Civic Cipher 031321 Ramses Ja, Q Ward, and Tessa Farrell

is no exception. We got a few things to talk about. I do want to touch on some of the voter suppression is what we're calling voter suppression legislature that is on the floor at least in Phoenix, Arizona, where we live, and some of the other articles that are on the floor or have passed already in other places. We'll get to that a little later in the show. I do,

even though it's not necessarily American. I do want to talk about recent events with respect to Megan Markle and Prince Harry and all of the stuff that they're going through, because I do think that at least warrants a conversation, and this is really the only space where we can have that conversation in a mass media format. But first, I wanted to talk about something that is kind of interesting.

So being black, we obviously we recognize that the world is just a little different for us, or maybe it's a little different for our Caucasian brothers and sisters. I

think that goes without saying. If you're listening to the show, you might have an idea of what we're going on about, and you know, for the most part, it's just kind of understood that there are some things that you know that just we don't expect, right, But rarely do we get to actually hear about a story from the beginning all the way through to what I'll call the end. In this case, we have a guest on the show today who is a sometimes contributor in terms of commentary.

She is a political activist. She's done lots of work with Rerising and a bunch of other groups. Can't even name them all, but certainly a visible figure out on the street and what we would consider an ally. Her name is Tessa Ferrell and recently she was able to follow up with a Karen, the Scottsdale Karen, the one that was in Target, I want to say, tearing down all the masks and so forth. And you know, rarely

do we hear the end of these stories. They come up, their sensationalized and then they you know, they fall by the wayside and no one follows up. But we have a an actual direct interaction with this woman, and and we have we have an opportunity to examine the ways that sometimes the world treats, you know, folks different. And and I don't want to get too much into it. I don't want to tell the story before she does, so I'll just bring her on the mic. So welcome

once again. Yeah. So, so for those who don't know, I know I kind of gave a brief introduction to the story. But can you tell a little about what happened. I want to say it was July of twenty twenty.

and so forth. Now, mind you, this was around the same time when you know, we were taken to the streets for George Lloyd, and we were before that there was a string of police killings, and then after that as well, and so we were already the Black delegation, if you will, We're already on high alert with respect to the way the world treats us differently and how we felt and feel often as though our Caucasian brothers and sisters have a tendency to distance themselves from our concerns.

In other words, for the most part, there is this either cavalier attitude toward it or this pronounced attitude of well, that's not me behaving like that, and so because I'm not behaving that way, it's not my problem.

he begged for his life. And then there's a woman who's actually actually causing a disturbance to society act actually actually causing damage or or harming you know, the larger population, and uh.

you know, get to your wits end. You can become frustrated with the authority, with the government, with whoever, and you're allowed to have your moment. For the most part, you're allowed to be a human and make a mistake or whatever. And then if there needs to be some sort of ramifications or repercussions or whatever, you are treated humanely in during that process. You're still treated as though there's the potential for you to be rehabilitated or maybe

you potentially made a mistake. I remember the arresting officer when they took her into custody, apologized to her as he was handcuffing her, and so he's like, hey, you know, I'm sorry, I gotta do this. Wow. And so there again that attitude that exists that we again we the black delegation. That's a bar I took from Dave Chappelle,

but a black host. It's one that we know very well that you know, we don't want to cross paths with those people because they don't Their heart turns off when when there's a little bit too much melanin in front of them, you know, and it's kind of sad because Melanin is all of our friend, you know, it's

how I think about it. But again, I thought it was important because if you don't agree that that's an example of privilege, or if you don't agree that that's a one off sort of instance, and I'm comparing apples to oranges, George Floyd versus whoever this Karen is from Scottsdale,

you know, then that's fine. But because Tessa was able to follow up with her and find out the rest of the story and how things fleshed out, I thought that maybe that would tell the story that I've been trying to tell and that we've been trying to tell a little bit better because you can see where one road leads to death and the other one leads to and I'll let you finish. So what happened?

incident go viral. I guess they were like in some divorce proceeding or something like that they had some issue, like as the stories I'll tell the night before, all these justifications right as to how she ended up in this place, and you know, then they source in all these articles talking about interviewing all of these people that know her as to how this behavior is so unlike her, and clearly there were issues leading up. But she ends up going on what is now multiple news channels. She's

a pr rep, so she's spinning this perfectly. Goes on to say that that she she was brainwashed by Quanon through the course of COVID and being at home and the stress of everything, and how you know, being at home and being on the internet all the time she was taking on all this information and how it was

slowly brainwashing her. And so she goes on to say then that she has a mental collapse and what we're witnessing is not racist behavior, because she ends up making racial slur She posts racial stuff Joe won't obviously like elaborate on, but it exists in the world of the internet. But she ends up saying that it's a mental health collapse and then voluntarily submits herself to no core order. She as you saw like, she's not as you mentioned,

she's not, you know, like attacked. The police don't arrest her on the spot. She's not thrown on the ground. They show up at her house, they apologize as they're arresting her, and she voluntarily submits herself to some like it's listed as like one of the luxury like recover your resorts. So I saw another article again today about it in the Washington Post. So we're talking national news

here where she's where they're where. They give her the opportunity to timeline these events and talk about how she got to the police she got to and then ample space to discuss her journey into mental health and what she's learned since and how she's rebuilding her life and

what this whole episode cost her. And so I started commenting on it and tagging her in things on the internet saying that I understand that mental health isn't is a real thing, that we should work on destigmatizing mental health, and we need to allocate funds in our budgets, specifically from the seven hundred and forty five million dollars police budget that the Phoenix PD receives into into you know, mental health services, over five almost half a million calls

in this last year alone to the police work for like mental wellness checks. So I'm not I'm not diminishing the need for mental health you know services, But she gets the opportunity right to spin this instance as something

that is solely rooted in a mental health collapse. She doesn't you know, the fact that she even gets to tell her story, where black folk in general don't get that opportunity, but particularly black folk during mental health checks of their own, when their families are begging cops not to do what cops do.

me cringe a little bit. Right, you're going to get a book deal after doing this, just because she was treated like a human being when the police were called. And I think a big thing last year, as our call for social justice reached its height, was people were confusing the idea that we wanted not to be treated the same as our white brothers and sisters, but for them to be treated the way that we've been treated. The call was the opposite. We're not saying, hey, shoot

more unarmed white men and women. We're saying, have the same heart, empathy, emotional intelligence, patience, and tolerance when you show up to see us that you do when you see them. Give us a chance to tell our story, give us a chance to make a mistake, give us a chance to rehabilitate. Instead, on more cases than we wish to counter talk about on video, we're shot dead.

laugh and all these things. Right, If you can appreciate what I've just suggested to you, then you understand how precious a life is and how easily it can be taken away. If you're a human being with a beating heart, then you understand how vulnerable we are and how special we are to be able to enjoy this thing called life. Doesn't matter what color you are, what you believe, or anything like that. That is one fundamental truth that we

all can agree on. You don't have to be human, you can just you can be a plant and agree on that everything thrives to survive, strives to survive.

right now. And this is part of the thing that we're trying to suggest. Nobody wants a book deal after they interact with the police, because we know that for us, just being able to get out of that interaction alive and go home to see our children is the goal, you know, because it really, like, my heart never beats faster than when I see those lights light up behind me, and I'm like, oh man, okay, here we go, you know, And I started thinking of everything I just did for

the past fifteen minutes. How long they've been following me? What did I do wrong? What story done?

He loved people smiled. He was smiling in the video. You know, obviously he was drinking. He drank too much, stopped driving the car. He was sitting there. Police interact with him, They get him out, they do a sobriety test or otherwise, you know, welfare check on him, and it seemed like they were kind of doing a you know, just what is that thing where a cat just plays with its prey before it kills it, just toying with him, you know, because they know he's drunk or whatever, but

they let him whatever. And then finally they suggest to him that he's going to have to go to jail. Right so he panics rightfully. So you know, that's different if you're black. You know, what's her name where she went to jail and then died there? I forgured her name, Sandra Bland.

deny clearly. So that's a very scary interaction because that's how it's framed in our mind, because that's how it is. So he panics, and he turns and runs away, and then the police pull out their guns and they shoot him in the back and he dies. His life ended in a parking lot of Wendy's on the pavement. It wasn't even a sidewalk. His life ended right there, that same life, that same life that his mother pushed him out.

He took his first breath, He played with all his friends, his cousins, He had goals, dreams, hopes, and he was executed on the sidewalk, running away, posing no threat to anyone. Right didn't damage any property, he didn't tear any masks down at a target.

you know, go for it. But the way I remember reading the stories, he's in his garage and he's like working on a car, starting the engine, turning it off, starting the engine, turning it off, and a neighbor calls the police. The police come and they show up, and they have their cameras on but or they have their cameras off, but it only it still records the last

thirty seconds or something with no audio. So what you see from the police camera is an officer walk up to the garage, you see Andre Hill walk out of the garage. You see the officer pull a gun, shoot him, and he dies right there in his own garage working on his car. He did nothing except, you know, I don't even know what he did.

was bigotry. That was not fear. So I'm glad you said anger that time, because they use fear as a very convenient excuse. After the fact, it's very, very hard to justify that you murdered a guy you were afraid of as he ran away from you.

much recognition, and I don't care to remember it. But I'm very familiar with the example of this sort of thing happen and there being no real consequences. Now, I do want to say this, now, we're all human beings first above all else.

call it a mental illness. If that's what she was in fact suffering from, and she went to go get help for it, there's really nothing else to see here. One thing that I've learned about black people is we tend to be very forgiving. I'm no exception, So hey, man, lesson, learn, don't do it again. Let's move forward, right. But I think that the point that all three of us are making here today is let's try and treat black folks. Let's try and treat Hispanic folks, our Native brothers and sisters.

You know, we're here in the Southwest, if you know, you might be listening and you know, Wisconsin or something, But in the Southwest, you know, there's lots of problems that plague the communities of our Native brothers and sisters. You know, let's give those same people, you know, as you put it, the same consideration. You know, Okay, I'm showing up. If you're an officer, if you're someone who is inclined to call the police or whatever, let's take

a beat and really understand what's at risk here. What's at stake. These are human lives, and the people showing up with murder weapons, and those of the people that are supposed to help you, they show up with the only thing that that thing was designed to do was in the life. That's the only thing a gun is designed to do. It's not a knife. You can't shape a tool, you can't prepare food with a gun. The only thing that it will do is in the life.

That I have a fundamental problem with you calling someone who shows up and their primary tool is the only function of it is to end the life. And that's the person that's supposed to help someone who if they are having a mental issue that doesn't check out for me, or any other kind of issue for that matter. With the exception of I don't know going to war, I

don't know. I don't I don't understand how that's you know, But I don't have all the answers here, and I don't want to rent, but I do want to talk about the part of this story where the Karen had an opportunity to speak to the I want to say, as a Huffington Post or something like that, Washington that was the Washington Post, so real quick, and then we'll move on. What do you recall from her interaction with there? And then what was the conclusion of your interaction with her directly?

getting to tell the lining up of events. This one, this most recent story just kind of covered how she's recovering from, if you will, this brainwashing, right, and she goes on to say, like her family is Jewish and so I want to say white passing in this moment, like but blonde hair and blue eyes, right, But she goes on to say how it there was a lot of trauma that was brought up for her and this idea of her Judaism and her family's history and other

familial issues that haven't been worked through, and so as I'm you know, kind of challenging her in this respect, not on her mental health, because we all deserve the opportunity to heal and grow in our mental health, but rather how if she's saying she's grown, what looks to me like not cancel culture, but accountability culture is recognizing the privilege that you have as a white passing or white person, getting all of these opportunities to heal, to discuss,

to grow, whether I mean, and that's layered right, that's the socioeconomic to be able to even have the affordability to receive that kind of care. Sure, you know the stigma that surrounds, you know, cultural perspectives on that her whiteness alone, as we already mentioned, to be alive to tell this tale. And I challenged her on it, and she said that the whole reason she's done everything she's

done is to highlight her privilege. And I said, but I don't hear you talking about anything other than yourself in the story, and she said, thanks for sharing, and like blocked me on all the things. Yeah, And I didn't know.

help people grow. And to me, when it looks like you're canceled, when you've shown that there's an ineptitude to want to grow and now you're just making excuses and she continues to make excuses, and that's for me where it became particularly problematic because you had an opportunity to really say, hey, the only reason I'm getting to talk about this is because I'm white and I'm here still, like nobody else outside of a white person would get to tell this story, right, like we already know seen

it a million times over in the news.

acknowledge shortcomings. We we do our best to celebrate when when things get accomplished. You know, when when the election went the way that a lot of us were hoping it would, you know, that was a time for celebration. And then sometimes we have to look back and we have to you know whatever, and so uh, you know, for all of allies, all the allies listening to my voice right now, everybody who believes that, you know, tomorrow

has the potential to be better than today. I want to remind you that you know that we love you.

We appreciate your support fiscally or otherwise, even if it's just listening and trying to grow listening to conversations that you and I have that we allow other folks to listen into who might not have grown up with the same vantage point as us, and I just want to make sure that that's stated because sometimes we can get kind of deep into a conversation, and it might be a little challenging, but it doesn't mean that we are

angry or we're not forever angry. You know, it's it's one of those things where it's it's all a part of the healing process.

or that I'm not being too naive. And you know, there's a good mix here. It took Malcolm and it took Martin, and you know I like that analogy. So moving on, I do want to talk about again. Even though it's not strictly relevant to what happens here in the US with black folks, I think that it does kind of speak to some underlying issues that we deal with in this country. That's Megan Markle and her interview

with Oprah. Now, I know that you've probably heard about it and so forth, But if not, she sat down with Oprah and talked about excuse me, she talked about her time in the UH with the royal family and the Buckingham Palace. I want to say, or I'm not too familiar with any of that stuff.

her child getting a royal title. There's a lot of things that she said. She said, she wasn't supported and so forth. But you know, I'm not going to argue those things because that could be because she's female, that could be because of a hundred other things. But you know, this show exists to really help bridge bridge the gap in so far as race is concerned between all our different cultures, so that we can kind of fellowship in

a fellowship as brothers and sisters. So I want to speak to the issues that she had with respect to race and her child. So she said that there was they didn't want to give her child a title. And along with a title like prince, the baby's name is Archie. I want to say, yeah, so Prince Archie. So along with the title, he would have gotten protection. Like there's a like think like secret secret service, right, so they

have something similar over there. I guess it's like James Bond and all the guys with the hats, big hats, and.

that that's when Prince Harry terrible with names. Prince Harry he added to that conversation, and he's like, yeah, you know that that happened, and he said that he didn't want to hell, he didn't want He'll never say who was the person that was saying those things.

They're not the only family with prestige, money, wealth, whatever. And and to know that these folks, they spend so much of their energy trying to look like they're really for the people, you know, the even Britain colonized most of the world, and you know, it has had to come to terms of what that means. You know, they've had to deal with the people of the world in

a lot of ways. And to know that they still kind of have this turn your nose up sort of attitude or or this black skin is beneath us, it's not welcome in our house. We don't want that. The title is for us, not for them, you know, or the the you know, how how dark will his skin be? Like that sort of a thing, as though dark, darker skin is some somehow undesigirable. It's it's these subtle things that you hear about throughout the course of your life.

I got thirty eight years of them. There's people older than me, there's people younger than me. You know, these little micro uh these these these instances that are relatively frequent and by themselves are not extremely impactful, but over many years and decades in my case of knowing that, man, you know what, no matter how cool you think these people are, how you know, you see them on TV, you know whatever, at the end of the day, they just don't like you. They're just that, you know, That's

just how it is. I remember Paris Hilton said something.

This was back when Paris Hilton was on top. She says something that was super out of pocket, and I was like, really, you know, and they're there, these people get paraded around on TV like their heroes, and you know, you see them on TV, so you think they're good people there, they belong there, and so forth, and then you realize that they, like a lot of our Caucasian brothers and sisters, have a tendency to insulate themselves from the real day to day people who support them, who

allow them to hold that place, especially black people. Black people may as well be on a different planet with a whole different set of problems that they want nothing to do with. And I know I'm painting with broad strokes.

I'm talking potentially about one person in one family. But the point is is that over my thirty eight years, if you hear one person from one family and another person from a different family, and this person from this job, and this person who works with this place, and this person who you saw at the grocery store, and then you know, over and over again, eight ten times a year, at the end of your or once you reach your

thirty eighth year, you know you have a profile. I might interact with fifty people in a day, but it's that one person that's the one that'll stick with you, you know, and you know it. You build this profile where you start to feel like, why why do you hate me? What did I do to you? My skin might be too dark? What is what is that's like saying my hair might be too well, I guess that is the same thing. My hair might be too curly. My hair

might be too curly. I know you probably can't see me, but I got a lot of hair in it's really curly. But but yeah, man, it just that that that's set with me the wrong way, and I know that it for a lot of other black folks. And I want to get your take on this too. Q. When you hear that, it feels like, ah, you know, like I knew it, but I you know, when she says it was like another like it's like a death of a

thousand cuts. You know, it's just another cut where you're like, you know, and then that woman is so pretty she I mean, she could pass for a white to me, she could pass for white if she wanted to, you know, or white and Asian or white, and you know she didn't want to be black. You know, there's no there's nothing visibly that I would say that I could definitively say, oh, yes, this is a black woman. She's just clearly mixed with something that made her look like a pretty lady. But

she still was too black. Her child, which is only half her, it is too still too black. And I think that harkens back to that one drop rule that was that existed during slave times, or if you were one one drop of your blood was black, then that meant that you were black and you were no good to a white family and you had to be working

the slave fields or in the house at best. So I wanted to say that because I think that a lot of us thought it, and I don't like having these microaggressions, these micro infractions build up and not have the space to have a little bit of therapy about it and talk about it, get it out in the in the open, and just discuss it. You know, this is a better world than the one I was born into after thirty eight years, but it is also a world that we need to work on.

to think and believe another way. The really interesting position that it puts me in. We were talking about Bill Maher a few shows ago, and he had some guests on who spoke about the you know, white privilege not existing, racism not existing. You know, no one white that's alive now owned slaves. No one Black that's alive now was a slave, So why are we still talking about it? Kind of mentality? And Bill and his guests going on and on about how they're tired of hearing about race.

They're tired of it, And based on his interactions with his black friends, so are they? Bill maher speaking for not just himself but all of black people, because his black friends, including this black guest, said so they were tired of being the victim in that conversation. And I can understand that part of it to be true. And I can also understand the discomfort that comes with always pointing out, Yo, that was racist again for the ninety

two thousandth time. There's a discomfort with being the person that's pointing it out. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like I don't want to have to say it. Yeah, you should know better this And bless her heart, another sister on this interview trying with all of her not to call her in laws racist, not to point out the very clear and blatant reason why her and her child won't be treated the same. Why they want to deny the baby a title and the protection and inheritance

that comes with that. She has a very very and it's not because she doesn't come from royalty. He has an older brother that married a woman that became famous. And even the way they cover the exact same things about them, from them being pregnant and carrying a bump to eating avocado, the way that the press covered the exact same things for both women polar opposite, it's incredibly obvious why and so many people seem so shocked that the royal family was racist. Are you serious? The British

colonizing Royal family is racist? Oh my god? Are they?

best compliment I could possibly pay you the way. I need you to learn how to bow to her before you meet her. I need you to learn how to bow to her properly as to not insult her and my family before you meet her. And Meghan doesn't get offended and say, how dare you? Meghan an accomplished actress, very well off on her own. She's not trying to come up on some money here, took that and spent the time to pay this man's grandmother the proper respect.

I will learn a deep curtsy, as she said, so that I could greet her properly, as is tradition in your family. Yes, sweetheart, I love you. Whatever I need to do, run it will do it. And her being so beautiful and charismatic and well spoken and educated and articulate was threatening to them even more so, how dare you bring this black woman into the family who's also going to become a superstar as a member of this family. We can't have that. She can't be the face of

the family. And what was scary to Harry, which he and I did not mean to rhyme right there, but what was scary to him? He pointed this out I don't know if this part of the interview aired, but Oprah spoke about this the next day when she was on a talk show. His mother was treated bad Princess Diana for those of you who don't know, because she wasn't of royalty, and she had that same charisma, that same gravity. People fell in love with her.

I do want to remind you that you're tuned into Civic Cipher to check the website civiccipher dot com to download this and any of our previous shows, to donate support the show, and to find links to everything else we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about the political Action Initiative proposed by the NAACP. If you miss out on this part again check the website a Civic cipher dot com. But shifting gears here briefly. Oh, before it do, I do want to say Stacy Dash?

Did you hear about her? Hear about Stacy Dash?

this is not me saying anything that's partisan. I'm not a big fan of Republicans. I think we all know that, but I'm not trying to be in this moment. Republicans have an overwhelming tendency to disenfranchise.

which gives white males. I saw it's on Netflix. I think it's white males in Wisconsin. They had their voter's worth like one point seven five votes, and not just white men there, but.

people voting. This is not new, This is something that has happened over and it just creates more and more hurdles, and Black people have to jump over these hurdles, you know, and we always do. Obama, we elected Obama, we got Biden in there. You know. It's just that's the battle front that I found that Republicans tend to wage their war on. The thing is it doesn't feel like a war of ideas as much as it feels like a war on technicalities. They take full advantage of a society.

You know, we talk about capitalism quite a bit on the show, but you know, capitalistic society compels you to work and maximize profit and you know all these sorts of things, and so a lot of folks are not able to engage to the degree that they otherwise would because they have families to feed, they have to live their life, and so pieces of legislature like this can you know, get brought brought up in you know, debates, and you know, they can get sent to the Florida

vote and then they can pass, and then we don't hear about it until the next time we go to vote. You know, in three four years time, and then we find out, oh, the polls are closed on Sunday. So where we live in Arizona, I want to take a moment to discuss a couple of couple of things. One is up for vote right now. It's called SB fourteen eighty five. This is in Arizona, and these are all across all the states. So if you live in a different state, please look up what's going on in your state.

Research it, get in contact with the NAACP chapter in your state, find out how they're recommending that you vote, so that your vote still counts, so that it's not difficult to vote, so that people who are like minded, who really want their voice to be heard, are still able to vote. But this SB fourteen eighty five, effectively, it would remove people from the permanent early voting list if they fail to vote by mail for multiple elections

in a row. That means that if you haven't voted in the past three elections because you didn't like the past three sets of candidates, then on the fourth one you know you don't, you no longer have the option to do.

You can join the Maricopa County Branch of the NAACP for a community community discussion on action to combat voter supression in Arizona. It's taking place Saturday, March twenty seventh at eleven thirty am and it's being held by Zoom And you can check out the Americopa County Branch of the NAACP to get more information on that zoom. There's plenty of other things on here as well that I don't have time to go over because we're just about time. But once again, i'm your host, ramses joh They call

me Qward and then. For more information, please check the website at civiccipher dot com. Please consider donating to the show. We do this for you and we need your support for the show to continue to grow. Follow our social media at Civic Cipher, and I want to thank our guest Tessa Farall for showing up today.