Civic Cipher 031922 The U.S. Gun Problem

because it's relevant. We're also going to spend a little time talking about the Floating Freedom School that is going to be our way black history fact, and I promise you want to stick on stick around for that because it's just a neat little way that a man was able to circumvent the law and educate black students at a time when black people were not allowed to be educated. But first, let's discuss how to become a better ally.

So this comes from NPR, A new musical, inspired by a satirical afro futurist novel called Black No More, opens off Broadway. It was presented by the New Group. Set during the Depression, both the book and the musical examine race in America with an outrageous plot device. An inventor comes up with the machines, a machine that turns black people white. In a dappursuit to wreak, Trotter aka Black Thought of the Roots here center stage to set the scene.

Sitting in a barbershop chair, he wraps, this is Harlem, the big apples core seventy or more years before there were any Apple stores. I wish I could heard him say that, because that's an adult rolling off his incredible yeah man off his voice. So Trotter wrote the lyrics so much of the music, which ranges from hip hop to R and B to jazz and folk, and he plays doctor Junius crookman, inventor of the Black No More machine, which will turn any black person white for fifty dollars.

Trotter says, the doctor believes this Black No More device is the solution to race relations to America. I think the line is to solve American race problem. As we know it. But yeah, you know, I don't think a solution is ever reached. And that is the twilight Zone like premise of Black No More, which features a script

by Academy Award winner John Ridley. In nineteen thirty one novel by George Schuler has they take no prisoner's attitude toward not just why supremacist and politicians, but then the veiled figures from the Harlem Renaissance. It goes on to say, of course, particularly when they're black, making fun of black people. The challenge for the creative team, especially the writers, was to move the story from broad satire to something with a beating heart. And I think what they've come up

with is a really fascinating morality tale. So become a better ally. Why not check out this musical based on the novel Black No More at your earliest convenience?

will not be charged, prosecutor said Monday right. The officer, whose identity has not been made public, had objectively reasonable grounds to believe the officer and others faced imminent danger when the officer opened fire June twenty first in Arvada, north of Denver, killing a bystander, John Hurley, forty years old.

First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King told reporters quote, officers saw that day a mass shooter, heard many rounds of gunfire, and broad daylight in the heart of old Town, Arvada. King said, he continues, Thus, the officer's decision to shoot John Hurley was legally justified, despite his heroic actions that day.

In other words, there was a man who was in the middle of a mass shooting, right, and there was another man, this man Hurley, who saw this happening, had a gun and engaged the mass.

so I will be fair. I will see that. But this narrative that that exists largely I won't say on the right, but largely with gun owners, is that the only thing that will stop a good guy with or the only thing I will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, right, which in this case was true. Until the good guy with

the gun got shot too. And I'm not here to pick apart that argument, but I am here to say, you know, maybe there's a gun problem, and maybe these overly simplistic solutions that people keep trying to offer for they're not realistic right now on this show. I I don't want to say we because Q is a different man and he's got different opinions, But I ramses who has been to New Zealand, who has been to you know places, you know, Hong Kong, and you know Q's

been in all these places too. But I've been to some different places and Q's been in some different places. But I've seen places where they don't have gun violence and guns are just as legal. It's a part of their freedoms, right. And then there's places where there's no guns. It is not a part of their freedoms. But that means nobody has any guns, not the police, not the you know, they don't have a Second Amendment as it were.

But there are places where you are allowed to have a gun, and the police are allowed to have guns too, and they don't carry it with them. Like the assumption isn't like, well, what if something happens. You know what, if I need to end someone's life today, you know, the assumption is if I need a gun, it will be close by. But my day to day activities don't require that. So I'm not going to live in fear in that way. If I need a gun, I'll go

get it out of the trunk of my car. Right, And so there's that pause, Do I really need to end this person's life? Because if I do, I need to go to the trunk, get it and then come back and then in this person's life. Right. And I understand that, you know, sometimes you have to make split second decisions and in this country, you know, blah blah blah. But the point is not that Ramses has the solutions.

The point is that that narrative, you know that that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, That narrative that you know, we need more guns, not less. Remember there were a few years or a couple of years ago that we were talking about getting teachers guns and school in schools.

die in order for police to do their job. Some innocent people just got to die in order for police to do their job. And they're, oh, sorry, and they call this guy Hurley, they call him a hero for stepping in and stopping the gunmen. And of course it was an accident. It didn't mean to die. And then guess what, nothing changes, The same thing can happen tomorrow.

Life is worth so little, especially black life, It's worth so little, and then there's no accountability behind it. And that's the part that hurts the most. You know, people talk about all kinds of you know, what are black people doing about Chicago, you know, and the murder rate there? What are black people doing about this and that and the other thing? You know, Yeah, you know, something happens there.

There's the possibility that you could potentially get justice for the wrongful that if some person on the street goes and takes the life of your child, there's the potential for there to be justice there. A police officer does it, and they can it doesn't have to it can be on video. The police officer does it because of qualified immunity because they had a gun at the ready. There's no justice in that. It just died and that's the cost of doing business. And everyone seems to be okay

with that. Go ahead to I.

home with no punishment. The criminal justice system and its flaws, that's one of the many however, in most cases, especially if the gunment is black. When you talk about this black on black crime since we brought up Chicago, if the people know who committed the crime and it can be proven, that person's going to jail unless they're a police officer. And that's what Rams is talking about. Yeah, so it's a very face of obvious and compelling evidence.

This person's going to prison unless they're a police officer.

But I think that this story illuminates the problem, which is why we're talking about it, and I think it lets us further know that the problem isn't more guns.

The problem isn't well, I'm going to carry my gun with me everywhere, and I'm going to make a difference if I run across a mass shooter or someone being taken advantage of, or you know, whatever the case is, because there is this psychogun culture that exists, right, and black people have certainly been on the receiving end of that with respect to police since the beginning of guns and police.

again just collateral damage, man's cost of doing business. And then because of qualified immunity, even if his mom wanted justice, like yo, my son was helping out, there's no way she could sue. There's no way she could get compensation. There's no way that you know, I'm not sure what happened here, but I don't know how she's paid for the funeral for her child, you know, I don't know if he had kids I don't know, you know what what's next, right, And so there's a whole system that

deserves criticism. It deserves it because that's how we make it as good as it can be. And those people that are holding on to the way it is right now are ignoring the realities, which is that it doesn't always work. And if you feel like this collateral damage is acceptable, then I need you to check your morality.

is the craziest part. With the amount of money being spent, the entire infrastructure of what they're doing be crime prevention, which would not require the guns and the militarization of our police forces. They just respond in the most to crimes that already happened and in this case, even when you tell them something's gonna happen, they still wait for

it to happen. If somebody calls and threatens to kill you and you call the police on them, the police can't do anything to that person until they've already tried to kill you. And I say try, hoping it wasn't successful. The brother of this man who went on this mass shooting, who killed a police officer at least one, there was a note found in his home saying he intended to kill as many Arvada officers as he possibly could. Earlier that day, this gentleman's brother asked the police to him

because he might do something crazy. I'm guessing they didn't because in their minds, well, the idea that he might do something crazy doesn't mean anything to us. He hasn't done anything yet, so it's all good. And that is part of the problem, folks.

to respond to crimes that have already happened. And so the case, the argument makes itself. The case makes itself because it's like, well, what can we do to prevent a crime from happening. Well, let's invest in programs that prevent crimes from happening. And then what's the next logical question, Well, where does the money come from to make that investment? Well, if we're preventing crimes from happening, then we have a

budget to respond to crimes that have already happened. That budget seems like the most logical place to pull from to invest in these programs to prevent the necessity of that big budget, hence defund the police.

Because you're absolutely right. If we can invest in crime prevention in that, you know, and we can actually decrease the crime or prevent the crime from happening in the first place, then what's in this necessity of this this budget to you know, go to war against the people that we're supposed to, you know, be protecting. There's something else too. I came across this. It just reminds me. It's a little bit of a tangent. But you know, if enough people are breaking a law, it shouldn't be

a law. You shouldn't arrest all the people and put them in jail to change the law. The law is wrong, not the people. The people are the people should dictate the laws, not the other way around. And again a fundamental shift in how we're thinking about what is policing, What are laws? What should the laws be?

we'll change the world together. Before we end, go ahead.

a response to very, very extreme and urgent circumstances. That's fair at a time when the country was not just hyper polarized against black and brown people. In my home where everybody there is black and brown, and I mean black and Mexican specifically because our country was our pregnant had become president on the basis of keeping Mexican people out of our country. Build that wall was his actual

quote unquote war cry. So when my daughter and my son and my fiance who were Mexican and black, my children being both, and on top of there being this radical polarization of our country, there being a pandemic where food and necessities for the home started to become in short supply. Being the person in our open carry state of Arizona that did not own a gun when almost everyone else does. And to be fair, Ramses has been to my home. My home looks like the place where

the people who have stuff live. It's use we might not have stuff, but the people that live in that house have stuff. It would have been irresponsible for me to not be a gun owner under those circumstances. I am not a person that celebrates or wants there to be guns. Ever. I'm scared that I have guns and

I have kids. Right. I was just put in a position as the head of my household, the provider and the protector of my family, where I could not be the person in the event that nobody had anything and it appeared that I did. It was the have versus the have nots. You guys were going to continue to be the have nots if it came at the cost of my family not having it. So it was not

let me hit these streets of my guns. I've never left my house with my guns except for to go to the range so that I could be better prepared to use them if I ever had to. I don't carry a gun. I don't have a gun holster. There's no place in my car to put my gun. My guns remain locked safe in my home so that everybody if anyone ever came to my home looking to cause harm or to take from the people who I love and I am there to protect, then it wouldn't have

been a good day for them. Outside of that, I hope to never ever use a gun. Ever, and the day that our country says y'all can't have them, trust me, I am first to tell them y'all can come get them. I'll bring them to y'all. Y'all let me know which one works better for you.

Barry meetscham Asitis comes from Wikipedia. As a young man, he guided seventy five enslaved people from Kentucky to their freedom in Indiana Free State. Once established in Missouri, he and his wife Mary Meecham were conductors on the underground railroad. They also purchased enslaved people and took them into their home. The Meechum's employed the enslaved people that they purchased and emancipated them when they had saved enough to repay their

purchase price. In the meantime, they were also educated and learned skills to be self sufficient once free. John and Mary also helped run away enslaved people across the Mississippi and into the Illinois into Illinois along the underground railroad. The Mary Meecham Freedom Crossing in Saint Louis, the first side in Missouri to be accepted in the National Park Services National Underground Railroad Network with Freedom, was named after Mary.

Beginning in eighteen twenty two, Meacham taught religious and secular classes for free. It was the first known school for blacks in Missouri. Called the Candle Talau School, It charged those who could pay one dollar per pupil intuition. Classes were held secretly in the basement of a church. In eighteen forty seven, he was forced to close the school he had been operating in the Saint Louis church basement.

Earlier that year, the miss Missouri legislature had passed a law that made it illegal to provide quote the instruction of negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing. In Meatcham and one of his teachers were arrested by the sheriff and threatened to circumvent the new state law in Missouri. Reverend Meacham bought a steamboat, which he anchored in the middle of the Mississippi River, thus placing it under the authority of the federal government. The new floating Freedom School

was outfitted with desks, chairs, and to library. Students were ferried back and forth between Saint Louis and the Freedom School and small skiffs. The school eventually attracted teachers from the East. Hundreds of black children were educated at the Freedom School in the eighteen forties and eighteen fifties. Those who could pay recharge one dollar a month. One of the early students was James Milton Turner, who would go on to establish thirty new schools for African Americans in

Missouri after the Civil War. Another was John R. Anderson, received much of his reading and religious training from the school. Reverend Anderson later took over management of the school after Meechum's death in eighteen fifty four. And there's a lot more here, but because of the time, I can't really go into it, but necessary to remind people that did he want us to read, He want us to write, and he want us to learn and.

this is where we come from. And you hold your head up, you stay strong, you get with it, you get out there, you get busy, you do what you gotta do, you figure it out, you know, but this is where you come from. I wish that I had like a G eight story. Yeah, ancestors came over on some boat from Europe, and you know that sounds like a great story. We came over its slave chains and well, you know, singing spirituals and we shall overcome. But I'm proud of it. I'm proud to teach it. I'm proud

to know it. I had to learn to be proud of it. But it's hard for me to listen to someone else talk about how it makes them feel bad, because anybody gets deserves to feel bad, how uncomfortable they are. Because but but that's going to do it for us today here on Civic Cipher. So once again I'm the host. Fransis Josh go by the name qbred website, civi exacker dot com. Listening with PEPs episodes. Be sure to make a donation, sure going your help and follow us on

all social media at Civic Cecher and until next week. Y'all, yeah they go. We had the lady.