Civic Cipher 030522 Ways Police Can Justify Shootings

I think it's fear based. You know, this is me trying to be to give the officers some grace he has. You know a lot of people have different opinions, but I recognize every time you say that, Well, you know what, how about we just get into it. But first let's talk about how to become a better ally. So today we're going to talk about a person named Reverend Robert W. Lee not to be confused with Robert E. Lee. Okay,

so this article comes from CNN. Robert W. Lee felt like his integrity was being challenged when Confederate defenders can continue to accuse him of lying about being a distant relative of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. He proved them wrong with a four hundred page genealogy report he received in October. But the North Carolina pastor and social justice advocate says the accusations or a distraction from the difficult

conversation the American needs to have about his quote. I believe it was an attempt to discredit the hard work I put into removing the statues and monuments to my ancestor, Lee Toldcien in last week. In January, Axios reviewed the genealogy report and interviewed the pastor, his father, and his grandmother. The family has consistently disputed claims by Confederate sympathizers that the social justice advocate was not related to the Confederate general. They hired a genial as just to put an end

to false reports. In short, this pastor, Reverend Robert W. Lee, is a descendant of Robert E. Lee, and not only does he work to get Robert E. Lee's statues taken down, he is a social justice advocate, and he went so far as to prove that he is the distant relative of Robert E. Lee. Or I mean I'm sure it's a direct lineage, but you know relative nonetheless, and I'm sure there's this discus bloodline is probably not, or at least the name doesn't. The name probably follows this guy.

So the Confederate sympathizers really wanted him to be on their side, and he's totally not. So that is a better ally, And if you want to become a better ally, you can take a page out of that book. So once again, shout out Robert W.

these topics in the future. But suffice it to say that there are maybe ten thousand laws, federal statutes, or other things that you can do wrong that you can be arrested for, and you probably know twenty or thirty of them, right, But that means there's ten thousand opportunities for you to not know something and then get arrested for it. And if you admit that you did something or are unconfused, and you're communicating and trying your best

to you know whatever. You know, if the police want a conviction, they want to take you down, they can if they get behind your car and follow you long enough, you will break a law that you didn't know existed, and they'll pull you over justifiably, and then they can interrogate you and you know, effectively do what they want. That's kind of how the laws are set up, right to privilege police officers at every conceivable point along the process.

And people that know that are people that are aware of how to play the game, you know, and people that don't know that might feel like, you know, maybe just being a good person is good enough, or maybe if I just cooperate that's good enough, or maybe if I you know what, And then people there's other people who don't feel that way. They're like, no, these people

are not here for me. I need to run. And we already know that you can get nine warning shots in the back as you flee the police officer because they were afraid. We've seen it happen over and over again. We might even happen again this week, So not trying to be all doom and gloom like it's a no win situation. But we have to be I see your face, dude, Well we have to deal with the real around here. Right.

So something that I found interesting was the ways that officers can defend themselves, and one that stood out to me was how police shoot into a fleeing car. Right. I would love to see how they are able to excuse a person running away on foot. But they have a way that they they have advantages if they end up on the bench in a courtroom trying to justify their actions. So I'll read. This comes from the New York Times and the contributors were Kim Barker, Steve E.

Dare and David Kirkpatrick and Ariya Sundrum. Right, so this time's investigation was into a common defense for shooting motorists that found that some officers had put themselves in danger or others appear to face no peril at all. Right. This comes from Phoenix City, Alabama. They spell it differently, So on a Sunday in May twenty seventeen, a patrol car sat outside the city's oldest public housing project. Housing projects are basically the projects, and I'm sure everyone knows

what the projects are. So police car was sitting outside of the projects waiting for anyone acting suspiciously. How about that the two police officers heard Cedric Mifflin before they saw him, blasting music from a silver Mercury Grand Marquee. That sounds about right, projects grandmar Quys. Okay, Then they tried to pull him over. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Mister Mifflin, a twenty seven year old black man, kept driving.

What happened next is disputed, naturally, but how it ended as certain officer Michael Sievers leapt out of the patrol car, drew his gun and fired sixteen times at the moving car. He thought mister Mifflin intended to run him over, he said later, Now, from what I've seen, it doesn't matter which direction you're driving, because in some places, the way the laws are written, they can say you are going to hit another person. They could say you were going

to hit me if you're even if you're fleeing. Do you see how it's it's written in such a way. And we're going to talk about their like the police conduct codes where they can't be held accountable for those sorts of things, Right, and you need to know this because we all need to know the world that we're living in. We need to know that if we don't know this, then we think maybe if I get away, I can live to see another day. Right, And it

might make you stop and think. Now, granted, this is an Alabama situation, and not everyone lives in Alabama, but these types of things are very much commonplace. Police officers teach their children how to react to police very differently. All Right, an investigation into traffic stops across America and the deaths of hundreds of motorists at the hands of police. Okay, here's one of the the I guess statutes or rules or whatever. Personnel as the police shall adhere to the

following restrictions when their weapon is exhibited. I think that means like drawing their weapon. Okay, Officers should not fire their weapons from or at a moving vehicle unless circumstances require otherwise. See how big that.

of the show. You know, black people are oftentimes at the bottom, and we have to be resilient, and we are resilient people. But that doesn't mean that we don't see it. We don't see like how like you know, I know white folks, some white folks were like, oh, there's no such thing as white privilege. I wasn't born with a million dollar check. And of course with white privilege, that's not what that's about. White privilege is not being born with a couple strikes against you. You get a

clean slate when you start right anyway. But for some of us, seeing white people interact with the police is like a superpower. I was jogging today and I saw there was two ladies that were talking to the police on purpose. They were just just having a conversation. It was crazy, And for me, I'm like, oh, man, if the police are around, I need to make sure that nobody's afraid. I need to make sure they're not here

for me. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but that's just the reality of the world that we live in, right, It's not paranoia. It's like the reality, actual lived reality. We've been picked on by the police, collect together and apart and separately, and all that I've been picked.

a black person in America is very important. And you know, around the world, you.

Right now, if you're paying attention to the coverage of the you know, the conflict in Ukraine, and I'm listening to the reporters from all of these different places around the world that are covering that conflict in that story, and the reason that they're so caught off guard by it, or so appalled by it, or so in shock or just otherwise feel it's something unordinary, it is because the

people involved are white. Mmm, they're white European people. And the reporters, you know, professional journalists that are covering this thing see fit to point out like, hey, we need to let you guys know this stuff isn't happening, and list some country where the people are brown, right, as if if it was happening there, you shouldn't be shocked,

Like this stuff happens there all the time. In any place that's popping to your head as you're listening to me, Yeah, those places, Afghanistan, anywhere where the people aren't white Christians, we should expect that, but not these are. These are European people. They look like eyes, Yeah, they have blonde hair there, they have blue eyes, look like us. These people are saying this and they don't feel like they're saying anything wrong, you know. And then you look at

you know, on the ground. While most people have a sentimental view of what Ukrainians are going through, but even as they're being persecuted, you know, you look at people trying to flee the country and African students in Ukraine being refused and exit, being put off of charters and buses and trains trying to get over the border and out of the country.

We have been around the world. I've seen it. You know, Oh you're American. I've seen people come to America. It is America, you know. I heard. That's a that's an

actual story I can tell. And so if Americans, if we perhaps I'll say it this way, if we were born into a culture that doesn't value black life, that doesn't appreciate our Mexican brothers and sisters, you know, and the fact that at least in the part of the country where we live, this is where they're from, right and our Native brothers and sisters, you know what I mean.

If we have a culture like that, and we allow that culture to persist, and we do not challenge that culture, then we should never be shocked when we see in Ukraine that they don't value black life. We have to accept responsibility for our influence over the global culture as well. Now you might argue with me, well, no Britain did this, and France is a lot older of the country. Yeah, sure, And if I go there, I will tell them about themselves too. I'm really good at that. Actually, acuse a

little better at it, but I'm not bad. But we're here in the United States of America, you might think this is the greatest country in the world. I wouldn't be mad at you for thinking that, provided that you challenged it to continually improve. You have that Mamba mentality where the best only means that you need to get better. And if you feel like that, then yes, you can tell me that America is the best country in the world because you are challenging the country to be better.

place on earth than here. Sure, right that so that statement can't be blanketed in a way that it applies to every citizen that lives here. And that lack of accountability, I think is what kind of rubs us both wrong. If you're going to hold us up as the best nation in the world. We should be constantly proving that, Yeah, you didn't become the best three hundred years ago, and

you're still the best because of that. If you haven't improved since then, if you haven't made strives to make the land of the free and the home of the brave, if you hadn't gone out of your way to make that true for everyone that caused themselves a citizen here, then you can't hold that flag up until the rest of the world. How much better than them you are.

for Kaepernick to kneel, I think that's fair. And for people to say, no, you have to leave this country. Wait a minute, No, that's not what we're talking about. We love Africa, sure in the romantic sense, but this is home. I was born in California. Those are the beaches that I go to, you know, and I think it's dismissive when people adopt arguments like that, you know,

the only thing that we're trying to do. Again, you've never heard of like any real realistic like race, you know, like black people aren't looking for revenge or anything that. It's like, listen, man, Ever since W. E. B. Du Bois, there was the ask to be treated equally, the ask to allow us our value as conscious beings. Who's whose consciousness was endowed to us from a common creator, whoever you believe that to be. We all come from that same creator, right, We're just like, we just want to

be treated fairly. We would like for our lives to have some value in society. It may not have value in your home specifically, but if there's a government in place. You know, for hundreds of years we've been asking for that. Well, I guess not hundreds, but at least a hundred.

Andre three thousand of outcasts. Hopefully you know that name if you're listening to us, But he says on the shirt it said something to the effect effectually said around the world, darker skinned people get treated worse. And then it asked a question why, And I just remember, you know, it's funny what a man recollects. I remember that shirt just stood out to me. I was like, man, he's on stage and he's really putting that question out there. Maybe it's a real ask, maybe he wanted to know.

But I do believe that we do bear some responsibility if we live in the dominant culture, and if you're listening to us, then we count you as an ally and we lean on you to help take the conversations that we have in this room into your friend circles and into your homes, at your kitchen tables with your grandfathers and your grandmothers, who you know, maybe they're you know, they've supported the last president because he could, you know,

maybe bolster their wallets or their checkbooks, and they maybe didn't give too much thought to the human beings who might be affected by his speech and maybe even his policies. People had to live with that. You know, we're based in the southwest of the United States, so that border wall he was talking about, that's right in our backyard. And the people that we know and love and interact with on a day to day basis, they had to deal with a lot of they felt like they were

under attack. We talked about black suicide in the last segment. You know, it's very easy to feel like you're under attack, and so let's all take responsibility. And I know we got a little bit sidetracked here, but also when it comes to interacting with the police, I think that we really just wanted you to know that there's a lot more ways that police are able to justify their actions. We know that these are just excuses. These are these these are there's not a real threat. Here's the cars

driving away from None of those things are real. But the way the law works in this country, the laws work in this country. They privilege police officers and allow them the exit and then they get a pat on the back. Believe it or not, you're a good cop. You shouldn't have gone through that, and so forth, and so you just need to know these things. I'm not knocking on police officers, the out officers. They're human beings. I'm talking about the institutions and I have to and

don't at me. And I think now it's time for the way Black History fact. So we'll do that. So the way Black History back today comes from blackhistory dot Com. Wick. Maybe you don't know what the WICH program is, but I do. Do you know what the WICK program is? Indeed? All right? So I grew up poor and the WI program was a term that I heard a lot. You know, my family was poor. You know, it didn't always live the life I live now, you know what I mean.

And the WIG program, for those that don't know, WICH stands for Women, Infant, and Children. It's a federal nutrition program to help families of all races across the country with low cost food products. Like it says, it's just a government program. It's not quite food stamps or welfare. Maybe it is welfare. I'm not sure it's a qualifies it, but it's the WICK program. And again women infant in children. Uh. And the biggest group of recipients of welfare is white women,

poor white women, just so you know. So we're not talking about black people specifically today, of course we are, but in terms of welfare, most of the money goes to poor white women with kids, and rightfully sell because that's a huge chunk the much bigger chunk of the population than black women they have you believe otherwise. How Yeah, but you know the way the narrative pain. So we have to That's what we're here to do, is to challenge all that nonsense that these other people get off

all the time. And they got the right one for it too, because we'll be doing that, all right. So the Wick program was created by the Black Panther Party

in the late nineteen sixties. Now not as such, but the free breakfast program, which we might have some time to get into in schools, how they have a free free breakfast program in the morning that was taken adopted by the government and implemented in schools across the country free breakfast for kids, because the Black Panthers were doing the same thing about this Wick program, right, so we will say that it was created by the Black Panther

Party in the late nineteen sixties. Some of the foods that are a part of the WIG program or milk, eggs, yogurt, wheat, bread, cheese and more. All right, According to Gabrie Scott, a respected lecturer and historian, other programs that are that the Black Panther Party created where the free free breakfast program, as we mentioned, for hungry children, free health clinic, pre employment program, free ambulance program, ged classes, visiting nurses program,

in much more. The most popular one was the free breakfast program that started in nineteen sixty nine by the leadership of founder is Bobby Seal and Hugh Knew. The initial purpose of the Black Panther Party's establishment was to fight police's brutality and exercise the rights to self defense. What began as a revolutionary organization quickly turned into a social organization as well. Naturally, they fed free breakfast to

thousands of children before school. He gained so much attention that the politics and revolutionary taxes of the Black Panthers were less threatening and intimidating to the government than the free mills they were giving out. However, did not stop FBI Director j edber j Edgar Hoover from organizing a counter intel counterintelligence program, which is counter intel pro to sabotage and destroyed the Black Panther Party and everything they

had established. And I believe he was the same person, Jayed Hoover that said the it was like the greatest threat to American democracy or something like that was the free breakfast program by the Black Panther Party for self defense. But yes, the Whig program is another such program that was born from the It's a legacy program of the Panthers. And what the government would do is so that people

would not sympathize with the Panthers. You know, if you are if you didn't grow up black, or maybe if you did, but if you didn't grow up black, we'll say there's a much higher chance that the history that has been taught to you about the Black Panthers has caused you to be afraid of black power. Right, And that's funny because black power and power to all people

or two of their their famous like slogans. But the one thing the government didn't want was people empathize with the panthers because the government didn't need black power, black or organization. The government needed black subjugation. Right, And these are well documented things. This isn't just rams, it's just rattling off some new stuff. This is like, I've been knowing this since I was born.

throughout the nation and early. It was an early manifestation of the social mission envisioned by Black Panther founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seel, along with the founding of their founding of the Oakland Community School, which provided high level education to a one hundred and fifty children from impoverished urban neighborhoods. The breakfast formed the core of what became

known as the party's survival programs. Inspired by contemporary research about the essential role for breakfast for optimal schooling and the belief that alleviating hunger and poverty was necessary for black liberation, the Panthers cooked and serve food to poor inner city youth of the area. The service created community centers of various cities for children and parents to simultaneously eat and learn more about Black liberation and the Black

Panther Party's efforts. That's the Black Panthers. If the police drive to your neighborhood and they are looking for a black person to hurt, which was the reality than the black people using exercising their Second Amendment, organized bought some guns and says no, we're going to fight back. What do you do when we're under attack? Stand up, fight back. I forget the chance. Don't all the people at march with don't get mad at me. I haven't chanted in

a while. But but yeah, again, it's important that we know this and we talk about it and we dispel some of the fears associated with you know, black history, Black panthers of course, and maybe even Black Lives Matter now, because it's not meant to harm anyone. It's meant to uplift some people and to demand it. And the demand, I think is the part that might sound scary to some people. If you're not one of those people, we

appreciate you. But our time is up, So once again, thank you for listening to us here on Civic Cipher. Army host Rams's job. I go by the name q Ward. Be sure to check us out next week's same time, same channel, and it meantime you can hit us up with any questions topics, make a donation, anything like that.

The website civiccypher dot com follows on a social media at the Civic cyphering person down this in any previous episodes that you likely above to uh getting your el often they're doing that, yeah, and yo, we handle them.