Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Rams' John.
And they call me q Ward I think because that's my name, though I think that's why they why they called me that.
I think so too some time. And we're here to talk about all of the good things and some of the more challenging things about black life in America and you know, to a lesser degree, brown native, you know, minority life, colored people life. Such a funny word, colored, isn't it. I've been the same one color my whole
life anyway. Yeah, and we have, you know, uh what, what I believe is a shared and at the same time unique experience living in this country that's not shared by you know, the majority, and felt like, you know, we should create a space and talk about it. And that's what we're doing today. How's your life? How's the prospects of this country? How's my life? That is such a broad question, wow questions, you know what I mean?
Because I was saying to my mom this morning, she said, I look like I was running on fumes, and I'm like, yeah, but those fumes are my babies. And I think she was just trying to point out that I looked tired, okay, But the fumes that it look like I'm running on a little bit of energy that I have are those two beautiful children that I spend all of my days with.
So how are things or how's life is always a complicated question for black people unless you unless you're doing so well that you remove yourself from the spectrum of the very very real issues that we have to deal with by simply existing in this skin, most specifically in this country. And I actually heard somebody say something about the experience of racism abroad, and I'm absolutely certain that
it exists. Like the type of people that are racist, I'm sure make home every part of this world, but the slave trade, the very very holistic system of slavery for black people, African people, mostly Western Africa, existed here.
So our experience with racism is always going to be different than even black people in other parts of the world because they're not living on land, cultivated, built upon, fortified at its foundation by the literal blood, sweating tears of our ancestors who were brought here for that sole purpose, and you know, subjugated to a view that was I think I touched on this before that was widely held by the majority of even decent people that we were less than human.
Not just less than them because the cattle that worked their land was less than them too, and their dogs and their pets or whatever, but we specifically less than human. And I think that's the whole basis for race in America, not just racism, but race in and of itself.
Right.
I think I told you this story before, and forgive me if I'm rambling, but that question just lit all my light.
Bulbs up as it should.
I was living in Barcelona, Spain. I think this just two thousand and ten eleven. Don't quote me, but somewhere around there, sure, And at dinner the question was, hey, where are you from?
Someone asked you that, yes, not what race are you? Where are you from? Right?
The only question, the only place in the world where someone's going to ask you your race is here?
Oh wow?
And even more complicated was my answer on from Detroit from the motor You know what I'm saying, motown Let him know seven mile to be specific. And the gentleman that asked me looked confused, like no, no, no, no, where your where's your family from?
I said, oh, macing, Georgia Bibb County. Talk to them.
You know what I'm saying, the pre state h and Ah, forsythe downtown, come see us, get you a nice plate, fried chicken, Kyla Greens, cornbread, kool Aid. And he's thinking Georgia. So he's thinking like Eastern European USSR Russia, Georgia. No, no, no, no, no, like Atlanta, but like a little souther Did I.
Just make up? I like it? Did I just make that up?
A little souther A little souther than Atlanta, small town, Bibb County making He said, no, where are you from? And y'all can't see me on the radio, but he started rubbing his dark brown arm, like where is this from? And I was stumped because, like most Black Americans, I had zero clue on the where he was talking about. Four or five, six generations removed hundreds of years, and a very intentional and purpose for disconnection from our ancestry has resulted in us.
Being the only black people in the world where it's just black, not you know, Ethiopian or yeah, even where it's black at all.
There's no one at that table would have answered that question by saying black, because that question.
Wouldn't be asked.
There's no what is your race doesn't exist anywhere else, so no one would have asked or answered that question.
Black.
Right, there was a gentleman there from Nigeria, a young lady from Germany. So a couple of people from Jamaica, some other people from Ghana, some other people right from Spain, some people from Portugal. And here I am an American, right, but that's not where I'm from. And then there's that because I'm on my face as soon as they hear me speak, oh, he's American. Except that's not the case here where I was born, where me and my.
Mother and her mother and her mother and her mother and her mother and her mother.
Are from, that's not the case. We have to be Afro American, Negro African American colored, the other word they use that is just the most hateful and harmful and ugly word, ugly, you know, term possible. But going through this conversation, I was ashamed, you know, almost embarrassed that
I wasn't able to answer that question. And I'm starting to reconcile that there's no utopia for us, you know, I mean, there is no version of this where the unalienable rights, the birth rights of just being human beings, will be afforded to us just on its face, without us having to fight for it, and that we will not be made to be the villain for fighting for it. And that is such a harsh, dark, sad thing to say out loud, especially as I'm talking about my beautiful babies.
But I can't shake the idea that as much progress as as we've seemed to make, we're still so close to.
Where we started, relatively relative to where, you.
Know, like, if there's a such thing as a finish line, we're far closer to where we started.
See what you're saying. Do you think that that's because there are forces that benefit from things being the way they are?
I think that's the singular soul reason. Okay, well, very very very very powerful people, it might add, very very intelligent people. They scheme this thing pretty brilliantly, you know, from the American dream to you know, capitalism. The Mark Greeting Department over there at USA, inc. Is incredible, right, the same the reasons why those who left Europe and came here came here and settled and colonized, The reasons why, they say are the same things they deny us life, liberty,
pursuit of happening. It is all those beautiful words that they use when founding this country. Sure, and they use their God, their Bible, guns, their guns of sometimes diseases and work in their favor, but more specifically their God and their Bible to justify the guns and everything else. The ideology that led to the guns and the war and the colonization and the enslavement. It's in doctrine, you know what I mean, Like, is it in doctrine or indoctrinated?
And I think indoctrinated sounds.
Good to me, and it's deeply embedded in some I pointed to the pictures that we saw of a picnic, you know, back when, and the pleasant, proud normalcy on the faces of the families and even the children in those pictures with murdered slaves behind them as they posed for this photo. And I suggested to you that there may have been, as crazy as this sounds, decent people in that picture that absolutely did not understand that they
were doing something wrong. That sounds crazy. But again, when you're taught something from birth by the people that you trust the most, right, if somebody came and told us that God wasn't real, the Christianity wasn't real, or whatever the case. They couldn't present enough evidence for us to fold on what we've been taught since we've been in existence. Black people more specifically so some of those people, it's it's involuntary. They're not actively trying to be racist or suppressive.
It's just what they've always known. Some of those people are very aware that what they're doing is wrong.
Can I want to add something if I'm in please, you know, I don't know that there's I don't know if I agree, And maybe it's good that I don't agree that they're I hope I'm not pulling you over to the dark side. No no, no, no, no, listen, listen what I'm saying that we are. I don't agree that we're like stuck in the woods and in the mucky we can't get out of it. That I know, ladies and gentlemen, I thought I'll pulled him over to the
dark side. No no, no, no, no no. But I'm glad that you say that, because you know, I think that I often see the best in people, and I you know, my brain always tries to figure out Okay, well, if we did this, or if this happened, or if this shifted a bit, then you know, things will move forward. I believe in the greater good of humanity. Right. A lot of people pursue money because money is an excellent placeholder for happiness. But at the end of the day,
everybody wants to be happy. And one thing that science has proven true time and again is that you're happiest when you're in service to other people, voluntarily being in service to people. And to me, from that, I deduce that we're at our best as humans. We're at our happiest, our highest of highs, when we are kind to each other,
when we love each other, and so forth. Right, But for now, the prevailing philosophy, ideology, et cetera is, let's get this money right, Well, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Well, we are not as a species, are not there yet? No, we believe that that.
But my question being, are we most happy? So then we serve others? Or do we serve that cause the happiness is?
That's what? So the second to answer your question, that's what my understanding is if people who are looking for happiness like they're just they have all the money in the world, they've accomplished everything, they've traveled, done everything, and
they still feel empty inside. Will ultimately find that when they care for a child that has been abandoned, or when they feed someone who cannot feed themselves, or when they you know, like what you and I do with hashtag lunchback for those who don't know, Q and I. We have a nonprofit and we feed people and we provide a forum for volunteers to come and have that experience but also to you know, make a small difference.
But you know, these sorts of things, you know, we do sock drives and water drives, and you know, you know all the people they would say thank you, They would come up to you and say they had ten years worth of pictures of that, you know, and video. That's when, more often than not, human beings are at their happiest. You know. That's not to say that money doesn't make people happy, but there's a certain point where it doesn't make you any happier. And that point is
eighty thousand dollars per year. So once you get to eighty thousand dollars, your eighty thousand and first dollar will not make you relatively, it won't make you that much happier, you know. It kind of flattens out right around there. So you can make eighty million dollars a year, and you won't be any happier than the guy who or a girl who makes a woman sorry, who makes eighty thousand dollars a year, and so money as the pursuit. Like you said, it's been very much indoctrinated into our
culture and into our minds. But I wanted to say something because you did. You spoke about these people at this picnic, and I remember that picture. I'll never forget it. You know, there's two pictures that I remember the rest of my life. One is the picture of the slave with his back all whipped up, and it's it's a thick scab of a back, his whole back. Those of you listening to me who are black, you might relate
to that. And to know that that's what you came from, that's a very sad thing to know that that's your legacy. You know. We look at movies and you see like all these you know, kings and all of this like great these great you know whatever on the movies, and they're all white. And then that's your history, and then ours is these photographs of these slaves, and it's like, man, you guys got so much to be proud of. Now.
Of course we know that we did come from you know, full well fleshed out societies, you know, with kings and queens, and also with folks who maybe did not they weren't,
they were just common folks. But you know when when when you look at those photos and you realize that, you know, at least this chapter of our history as a people was born out of that, out of a whipped up back and a charred body that's kind of folded in to try to escape the flame, and then it's cooked to a crisp and you can see the panic, and you can see the human form has seized in a defensive position to try to get away from the fire. They burn this man alive, and there's a photograph of
it and children standing there. It's a lot to stomach. And again, if you're listening, this is part of the reason why you might see black people celebrate blackness in a way where maybe you think black people are doing the most. You know, it's because it's necessary for me. Every time I see someone black who's a black male. You could be your birthday, it could just be you thinking, you little fly. You could be shirtless, you could be whatever. I'll put a crown on the picture because I think
that it's important to uplift people in that way. And that's something that you know, my friends come in all colors, you know, it's something that largely is relocated to Black people. And I do use it for my Hispanic brothers and sisters because there's such thing as Latin King's I know that too. But that's where I believe humanity. If we if we all take each other and put our put each other in the same group, that's where there's the greatest need for, you know, the reminder that you're special,
that you come from special things. Anyway, So this photo and this picnic, when you said that there were decent folks out there, you know, I agree. You know, one of the things that one of the experiences that we're able to have. Before we started the show Civic Cipher, which by the way, if you're just tuning in, I'm your host Rams' job. They called me q Ward and uh, you know, we're talking about black life in America, as
we do. But fortunately One of the things we were able to do was get out and see a good part of the country. Now you had already been around the country, but you know, in twenty twenty, I was able to go to every state, and I spent a lot of time in the Midwest because there's a lot of Midwest and interactive with a lot of trump boats. I knew they were trump boats. They were not shy
about it. They're very proud of it in fact, and yeah, same thing, man, they're decent folks, you know, they just it almost is like you feel bad, like, man, you guys, you've been lied to. You're not this person, you know, but you think that you need to be in order because it serves your you know whatever. But that's not even the point I wanted to make. There's this, it's kind of hard to say it, but you know, if
you're white, I would imagine I'm not white. But if you are, and you look at history the way it's been given to you, then you look like you are the great conquerors. You come from a long line of conquerors and folks that have created this modern world with skyscrapers and television sets and everything. Right, and then you look at everyone else, like all these people are so ungrateful,
they're always complaining. All these women want rights, and all these gay people and all black blacks, all the blacks. You know, why don't they just not do crimes and they won't get shot by the police. You know, if only right and this is you know why, and if and if they really want to go back to it, then you know, well we'll take all the white inventions and leave them with their peanut butter and we can
just call it square. Right, Sure, these are these are real, These are real thoughts that really I've seen it expressed out loud. I've heard it expressed out loud. But the thing is, if you've been sold a lie or a half truth or whatever, then that have to be what it is. But the funny thing about it is the way the human brain works is there's a such thing
as cognitive dissonance. It's very difficult to take in new information when you have already built your reality in its entirety around whatever you've built it around, doesn't matter how true or false or right or wrong it is, it's just very difficult to let that go. And so you're right, there are some folks who probably were standing in those pictures of that man who was burned alive at that picnic back in nineteen thirty or whenever that photo was taken,
who thought that they were They're fine. You know, this man that we burned probably shouldn't have been whistling at a white woman. No, that's immatil. But you know what I'm saying, like, just yeah, how dare he? You know, whatever, he was out passed sundown or whatever reason that they came up with. We call it, for those listening, we call it being black and nearby. So you know, I would say probably like half the crimes or whatever, it's
just a result of being black and nearby. If you're the close enough person who looks black, you know, they can get you on some trumped up charges anyway, pun intended. Wow, very good. So you know, and another thing, you know, this idea of white supremacy has its origins in I believe it might be like Greek philosophy or something like
that Roman Greek, something like that. I want to say Plato, but it could have been Aristotle or one of those guys you know, encountered once upon a time, folks from Africa, you know, and he just didn't think highly of these African people. He didn't think highly of their African features, he didn't think highly of their whatever. He considered himself to be like super enlightened, not recognizing that a lot of the knowledge that he was taught came from those
same Africans. So the respect wasn't there. There's this disconnect of as I mentioned, white folks, they'll take stuff historically. I'm not talking to you if you're white and listening, but historically there's a pattern. It's well established. Google is free of white folks taking things from Africa, really black folks, you know, in a much larger sense. But Africa is the source of all of this and making it their own. You know, if you worship Jesus, guess where Jesus comes from.
I'm not lying to you. I'm not the whole Bible. In fact, all them stories you know, Old Testament, you know, shout out to my Jewish brothers and sisters. But you know, for those who know, you know the truth. Those stories are just stories that were based on the oral tradition of human beings. We're just retold and retold and repackaged and so forth. But you know, there's a I'm just gonna go with Plato, don't hold me to it. But you know, he says he didn't like Africans, he didn't
like their features, he didn't you know whatever. And this was in one of his like writings or something like that, and somehow made it a point to just kind of whatever. And then and then, you know, people listen to this guy so because he's the enlightened one, because he's this great philosopher of his time. And then you know, when he passes away, his books are going to be, you
know whatever, his writings, his teachings and so forth. That's really the earliest recorded instance of there being oh there's a different group of people, and we are better than them, or they are worse than us, right, less than us, less than us. Right. So you know, if you take that and you you know, multiply it times infinity and take it to the depths of forever, and you end
up with sort of what we have now. Because you know, there's been a lot of folks, as you mentioned, I've taken that ball and run with it and marketed it very well, you know, and you know, here we are. But fortunately, you know, again, I believe that because there's a drive for us to all be happy. There's I think a natural tendency for us to be brothers and sisters. Granted,
there are outliers. Some of them are brilliant. You know, whoever this person was, Plato, Aristotle, or whoever he was, he clearly was a brilliant man because there's so much that he contributed to, you know, history, right. It just also happened to be very racist, not unlike Hitler. You know R. Kelly sang a bunch of dope songs, but he's a child molester, you know what I'm like. So, you know most of the first presidents of this great country who owned slaves. Yeah, you know, there you go.
So the thing is understanding, recognizing, and you know, you know, once upon a time there was no division. Once upon time everybody went to Africa to get you know, books, and you know, if you've ever heard of tim Book two, you've heard of the Library of Alexandria, You've heard of in all these places this you know, the the oldest recorded history was in Africa, in Egypt, you know, so, and that's very African. In case you didn't know, a lot of folks think of Egypt as the Middle East,
not that's Africa, hyper Africa. But uh, you know, there's there's another thing that you mentioned too about how we if we go abroad, right, there's a you know, we don't feel like this this country really doesn't feel like the right answer when you say, when you answer that question, where are you from? Right, because they're looking for like where are your roots? Right?
Well, specifically not the right answer because that's with the exception of our Aboriginal native that's the it's not the right answer for anyone.
That's true. I know what you mean. You know what I mean. So they're looking at me.
I don't look Aboriginal to this soil, So they've already disqualified the fact that I'm native through ethnicity American, right, So they were waiting for me to say Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria. That's what they're waiting for, because that has to be it, right Detroit, No, man, that's just a city over there where you where your people from, where your grandma stay.
And you did a test you said you were what was it? Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Central America is incredible to me, you know, But like eighty percent. That's heavy African.
But that's one test done by somebody I've never seen, right, So at as proud as I was to see those results, I want more.
I need to know more. I need to go to Africa and have a test done. See you know what I mean.
I want to know where my people are from, Like where I can pull up to, not this country on this continent I've never been to, Like what village, what tribe, what people specifically am I from? Yeah, so I can go see my family.
So I can go see my people.
So I can take my children to see Right, because my children's mother, she knows exactly where she's from. She can drive there, We can drive there, and my kids can see where part of their heritage started. Dad can't do that, and that sucks. So that's where I was going with this.
What an incredible feeling, an inspired feeling to know that there's history, you know, and there's a lot of folks that have that and they don't really care about it because they have it. But when you don't have it, when you know your dad and your grandfather and maybe his dad's name, and that's it. And I never I never met, never met three of my grandparents, not great grands My mother and father's parents I've only met, and
I only know one of them. My mother's mother never saw or met my mother's father, never saw or met my father's parents. So so my disconnect starts immediately, right right, And that's that's not that's not unusual for you know folks, black folks in this country where it's like, look, man, it's just not really. I mean, think of how they keep records of cattle, you know who. They don't really track the bloodlines like that. They might a couple of them,
but for the most part, it's just cattle. You know, they get out there, one of them gets pregnant, you know, cool, we got another one. So that's slavery. Basically, it was like it's all mixed up. You know where you're from. No, you all speak the same language. So your culture gets washed away, erased immediately, and so there's nothing to grab onto. There's no richness of there's no cultural identity, there's none
of that. And so what ends up happening is dig this your home, de facto home identity culturally and otherwise becomes your city and to a larger extent, your country and That's why for me at least, I have such conflicted feelings about the flag of the United States of America. How dare you Well, I'll let me explain my ials. Let me explain my feelings. How dare you have conflicted feelings about this flag that symbolizes this country that mass abducted, kidnapped,
wholesale rape and pillage of your entire family tree? How dare you have.
Any conflicted emotions about the land that are free and the home of the brave ramses.
You sound like the people that were talking to Kaepernick. It's not about the flag, per se. Man, It's about I got the flag. But yeah, so I was about to ask some more to that and everybody, I can't say the next part. So anyway, I got the flag. So yeah, what happens is, you know, we're all If I was to put it like seriously, like and I was to be dramatic, I would say we were all indoctrinated. But we all, you know, went to schools as children.
We all had pleasure allusion to the flag of the United S to have to stare at that thing, you know, and as a symbol sang the national anthem and as a symbol minus a verse. Oh, yeah, that should make your stomach China. I know what you're talking about. You know what I'm saying.
We have talked about it. I mean, I guess we have to ignore that though, right, That's what I'm me And that's that's part of it. Bro, Like, it's not just the verse. I brought the verse up kind of and just it's not just the verse. It's exactly what you said. We're asked to ignore something that no other people would be asked to ignore. No other people in the history of Earth would have been and or have been asked to ignore anything even similar to what our
people have gone through in this country. But they insist that we forget it and leave it alone. It happened so many years ago. What's wrong with you guys? Oh, we're not going to acknowledge our part in it or apologize. How dare you ask that of us? But you need to get over it, Ramses, Okay, it happened. No one that's alive now owned slaves, and you were never a slave. So I don't understand your problem.
Oh I could answer that all day. Please don't come in me like that, because I know what I'm talking about In fact, we'll get to that, but let me let me, let me get back to this flag. Good and bad things from a black man's perspective or a black person's perspective have happened under that flag. You know, there's a time when you recognize that, you know, you live in a place that has no love for you. And then there's a time when you take up arms and you go and you fight a war and your countrymen,
they're your brothers, and you have a common enemy. And that's what it is, right that this has happened. Just let me get that. Just let me have that. Okay, I see your face, cue, just let me have it. But more recently, you know, the flag is has been you used by folks who wanted to signify that they're patriotic.
That's me putting it mildly, that this is their country and they're proud of their country and so forth right, And anyone who is critical of the country and wants the country to do better is should just move go to another place, right. And these are the people that wave their flags, you know, really tall. They put them on their trucks and put them in front of their houses.
And I thought I always thought that was super bizarre, because why would you put your flag up in the country where you where everybody like, It's not like somebody's here and they're like, what country am I in? You know, I wish there was a flag to remind me where I'm at, because I have no idea, you know, if you're in and you know, you and I we live in Arizona, So it's not like we just pulled up to the coast. You know, we're in the middle. You know, we're in the good ways into the to the heart
of the country. So when you see those flags, usually it to me it's a person who's trying to suggest that this is our country, and I'm showing it to you, the people who don't who live here but don't look like me, that we are the true owners, if you will, in this country. But this flag is our by definition and tone. The word ours doesn't word the word we, and the word us very exclusive terms not inclusive, doesn't include the inclusive we. But no, no, no, no, we yeah,
not y'all. All right, So that's how it looks. And and you know, far be it for me to say that everybody that waves the flag is on that. But if I'm being frank, If I see somebody with a flag, the immediate assumption on my end is that they're racist, and I don't interact with them. May as well be
a trumpet. I'm never gonna talk to that person because they've made up their mind about my value and they're where where my life and my liberty lies on their priorities, so they don't even look at me as a countryman. My assumption is that they oftentimes would feel like the world would be a better place if I was not around. And of course that's not to say always true. Hang on, let me say this. That's not to say that, you know, they can't be rehabilitated, that's not to say that they
can't find their way through that mess. It's just this now is not the time for me to put myself in the line of fire. So if you wave in that flag to get the desired effect, it's working because you know, you will have one less friend because Ramses is not coming to shake your hand, you know. But that same flag, and this is why I say it's conflicted, that same flag. Let me sit and watch the right movie, you know. Let me see my son in his classroom
with all the other you know, kindergarteners. I got a gardener. He put his little hand on his heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag, you know, Like I said, those movies at the end of it, when the good guy wins and the military movies or whatever, and you see the old glory, that sense of pride is very much in me. I love that flag and I love this country.
I went to a restaurant, a Texas restaurant, right, and you know, Texas is kind of one of them good old boys states, you know, so Texas, you know what I'm saying, It is the epitome man of the good old boy state, right, see epitome. But you know, and and it was playing up that Texas stuff. So there's like dead animals on the wall and a bunch of Texas paraphernalia and all that sort of stuff, and you
know whatever posters or whatever. So you walk in there and you feel like, uh, oh, this is not the place for me, right, But once you settle in, at least this is what was my experience. I was like, you know what. The lady came, took my order, she was nice, you know, Uh, it just was Texas. It just was what it was, unapologetically Texas, and there's a beauty in that that it's hard to explain, especially to somebody like u Q, but it's what keeps me remaining
hopeful like that. You know, Texas is here in Texas is messed up, Florida's messed up, and you know, but it's it's my It's like your homie that don't get it ever right, but you just like Ed. That's my homie. Man. We've been rolling together since the beginning. I don't like them either, but I love them, you know what I'm saying. So that's what I mean when I say when I see the flag, there's like conflicted feelings because it's like it's like it's family. It's like they'll get it together.
They have to. There's there, you know, that's the only outcome here. We're gonna have to get it right. And you know you said you said something earlier. This is my belief. I know that your belief is that you know, not necessarily we can just keep it running like this the rich day rich, and the oppressors keep oppressing and then we just keep running in circles. That sound more.
That sounds about right, right, But because we only got a thousand years.
Of But here's why. There's why I would challenge that, go for it. If you really felt that, I don't think that you would have a radio show called Civic Cipher that you come up and you prepare for every week, and that you come and you contribute what I believe is meaningful dialogue to the city to strengthen it and the cities rather, and to strengthen these communities, and to fortify them, and to empower allies, and to inform people
who might be in a more adversarial position. I do believe that all of those things fall underneath your wheelhouse. So on some level you have to believe in that the greater good will prevail. Otherwise that wasn't meant to be like checkmate, no, no, no, no.
It made me pause. But the honest to goodness truth is I have not given up on humanity as a whole.
Right.
But in every aspect of our life, we use the data that's been presented to us, sure to form sometimes pre data hypotheses. You know, we have a control group, we have an experiment, we track the data. We then look to see if we proved or disproved our hypothesis correct in two cases. We ignore the data, okay, right, relationships love, we ignore all the data. Sure, right, If any anyone listening to me right now, I know what
you mean. If you're single, one hundred percent of your relationships have failed, you ignore that data whenever you decide to fall in love with someone else. Right, So when it comes to love and romance, we ignore data. And when it comes to this dream that.
We have that our ancestors had, that they fought and died for. Right. So that's my civic cipher testimony. My mother, when she became of today's voting age, was not allowed to So when I went to vote for our first black president, my tears came from that. My mom couldn't have done this when she was this age.
My mother, not my grandmother, not my great grandmother, my mom one generation ago, who's listening, by the way, you know, could not in the great state of Georgia, cast her vote when she became of age to do so.
My mom was born in the forties, so black women got the right to vote. And when.
I typically know that, off the top of my head, looked at it because that is something, as you can tell, very very specifically important to me, however, So it's because of them that I know.
That what we do is necessary.
Sure, but God ain't never asked me to ignore the things that I can see. Right, I Once a day, and I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm not exaggerating. Once a day, I see something happen where I have to say, and then I have to pull back because I'm annoyed that I'm saying it. Man, if that person was black, and then I.
Have to stop.
Because whoever I'm talking to, if I'm on somebody's comment section, if I'm in a group chat, if I'm sitting in front of you, whoever I'm talking to already knows how to finish the sentence that I'm starting. That part is so crushing, and it's and it started to be that
way with trivial things, right. Sure, people, if you're on the internet at all, if you wear Nikes at all, you see that the top executive at Nike was allowed to step down over the last couple of days after it was discovered that her son was making hundreds of thousands of dollars reselling Nike shoes. And if you are a sneaker head, you are very familiar with the Sneakers app.
This kid's mother oversaw that app. Now the ramses that might not mean anything, but to any of my sneaker heads who are listening, it means everything. Every time your favorite shoe comes out and you try to get it and Sneakers tells you, ah, you didn't get it because the demand for the shoe is so high and so many people want it, well, a high percentage. Those people
don't want that shoe because they love the shoe. They want it because they know you love it, So they buy it at retail let's just say, one hundred and fifty dollars, and then they resell it at one hundred two hundred, three hundred, one thousand percent markup and make a very very comfortable living doing so. Now, if that mother and that son were black, that would be criminal that the lady in charge of that app her son gets every shoe resells them for hundreds of thousands of
dollars in profit. Right, it could be akin to insider trading, uses her credit card to buy them. So it's not even like we're pretending or hiding here her names on the purchase of her product that's being resold. By her son for hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, and she gets to just step down, and I'm absolutely certain we'll land on her feet continue to be a professional in a very very high ranking capacity. Her son will not.
Be even urged or suggested to give any of that money back to any of those people that they took advantage of. Right, And it's a very trivial kind of man that's messed up that happens story when the people don't look like us. Meanwhile, the chairman West Side of Chicago Black Panther Party sent to prison before he was murdered for stealing ice cream. I think seventy dollars worth prison, never even proven that he did it. So the way that this world treats us shapes how I feel about it.
You know, you talk about complication, you talk about that pride. I see our Olympians wrap that flag around themselves when we go and conquer at the Olympics. So then we come back here, I I know that treatment don't stop. Those war veterans that are arming arm with their brothers over there. They come back here, they're still spit on, they're still disrespected, they're still homeless, unemployed. There's still that hard er still with the colors on, with the badges on.
Even our blue lives that matter so much, they get to murder them, and that story just goes away. They stormed the capital of the United States of America, they waved the Confederacy in the Capitol building. They murdered a police officer on camera. Blue lives didn't matter no more, Just like if it's opposed to them, that flag that they go crazy over didn't matter no more. They they wasn't waving old Glory in there, They're waving a Confederate
flag in there. This still ours, that same exclusive hour, that same exclusive we This is still ours. And the people that we elect to represent us slapped him on the hand. Shame on, you brought no charges. We get shot, killed,
beat pepper sprayed for simply saying that we matter. So maybe people listening and me can understand, Well, I don't have all that hope and glimmer in my eyes because when I look at your babies in mind, those beautiful brown babies, I see Christian turning into a beautiful brown young man, and I will watch the way that this country goes from all he's so cute too. He should have just obeyed the officer. That will never happen, That will never happen. That'll never happen. But one hundred percent
of us feel that way. That will never happen. One hundred percent of us feel that that would never happen. Two hours.
All these mothers who we pray for, all these hashtags, all these T shirts, all those parents taught these lessons in war this country with pride. I used to stand with my hand on my chest as a college football player, listening to those songs and the Jets flying over in the flagwave, and I felt that pride swell up. When I left Bowling Green State University and ventured off into
this world. I got reminded often enough that they're not talking about us, and it isn't the best interest of too many people with too much power, too much in the onesn't too much money, for this system to continue the way that it is, rather than conform or reform to a world where we're seeing as equal. Because I want you to do well, but I don't want you to do so well that it puts my well being at risk, my livelihood, and it doesn't, of course not right.
But I'm gonna think this way. I'm gonna make sure my children think this way so that it never comes to be, so that it's never even a real conversation. So I'm never even actually afraid or threatened or the way that I pretend to Yeah, the way that I pretend to be when I tear you and yours.
Down, Well said Q. Let me fill in a couple of gaps here. You mentioned Christian For those who don't know.
That kid is beautiful and incredible and brilliant, and you can't help but be happy if he's around you.
I don't care how hard your day is going. If he pull up, it's better the time. So and Q and I we we talk a lot about Christian because he is kind of following in his dad's footsteps, with the with the with the hair, with the big wig afro thunder. It's mighty. He did it better than me. It's so big. But you know, he's the kindest human being. That's my baby. I love him. So, you know, there
are some some things that are in place. You're absolutely right. Cue. Granted, I have to believe that on this level, on the on the individual level, you know, I've I've met the people. I've talked to them, I shook their hands, been on the show, They've been in the streets, I've seen them on television. I know that these people exist. They're not in the high up positions per se, but I know that there's more of us on this level than there are them up there. That's a very small minority, right.
So so my my hope, I believe, comes from those interactions when I'm looking into a pair of blue eyes and some blonde hair or some you know, some Irish kid or whatever, you know, and they're like, hey, listen, I don't I don't even need to know. I just love you. I'm here to love. How do we how do we make this? What can you teach me? You know? Those people, those people give me the hope that I
need to know. That, Okay, Because if it was just black people, we were just a minority, and we were slowly getting crushed out of existence by being murdered or picked off or you know whatever, that'd be one thing. But there's so many people. We saw them during the protests, you know that that happened in my lifetime. I have a memory I saw people with their heads wrapped up. Man, I could cry, they did not need to be there Asian people. They don't need to be out there at all.
I got, I got some very important things to add to what you're saying.
Not to cut you off, but just necessary to say.
If not for allies that didn't look like us, it wouldn't have been no.
Civil rights movie yet. Absolutely so, that's not new.
And they knew that we'd outnumber them. That's why things like the three fifth and the Electoral College, that's why they exist, came in to exist, That's why they exist. They knew back then that they will be out They were already out numbered. But we don't want to get rid of this thing we have. So how about this? These people that we have that ain't nothing, they are something.
Three fists of it, three fists of a thing, you see what I'm saying.
Even then, right, they put out the fire of a house that we were in, but it was their house. They wasn't trying to keep us from burning up. They were trying to keep their house from burning up. We just so happened to benefit from it slightly, you know what I mean. Yeah, So, and Mitch McConnell was the modern day version of that.
You know I'm not.
This isn't pseudoscience. I'm not reaching to the edges of these arguments. We It's really really sad that one of the main reasons why the progress.
Is as slow as it.
Is is that no one wants to say, man, that wasn't just them.
That was me. Because during these last years, as we dealt with they knew proud boys environment.
I had people that I care about, people that I call friends, people that I hug and smile when I'm around, message me, reach out to me in defense of what was going on in the streets to our people, not because they thought it was right.
Rams. But when you see parts of you over there, you're not defending Donald Trump. You're defending you. I think that's wrong. But man, I think that way too, and I'm not a bad person, so he must not be a bad person. And that's not unique to Donald Trumps, you know exactly. So the reason why the progress is so slow is because that very very difficult reconciliation, accountability, and acceptance of very very harsh truths is almost certainly never going to happen. If you say the word reparation,
people act like you're the one that's tripping that. So let me say this. So let me say this. You know, we've done a lot of talking. We didn't get to a lot of our notes, but I think it was a good conversation. This is the therapy that we sometimes are able to have on this show. But I do want to mention some of the notes that I didn't get to, and perhaps we'll do them in a later show. But I wanted to talk about the way systemic racism works and the way it has manifested itself in this society.
And you know, I'll read.
There's such a thing as systemic absolute I was told by some very well spoken black people very recently that there was no such thing.
Of course, did they have a vested interest in saying that.
Well, like I said before, no one they know has ever owned slaves. No one that they know has ever been a slave. Listen, man, that's okay, So forget that for a second, because I don't really I don't like dealing with people who are not intellectually Yeah, and you know, cognitive dissonance is.
Never mind, all right, So I wanted to talk about how American finance, the American economic advantage in the world was founded during slavery on the back of slaves, African slaves, free labor. I wanted to discuss the economic consequences of segregation and how segregation works against the society. And these are things that have been fleshed out during the Civil Rights movement, during you know, different points in time in the history, but you know, we can bring them up.
Predatory lending in black communities. African Americans with college degrees are twice as likely to be unemployed as other graduates. I wanted to talk about redlining again, which is something
we've discussed on the show. Redlining, for those who don't know, is when banks and lenders would lend money for you know, the purchase of houses and these areas and not in these areas, and you couldn't qualify for loans to buy your land, or buy your house, or develop anything in these neighborhoods because you were considered higher risk without any
high risk factors. It was a way that the government was able to keep government money in the hands of incentivized to do so what they thought was the the best version of America, i e. White folks. So black folks were not able to participate in that, which is why black households now on average half one tenth the wealth of the average white household. It goes directly back to redlining. I wanted to talk about how black graduates from top colleges face discrimination and job search and in
salaries college students. Black college students have the same chances of getting a job as a white high school dropout. So me, I have a master's degree, so maybe that helps a bit, But if I had a bachelor's only, I'd have the same chances of getting a job as a white high school dropout. And even with that master's degree, you need to know someone at the company you're applying to. Sure, sure, yeah, absolutely.
You spoke of reparations. So the country floated this idea of forty acres and a mule would be given to eat slave upon their freedom, so that they would have some sense of or some capacity to determine their economic future. And that was never fulfilled. That was referred to as forty acres and a mule, and that would be at
least six point four trillion dollars in today's money. So I wanted to discuss that, you know, you brought up reparations, and how folks you know and bear in mind that this country has paid reparations to Native folks, to Asian folks when they were in you know, during the Jewish Americans. Absolutely, absolutely, but black folks is just somehow America has decided to divorce herself from that issue and holds, deliberately holds all of the economic shortcomings over black people's heads. You got
to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Ramses. Yeah, so that's where we are, but we were out of time. I couldn't even finish the list. But thank you for tuning into civiy Cipher once again on Ramsay's job. They called me you ward, and we'll see you next week. Check out the website civiccipher dot com for more info into download past shows. All right, yes,