Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's jock.
I go by the name q Ward most of the time, not all of the time. Most of the time.
Though, talk to him. Uh, and we are back up in you one more gain, Like we always do it, this time to talk to you about how the world feels from our perspective and not just me and Q but you know black people or you know people that might be considered marginalized or otherwise have been born with the striker two against them. And Uh, I'm going to ask you to stick around because there's a lot to share with you today. I do have what I believe to be some good news, which is rare around these parts.
All right, but you got to stick around Forday, you gotta stay tuned for that. But yeah, a lot in store feed today, including a discussion about Ryan Koogler. If you haven't heard about it, it was reported that he went into the bank to make a withdrawal, police got involved, et cetera, and it wasn't a bank robbery, but they thought it was. And so we're going to talk about that because it's important to share just how common that is,
how it feels to go through that. I know I've been in situations like that for a few times in my life, and hopefully by learning from our stories and our perspective, you know, we kind of create stronger bonds across racial lines and so forth. We're also going to talk about the Emmet Till Anti Lynching Act of twenty twenty two this year that was passed by the House and the Senate, so next step is for it to become law, and so we're really excited about that as well.
And then of course we are going to talk about Mary mcleodmufune a couple of times in the show today, and I employee to stick around for that as well. But first let's delve into some ebony excellence, shall we shall serve? We shall so shout out to Black Enterprise dot com gave us some notes on this article right here. So. As TikTok continues to face criticism for white creatives who receive more visual representation than black creatives, Instagram added a
new feature to help address this issue. On Monday, Instagram announced a new special tag where professional accounts and influencers will receive credit for their original creations. This feature was made in direct response to the black creators who feel
overlooked or shut out from trends that they create. NBC News reported the tag comes after black content creators boycotted creating dance challenges on TikTok after noticing white creators were receiving more recognition from the trends created by black users. How about that. That's a real thing. If you didn't know, Black people makeup stuff, White people do it, and then it gets popular and then white people get the credit.
Think Elvis, Elvis creating rock and roll, you know, you know what I mean, like that sort of thing, Eminem being the best rapper or a lot. You know, that's sort of I'm not talking about technical skills, but in certain circles they don't go beyond that, you know, not realizing really it comes from struggle and the different people. Anyway,
Alexis Michelle, I hope I said this right. A. J. I G, a data analyst, worked with Instagram engineer cam run Boyd to address these disparities on Instagram in an effort to amplify more black creators and get the influencers to transition their viral content from TikTok over to Instagram. Quote black creators and addressing that inequity in the creator ecosystem in quote a central focus when developing the new feature.
I G said to use the new enhanced tags, users will need to tap tap tag people when creating a post. Tech Crunch reported the next step is to add sorry. The next step is to tag on ad tag where users can search and select their contributors. So basically, it's just a way to ensure that credit goes where credit is due. And shout out to Instagram and shout out to these two beautiful black women Alexis, Michelle I G and Cameron Boyd for making that happen. I think it's
a gi a gi, a gi. Okay, very good, thank you, man. I butchered it the whole segment. I apologize with heart, but a gi all. Right now, Ryan Kugler, So, Q have you heard about this story of Ryan Kugler? Unfortunately yes, okay, so you set the stage for so who is he? What happened? And we'll go from there.
So Ryan Kugler is a filmmaker, writer, producer. First got on my radar for directing a film called Fruit Built Station with Michael B. Jordan, but probably garnered the attention of the rest of the world when he directed this small Disney movie that you know, Marvel Studios did that people might have heard of, called Black Panther. Oh oh yeah, that that movie is a genre changing blockbuster movie. I
was being sarcastic. Uh, you know about a Marvel superhero hero from the fictional country of Wakanda on the very very real continent of Africa. Right, you know, it broke all kinds of records. It was an incredible film. He's actually working on a sequel now, so very well known, very prominent, very wealthy black director.
Okay, So the story goes that he went to a bank. I believe it was a Bank of America, Yes, sir, ye, Bank of America in Atlanta. My notes today come from CNN, And he was attempting to withdraw some cash. Looks like twelve thousand dollars in cash, all right, So tell a little bit more of the story.
So he was, I guess, let me give you guys some context here. He's withdrawing twelve thousand dollars, which, when you have as much money as he has, doesn't sound
like a lot of money. But imagine someone on the top of a bank counter counting out twelve thousand dollars and handing it to him, and everyone else in the bank seeing this, right, So to be a bit yeah in Atlanta, So to be a bit more discreet in this time where during this pandemic and you know, during some financial hardships that a lot of people have been through this guy walking into a bank and the bank counting out twelve thousand dollars in cash and handing it
to him, to be a lot more discreet. He wrote the teller a note that he wanted to do this in a way that didn't grab everyone's attention. The teller, I think, got the impression, strangely that mister Kruger was writing a I'm robbing this bank note and uh called nine one.
One now because it is our responsibility to tell the whole story, I believe I read that the teller go ahead, you jump in.
I was just going to point out to people this wasn't like on a loose leaf piece of paper. He wrote the note on a withdrawal slip, like his account, his name, his account number, the amount that's being withdrawn, and hey, just by the way, so I don't draw
too much attention. Is there a way for us to do this discreetly, like I want to paint a clear picture, because people might say, well, he wrote a note, of course they thought it was no. He wrote this note on an official withdrawal slip with his name and his account number on it. It wasn't just some random note on a piece of paper that he slid through the bank through the bank teller's window.
Okay, now I'm glad you said that too, now, because we need to tell the whole story. I remember reading that the teller was a black woman and she was pregnant. Now how true that is, I don't know, but I read that on TMZO on his head. The other thing is that he went in wearing a face mask and he had shades on. Right. So I'm just saying that because it's important to tell all of the details.
Go ahead, cute, However, everyone in America's wearing a mask right now, say it, so this won't This wouldn't look as strange as it would have once upon a time.
Sure, he wasn't wearing a bank robbers mask.
He was wearing the same mask that you had on on your last flight or the last restaurant or business that you visited.
That had a mask requirement, right exactly, Or if you're just.
Trying not to catch the cootie from people and you got your mask on fair point, not hey give me your money mask.
No, it definitely was not that. And of course, you know, there's I'm sure a good number of you that have been able to see this and kind of you kind of know the backstory here a bit. But for those that don't, it's important for us to tell that whole story because what we wanted to do today is kind of let you know what it feels like, as we do on this show, to be in that situation. Okay, so to continue, he goes in as as you mentioned, Q, he's wearing a mask much like everyone else. He has
glasses on, which is not a crime. People wear shades all the time. I have a few pairs. I know you were. You know, if you're listening to our to our show today, you probably have a few pairs of shades as well. Right, he goes into his bank. He fills out his deposits or withdrawal slip has an amount over ten thousand dollars, which is another point. It's fair to mention that anything over ten thousand dollars typically will trigger some sort of hey, let's let's you know, document this or otherwise.
I think it triggers an alert on your account.
Sure, sure, right, so all these things will see it, all of those right. The thing is is that there's there's actually two things. One I hesitate to yield to someone who might argue it that the same treatment would have been given to a person in the same predicament if that person was white, Right, I just don't see that happening in the same way where the police show up. The other part of it is that I feel like it's sort of more humiliating if it happens to you
and you're black. Right. It's just that there's a special type of embarrassment that goes along with it, especially if you're doing well for yourself. Right. Anyway, I'll jump in here back to the CNN article. When police arrived, two of Coogler's colleagues, who were waiting for him in a parked vehicle outside the bank, were detained and placed in the back of a police car. Coogler was placed in handcuffs while police investigated the call. He was released shortly
after they verified his identity. The police report States. So I don't know who bank it is, but I know who you know whose money is in it. Q says that quite a bit around here, And I think it's important to understand that these sorts of things, call them microaggressions, call them just being black. You know, these sort these sorts of things very much shape our lives. These are the things that maybe in that moment, something like that happens to me. I don't demand my dignity in that
moment because I'm just trying to go home. I'm embarrassed. You know, everybody's looking at me like I'm a criminal. I've worked really hard, I've achieved success, I played the game the right way, and I can't shake my skin right, not that I would want to, but it does count against you in certain situations, as you know, as you well know, if you have more melanine in your skin, it's it's not it's not it's not like it's an upwardly mobile passed through through the ranks of society. You know.
If anything, it's a challenge, right, So you might not vuish your frustrations in that moment, but things like this, over the course of a long life, you know, something goes missing. Everyone looks at you, you know, you know, you name it. Any sort of petty thing happens. Even if people aren't looking at you, feel like they're looking at you.
Right, And then imagine Rams his colleagues are sitting in the car and then all of a sudden they're being detained and placed at handcuffs. About that, So his frustration for himself, sure, but his frustration for his people, his friends, maybe his relatives. You know, it just says college.
We don't know.
This could be girlfriend, best friend, family member. Yeah, they're just sitting in the car. They have no idea what's happening. They're being detained and handcuffed, not for a mistaken identity, not for or for essentially nothing. Yeah, being with him and looking like him.
As we call it, black and nearby? Why'd you got him go by the police? I was black and nearby. You know that's a real thing. Now, I want to make this breathe a little bit for you. Once upon a time, Ramses high school, Ramses, maybe I'm sixteen, something like that. Where I went to school in Phoenix, Arizona.
There used to be a mall called Chris Town Mall, and we would go to this mall after school sometimes just to hang out, as we did back before social media and before the internet took over the world and that sort of stuff, you know. So this is probably the mid to late nineties, right. I walked through from the outside of the mall through a Walgreens in the mall. Right, So I walked from outside into the inner ring of the mall through not an entrance, but the Walgreens entrance.
In other words, the store had an entrance into the mall and an entrance into the store from the outside of the mall. Right, So I walked into the store on my way into the mall, have my backpack on, of course, and you know, I'm just going to go hang out with my friends. I'm not in Walmart for or Walgreens rather for anything, just as a passway. I get to the mall entrance on the on the inside of the store, and they have those like security beeper post things that kind of frame the door as you
walk in and out of the store. So they didn't go off when I walked in to the Walgreens, but they did go off as I was walking into the mall. Right. Pepepepepepepp uh was that me, right, So you know, I'm not a big person. The person behind the desk grabs me, right, and I'm with friends or whatever, and oh my god, how embarrassing. Right, And then of course everybody's looking because those things are beeping so loud and the mall is
right there. You know, I'm like everybody can see into the store me black as I am like, oh my god, this is just the thing that these people need to see because they're just gonna walk by and be like, see there goes another one. Oh my god. They're just they're all criminals, you know, and I'm reinforcing stereotypes. Right. This is how it feels in that moment, like really, and you know me, obviously I didn't steal anything, but it looked like that, and the way they were treating
me looked like that. Right, grabbed me by my backpack. I'm not going to leave anyway, and then the security guards came out and whatever. It took my backpack off and they kind of held me at the desk and I wasn't I wasn't leaving. I was just as curious as they were. They held my backpack over the beeper thing and it went off again. So now it looks like whatever I stole was in my backpack, right, So
and then it beats that second time, Bepp. Everybody's looking like more people walking by, people pushing strollers, old people, you know. And this is in Arizona, very conservative place, a lot of people in Arizona. This is all they need to further reinforce stereotypes that, oh my gosh, we need to move away from the city because we need to get away from these black people are you know, black people breaking the houses, or black people are criminals,
or black whatever. Just kind of reinforces this false narrative that or this bogus narrative that exists for us. Right in some cases, you know, yes, people all colors commit crimes, right, but you know, I'll be fair. Black people get arrested more for crimes. It doesn't mean black people commit more crimes. Black people do get arrested for more crimes because neighborhoods are more patrolled and black people are overly policed and overly prosecuted and overly sentenced, et cetera. And it's a
whole cycle. Right, We talk about this on the show all the time, but far be it from me to contribute to that narrative because I am a black man and I have to live the rest of my life, and at that time, I wanted children. So I'm like, man,
I gotta be a stand up guy. They're going through my backpack now, taking all my stuff out of my backpack and throwing it on the floor, throwing it here, throwing it looking for whatever it is that I quote unquote stole right being wildly disrespectful, like they got them one. And I'm like, oh man, there's nothing I can say. I have to keep my composure. I'm gonna read this
quote from Ryan Coogler at the end. I have to keep my composure because I know that the moment I act up and I, you know, call them out for denying me a shred of dignity at the benefit of the doubt, you know what I mean, the moment I called him out, like hey, you're getting loud to we bored.
You know, I don't need that, So I just let him go through my My homework is you know what I'm saying, like like, oh man, And then finally they take out It's like an old you remember, trapper Keepers is basically like a folder for those who don't know. It's like a folder or three ring binder sort of folded that you put your hold on.
Wait, what's up. The trapper Keeper was definitely not just a photo. I'm not gonna let you disrespect you're right list trapper keepers will fly. Yeah, the trapper Keeper was the truth. Rams it's painted as just the folder. The trapper Keeper was next level, like it might be Gucci Findy Louis Batan, like it might as well have been that the trapper Keeper was it?
Yeah, man, so so basically I don't know if it was a trapper Keeper per se, but you're you're not wrong there. But it was old. You could see that it was older. It had been in my backpack for probably two or three years, because you know, trapper keeper's money, and you know, you don't get a lot of back to school shopping, you know, like you might think when you grow up black, you know what I mean, your stuff from last year still work. Because let's run that again.
You know, you can get some new clothes, you stay ged up the first week of school. Outside of that, you don't got to buy nothing else. You ain't gonna get it. So they pull it out. They pull out this folder, and the folder is clearly ancient, years of dirt, dust, grind, pencils, shavings and you know whatever all over it. They slide it through the guard post thing and it beats again.
Now they open it up and they see on the inside there's a square like digital like square thing that's meant to trigger those Right, So whenever whoever bought that initially, might have been my birth mother or somebody like that, whoever got that for me, maybe I got it.
I don't know.
At the store, they never took that sticker off. And of course I don't, you know, carry my backpack into every store I go into, so it just was there for years. I carry my backpack to school, you know, and I go home and I don't know why I didn't trip the front alarm of that store, but it did trip the one on my way into the mall. And the way they disrespected me and then subsequently had to apologize and pick up my homework off the ground, it let me know, like, dang, they really thought they
had me. Because now they're like having to eat all those words and to eat that attitude. Right, and I watch this. This might have been maybe a year after that, maybe a year and some change after that, Right, so it's still fresh in my mind. I'm probably toward the end of high school or just out of high school at this point. Right. I was at a store in the in this is still in Arizona, but this time it's in Scottsdale, right, And a woman walks out of the store and I couldn't tell you what she was
carrying or whatever like that, the alarm beaps. What do they do? They say, excuse me, ma'am, we might have not removed one of your tags from your purchased items. Could we get that off for you so you can enjoy your You know, we don't. We don't want you to take it home, and then you you can't cause you can't get it off when you get home. Right, You're very kind to it. Now. I know that this is one group of people at a Walgreens, and this
is another group of people at a fancy store. But I think that there's just a benefit of the doubt ascribed to people that black people don't always get right. So I'll finish this quote here quote. This situation should never have happened. However, Bank of America worked with me and addressed it. To my satisfaction, and we have moved on. Coogler said in a statement to Variety, Right, that's dignity,
That's okay. I'm not gonna like that. I gotta take that and eat it, you know, I gotta you know, I'm not gonna make a big deal a lot of it, because I don't need this to turn into anything. You know, I'm a lot of people don't want that fight. I understand that because I'm likely just put my folder back in my backpack and just let me go. I'm already so embarrassed. Right. Unfortunately the police weren't showing up being super aggressive with this guy, because then that would have
been a whole other issue. I'm sure based on what I know. And then, because I need to say it, the statement from the bank is quote, we deeply regret that this incident occurred. It never should have happened, and we have apologized to mister Cooler. Bank of America said in a statement to see in it, two things that needed to be said. Now, this is not nothing. This is the sort of thing that contributes to the mountain that is carried by black people. These things we only
know about this story because he's a film director. He's a famous person. This happens all the time. I told you one story because it was similar and how I was like, they thought I was stealing, you know, but
my life is filed well, not field. I've had a really happy life, but there's enough of these incidents in my life for me to understand that and rather a lack of these occurrences and my less melanated friends is life to let me know that our experiences are often different, and it's important to share that, especially on this show, because this might be the only place you'll hear about it, So, you know, shout out to Ryan Coogler, you know, keep doing your thing, and I guess you know, we've all
learned from it, all right, And that's a good enough place to leave it for right now. Stick around your radios. We're coming back with more Civic Cipher right after this