Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, rams is Jah.
They call me q.
Ward, but it's an abbreviation of my actual name, but I'll get into that later. How you doing, Rams, I'm good man, had a good week man, having yourself fantastic.
We got esteemed company today.
Yes, indeed we are joined on this show by the one and only Diane Post. How you doing.
I'm doing good? But there are actually four Dyane Posts in the Phoenix area.
You know. Something tells me that you would know the exact number, and so I'm the only lawyer though we have the special one.
You have the special one exactly.
Indeed we do. And of course we're going to talk about not just the voter suppression initiatives that are being drawn up, voted on, and so forth. We're also going to talk about a number of other things that are beinging brought to vote in the city.
In the state, in the state and the city too. Actually we can talk about that.
Yeah, absolutely, But before we go too far past it, I want people to know really who you are. So let's give everyone a little bit of background about who's joining us today on Civicsider.
Well, I'm an attorney. I've been an attorney since nineteen eighty before you parents were probably born. And I did eighteen years here in Phoenix representing battered women and molested children, and so I did a lot of that and that
can really burn you right out. From there, I went to doing international human rights law and I worked for ABA, the State Department Germany, a various variety of different groups, and I lived in six different countries Hungary, Russia twice in Hungary, Cambodia, Kenya, Algeria, and then I worked in fourteen others, so all over the former Soviet Union, and then some other Africa countries that I worked in as well. So that was all on human rights, primarily related to
violence against women and children, not solely, but primarily. And then I also did the in Hungary, I worked with the European Roman Rights Center. Do you know who Roma are? They might you might call them gypsies, yes, but the proper name is Roma. And so I represented them and
eventually brought a case against the United Nations. It's an m versus unmik because of they placed the Roma refugees from the War of the Balkans on lead poison land, which they knew was lead poison, and they said it was for seven months and it was ten years before we got them off of there, So that took out a whole generation. I mean, it really destroys the children. And the same things happening where Flint, Chicago, Lesbos, Greece, Peru in a mining company, top mining town. So this
is still going on. And I won the case in twenty sixteen. I started in twenty six so ten years to win that case. Finally won the case in twenty sixteen. M and the United Nations has not paid one dime, not one dime. So we're still fighting that, trying to get the actual compensation for the people who were injured, and also an apology that they were told by the court give them an apology. They won't even do that.
They won't do that.
So yeah, one of the other things that I did when I was there was the Aroma very much look at the African American black struggle as a model for them. They really view the struggles that have gone on here is what they've gone through, and I saw it, and I'm old enough to have been in Chicago in nineteen sixty three doing marches, and so they are living and treated the way that African Americans were treated one hundred years ago. Oh third, wow, third women or second their
third And so they had me bring over the nobles. Oh, it's very interesting. They had me bring over noble because they wanted to bring the black police officers over to talk to them about how they could respond appropriately to the hostility the violence from the police in Europe against them. So they are the most discriminated against group in Europe. Absolutely. Well, we're doing a panel the end of May on this and we're going to have the people from Peru, Greece,
the US. We also have the lawyer who did the suit in Haiti. Remember when the UN came and everybody got cholera from the UN soldiers that they brought over from I forgot where somewhere, Yeah, And so they they didn't even get as far as I did, but they did sue the UN and again they didn't get fart. So part of the whole thing is holding institutions accountable, holding institutions accountable.
And that's something that I've gathered from your action alerts, the email that I get. So for those that don't know, Diane Post is very involved with the legal goings on in the city and the state, and she has an email list where she keeps folks like me, I mean, as informed as as we can be. And all we need to do is just kind of peruse what's what's up for vote.
And most important to you that you want to take time to respond on.
Exactly exactly, And so we're going to talk about how people can plug into that a little bit later on in the show, because we want to talk about what's on the floor as well. But this is who's joining us today. So again, as Q mentioned, an esteemed guest, someone that is very much an ally and very much obviously someone who's willing to get in the trenches and and make some stuff happen. So thank you again for joining us today. It's it's really an honor to to
even be able to stay with you. So so yeah, there's that. But there was something that happened this week that Q and I decided that we wanted to talk about. So we'll start there. And for those of you who have the TMZ app on your phone, for those of you, you're I hear you, Q, I hear you signing, OK, but you know you might not really understand or you might not be able to guess how how I'm going to deal with this. But anyway, for those who have
the TMZ app, you might have seen. For those that don't or don't really pay attention to TMZ, there was an an uh AN officer last week. He was in I want to say it was South Carolina, pulled over a twenty year old with no headlights on on his car, and you pulled him out of the car at gunpoint and it's all red ordered. There's a video of it. And the officer, of course, was very firm with the young man and obviously, if there's a gun pointed at you,
you know you're gonna fear for your life. And that's what the young man ended up saying. His mother, Uh, if I remember correctly, she was able to watch the whole thing as it unfolded, and uh, you know, I have been pulled out of a car at gunpoint by the police before, and you know, and Q and I we talk about these sorts of things all the time, and so I wanted to go through this on the
show so that we can really look at it. And I'm gonna I'm gonna look at it from the side of the officer, because if I'm honest, you know, that's kind of a step in the right direction the way the officer handled it. So first off, I want to hear your thoughts on on a Q talk to me.
Ram just pointed out that I there was an audible sigh. And when we first sat down and had our first conversation about what we thought this platform could and would provide to people, we were very, very aware and very I don't want to say self conscious, but we were. We never wanted it to become an echo chamber, and we never wanted to look at each other and say, man,
are we talking about this again? Yeah, just to not exhaust our listeners, you know what I mean, to not wear on them, and to have this content that's so heavy that it's exhausting to say and exhausting to listen to. The audible side was more about us having another one of these situations to talk about. Sure this one did
not play out the way many have. And I think we're both kind of you know that SI is more relief at that point, and you and I are I don't know if the term survivor is proper, but you and I, but you and I together are survivors of a hostile interaction with law enforcement. So you know, these situations for those of you who have not had the pleasure of going through them, resonate differently. When you have.
It's from a it's more more of a first person account, and you're kind of reading, watching and hoping when I get to the end of this, I hope that this young man, or this family, or this young woman that they get to go home to their families, and we can be upset about things not going the way that they should have, but relieved that they didn't go the way that they could have.
Exactly.
So, I'm going to pass the ball back to Ramses. But when I forwarded the mess to you, it was more of it was more to see how it would bounce off of you, right, because we see so many of these cases, we see so many examples of things that go horribly wrong. There was some nuance to this when I thought that you would appreciate it, and I thought our audience would as well.
So let's provide the nuance. In this instance, there had just been a shooting, like I believe a house in South Carolina. There was a shooting at a house, and so the police were already looking for someone who might have been moving suspiciously, or might have been trying to be conceal themselves or whatever. So from the officer's perspective, if you see a car with no headlights, that's probably something worth investigating. That's fair. In my opinion, that's fair.
And when you when you see the interaction, you recognize that the officer is again firm, but doesn't really lose you know it, you know, hear me out, It doesn't really lose it as illustrated by the fact that the kids still alive, and you know that we've been having these conversations and we have to be fair. We have to understand that. Okay, if they say it's a tough job to be a police officer, and I've never been
a police officer, that's something that I can allow. I can we can admit that to the to the record. That can be a part of this conversation. It's a tough job. It might be scary when you're responding to a shooting at a house, you know, and you see a car with no headlights, because if that's the right person, there might be a gun in that car, and I might need to move with a degree of caution. That's fair, and you know it far be it from me to make the case for the police, but I will be
fair and I expect the same right. But you know, when you first get these messages, and when I first got the message sent to my phone, it's very alarming. And as Q mentioned, this is something that and as I mentioned, this is something that I've lived through myself in brief, and I believe I shared this story once before on the show. But in brief, I was nineteen years old. I was still in school. I was on my way to class, and I had my cousin in the car with me, and my cousin had just moved
to Arizona from California. He was having an asthma attack. The climate is different here. He could not breathe. I'm only saying this because it's relevant to the story. My cousin is six foot six and extra dark skin. I think if Shaq and jay Z had a baby, that would be my cousin. He's not the sort of person that you know, are going to whatever comes to mind. You know, if, especially if you're afraid of black skin. This is what happened to to my cousin and I. So I went to the bank. I was driving a
bright yellow Dodge Knee. I remember this is around the time of Fast and Furious. So I got almost two hundred dollars Maco paint jobs, put some eighteen's on my car, and I was the man nineteen right, but a bright yellow Dodge Knee. It's a very visible car. Went to the bank, pulled out money from the ATM. This is days before cash app and all that sort of stuff. I was gonna buy my cousin in and haler so
he could breathe while I went to class. As soon as I left the bank parking lot, please get behind me out of nowhere. And because I'm me and conscious, I don't like the police behind me. I know that that can lead to bad things. So I immediately turned down a neighborhood street to let this officer go on his way because I hadn't been on the road long enough for him to get behind me. Because I hadn't done any there was no moving for me to have a moving violation. Turn down the next street I find,
and the officer follows me. But when I'm looking out the rear view, but now I see a second car behind him. So I'm like, oh, oh, they are on to me. And then they turn on the lights, pull me over, and you know, I know the drill at this point in my life, so you know, they're on
the horn and they're telling me what to do. Stick your you, throw your keys out the window, stick your hands out the window with your left hand, open the door, push the door away from you, keep your hands up, you know, step out of the car, walk back to the sound of my voice, and I'll never forget it. If you make any sudden movements, we will kill you. Now. We will shoot you, not we will wound.
You or whatever.
And it's it's the most terrifying thing that you could ever hear. I don't hide my emotions on this show. I don't think that I'm a weak person. And if I feel something, I I feel it all the way through and through. That was one moment in my life when I did not cry. I was too afraid to cry. I never I'm from Compton, California. I never thought I was going to die until that moment. It was the wildest thing. I was like, They're going to kill me.
What did I do? What's wrong? And of course you know it's for their protection, but it's so weird because there's supposed to protect us, I know, right, anyway, let me let me, let me get the story off, because I do want to hear I want to hear both of your reactions if I can, So you know, I'm walking back. And then they asked me to lift my shirt up. So I remember I'm facing away from the officers are all behind me. I reached down, I lift
up my shirt. I didn't make any set of movements, and so you could see my waist and that I didn't have any weapons on my waist or whatever. I think that's kind of the point of that. And then they asked me to rotate slowly. And when I rotated,
remember I said there was two police cars. Well now there's like eight, and they all have guns like shot and handguns, and they're behind doors and this whole thing right, And now it's like you know that feeling when the blood goes from away from your face and your everything is cold and your heart is beating like so hard on your chest and and it feels like your heart is moving you and everything you think is like I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm doing the wrong and it
you panic. And this is why I know what panic looks like, because I was there, and your brain says run your Your instincts say hide behind the car. You know there's wet there. They can they're gonna take this is it. And people say your life lashes before your eyes. That is so absolutely true. And it goes like that, and it's black and white, and and I remember this feeling. That's all I got to do. That's all the life I got to live. There was there was more what
what what happens tomorrow? It's a it's a it's a bear. I felt so defeated looking at those weapons pointed at me. I was going to school, man, So you know, I'm terrified, And somehow I mechanically managed to still cooperate. You know, it was kind of like out of body. It was like I was controlling my own body with a remote control, like a remote control car. And I didn't quite understand the control. So I'm like watching myself, just try my
best to cooperate with these orders from this officer. Anyway, I get back back far enough. I'm looking away now. My heart's beating, you know, I'm backing toward the officers they get me and they put me in handcuffs, and I remember they were so mean they could like cut my arms up and I was bleeding. I remember when I went to class, my teacher, doctor Westerberg, she wanted to make a report because my hands were all cut up and they like grabbed my arms with the with the handcuffs.
Right.
But I remember I told you about my cousin six ' six, dark skin. They asked him to get out of the car. Now he can't breathe still can't breathe. We had we had just left the bank to get the money, so.
He can't believe he can't breathe before before.
Already having a medical issue, and we're going to go to like the drug store or a pharmacy to get a hitler. So they pull him, they get him out of the car, same thing. They're just talking to him and I when when I stood when he stood up from the car, I was like, oh my god, cause he stands so tall, you know, and beautiful man, you know, beautiful to look at, but intimidating if you're taught that that's what a criminal looks like, or that's what a
gang banger looks. My cousin has never been in a gang. He plays basketball. He's the funniest person you would ever meet. Means no, he's a huge teddy bear. But you know, if you're looking at him and you're trained to see them him as the enemy, and that's exactly they were treating him. And I'm like, you guys, don't get it. He's not Why are you so mad? You know? And he kind of kind of succumbed to those instincts a little bit more than I did. He wasn't as composed,
and he's kind of big and awkward, you know. So when they're telling him to pick up his pants, his shirt, his shirt is a lot bigger than mine, you know, and he's you know, he's he's been down and got you know, and he's trung. And when he moves, it's there's a grand movements, these la this large figure moving around. And so I saw it play out, and I saw how much more threatening he could have looked to them all.
But he couldn't breathe he's trying to cooperate and he's awkward already, and so they were so mean to him, and I was. I I just remember being helpless, like, oh my God, they're going to kill my cousin, you know, and uh, you know, I love him. He's older than me, and he's he's always loved me. And I'm just watching it happen, and again that feeling of being defeated, like there's you just have to watch the rest of this
play out. So not to be too dramatic, they bring him back to the car, a different car, and then they go through my car and then they take out my backpack and they throw my homework on the ground, and then they went through my back seat and you know,
remember this is all fast and furious times. So I have like speakers in my car and I have like, I don't know whatever else was in there, and it wasn't the cleanest car, but you know, it was my car, and they I just remember they took my homework and they emptied out my backpack on the on the street and it wasn't even the sidewalkers in the street, and they were just looking for whatever. And I had twenty dollars and they asked me where did I get the
twenty dollars from? And I said, that's why I went to the bank. And I was like I was going to buy an inhaler for my cousin because he just came here from California. He doesn't have any money, he doesn't have a job, and he needs to He can't breathe. He couldn't breathe all night. That's why we're up so early. And finally they said that, okay, well you fit the description of suspicious characters or suspicious persons or something, and
you can go. And I remember asking, well, can I have can somebody give me a note or somebody can have your name or something, because my teacher's gonna be mad because I'm gonna be late for school and I still have to go help my cousin, you know. And I remember that gave me the name and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, when school lived it, lived through it, it was fine. But I want to maintain I lived in Compden, California in the eighties, never had a gun
pulled on me. The only time my life I ever had a gun pulled on is by the police.
Isn't that weird?
They're supposed to help. But this is not a beat up on the police a story as much as it is to illustrate how interactions often tend to go in at least my personal experience, and then of course that fits the larger narrative and how we understand the way that police tend to interact with black, particularly young black folks. But the reason why there's some parallels to this story here the one we saw in TMZ, is because they're
very similar circumstances. The officers are doing their job. In the instance with me, they were looking for someone who had just robbed the bank, which I thought was very unfair. Remember I was driving a bright yellow Dodge Neon, which I don't think is the type of getaway car that you want when robbing a bank in the daytime, you know. And then very early on in the interaction, you can tell that we are not the folks that you're looking for.
In any but once they I think a lot of times, once police commit to a direction that they want to go in, they're going to see it through to the end. And we talked about that last week with the man on the side of the road in the U haul where they're like, we want to search this U haul and he's like, man, I just it's a big truck. I did a small change where I thought this was right exit or whatever, there's no need to search my truck. And then now I have to stay here. Now I'm
getting arrested. Now I have to call my parents, and you bring the dogs out. The dogs indicate that there's drugs in the truck where there's no drugs. So now that gives you license to search it. Three hours later,
you've committed to this course of action. Meanwhile, all the crime in the world's happening, you know, out there in the real world, but you're here picking on me, and it feels very like it doesn't like I don't believe that the police would have treated me or my cousin that way if we were sixty five year old, privileged corporate executives who were white. And I think that a
lot of it has to do with profiling. And because that profiling often brings out the worst type of interactions and oftentimes, as we've seen, results in harm, death, false imprisonment, you name it, of black and brown bodies, it is important for us to continue to speak about these things. The reason why this this TMZ story was something that I wanted to highlight and Q wanted to highlight this week is because for this interaction specifically, I believe the
officer played it fair. I'm just gonna say, you know, if that's the job you have to do, you know, hey, I need you to sit down. This is what's going on. You know, everyone's on the same page, and you know I employ you to look it up. We'll put a link up on the on the uh Instagram and the Facebook for you to check it out yourself. But kudos to that officer for it's a tough job. Sure, and
you did it the way you had to do it. Sure, and everybody walked away great and no one's bleeding and didn't really feel as unfair as at least my interaction felt, and so wanted to make sure I said that. Anyway, if you're just tuning in the civic side, fer I'm your host Rams's job.
They call me q Ward.
Yes, indeed, and our guest today is be one of four Diane Post And you know earlier on, earlier on, we got to talk about the action alerts that you sent out. So I want you to explain what these action alerts are, and then let's talk about everything that you do are doing right now. But first I want to talk about these action alerts because this is really what got me to reach out to you.
Okay, I started maybe five or six years ago doing this for the National Organization for Women. And what I do. I'm a lawyer, and so I actually worked at the legislature at one point in time, a long time ago. So what I do is I when the legislature starts, which is in mid January of every year, I read or at least look at every single bill that is introduced. And this year was a huge amount. Was eighteen hundred of them, if you can believe that, Yeah, eighteen hundred
of them. And because sometimes what's in a bill, non lawyers wouldn't notice the way that that bill might be able to be used against you or in a negative way, and so even some lawyers wouldn't notice that. So I read them all, I look at them all and I say, oh, oh, this this could be a problem. So I make a chart of them, and then I follow them. I'm on the website for the state legislature, which sends you, oh,
it's so much nicer now that it's automated. You can put the bills, you're following the numbers of the bills, and then every week you'll get an automatic alert from the state legislature that this bill is up for some kind of a hearing in the committee and the caucus, and you know, on the floor wherever. But at least then you know which bills are actually going and which
are not. So then when I know a bill is actually going to be heard somewhere, then I will put it in my alert and say what happened last week. This is what happened last week, Bill X, Y, and Z was up, and this is what happened. It passed, it didn't pass, it moved on, it was you know, voted on. You know, all Republicans voted this way, all Democrats voted that way, or it was split or whatever the case may be. Then I have a section that said what's happening next week? So this is where you
need to take action. So these bills that I've now enumerated, and I have my categories. I do criminal justice bills for the NAACP and other groups. I do women's rights bills for now well yeah, okay, I do voting rights bills because that's everybody out to be concerned about that right. And public school funding. I don't follow it that closely because a lot of other groups are following public school funding,
you know, very closely. And I follow the police in BLM this year because this is really a focus this year which didn't exist before, which is attacking BLM and supporting the police, so that those are all on my list of bills I'm following. So then I find out what's happening next week, and I try to get my alert out Saturday morning, because the meetings start on Monday, so you have to contact them sometimes twenty four hours in advance, so you have to do it Saturday or Sunday.
Now the meeting might be Wednesday, and you could do it Tuesday, obviously, but I try to get it out Saturday, maybe Sunday if it's really horrible, so that you have time to do it. And then you go through the bills. You can do every single one of them. So I put the bill with a short what it means, you know, a short summary of what it means, what it does, and why we should oppose it or support it, or
that there's mixed parts of it. Sometimes there's mixed you know, some people think we should support it for that reason, other people think we should oppose it for that reason. Read it yourself and figure out what you think.
Sure I've noticed that, yeah, or.
I'll say no, that we should oppose this because of that, or we should support this because of that. And then I'll put in the third column the committee that it's going to be in. And if you're on RTS, which is the Request to Speak, which is the best thing to be on, you can just click the committee and then you send the email to everybody. If you're not
on RTS. I also put in the names of the people who are on that committee, and then everybody's email down at the Legislature is first initial, last name at AZ LG so AZ Legislature LG dot org, so everybody just the same. So it's just so I put the name in there, and then you can just send them emails if you're not on the RTS system, so then you know that's for people to take action. And people don't have time to read all those bells. I barely
have time to read all those bells. Sometimes it's taken me twenty two hours in a week to prepare this thing. That was the worst one. It was twenty two hours in one week.
I kept track.
And so people don't have time to read all of that, and they don't often understand what it means, and well, what has this got to do with me? Well, let me tell you what it's got to do with you. And then oh, yeah, okay, I didn't notice that, you know. And then what to do about it? You know, who to contact and what to say. I don't tell them what to say, but I have enough in the summary that you can come up with something right, you know, And so then I send that out every week and
that goes on until the legislature is over with. And at this point in time, the committees are over The only committees that are meeting are Appropriations which is money, and Rules, which is a just a standing committee that's required to say it's constitutional. And they don't take testimony, they don't listen to their own rules attorneys. There's really no point in contacting. But those are the only two committees that's required that they go through the Rules Committee
before they can land on the floor. So now most of the bills are you know, contact the Appropriations Committee, and there'll be more of that as the budget gets rolling, which has got to start pretty soon. And then contact your own senator or your own two representatives, because it's going to be on the floor. So that's what you know, the message is now, and then you choose what you want to do, and you do as much as you can. Maybe there's fifteen bills, Maybe you can't do fifteen, you
can do two. Right, do whatever is most appropriate to you and what's most tugs at your heart strength.
Sure, sure, and I think that that's something that especially this new group who has been motivated to take action within the last year of our lives, they're looking for a way to parlay you know, their energy and their motivation to see some action into something meaningful beyond just a display and a protest and you know, marching on
the streets. And so, you know, I thought that it was really meaningful to make this connection because, you know, I didn't realize how important it is to contact your senator. I didn't realize how important it is to let your could the truth is. For me, at least until recently, I never really thought that. I mean I knew it because I taking Civics classes and these people work for me. I knew that, but I didn't really know it. And so when you call, you can have a little bit
of bass in your voice. Look, you know, these do you work for me. This is the community I want to see, and I want you to understand that this is who I am, this is why, and this is how you'll continue to earn my vote. And I'm sure that there's a lot of people who don't know that.
But the things that will typically connect you to these elected representatives are the way they vote, the things that they vote on, the things that come to committee into the floor, and so forth, and so again, I thought it was very meaningful to have someone like you help ridge that gap.
Well, I want to say something about the people thinking that what they do doesn't matter. It really really matters. Let me give you an example. It used to be well it still is. But the most impactful thing you can do is go and meet with them. But of course, all during COVID last year, they shut down early and we could meet, and this year we're not able to meet. So that's been off the table for a couple of years. But when we're back and able to do that, the
most impactful thing is to go to meet with them. Why, because they have to look you in the faith, and because you've taken the time. It's pretty easy to send an email, it's pretty easy to click on the right to speak. It takes a little more time to get your body down there and actually meet with them. So when they don't want to meet with you, they'll never give you a meeting. And that's happened with a lot of legislators. They just don't Oh, I'm sorry, we don't
have time. I'm all booked. They're busy meeting with lobbyists who give them money for their campaigns. That's who they're meeting with. So the second most impactful thing you can do is telephone them. Again, it takes more time to actually telephone them than it does to just click on an email or click on a right to speak. Right, those things are valuable. The phone call is the next most valuable, since we can't meet with them. They actually
keep hashmarks. They're required to keep hashmarks of homny calls they get on this bill, how many calls they get on that bell, and if they get ten or more this is down here at Arizona, seventeen hundred West Wash If they get ten or more calls on a bill, they go, oh my god, this is really people are really concerned about this.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, ten or more, that's not a lot at all. It's absolutely doable, and that will get them, Oh, I better pay attention to this. Oftentimes they will go in they don't even know what they're voting on. The caucus decides, okay, we're supporting these, Okay, we're not supporting these. That's the leadership of the party that's telling them what to support and what not to support. But when they get ten calls from their own constituents, they go, oh, holy mackerel,
I better pay ten What is this about? I mean, I was out of hearing the other night when the guy that introduced the bill, he had no idea what the bill was about. It was quite complicated, and it's one of the most horrible bills there are, and it's very long and complicated. He wasn't an attorney, and he just came in and he just said, oh, here's a bill,
and this is what it does. And then when the question started and the lawyers started in, and he could not answer any questions at all because you didn't know anything. He was told undoubtedly by Alec introduced this and boom he did. So he called on an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is one of those names that means the opposite of what it says. You know, they're not defending freedom at all. So he called on that attorney who happened to be there physically and spoke up.
But then we had our attorneys who were all online. And when we started hammer hammer hammer, hammer, bang bang bang bang, what does this mean? What does that mean? Doesn't that do that? Doesn't that? Doesn't that the cap he was ub ub ubbo, and it became perfectly clear that this was somebody else's agenda and you were just following along. There was a couple of attorneys on the committee as well, and we had fed them information ahead of time so they could speak very intelligently about it
and say, well, this is absolutely incredible. Even a non lawyer could read this thing and see that this absolutely means X y Z, you know, so it is so important and ten calls.
Will get attention. I'm so glad you said that, because you know, I think that, at least for me, when you launch a phone in campaign, you know, you make a phone call and then you think like, okay, well I've done my part. I hope that a thousand of us meet, you know what I mean. But to know that you're one of ten that would you know, change it. It makes you feel like, Okay, I'm making an impact with my phone.
The other thing I hear from people that get my action alerts say well, I don't know what to say. What would I say? I'm not a lawyer, I don't know anything. Well number when you haven't written, But they don't want you to be a lawyer. They don't care. That's not why you should be calling. You call and you say, my name is x y Z. I'm a constituent.
I'm concerned about this bill because my child school doesn't have you know, I don't have good internet at home, and now my child has to study at home and I can't. You know, the child can't often go to the Zoom meetings because the internet is and we need to have internet be regulated as a utility. You don't have to say that because you may not go that far. But my child needs good, consistent, fast broadband.
No, I want to say this now that you mentioned that. This is I'm so glad you're here because this whole process is something that again is so foreign to wake up. They go to work, Yes, they pay their bills, they raise their kids for fifteen minutes day, correct, and then they try to get a little sleep. But a phone call or as you mentioned, if you can get some FaceTime with someone, it goes so such a long lean. Yeah,
I'm learning this right now. So if you're listening to our voices, you know, and you're learning something new, understand that we got the right one in the studio today.
There are many places that well. And if you're afraid to speak, I mean, you know, the speaking in public is often the most scary thing for like the majority of people are terrified to speaking in public. So but you're not speaking in public, you're just speaking on the phone. And maybe you won't even get the particular religious tour. You'll get their aid and that's even better because their aids are probably a lot nicer than they are. Be
nice to the aids. Always be nice to the secretaries and the aids who can get you in that door, the secretary and the aids. That is something women learn that early on, and y'all should learn it because that who gets you in the door, and if they like you, they'll put your appointment ahead of some other people that were nasty to them or treated them like you know, well,
You're just a secretary. You don't know anything, you know, And I was secretary when I was going to law school and when I was going to college, and that's exactly what I did. You want to treat me trash. I'll guess what, honey, where's your memo? Bam in the trash goes your memo. You know, So don't do that. Don't do that. Them are the important people. Those other people down there know what they're doing, most of.
Them, all right.
So I'm going to ask you this, What are some of the issues that are being voted on or gusts or whatever that stand out in your mind as things that people should really get behind immediately.
Well, voting rights. We know that nationwide there are tax on voting rights. I mean, Georgia is obviously an example, but there are here two and I have fifteen voting rights bills on my list, but just this morning I read somebody that said there's twenty two still moving. So I've obviously missed a few. So I get three other alerts like this, so that you know, we're all sharing with each other. So voting rights is a huge issue, and we seem to be at an unable to stop
Karen Fan at the Senate. But we can stop Deucy, And how do you stop Deucy? The business community, the governor, The governor and the business community came out today and said, don't do these voter voter suppression bills. Don't sign them because why who got boycotted Georgia and that Major League Baseball League team or whatever it was that didn't happen. What's coming up in Phoenix in twenty twenty three, the Super Bowl? Oh wow, in Glendale in twenty twenty three.
Who boycotted Phoenix and got us Mlkday?
The NFL?
That was black folks, and that was the NFL. So I've written to him already, and you can go on his web page, you know, write him a handwritten letter, go on his web page, do whatever, but remind him businesses are not going to stand for this. They're not going to stand for it. Remember MLK Day, Remember the NFL who are set to be here on twenty twenty three. Don't do this because we will mount a boycott.
And you know, there's something that's I think it's incredible about this sort of thing, because you know, there's there's an intersection where corporate interests have to consider cultural interests. It's sometimes it comes late.
In our opinion is yes, well it's like four hundred years too.
Late, just a few years too late, centuries. Yeah, But eventually it comes in there and you have to come to terms with Okay, do we want to be on the right side of this or the wrong side of this? And even if you morally don't care, monetarily it'll make sense. And so that's now.
You know that there was a huge number of black CEOs that put out a statement saying, don't do this. So now there's a big push white CEOs where y'all.
At, Come on, that's what I'm talking about.
Come on, get up here.
I like that.
So that's now the push. And like you're saying, this is we hope it's happening, but we hoped it was happening in nineteen sixty eight too.
That's fair.
You know, I'm old enough to remember those days and have gone through those days and thought we'd achieved something, and here we are.
Well, I implore you, if you're listening to the show to speak of which, let's talk about it. How would someone receive these action A lists?
Oh, I just need to get their email. I'll put them on the mail Chimp and can they email you? Can they send it to your show and then you give it to me boom send your email to.
Send us a direct message. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram. Just look for Civic Cipher or you can go to civiccipher dot com and then we'll connect.
You shoot it to me and they're on the list.
I can do that. Yeah, absolutely. Now, we did talk about voter suppression. We've been talking about that quite a bit. And then next week's show we're going to be talking about the stop Asian hate. We're going to have some folks from the AAPI community up to talk about that. But is there anything beyond voter suppression? Oh yes, that you think that we should know about that's happening behind the scenes, if you will, Oh yes, we're not aware of.
One thing is happening two days from now, and I hope that the people in Phoenix will get on top of this. And that is you know how we've been trying to get that Police Advisory Board in Phoenix since I moved here in nineteen eighty and we were trying to get it then, that is forty one years ago and we don't have it yet. So that's that's one thing. But the city has now come to a quote agreement
unquote with Plea. You know, Plea is the police. I can't remember what it stands for, but anyway, it's the union. It's the police union. So they've come to a quote agreement with them. And so if they approve this agreement, then they're going to give the police a raise, okay, a race. So this meeting, you got it, you heard me, I know, shake your head. So this meeting is happening. Well,
the meetings are. There are these budget hearings going on all around the city, so whatever district you're in, you need to pay attention to this. So I'm an eight, which is Carlos Garcia, and he's having a variety of different meanings for different meetings. One in Spanish, three in English. Blah blah blah. So the one I'm going to is the eighth, and I'm going to speak against it because of several things. Plea is not giving you anything. Plea
is giving nothing in this quote agreement. I read it today. I just saw it today. I read it today, and what they're saying is number one, if you found a police complaint through the City of Phoenix Police Department complaint system, if anybody ever has. At the bottom, it says filing a false report against a police officer is a crime and you will be charged. Well, this is done deliberately to scare people, right, So they've agreed to remove that
from their website. Well, guess what. There's a bill in the state legislature to make it mandatory to be a misdemeanor one to file a false report, and it will be required on all police departments around the entire state to put on their complaint form. So PLEA gets what they gave up through the legislative process. This is Kavanaugh, who is an ex transit officer from New Jersey, who is the police you know, water carrier, the gopher boy that has passed the House, it's passed the Senate Judiciary,
in the Senate rules. It's only got one step left or two steps. One step is being passed on the Senate floor and then going to do sye. So PLEA will get what they want. Even though they quote agree
to give it up. The second thing they're agreeing to give up is right now, the they have a provision in their union agreement that the officer gets told about any complaint and has to meet or can meet with the union before he has to go to meet with the investigator, you know, so they can get their stories straight, right, And so they would remove that they that they would have to meet with the union before, and also that they would create this database of disciplinary officers and they
could use these disciplines in you know, hiring promotion. Bloody, bloody black Well, guess what, there's a bill by Kavanaugh at the state legislature. No, it's not by Kavanaugh's Pingarelli in pain at the state legislature that does two things. It requires officers to get a ten day notice of any time you're going to put anything negative about them in this database. So in ten days, it doesn't mandate they go to the union, But would you go to the union to get your story straight?
You know you would.
And then the other part of that says that they would not that they would be able to use this database on the negative things that they would allow that. Well, the legislative, the piece of legislature that's up, legislation that is up says this database cannot be used in any actions against the officer I mean, it's useless database. Why would you have a database of what's the point of having a database of disciplinary of officers who's received discipline
that you can't use her anything. You can't even fire them, you can't even demote them, you can't even suspect what would be the point of even having it. That thing. That thing has passed past the House and is also in the Senate. It's past Senate Judiciary. Senate rules has two steps center floor. Inducing So again PLEA pretends to be giving up something in this quote agreement, but they're
not giving up anything. And the third thing is, oh, I tell you that there am oh that please insisted that the person who sat on this public advisory committee had to be a police officer and we said no, and oh it's public advisor committee. And you can't police yourself. Nobody can police themselves. Lawyers can't police themselves, doctors can Nobody can police themselves because of inherent conflict of interest. Right, so they'll give that up.
Well, guess what.
Kavanaugh has a bill in the legislature right now, and it lays out the requirements, the experience and the training that one would have to have to sit on a citizen's Advisory Board. The only people who would qualify would be cops. So it's past the House, it's past the Senate Judiciary, it's past the rules. All it has to do is pass the floor and go deducing. So the plea is giving nothing and in return they want to race. So of course I gave you know, I gave the testimony.
I sent it in because last time when I tried to get on, I couldn't get on the live testimony. And I think they know me, so they probably just did that. So so that is Thursday if you're in a if you're in District eight. But but the other thing is on the race. These are two suggestions you can do. Number one, the police department, when they lose lawsuits against them, the cost of the lawsuit should come out of the police budget. That's fair, right, Why should we call up more money?
So currently it comes from the city.
It comes from the city, not from the well. The police budget also comes from the city, but it doesn't come out of their direct cash that they got for themselves.
Understood.
The second thing that's been going around for ten years now is officers should have to buy malpractice insurance.
That's fair.
Lawyers have to, doctors have to. When you behave unreasonably, you should pay for your mistakes, not me. Why should I pay for your mistake?
Right? Let me ask you something, you know what I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna come back and ask the question because I want to get your thoughts on where this, what, what the thinking behind this? Defend the police initiative in response to defund the police initiative? So, oh, I can tell you, of course you get if you're just tuning in the civic side. Fer I'm your host, Rams's job.
They called me q Ward and our.
Guest today is Diane Post And yeah, I want to get your thoughts. So defend the police. It seems like they are able to get away with murder literally and they don't want to be held responsible in the same way that a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. And there's this push to like, have people been brainwashed in the things or is it just that the police serve this community and don't serve that community. And because they serve this community's interest, there's this push to thee oh, let's keep
it the way it is. What do you think you.
Know how police started? Right?
Oh?
Yeah.
Yeah, in the South, slave patrols to bring back.
What people's property property.
And somebody was, you know, yelling at me about this, and they and so what was the Pinkerton's in the north, you know, private security guards to do what protect people's property and beat up the miners and the people who were striking, and it's all about protecting property now. So so that's they evolved. And so who's surprised that the Klan is in the police department? I mean, who's surprised about that?
A lot of people pretend to be.
People pretend to be You can't really be that stupid, can you? But actually I think I think it's possible that you can be that stupid. But so that's a big thing. So then there's fear.
There's fear.
White people have fear and it's not justified, and it's been you know, centuries of training white brains to be afraid of dark skin.
Listen, white folks, we are not your enemy. We love you, duh. I just want to say that.
So they're afraid, and they're most afraid too, of losing their position.
I want to say this real quick, because most folks listen to us on the radio you are white. I am. That's what you told me.
That's the rumor.
But you know, folks listening to that, So I think it's important to say this because yes, you know, if we were to say something like this, it might sound, you know, coming from your from your lips, it sounds.
I can say what you can't say, and you can say things I can't say, right, exactly exactly one of the I've been reading about this, and I just watched a really good seminar today on how your brain learns these bad things? How come we're stuck on these stupid ideas and bad ideas and we can't get it off, and the guys describing it, and both the book and the guy today that I listened to, we learn these
things at a foundational level. We learn them young, and we're told certain things when we're young, and that becomes the foundation, and we you know, we learn more as we get older, and we pile on top of that, and we pile on top of that, and we hope. You go to college and you pile on top of that, and you file on top of that. So you learn and you changed your mind because you learn new things
and stuff like that. But he said, when it's a foundational belief, it's hard to throw it out because, for example, if I told you, well, you know, the English alphabet doesn't really have twenty six letters, and A and C really don't look like that, you just she's out of her mind, and she says, what you're talking about, right, that that can't be. And another example is my own mother.
I think she was fifty two or fifty four or some and i'd gotten around to go with me to you know, politic for some woman and all kinds of things, and I and we went to get a beer, because that's what you do in Wisconsin when you're politic and you're going to get a beer. So I said, nah, just admit you're a feminist. She got so mad at me. She just came on glued and yelled at me and said, I'm not a feminist.
I'm not a feminist.
I'm not a feminist. I said, mah, you believe everything that feminists believe. Do You believe in equality between women and men? Of course, you believe in quipee. Of course you believe women should have a choice. Oh of course you know. So okay, but what about you? Isn't a feminist, And she said, and this taught me something that I'll never forget. She said, if I admit then I'm a feminist. My entire life has been a lie. I've lived my entire life as a lie. And I'm not strong enough
to throw that away. She got you know, she didn't want to get married, but she got pregnant, so she got married, She had her baby, She stayed home, she wanted to work. She wanted to go to college. She wanted to go to school so bad that at eighth grade, her dad wouldn't let her go to school. So she waited two years till they moved to town. And then she went to school two years older than everybody else because she wanted to go to school so bad. And she finished high school. But she wanted to go to
college and she wasn't never able to go. When I tried to get her to go in the fifties and forties, she wasn't going.
To do it.
But I understood from her then this so attacks is, She said, my whole life is a lie. I mean, what if I were to say, I don't know what could think of to say, I haven't lived my life like that. But so for a white person in the South who believes that blacks are inferior, all right, to say you've been wrong your whole life. You know you're wrong your whole life. You know that's absolutely not true. Biologically, there is no race. There is only one race in
the entire universe. There is only one and this is none of this is true. They would have to admit that they'd live their life as a lie the entire time, and that's a fundamental foundational belief of them. And they can't pull it out. They can't pull it out and.
Throw it away.
So this is how he was explaining, how we get these crazy ideas about things and just can't let them go.
Well, it's unfortunate because we are there's been some masterful execution over the years with respect to hitting us against
each other. Yes, and it's unfortunate that we are on this side of it and have to appeal to good kind people who can see beyond their own you know, four walls, their own front porch, and you know, say you know that's not right, you know, like yourself, and and you know a lot of folks that have come up on the show, and a lot of folks who listen to the show every week who might not have as much melanin, but they are just as much human as our sisters and our brothers, and recognize that in
a lot of instances that melanin counts against us their brothers and sisters. And so when it comes to this defend defund thing with the police, I think anyone listening to that would recognize that the police don't need defending. They are literally a runaway trained. But there's still going to be these people who push back against I mean, it might not be a perfect plan, but it's certainly something that is like causing folks to reconsider what it
takes to keep communities safe. All right, glhead, and we got about a minute or so left.
I've even heard from white people, well you know that they they shouldn't be using the word defund because you know, it just confuses people. And I say, you have no business telling them how to run their own civil right strike, so shut up, talk to you know, shut up.
You know that's why civic sciphers on the radio. Hey listen, I love that. I love that so much. And you know what that that's just as good as a place to wrap this up. So one more time.
Even though we could talk to her first, I could go on for hours.
Yeah, we got to turn the mics off and please don't talk a little more, but yes, please please consider plugging in with Diane Post. Of course you can reach her through our.
Two ends and Diane, if you look me up on the.
Internet again, that's Diane Post. You know, get behind her, get behind what she's doing. Be active in your communities. You know, a lot of this stuff affects all of Arizona. You can be in Tucson, you can be you can be in flag stuff wherever you are, wherever you live, these things affect you as well. And of course you can reach her through our website, that civiccipher dot com. You can. We're gonna have some some stuff up for
her on our social media as well. That's all at Civic Cipher and I think that's gonna do it for us today. Once again, I'm your host rams this job and special guest, Diane Post. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Thank you, and uh don't forget to hit the website. Send us your topics download this in previous episodes, and as always, your donations are appreciated. You know, The show grows with your port and you can donate through civicside for dot com until next week. Y'alla peace,