. I wasn't a mayor, I wasn't a city council, I wasn't even a school board. I just showed up and ran for public office right and said here I am like well more like an L and an S. But it was just something that I was very grateful to have because I won't be sitting here talking to you about it. So one of the biggest gate keeping for
me personally, Again this is just my opinion. If you spoke to another candidate, it will be a different story or different experience. But for me, the biggest gatekeeping was
to run within a incumbent. When you're running against your own party, that's where the gatekeeping is the most aggressive, because when you're running against a party, you're going to get more support if you're not challenged, if you're not challenged within your own district, like you're the only Democratic candidate and there's no all.
The Democratic support exactly.
So for me, that is the gatekeeping that I personally experience, and unfortunately for the community, that doesn't give you the option to clean house within your part. Just like we went back to say, the Republicans we call them racists, and then the Democrats we call them polite racism, you know, racist, right,
because we don't have that option to clean house. And that's not democracy because when they don't serve our community, they shouldn't have a dominant presence because that power is still with the people.
Well, sir Well said, okay, so how about this. What is it that elected officials make as a salary?
So for me, the salary is another form of gatekeeping. And let me explain please, for Arizona and for other states. If you look at the base salary for a state elected officials, it can range from the low twenties to the high one hundred.
Utah, that's the range. Low twenty thousand, low twenty thousand, like one twenty two thousand dollars per year yep. And then you can go to a full time job.
Yes, five months. You know when the session, you know when you guys are in session from January through May. Yes, and that's for the whole year.
WHOA. Okay, So if you.
Want to be an elect official and in the state of Arizona, you will get paid twenty four thousand dollars. Now, the question is why is it so low? Because we were in a red state for so long they kept it low because if you think about it, if you just think about it, you have a poor teacher salary that wants to be in elect officials to change our school system and put more funding to interms.
I think teachers make more than that, but if.
They take this job, they can't be a teacher. They had to give up their jobs.
You're gonna make less money than a teacher would to do work that has a much greater impact and far more, far wider reaching effects.
Bingo. So going back to.
So you're saying teachers are not interested as much as they perhaps could be because the salary being so low as a deterrent. You're thinking that's artificially So that's artificially the case.
It was designed this way.
Wow. Okay.
And in addition, if you were to be elected, okay, and you still making twenty four thousand dollars.
I ain't gonna make that, right.
So what are your chances of staying clean?
Oh? Okay? I see, So now there's a wide open for corporate that's right.
So again going back to the lesser too evil. I don't care what you call yourself. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat. But if you have the strength to hold off temptation and you really want to do right by the people your community, then please run for
public office. You are the perfect candidate, perfect candidate. I implore you, those who are listening, to consider running for even something small like a school board, because if you really care about your family and your community, you will be prepared to know what is coming. And the gatekeeping discussion needs to be talked more, especially, you know, at a larger level, like the visual level in the mainstream media. But it's almost like a elephant in the room, and
being Lisa's son, that's all I go after. That's the only thing I like to talk about is the elephant in the room. And there are things that are in place in our political party where once you are elected, you can also be voted out by a majority of your seat mates, and that is pretty much implemented at all state levels in the federal levels, like they can vote each other out, you know, if you cross a certain line.
You know, I think it's interesting that you mentioned running for a you know, school board, a position on the school board. I'm assuming that's what. I don't know the actual name.
Yes, So for colleges, community colleges, they have a board.
Boards as well, and those are elected.
Positions exactly that you can run.
Well, you know, obviously on this show, Q and I and then doctor Westernberg whenever she's available, will come and will have these conversations about critical race theory, and we try to share exactly what critical race theory is with our listeners so that our listeners can then take it out and have informed conversations with the folks that they interact with. The marketing of the fear over a critical
race theory is masterful. And if we stop and think about how education can somehow be a bad thing, and they've sold it so well to let's be honest, the majority of Americans. You know, polling shown that most people are afraid of it, not for what it is, but for what it's marketed as. And you know, just while we're here, the idea that, okay, if anybody's going to be ashamed of their past, right, this is the way it's marketed. I'm going to get my little rant off here.
If I can thank you, I appreciate it. But the idea that anybody could be ashamed of their past, that's asinine of their inherited past. Let's call it that that a little white child would learn about their history and be ashamed of the country that they live in. When I myself know my past that I came from actual slaves, that's nothing to be proud of. And yet all my life. It just was what it was. I've never not been proud of it. I've never been proud of it. Just
is what it is. I'm here now. I'm glad that I know it. It gives me context. It informs me about the world in which I live, It informs my steps moving forward. It allows me to raise my children appropriately so that they're aware that they're being raised in a hostile environment. Not that that's bad or good. I mean it's bad. Inherently it's bad, but you know, not that we're picking on this country or anything like that.
We just have to understand where we came from. But it's marketed as though somehow it's going to adversely affect white children to learn about the history of this country, right And I think that you hit the nail right
on the head. If you listening to our voices right now, are as outraged over that as I am, perhaps in your communities, if you're listening to us in Oregon, if you're listening to us in Florida, if you're listening to us in California, Alaska, Alaska, even you know, we don't have any stations in Alaska yet, but I'm working on it.
That's where I'm going. But perhaps even a position on your school board, your local school board, being involved in your community to the degree that most Republican folks are at the minimum, could perhaps challenge the narrative. We could offset the fear mongering that exists. White supremacy is a beast, and it loves to hold on to power, and it loves to scare everyone exactly, and it's it's up to you listening to us, to help us change that. Bit
by bit, we'll get there together. Hey, we love you, all right, Please go ahead.
I just want to add on to what you're what you just said about, you know, running for school board, because here in Arizona, our own Maricopa County Democrat Party has a program for those who are interested for running school board. I don't have the contact information, but if you just go look up for a Maricopa County Democratic Party website, they have something there about training for school
board positions. Because critical race theory, the right did an amazing job and and exposing and marketing that you know, scarcity, you know, and fear mongol, because it does work, it's very effective. But if the truth be told, fear scarcity does not have enduring, lasting effect. I know that people think that, well, those emotions are real. Yes it is, but they're not endearing. What really lasts, what's the most powerful emotion is peace.
Talk to them, say that, go ahead, keep on because if you look.
At the whistleblower for Facebook, she testified at a congressional here at the federal level, stating that Facebook used fear to get more likes and more responses with social media in general, but what they didn't tell you is that yes, people were pressing like more, but they also fail to say that people also respond to peace. That's what draws people back over the long run. If you want to do a long distant race and you want to choose your weapon, is it going to be fear or peace?
Choose peace because there's endurance. Endurance wins.
I'm glad you said that. That's such a beautiful thing. That's a little nugget man that belongs that can stand on your own. Thank you for peace.
Yeah. And I think as an elected official, I think it's very very important to run a campaign on peace, on unity, because that's where the strength will come from. And don't ever be afraid to tackle the elephant in the room.
Okay, so we've explained why people should get involved in the political process. One thing that we haven't really peeled away as much as I'd like to before we finish this part of the segment. How are elections funded. Let's say I just decide that I want to be a politician of some sort. Where do I and I go and register put my name to have my name on the ballot? Or how do I even do that? Does it take money to do that?
So every state we have a not every state, but most of the state has a commissioner the assist and clean election. And our state has a very very low budget compared to the one in New York, which is like over one hundred thousand. We get like maybe seventeen thousand in the primary and then additional funding for the general. So I think overall, I think that comes out to be like forty five thousand. Again, this is just an estimate, and I'm only speaking for Arizona. But running clean you
rely on more of a grassroot platform. Therefore community volunteering, so they're not paid, they're not paid, they come out for you. And if you have someone that's an incumbent, because they have so many relationship with special interests in packs and corporation. They can pay a campaign manager, they can pay a field director, they can pay volunteers to
get signatures for you. They can pay you twelve, fifteen, twenty dollars per signature because you need a certain amount of signature to get onto the ballot, so the amount can be enormous for incumbent and if you're a newcomer, the best bet right now is a grassroot movement on a clean slate so that you don't rely on corporate money. So those are the options under the Democratic Party and the Republican they have something similar, but they get more funding.
Okay, all right, well, thank you for that. Now it's time for us to move on.
To that way. Black History Fact today. This has come up a couple of times for me in the past couple of weeks. But we're going to be reading an
excerpt from a letter from doctor Martin Luther King. We're spending this time, as we do, celebrating the life and the legacy of a doctor King, and I just pulled a small piece from the letter, but I wanted to share it with you today because the roots of this very program that you're listening to right now can be found in this letter, in this excerpt, and so without further delay, we'll start. Of course, there is nothing new
about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrack, me Shack and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebeknezzer on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. That's from the Bible, Shadrack, Nushach and Abednego. If you don't know, it was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.
To a degree, academic freedom is reality because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. This is doctor King talking about his protests, his marches, and so forth. He goes on, We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was quote legal end quote, and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was quote illegal end quote. It was illegal to aid and comfort
a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that had I lived in Germany at that time, I would have aided it and comforted my Jewish brothers. Don't forget doctor King was a Christian minister. If today I lived in a communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti religious laws. I must make too honest
confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have
been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the white citizen's counselor or the klu klux klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to quote order end quote than to justice, who prefers a negative piece which is the absence of tension, to a positive piece, which is the presence of justice, who constantly says quote, I agree with
you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.
End quote. Hold on, there shouldn't be out there burning buildings. They shouldn't be right. They shouldn't be looting. You know, anybody sounds like that. I don't agree, of course I agree with the goal, but they should they should do this right. Kaepernick shouldn't kneel that's the flag. He shouldn't kneel. He should do it at a different time.
Okay, let me continue. This person who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom, who lives by a mythical concept of time, and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a quote more convenient season end quote. Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. This is doctor King, y'all. I have a dream.
Little black boys and little white girls are going to play together.
And he has some.
He has some, He has some spicy to eat that day, because he was speaking the truth.
I'll continue. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the law, that law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that
block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the press tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious, negative peace in which the negro passively accepted as unjust plight, to a sub substantive and positive piece, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct
action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with, Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its ugliness, to the natural medicines of air and light. Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human consciousness and the air of national opinion before
it can be cured. One more, Baba, become a better ally. If I may ask, if you're listening to my voice, if you listen to you and to me every week, one more ask go read this entire letter. This letter was written long before me and probably you were born. And see how relevant this letter is right now as we take this time as a country to celebrate the man that wrote these words, Let's not forget his lesser
known speeches and writings everyone loves to talk about. I have a Dream, a brilliant speech, and moved us forward as a people, as brothers and sisters. I'm eternally grateful for it, as I'm sure are you. But let's not forget that he wasn't just a passive person that was willing to take beatings and dogs biting him in water hoses, and watch this happen to the members of his race and members of other races that were marching with him.
He called it out, he called it by name, and he said the white moderate was the great stumbling block, the white moderate. That's why this show is here. There are some people who think just like you and me. They want the world to be a better place, they want the world to be more kind, but they're afraid to engage. And for some reason, everybody thinks they're a hero, but everybody lives in terror. It is the most confusing thing I've ever seen. And so today I wanted to
leave you with that one more time the MLK. It's a letter from a Birmingham jail. Now that is about all the time that we're going to have for today, unfortunately, So one more time. I'm your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to my co host, my man fifty grand and my guy who couldn't be here today, q Ward, who will be back in the saddle next week. As we proceed, I definitely want to thank my guest Lisa's Sun, who has announced that she is running one more time.
Let everyone know what you're doing and how they can support.
So again, my name is Leadsa's son. I'm running for the State House of Representative here in Arizona District LD twenty two, and if you want to hear and know more about me, you can visit my website Son for A, z for as the number four some for az dot.
Com and anything else that you need. Hit the website Civiccipher dot com.
Download this in all previous episodes, make a donation, and follow all of our social media at Civic Cipher And until next week, y'all peace.
Yeah, like we had to leave these brothers the Fabulous Sally Show, where you go from travels speak to you from sunlight to move bust on stage, like gonna find some go my mic back. You'd like that journalist, My journalist too, and can strike back home