Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your host, Ramse's Jack, and I go.
Buy the name q Ward most of the time.
Yes, indeed, UH back up in you Onemo again. Feeling real good this week Black History Month. A lot of good things going on in the world of Civic Cipher and Qboard and Ramse's Jah and it's all because of you, our listeners supporting us. If you don't know what I'm talking about, we don't need to brag about it on air, check the social media, but it's suffice to say the show is growing and we're reaching more people, and it's because of your support. So thank you for for y'all.
It's because of y'all.
Because of y'all.
Blame bline.
That's all I got to say.
I say, you know Q and I, Q and I we have a lot of inside jokes, but that's because we spend so much time together. But the source that we pull from more often than not is a stand up special by Jamie Fox called I Might Need Security. If you listen to the show every week, please watch Jamie Fox I Might Need Security, because then you'll get a lot of the inside jokes. But we don't we don't.
We don't dwell on them because we have a lot of stuff to get. He did not pay us for that endorsement, but it's hilarious. Yeah, it's it's it's good for your spirit anyway. Be sure to stick around because we do have a lot to cover.
Today. We're gonna do something we don't really do very often, and that's really plug in to one person, one stream of consciousness, one school of thought that we really feel is timely and pertinent and necessary and enlightening, at least for me. I'm sure that you would agree that there's some things that even Cube learns. And he goes by the name of Dan Price, it's not even from our world.
He's from the business world. But we're gonna we're gonna discuss a lot of interesting points that he makes, and we're also going to focus for our way Black History fact on Sidney Poitier. We didn't get a chance to discuss him until today, so we're going to definitely late Yeah, the late great, Yes, indeed. But first, like we always do it, this time, it's time for some ebony excellence. How does that sound? Cute? Sounds fantastic.
I love that we start the show with Ebney Excellence because a lot of times our.
Topics are weighty.
They take a lot of a lot from us, sometimes emotionally and to kind of start and we kind of start and on a high note the way black sometimes has some weight as well. Yeah, but it's historic precedents and importance I think, you know, gives it a little bit of lift as well.
Yeah, it just shows kind of where we've come from. But I digress. So today we're talking about a young man named Archie Green who is the founder of Peel Dim Layers Back p d LB that is a Cleveland, Ohio nonprofit designed to help Blackmail youth with their mental health. He was a diagnosed with depression and he uses his platform as a hip hop artist to share stories about trauma, depression, anxiety, relationships,
and fatherhood through music. He launched his nonprofit in twenty sixteen and a program called Cope Dealers Initiative for high school counselors and teachers identify juniors and seniors who have had behavior and anxiety challenges and could benefit from a program focused on their mental health. And His position is that African Americans often face barriers when accessing quality mental health treatment because of racism and limited access to culturally
competent mental health professionals. And that is according to Mental Health America. You can find out more about him at PDLB dot org. Once again, his name is Archie Green
and the company is called Peel Dim Layers Back. And the reason I wanted to hit on this briefly is because, and we'll talk about this, we have seen recently a lot of black men and women end their lives prematurely and deliberately, and historically that's not been a thing that we've had to as a community, we've really had to deal with, and more and more as time progresses, we're seeing it happen more often, and so eventually we'll have
the time to talk about it. But for now, if you want to, you know, support or even know a little bit more about this initiative. Again, it's PDLB dot org. So a big shout out to Archie Green. That is some ebony excellence for you now in Ohio as well. Yes, one time if you don't mind, Okay, So Dan Price, Dan Price, I'll be honest. Dan Price is he's a new person in my world. He's very active on Twitter. He's just a and he's a businessman, but I'll try
to paint a profile for you. Now this isn't about him per se, but some of the points that he makes because this stream of consciousness is when I came across that, I shared it with Q. You remember when I sent it to our group chat, and there was so much content there that we early on made it a point to block out a show to really talk about some of these things, just to discuss them, to
share them. And you know, maybe you're on Twitter and you've seen this, maybe not, but we're going to try to make it breathe a little bit more so a little bit about this person and who he is and how he came to be. So, he started a company called Gravity Payments about six years ago and he made news. I remember hearing about this, but he made the news for raising his company's minimum wage to seventy thousand a year. Fox News called him a socialist whose employees would be
on breadlines, and since then his revenue has tripled. The business is a Harvard Business School case study, and the employers had a ten times boom in homes bought. So and on his Twitter profile he says that he's a CEO just trying to stand up for the underdog. Again.
His handle is at Dan Price Seattle. I employee to follow him and plug in because there's a lot of stuff, not just the stuff we're talking about today, and he just seems like a good human being who money and success has not corrupted And it's amazing to see because so often we see folks, the more money they get, the more conservative at least fiscally, you know, they become.
And this guy seems to be a kind hearted person who really does share and really does try to build people who have a tougher go at things in this country. Real quick, before we go on earlier our Ebony Excellence segment, I pulled that content from the Atlanta Black Star if you wanted to check out more on that. Again, this current segment, we're talking about Dan Price. I just pulled it from his Twitter, so we're going to talk about it.
So the first thing that he shared, the first slide in this stream of conscience, and I shouldn't even call it that, but we're here now, so we're gonna roll with it. The first slide that came across my way that Q and I discussed was him writing as follows, and he's white, by the way, all right, He says, compared to white people, black owned homes are devalued by twenty three percent. Black owned homes, property taxes are thirteen percent higher. Bank fees are two times higher for black people.
Black people with no criminal record earned ten thousand less than white people with the criminal record. That's just the beginning, dot dot dot. So we're going to go through each one of these slides one by one, but that first one is crazy, right. But the craziest part about it
is we've talked about these some at length. But all of these things that we've talked about on the show before, and one recent one that comes to mind is the couple I believe they were in northern California who got an appraisal on their house and then they went through and they had like some friends stand if I remember correctly, effectually, this is what they did. They got some friends to stand in while while the appraiser came. A new appraiser came,
they changed all the pictures in their house. So they took all their family pictures down and they put like white pictures on the wall. And then the new appraiser gave them an extra half a million dollars in equity on the property, right, So what Dan Price says here, like out the gates, compared to white people, black owned homes are devalued by twenty three percent, which jives with a story a case study that we made on the show Go Ahead.
And when it comes to to housing prices, twenty three percent is a massive amount. Like the number of twenty three percent when you're comparing it to one hundred doesn't sound like a lot. But if you have a half a million dollar home, I'm talking about a hundred thousand dollars difference in price.
That's massive.
Yeah.
Yeah, And you know, we talk about wealth because in many, in fact the majority of instances, there is a direct correlation between the amount of wealth might throw folks off. So how about we say income or money? You know, the amount of money and opportunities pitfalls. You know, there's a correlation there, and oftentimes in this country, money follows the color line. And so you know, we make a we make a point on this show to really discuss how we treat each other, certainly how black folks are
treated by non bye by white folks. But you know, we we're all here together. You know, we do have to make points sometimes when black people are wrong and saying racist things, we have to we have to stand up against that the same as we would against anyone. But for the most part, you know, there's systemic institutions in place and we and they are relics of white supremacy, not even really relics, because there are still active contributors to these systems, and not all of them come from
the Republican Party, if I'm honest. But you know, the point is that we have to have these conversations about how we treat each other. But there is also something to say about capitalism. We have this conversation all the time. Now, whether or not you're a fan of capitalism or you know, whatever, is beside the point. Certain things are just a natural
byproduct of capitalism. There are byproducts of socialism, there's byproducts of communism, right, so we just talk about those, and to be fair, we do beat up on capitalism quite a bit. I don't think either of us are huge fans of it, but in the same way, we're not huge fans of a lot of things. It's just kind of what we were born into. But I think a.
Reason that we have such tilted views, and the audience can't see me tilting my hand downward.
It's such tilted views.
With regard to capitalism, is that some of the byproducts actually requirements. Yeah, Like there's some byproducts of socialism that requires for everyone to kind of lift everyone else, which is not that awful a byproduct when you say it out loud the way I there's a way you can frame that different and make it seem like, you know what I mean, there are people intentionally doing nothing to weigh us.
All down kind of thing.
But there's some requirements of capitalism that it's it's more required than a byproduct. Capitalism can exist unless part of the population has nothing. That's that's a requirement, not a byoproduct.
I'll make a point for you. One of the things that blew my mind is that in order for capitalism to function optimally, there has to be some unemployment to keep wages low. That means that everyone doesn't get a job. Some people need to be unemployed so that wages will stay low. And if the if a system is framed around that that concept, let's keep wages low and some people will have to go without a job. If you have an economic system framed around that. I believe that
morally we've we've started on the wrong foot. With that said, I'm not saying I'm a bigger fan of anything else. I'm just you know, we have to work with the system that we're given, and so we will. All right, I'll move on the next slide. This again, Dan Price, Seattle at Dan Price, Seattle if you want to check this out for yourself on Twitter. Black college grads have fifty percent less wealth than white high school dropouts.
Say that again, please.
Black college grads have fifty percent less wealth than white high school dropouts. Now this is an average. You know, this is you know, I'm a college grad and I know a lot of white dropouts. Don't apologize, sir. Read those you know, a spoolful sugar, a little bit of honey.
Read those pisticks as they are written, now cologized. Do not try to frame it and give it some type of lighter moral compass. Read that as it's written, because it's staggering.
Listen, listen, it's your show. Q. Yes, sir, black college grads have fifty percent less wealth than white high school dropouts. And then I'll just leave that there. This again from a white man who is successful with a successful business and obviously a huge Twitter following and online presence. The next point in this slide, the ten counties most audited by the IRS are seventy nine percent people of color.
The black white homeowner gap is bigger now than it was in the year nineteen hundred and finally, for this slide in the pandemic, black owned businesses close used at twice the rate, so further illuminating that you know, there
are really two different Americas. I think that you know, there's a reason why you had such a reaction to the black college fads having fifty percent less wealth than white high school dropouts, not just because again the point makes itself that opportunities follow the money, right, and what we're seeing is a cycle. We're you know, there's there's we can We can go to the government and appeal to the government and say, hey, we want to drink out of the same water fountain, and hey, we'd like
to use the same bathroom. We'd like a little bit of dignity, we'd like to be able to go to the same schools, we'd like access, you know, in that way, But not enough can be said about money, not just money to pay for opportunities, but money to live healthy, productive lives, money to have the mental freedom and fortitude to take advantage to even conceive in the first place,
of opportunities. For those of you listening to our voices tonight or today, whenever you're listening, it might be easy to imagine, might not be, but we will be the ones to tell you, Q is from Detroit, not the good side of town. Let him know where you're from. Q.
I am from a small town in Michigan. It goes by the name of Detroit. Some people even call it Motown or the motor city, and.
Tell them about that street, what's that number?
And I grew up on a very very prominent road affectionately known as seven mile.
Okay, so you don't know about seven I'll do a little bit of homework find out, and then I will add to that that I was born in a place called Compton, California, a place that in most instances needs no introduction. And what I want to suggest by saying this is that there's a great deal of hopelessness in those communities, and there is a sense of this is the whole world, or otherwise this is the world that
I'm allowed to experience. To think of something that exists on TV in your own life, is it may as well be thinking of like like the same way you would think of a cartoon. You know, cartoon characters run faster or jump higher. They you know, they have the same hair every day. Whatever it is you think, you know, it's just it's it's cool to see it. You're aware that it is something that you could imagine, but it's not real. So these numbers, these sobering numbers, they're not
necessarily sobering for people that live this life. But you know, if you're listening to our voices and you know, maybe you didn't know these things. This is the reality of the situation. It certainly jives with everything that we know to be true. All right, So I'll move on to the next slide. Here, all black Americans combined have half of the wealth of the nation's richest four hundred people. I'll say it one more time, All black Americans combined.
That's jay Z, Beyonce. That's everybody that you ever met in school, their parents, their grandparents, you know, warmer time q oprah oprah, Yeah, all of them.
All they very black people. You can think of them too, but not just them. You know the people you've never met, people that you see at the bus stop, people you see at the grocery store, people you see at Walmart. People might be driving in traffic next to you, if you're driving while you're listening to us, if you see a black person, add their wealth in as well.
Every single black person in this country combined, they have half the wealth of the nation's richest four hundred people. Not the same wealth, half the wealth.
Just to give you some further context, there are about forty two million black people in America. All of them put together, including the richest black people that you've ever heard of, make up half the wealth of the nation's richest four hundred.
Now, you said forty two million black people million, and then there was half the wealth four hundred a four hundred. So let me add something right here. I know this is not me trying to sugarcoat anything. I know that you can make a lot of draw a lot of conclusions based on how rich the rich are and how
regular the rest of us are. But when you're talking about this many people in these type of circumstances, it certainly does help frame the importance of wealth and how it is unevenly distributed, so much so that a lot of the issues, at least a lot of the issues that have kind of run rampant, you can see like, well, the resources aren't available to fix them because the resources are with these handful of people over there, Right, I think that might be another strike against capitalism, But I'll
move on. The rest of this third slide here says the average inheritance for white families is three times that of black families. And then the last point of this slide says, relatedly, black families have one hundred and sixty six thousand dollars less wealth than white families, a bigger gap than before civil rights. So since the civil rights movement, the gap has widened between white families and black families in terms of wealth. All right, I'll move on. Let's
talk about school. College is not an equalizer. I think we established that in the second slide. College is not an equalizer. Black college grads have twenty five thousand dollars more student debt than white grads. I don't even know how that's possible. Actually, you know what, I still own student loans, So let me I guess I can see how it's possible. But you know, black college grads have
twenty five thousand more student debt than white grads. White millennials with a degree have ten times higher net worth than black grads. And twenty years after graduating, the median white grad owes five percent of their student loan balance and black grads, oh, ninety five percent. That's after twenty years.
So that means that white graduates are paying down dare I say, able to pay down their student loans to five percent after twenty years, and black folks are still wrestling with basically the entirety of it ninety after graduating, twenty years after graduating. And I don't know if this person, Dan Price, the CEO of the company, the person who listed these which, by the way, all of his sources
are there as well. I don't know if he's a college grad or not, but he seems very passionate about this, and he doesn't he seems unafraid to share these statistics, and I think that we need more of that. You know, there's nothing to be afraid of here. If we identify the problem, we can work on it. We're all in this together. Might take at least all right, I'll move on. The electoral college's lopsidedness gives the medium black voter sixteen percent less power than the typical white voter. Now, I
remember seeing something like this on Netflix. They did a special on the election. This was sometime last year when like maybe October ish or whatever. It's still there. I don't remember the name of it, but they talked about the vote, the weight of a vote of a white conservative vote, male vote in Wisconsin compared to like a black vote in Los Angeles, and that white vote in terms of the actual impact is so much more significant.
And it's just because of the electoral college. So it's effectively effectively is telling us that it punishes black folks. It's it disenfranchises you know, black, black and brown people and other marginalized people and favors you know, white men. In terms of the outcomes, black workers get unemployment benefits at half the rate of white workers. And since the Civil Wars a slash slavery ended, black families went from having point five percent of all wealth to one point
five percent. So that is some gain. But remember they went from that was after slavery ended, so they've we've gained one point since the Civil War, when effectively black folks had nothing. So we still have nothing. We have relatively speaking, still nothing, and we make a huge amount of the population. And then I'll make this last point.
Black people are four times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana, and black sons of families in the richest one percent are arrested at the same rate as white sons of families in the poorest third. And finally, black students are two and a half times more likely than white students to be arrested at school. And unfortunately have to move on. Stick around your radios. We're coming back with more civic cipher right after this