Civic Cipher 050722 How Does America View Black Children? (Part 2)

So we're going to talk about our babies, if you don't mind, and uh try to paint a picture for you. We're also going to talk about our way black history. Fact a guy named Whitworth Chiswell who rode with Paul Revere on that famous night. And I'm sure you've heard nothing about him, because I certainly didn't. So again, a lot to stick around for. But first let's discuss how to become a better ally. We we shall again. Producer

Maggie Maggie be knowing she'd be known. She wanted us to talk about this one this week and we loved it. So here we go. This came from the aa wu's website. We're going to discuss how to be an ally for Black women in the workplace. So if you know any Black women, if you love any Black women, you love people, you know because we all got to get there together, you know. Don't don't get to the end of your life and find out that a black woman was God

the whole time. Don't make that mistake, because you might not be too far off. Anyway, Here we go, how to be an ally for life women in the workplace. Imagine having to work seven extra months just to earn the same pay as a male coworker. If you're a black woman in the United States, that's a likely reality. According to the US Census, on average, black women were paid sixty three percent of what non Hispanic white men

were paid in twenty nineteen. That means it takes the typical black women nineteen months to be paid what the average white man makes in twelve months. That's even worse than the national earnings ratio for all women eighty three percent, as reported in aawu's The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap. So, what are some things we can do help black women feel seen and feel safe? Center black women concerns and we're talking about the workplace. Be transparent

about pay and benefit structures, and offer authentic mentorship. That means reveal your salaries to black women. Let them know because they're likely getting paid less than you. Bite the bullets swallowed at EGO. Let them know. Give diversity, equity and phusion leaders to support and resources to create real change, and listen to and believe black women. And then finally ask these two questions. First, I think that every person should ask themselves how would I feel if I were

the only one in the room. It's important to do a temperature check and ask the question to black women, how are things going? And prepare to hear the answer and thoughtfully follow up if there are areas that need to change, keep doing that work. Shout out to our producer Maggie for bringing that one up to us. That one sounded necessary. So that is how you will become a better ally this week Now let's talk about our babies. Q. Talk about your babies for a second.

me or how much you love me. If the way you treat me as the opposite, so you hate my guts but you treat me like gold, then I don't care that you hate me. It does not bug me, It does not disturb me. In the same that don't tell me how much you love me while also making me feel like crap. Right, So how you actually treat me means far more than how you actually feel. I liked the America that made racist people feel ashamed, that made them feel less emboldened and like they had to

pretend to not be that in public. That was a safer place for my children. We got into an atmosphere where the person supposedly responsible for leading our country based his entire political platform on racist divisiveness, almost his entire campaign on building a wall to keep a very very specific set of people out of our country.

You know, we live in the Southwest, so there are Mexicans. This used to be Mexico, the land that we live on, right, So this is their home since the beginning. Yes, and we recognize that, and we also recognize how it must feel for someone who's campaigning to be the leader of the free world to frame your lineage, your ancestral home as the source of all the things that ail this country and the necessity of building a wall. You know

how that feels. And then of course the emboldened people who go to those rallies in those campaigns, how they feel like, Yes, this is our country and you don't belong here. Go back to where you came from. And so we have always on this show and in our personal lives in the past. Right now and until they bury me, they could bury me a few times, I will stand in solidarity with my Mexican brothers and sisters,

you know what I mean. I get that this is aired all over the country and that there's other types of Latin Latin X people, but you know, I grew up with Mexican folks, you know what I mean.

get to talk about these things. But this was something that broke our hearts when we first saw it. The headline you can look it up. You know, this is radio, so we can't share the video, but the headline is Syracuse police officers detain eight year old boy for allegedly

stealing a bag of Dorito's. Right now, that headline, by itself, officers detain an eight year old boy, you know, doesn't sound as bad as some of the other headlines that we read, but when you watch the video, and you see the way that they are handling the body of a child, a black child. It is deeply unsettling and hurtful. And also it makes you ponder exactly what we're pondering today, which is how does America view black children? You know, if you were to stop and imagine in your mind police.

You know, we talk about police a lot on this show, but imagine police, right, and the police are going to go get the bad guy, right, and then they're going to arrest the bad guy. With the bad guy in handcuffs, put him in a car, take him down to the joint, lock them up in the slammer. Who's the bad guy? Is he an eight year old? Is he an eight year old white kid? So how can he has to how can he gets to be an eight year old black kid?

interesting to know that that's the truth. It would still be gross and unacceptable for anyone's eight year old to be treated that way.

talk about our children and how they are treated. It's like black skin immediately gets you an extra ten years of life and you are and they appreach approach you accordingly. Right, you don't have the freedom to make mistakes if in fact you are making a mistakes, there is no room for nuance. You know, it's not lost upon me that

this black child. You know, we talk about all kinds of systemic issues, We talk about how the wealth moves, We talk about this alive in the show, right, And I don't know what I don't know, but I will allow for there to be what I don't know. When I look at someone stealing food, it's like the worst thing to me. I remember one time I saw a post might have been on Tumblr. Yes, I'm still on Tumblr. I love that place, and so it was Maggie shout out to our producer. She's on there a lot too.

But I was on Tumblr and I came across something someone written and I loved it so much that I shared it on like my Facebook or something. And it says, if you see someone stealing food, no you didn't. And I personally don't have a problem with poor people taking advantage of a system that was designed to fail them, because they will never topple it by taking what poor people don't tend to overindulge. They tend to take what

they need. I mean, there's some people that will overindulge in an instance, but overall, you know, folks want to make sure that they got a full belly, they're safe, you know, and they have some access to creating some sort of semblance of a happy life, you know what I mean. I think that written to the documents of this downting documents of this country is the right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Right. So those are the inalienable rights afforded to all human beings

endowed with consciousness. I wish that was how they meant it. And so now I know, I know you're listening to me like, oh my god, this guy is super duper bleeding heart liberal. Yes I am. I believe that human beings deserve to be treated like human beings and not like dogs and not like animals. I don't even believe dogs and animals should be treated bad. And I'm not a fan of dogs at all. You had a dog one time, and he used to want me to pet It was that dog man Major. I did not like. Major.

Major was cool, but I didn't want him around me, look at my face. You do what I'm saying. Anyway, back to this video. What you see as a child, crying, child getting escorted to a police car, and then of course a neighborhood around him filming, and then of course allegedly stealing a bag of chips. If you are a normal person who lived a normal life, you may have had an instance in your life when you had to

learn the hard way that stealing is wrong. Maybe you've taken something without paying for it, or maybe you just forgot to pay for it. You know, my son, my little boy, one time, he walked out of the CBS by our house with a I think it was a Monster truck toy. We got in the car, he strapped into the seat belt and I see him back there playing with the toy. I'm like, where'd you get that from? And I saw the package and he was three. No concept of money? No, you know, I'm not saying this

eight year old didn't have a concept of money. But you know, it is possible to walk out of a store and not realize that you still hold something because it's happened. It's also possible to take it deliberately. I'm not going to pretend like that's not a possibility. But again, we're talking about food. We're not talking about someone that ran into a store with a gun stuck up everybody stole the money and then left, because then it's like, well, you know, the kid robbed the store with a gun.

You know, it's dangerous. We got to make sure that you know he's a wild card. No, I'm stealing a bag of chips, okay. And again, if that was the only instance we were talking about, that'd be fine. But then there was another instance. This video footage was at night and it came from Maplewood, the Maplewood Police Department in Minnesota, and a similar scene, similar scenario, police then releasing another child, and people are like screaming in the video, Oh,

he's a baby, He's a baby. Why are you having you know, in the car, handcuffed, all this sort of stuff. He's a baby. What are you doing? And you can hear the frustration escalate in the people's voices who are shouting at the police officers. You know, it starts from angry and then it gets to almost like the boiling point where you know, when people's voice changes from angry to like too angry, where they're not even making sense anymore, and it feels like they're about to cry. You can

hear that in the video. And it's a lot to deal with because again my brain tells me, okay, so if we change one thing about the scenario, we just change the color of their skin. Does this play out the same way? And unless I'm wrong, unless there's videos out there to the contrary, you know, and a good amount because there's these stories we've been told from for many years, then it feels like this is something that happens almost exclusively to melanated individuals.

ninth grade on this one. But there's a song with an intro to the song, right, and it's a skit from a movie. Again, I don't know the movie that it was sampled for the album, which is where I know it from, which.

boy says thirteen? And then the first child says thirteen. Man, them cops must be running out of in words to arrest, right, So that album was in the shoot that would have been in the nineties when I was listening to that one, and it probably sampled something from the seventies, right. So the reason I'm telling that story is because I want you, our listener, to understand that long before there were cameras filming police interactions with black children, this was very much

a part of black life. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that a twelve year old thirteen year old was arrested being tried as an adult. Brian Stevenson, Who's I'm a big fan of Brian Stevenson. He's the leader of the Equal Justice Initiative, someone who if you're a fan of this show, please look him up. That is a man doing tremendous work. Again, Brian Stevenson, the Equal Justice Initiative. What he does is he tries to

get wrongful convictions over turned. He's a lawyer. There's a movie about him starring Jamie Fox and Michael B. Jordan Michael B. Jordan and I forget the name of the movie, but if you look up Jamie Fox Michael B. Jordan you'll find it. Actually Michael B.

she'd be known anyway. So if you want some entertainment and a bonus Baba become a better ally, check out that movie Just Mercy Again starring Brian Stevenson and uh Samuel L. Jackson and Jamie Fox. But also look up Brian Stephen him Brian Stevenson himself the actual man because a lot of his work, he has a ted talk

that I'm a big fan of as well. A lot of his work will really illuminate how the criminal justice system, from policing to imprisonment and you know judges and you know prosecutors and all the sort of stuff that goes along with it, how they interact with black youth and how it's exceptionally unfair and you're almost you're like fighting a losing battle from the beginning. In fact, to prevail if you if in fact you're innocent, to prevails extremely difficult, difficult.

You would think your innocence would be enough, and it just isn't. You actually need people to help you despite you being innocent, and in a lot of the cases that you know, he works to overturn.

to the people of New Hampshire's seacoast. Two British warships were headed to Newcastle to reinforce Fort William and Mary. The messengers, or dispatch writers, helped organize the resistance. One messenger was Paul Revere and one was Wentworth Cheeswell. Revere made quite a few before war broke out, and so did dozens of dispatch riders before and during the American Revolution.

As part of the secret Patriot network, the writer shared intelligence about the enemy and communications between the colonial provisional governments. Wentworth Cheeswell took a number of rides. Like Revere, he volunteered to serve in the military and fought at Saratoga. He was also considered New Hampshire's first archaeologist and the first African American elected to public office in the United States.

Boom Wentworth Chesswell was born on April eleventh, seventeen forty six, to a biracial father, Hopsteel Cheeswell and Catherine Kinniston, who was white. Hopstell was the son of a white woman and an enslaved black man, Richard Cheswell. Under the laws of the day, Hopstill's status followed the mother, making him free. Eventually, Hopstill's father bought his freedom and in seventeen seventeen purchase

twenty acres of land in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Richard's land purchase is considered the first by an African American in New Hampshire. Hopstill, a house right and a carpenter, built the John Paul Jones House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, New Hampshire, as well as the Samuel Langdon House now in Stubridge, Sturbridge Village. Some of these places I've actually been to.

He also built the Bell Tavern Hobstill Still. Hopstill earned enough money to send Wentworth to Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts. Wentworth took advantage of his unusual education privilege and worked as a schoolmaster in Newmarket. By the time you reached twenty one, to owned more than thirty acres and a pew in the meeting house. At twenty one he married seventeen year old Mary Davis Durham of New Hampshire, and

they had thirteen children. Their descendants identified as white, and the census listed Cheswell's white. Record of Records of comments by his contemporary suggest they viewed him as biracial. In seventeen sixty eight, twenty two year old Wentworth Cheeswell one elected one election as town consc. George Mason University determined that made him the first African American elected to public office.

Chellswell beat out Vermont Alexander Twilight for the honor. For all but one year of his life, Chellswell held public office, including town Selectman, Assessor s Gravenier, Justice of the Peace and Auditor. I don't know every word, sorry, guys. His civic involvement included founding the New Market Societal Library with several other men and bequeathing his books to it. He also won elections as town messenger for the Committee of Safety, which meant he had to carry news too, and from

the Patriot Committee of Correspondence in Exeter. For several years, New England columnists had risen up in sporadic violence to protest Parliament's taxation and restrictions. Boston had its Tea Party Providence its gasbe affair, and New Hampshire its Pine Tree Riot, to name a few. In the fall of seventeen seventy four of the Bridgeish government grew concerned about the rebellion then developing, and so it secretly banned the export of

munitions to the American colonies. Redcoats those are the British. ROSA also sees gunpowder in Charleston, Massachusetts. In September, Boston's Patriot leadership knew that only a few dozen a few soldiers guarded Fort William and Mary. They believe British troops and ships would sail to New Hampshire and secure the fort, and they fought the gunpowder and weapons at the fort would sorry. They thought the gunpowder and weapons at the fort would serve a more useful purpose in Patriot hands.

On December thirteen, seventy seventy four, Paul Revere rolled the sixty six miles to Portsmouth with the letter from Boston's Committee of Correspondence to its counterparts. The letter advised them to seize the weapons and gunpowder at the fort before the British warships arrived. This is sort of the Britisher coming, the Britisher coming that we all know from history. Portsmouth mustard volunteers for an assault the next day on the

British soldiers who guarded the fort. The men of Newmarket strongly a strongly patriotic town, wanted to take part in the attack as well, but where and how Wentworth. Cheswell then rode to Exeter to find out from the Committee of Correspondence where the new Market volunteers should go. The next day, four hundred New Hampshire men marched on the fort and forced it to surrender. It took one hundred

barrels of gunpower, light cannon and small arms. The ships never arrived, but the Patriots used the gunpowder and weapons in the Siege of Boston. That's some American history for you, right there, all right, almost done here. Some people claim Cheswell road north from Boston on April eighteen seventy seventy five, alerting the countryside of the British attack, even as Revere did the same riding west. Local historian rich Albertine, however,

said there's no evidence Cheswell ever made that ride. Chesswell did enlist in Colonel John Langdon's company of Lighthorse volunteers and fought at the Battle of Saratoga. F finished his military service return to Newmarket, where he ran a store next to a schoolhouse. As a prosperous, well educated citizen, he continued his leadership of the town. When he realized that Newmarket's town records might disappear, he copied them all by hand in a journal. Newmarket Historical Society now holds them.

The Massachusetts Historical Society holds another document written by Cheeswell, a letter sent to the Reverend Jeremy Bellcap or bell Knap Sorry. The letter contains descriptions of artifacts left by indigenous people that Cheswell recovered around new Market. Bell Knapp included the information in his History of New Hampshire, and Cheeswell earned the distinction as New Hampshire's first archaeologist. Three years later, went with Cheswell's name surfaced on the floor

of the US Senate. Senator David Morrell of New Hampshire rose to speak about the Missouri Compromise, which forbade biracial people from obtaining citizenship in Missouri. Quote. In New Hampshire there was a man by the name of Cheeswell, who, with his family were respectable in point of abilities, property

and character. Quote Morals said quote. He held some of the first offices in the town in which he resided, was appointed Justice of the Peace for the county, and was perfectly competent to perform with the ability of all the duties of various offices in the most prompt, accurate, and acceptable manner. But his family are forbidden to enter and live in Missouri. Quote. So now we have a

little bit more way black history. The man that also helped Paul Revere save this country and warn everyone that the British were coming and fortify our forces to deal with that attack. It's a black man by the name of Winworth ch Haswell.

We're here for you. This is our show, the same as it is yours. If you'd like to make a donation. The show obviously is growing. Thank you to all of you who support through Patreon or through the website. We are going to continue growing more stations to an employer soon. Follow us on all social media at Civic Cipher, C I V I C C I, P H E, R and oh. The show produced by producer Maggie. Maggie being on, she been on and until next week out peace.