Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher Army House. Rams is Jah. Okay, So do I just say, like, what my name is right here?
Or do I because you know, sometimes people don't know, okay, my name is is Q or sometimes I like to explain to people, like the how or the why. Hey, I think they need to know. Man, So you birth certificate, you know, all right, that'll work. My mom named me quin Ton. People don't be wanting to say quin Ton, so they call me Quentin, which is not my name at all. So then I shortened it the Q. But then when I introduced myself as Q, they say, well, what's your whole name? And then I end up in
this you know what I mean. Yeah, I don't feel like doing that every time. I'm sorry, y'all, but you know.
You're not Tarantino, You're You're different. But yeah, I get it. No, I've heard it. And we're here to talk to you about the goings on in Black America the past week and rather unfortunately there's a lot to talk about. But you know, starting this week, we're going to start incorporating
some some positive elements into the show as well. We want to end on a high because you know, there's been a lot of talk about, you know, protecting our mental health and so forth, and you know, understanding that we have a job to do and having these long form conversation, long form conversations about you know, the state of Black America and you know what what it is we need to be cognizant of and you know, how
to empower allies of black and brown people. You know, after diving into this, you know, day in and day out, we recognize it can be very taxing. You know, when we do recognize that, you know, we Q and I are not the sole source of information that makes its way to you the listener. And so you know, we're we're going to try to incorporate some some things that make this a little bit more digestible so that we can also enjoy ourselves. I don't think that you know,
I said this recently. I was at a at a rally protest in Phoenix and I and I said this to the crowd that was there. I don't think that we're just born to die. I don't think we're born to suffer. I think that we are entitled to some happiness, even though you know, we have some challenges. You know, and so it's in that spirit that I want to
incorporate some positivity. So stay tuned because a little later on the show, hopefully we'll be able to peel back some layers and you guys can actually help us with this.
You want to name a segment and make sure that every show we include some positivity because as taxing as it you know, might be to you guys to hear some of the stuff that we have a responsibility to talk about, it's ten times that for us, you know, digesting and going through and trying to figure out which topics have priority I guess, and what we're going to talk about every week, it can it can be mentally
and emotionally exhausting for all of us. So we have to make sure that we bring some light and some jump start to the show every week. So we want to name a segment. If you have ideas, send them to us. Yeah, at Civic Cipher everywhere.
Absolutely, we'd love to hear from you for that and for anything else. And speaking of which we've gotten a lot of recently, a lot of articles sent our way from listeners and just to kind of keep us in the loop of things that are going on. In different cities around the country, and so you know, last week we left some we couldn't get to everything, and so we were going to try to get through as much of this as possible. So forgive us if we don't
spend as much time on each one. But I just do think that some of these things are worth discussing and peeling back some layers and just kind of you know, we're your friends. So if you're an ally, you know, just kind of having some perspective, and of course if you're black yourself, then you understand it very well. And you know, I say it quite a bit, we're going to have our therapy together. So first up, I got a video this week from this one I think came
from our producer, shout out DJ Swirl one time. So there's a lady in North Carolina. This video went viral, so you might have seen it yourself. Yeah, a lady in North Carolina. She's an older white lady. She says she was in her seventies. If if I'm not mistaken, I believe she was at a restaurant or a store or something like that. What happens is there's some black folks in there, black women and they're having a good time and you know whatever.
Which they're not allowed to do. I don't know if you according according to this lady. They give out a pamphlet.
It's in there.
I think it's like the third if you fold it open, it's not the middle one, but it's third. Y'all can't see me, but the third section and the pamphlet when you feel it's four of them, it folds into a single one and the third ones. I think the second paragraph down black women specifically cannot have fun at the restaurant.
Well, this lady certainly felt that way. And you know, if you think back in your life, all of us. This happened to me the other day. I was at a restaurant called ajo Awls and there were some a group of people there. It was actually two different groups. I'm there with a business partner of mine. Shout out, sindbad. But we're sitting there talking, we're having lunch as we do. And there was a couple of women I think in a man, and one of the women was being so loud.
These were not black people. And then there was another table of people that were very like vulgar with their language. Also white folks you know, and so you know the same as I know that there are just types of people that are loud, that are really have really bombastic, you know, just very loud, loud energy. And that is
true regardless of what race they are. You know, sometimes those people are black, but obviously in all of our experience, not just mine, sometimes those people are whatever color God chose to paint them. You know, that's more of a reflection of their personality than their race in my belief. But this lady in North Carolina, we're not saying her name because we don't think that it really matters. We don't want to make heroes out of these people. But
she ultimately became very frustrated. She excused her frustration by saying that she was she suffered from anxiety, I think, which is any excuses really lame, because if you reach as she did toward you know, using racial slurs, which is the most basic form of expression in my belief, profanity is the most basic form of expression, but racial slurs has got to be three four levels below that. Even it means you got really nothing. It's like school yards.
It shows a complete lack of intellect in my belief, In my estimation. But you know, she, yeah, she called these women the in word, and of course the women and everyone else in that room was taken aback by
that because it's such a condemnation. And you know, we've talked about this on the show, what it feels like to hear that word from someone who is not black, from someone off of the lips of someone where there it's not just an attack on you, it's an attack on everyone who came before you, who were the color that you wear, whose bodies are buried in the ground on this land, who maybe that was the last word they ever heard in their life, and the the heartbreak
and the anger. I think the black people are allowed to be angry too, and that word certainly carries a lot of that with it. The anger that you feel with that is just something that you know, words we give words power, but black folks, we know that that word exists only to condemn us specifically.
Yeah, And it's the interesting thing is that even in heated moments where there's already raised levels of where people have started to raise their voice and they started to curse, and the temperature has clearly clearly changed in a room when it's turned into an argument and almost to fight. When that word is inserted, you can see both sides of the situation change very much, even if they were already being disrespectful or already shouting, already on the verge
of a fight, when that word is inserted. Even in the video we're talking about, they're already kind of mouthing at each other. But once the lady says that, it changes the temperature of everyone in the room, people involve, people not involved, Like everyone understands, Oh.
This's just turned into something else. Yeah, this is a like.
This is not just a lady that's upset. This is also a lady that's that's very plainly say racist. And to people who are otherwise not it always makes everybody kind of pause, even the even the person most angered by it has to process it for a second. The reaction isn't here that Yeah, the reaction isn't instant. It's like it's jarring. Even when we watched the video together and it was blurted out yeah like ooh, yeah, she wouldn't say it's stung a little bit. Man.
So here's the thing about that. There's you know, people
who are willing to like it. You might if especially if you're not black, you might imagine what the height of disrespect is, you know, And I feel like that if you're not black, you wouldn't be able to really understand how high that word is on the disrespect totem like for someone to like it, it's like on par with someone spitting in your face and then standing there holding you, trying to hold your gaze like you're staring you down, like I'm gonna spit in your face and
I'm gonna stare at you like that level of disrespect, Like really, so one of us has to die now because I'm not gonna like you think that's cool, you know, And I recognize that it's a word and it you know, words only have the power that we assigned to them. But I wanted to talk about that for a second while we're on this, so you know, if you're listening, you might think to yourself, well, obviously this lady had nothing else cognitively, intellectually, she had nothing else. This lady's
a million years old. She's out of her depth. She's going full Karen. She's allergic to anybody of any other race having any fun and if it causes her to be slightly uncomfortable, which is consistent with quote unquote karen behavior. Why even give it the dignity that it has so far?
And I think that one thing that we have to examine when it comes to these sorts of occurrences is that if those women were not black, Let's say there were a group of white women and they were being just as loud, right, just as an obnoxious quote unquote, if that's what this Karen is saying, what was happening in her estimation, But these women were white, this lady would have never used that word. The word only exists for black people. And the thing is, in no way
is it singular. It's a condemnation of a whole race of people. I'd argue she would have never even been annoyed or bothered, of course, of course, of course, but I'm trying to you know, of course not Yeah, this is purely you know, if someone is brown, or someone is if someone doesn't look like you and you are not, you don't feel connected to the fund that they're having
and it somehow inconveniences you or something like that. You know, karens are the all the human beings on the planet Earth that Karens are the ones that are the most upset, the most inconvenience, and the most likely to get up and try to do something about it. Right with their complete lack of testosterone really put themselves in the middle of a predicament where, you know, if anything went beyond just words, they're really not equipped to really engage on
that level. But they've been so empowered by and fortified by the cultural you know, optics and their position in society that they feel like, well, everybody needs to do everything I say or else if the police show up, they're going to automatically be on my side. And so this is why you get to behavior. But I want to share every story. Once upon a time, I had a friend named Jim. Jared and Jared and I we talked,
we hung out. You know, he was a friend of a friend, but you know they lived together as roommates, and I was always over at that friend's house, right, And Jared was super cool man. He was one of those guys that you know, he he was into basketball, he was in the hip hop. He was you know, one of those guys, but he you know, those people that are not quite cool but just like kind of close because you know, hey, man, I got the new
master P albums. It was a while back, you know, for those that don't know anything about master P's an old rapper anyway. So once upon a time, Jared said something he was He said, uh so, I remember Shaquille O'Neil had done something that he didn't agree with, whatever it was, and he said, man, Shack is really stupid. Shaq is Shaq is one of those guys that I think it's okay if you use the N word when you describe. And he said it just like that. He
didn't say he didn't actually say the word. He said quote the D word, right, but he said it to me and I reacted just like you whoa right, And he's like, well, you know, he's just so stupid. He just does that the third and I was like, well listen, man, hold on, let me explain something to you. And our relationship changed after that because there was some pushback.
You know.
I tried to meet him where he was and educate him because a lot of folks really need that, you know, they don't know, and I try to leave some room for forgiveness. That's my emo. Assume me if you don't like it, But I think that we all have to We're going to have to be here as brothers and sisters. We just need to teach each other how to love
each other. That's just my belief. So when that first happened, the way our conversation went was, Hey, Jared, so if you wouldn't say that about someone who's white, then you're only saying that word because he's black. That means that that word is a word for black people. And you know what that word means. He's like, yeah, of course. I was like, I'm black too. He's like, well, of course,
I'm not talking about you. I'm like, but that's a word that if you say it, it's it's it's It's a word that as a race has been very hurtful to us. And if you use it, you can't pick and choose. You know, you can't just say, Okay, this person is, but these people aren't. You know, it doesn't work that way. You know, this is a condemnation of a race of people. This is how the word was used, This is how the word was instilled. Look at the literature,
go back. You could see for yourself. And I'm not going to say it because we're on the radio on the FCC kind of police is what we say. But you know, you can see all the documents in words for sale, you know bucks, you know that that you know you could go and purchase. You know, this is the way that it was used. So you can't then go and say, well, Shaq is one, but you're not,
because that's not the way the word was intended. So if you're going to use this word, to understand the gravity of it, understand that this is something that you're that is going to affect everybody who is black, and they're going to hear it and have some visceral reaction to it. It's a very hurtful thing to hear.
And that's without you even pushing back on the idea that what he was saying was false on his face. Sure of course that shacks not just some stupid in word.
No that at no point is that word ever necessary to describe a human being's behavior. And if you do, you describe that specific human being, you don't use the word that's ascribed to a race of people. That's like me saying okay, well this one person is Native American, but you know, like somehow that there's only one No, that's a word that has been historically used to describe a race of people in a very unflattering way, with specific emphasis on our cognition.
And that's his use of that word is everything we need to know about why he thought Shack was stupid.
There's no, he didn't have any evidence to point to them.
That's it's how he feels about how he feels about.
One thing that Shaquille O'Dell did in his life that upset him, and he thought that that was a go too, and so much like this lady in North Carolina, you know when she reaches for it. You know people that look at the video and are like, oh my gosh, why would you even like, just let this old lady go home and die somewhere. Well, no, it's not that simple. I wish it was, because I look at it and my first mind is, okay, how does this look too? White? Allies?
Because I have to talk about it on the radio, I have to feel it for me and for you if you're listening. And I have to feel it for my children. I have black children, have black sons. I have to feel it for my family. I have to feel it for our listeners who are not white. I have to feel for our listeners who are Hispanic and so forth, and really try to process it the best I can based on my limit. I'm not a Hispanic sixteen year old woman, so I don't know what the
world looks like to her. But I have to try to imagine how to explain this to that person and everyone else, and so, you know, just some perspective, and I do think that it's it's very important that if you're out in the world, then you're you come across someone who thinks that jokes are funny and they want to use this or that, or they want to get stuff like that off. It's it's okay to challenge that.
And if you're a non confrontational person, it's okay to challenge a person with a little bit of love in your voice. I try to do that, and I'm probably successful, maybe eight times out of ten them. Last two times I'm bringing that smoke, you know, because I got that too. But it's there, you know, and you know again, together we're going to help stomp this out and keep it stomped out. You know, in my belief, we're moving in the right direction. You know, you constantly reminds me that
we have a long way to go. But is this progress? And you know we're doing our part here. So moving on, athletes banned from wearing BLM apparel or taking a knee or raising a fist at the Tokyo Olympics. Q. How do you feel about that?
I pause sometimes and forget that our listeners aren't looking at us, because if they could see my face, you know what I mean, like it's my facial expression is saying a lot.
They could have.
Okay, so this is what I think sure happens now moving forward from their statement and their stance on this, they've made villains out of anyone who would take a knee or raise a fist, or simply say or wear a T shirt or wristband or a headband or a hat or anything that black lives matter.
The IOC would have been better off just not saying anything. What's IOC. I don't want to say this incorrectly. Let me make sure that I'm.
Is that like a something to do with the Olympic International Olympic Committee. Okay, because now you've put a person in a position to feel they have to push back rights as a person representing this country, especially a black person, be it as an Olympic athlete or a member of our military. There has always been this idea that I'm going to go out here and fight for and or
compete for this country that does not love me. And somehow you're look that funny when you're the person making that statement, not all the people that prove.
It to be true.
So you can come home wearing the stars and stripes and a gold medal and a military uniform, all of it, and people are still going to see first and foremost your skin color.
Yeah, we saw that officer get pulled out of his You got pepper sprayed. The dog got pepper sprayed. He got pulled out of his brand new GEEP. That might have been three four weeks ago. It was in full military get ups.
Yeah, so.
You're now putting these people in the they are already You're already in a position when you're black and you're representing the United States on a world stage. Now you have the IOC saying, don't you dare come here with that black people deserve to exist stuff?
Don't you dare?
And now as an athlete or an all, as a black athlete or an ally even if you're not from this country, you have to arrive at the Olympics with tension that's now extra that wouldn't have been right. There's a certain amount of attention that exists period if you look like us. But now they've gone out in front of everyone and said, don't you dare again come here
with that black people deserve to exist nonsense. And our athletes, who are already competing on behalf of a country that does not love them, have to go there essentially being told to shut up about how they feel about the things that are going on in this country and around the world.
It's so interesting that they would make a move to silence a movement that has been what I in my estimation, very fruitful.
I mean, it's a you know, I always I always speak to the statement because people try to find a way to make the movement something political or negative. Even if it is political. The idea that black people should be able to not get murdered for just being black
should not be controversial, even if you do consider it political. Right, But the idea that you're gonna make your stance that you better not say show anything with regards to that puts people in a really rough position, and I'm curious to see if they're going to get some pushback from athletes that they probably wouldn't have otherwise.
So that's what I was thinking. I love stuff like this. I don't love it, but like I know me and I know that I would rise to the occasion. I would go there and just do it anyway, and they would have to strip me up my medals, and I would do it in front of everybody and then and I got all the interviews afterward. I would let everyone know how hypocritical they were, you know. And you know, I think that that's that would be the play I
would make, at least. So I'm hoping that the athletes, especially the black athletes, but all athletes out so non black that really says it's about time. Yeah, And and that's another thing. A lot of a lot of white folks, a lot of Spanish folks, Native folks, et cetera. Whenever y'all stand up for black folks, it it looks and feels very special. And that's why we know what that's like, and we try to reciprocate as often as we can. So, yeah,
we gotta switch gears here for a second. So if you just tune in the civic sipher Amy host rams as.
Yeah, they call me q Ward, but it's kind of like an abbreviation of my full name, quintin Ward, So it's kind of you know, cooler, shorter, easier to say, that's that's how we got there.
And yeah, if you haven't heard something that came across our desk, and forgive me, I forgot who sent this our way, but I'm sure it was a listener. But you know, another thing worth talking about, at least worth mentioning. You know, there's a lot of folks that say, you know, this is a post racist society. You know, we have a vice president woman who is you know, and then
we have we had a black president. You know, let's not you know, and I think that a lot of those folks don't recognize that, you know, cultural insensitivities is another part of or it's it's kind of like the what's the word I'm looking for, it's a byproduct of racism.
You know, people can be racist and not know, but it could be deep down on the inside and they just harbor prejudices and without critical examination of their own selves, they'll never know it because they're like, well, I never I would never hurt anybody just because they didn't they
look different from me, and they think that's it. They don't recognize that they're a part of a system that their apathy serves, where they don't recognize that, you know, there are some benefits, or at least some disadvantages for not being white, you know, and you know, for them to view the world as it is and think that everything is okay because well I don't do that, so everything is fine, is enough for them to tell themselves
that they're not racist. But to those people, I have an example here that I think illustrates to another degree that very we're not in a post racial society and that cultural sensitivities definitely are worth considering when you're trying to, you know, draw those sorts of conclusions. Minnesota, let me take you there again. We need to get in an apartment there. Son, really so there's a high school uh senior, he's uh wanting to go to prom and you know
there's these really grand prom gestures. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about this. I just thought it was worth mentioning. But you know, the high school seniors. They it's like a marriage proposal, but they get to have fun with it, and they're in high school, so it's really you know, all bets are off, you know, and then in the TikTok generation, you know,
everybody gets to do everything it hopes that it goes viral. Well, this kid went viral for probably some reasons that his parents or maybe his parents do agree with, who knows. But what he did was he wrote a sign for his prom date, and the sign read, and I quote, if I was black, I'd be picking cotton, but I'm white, So I'm picking you for prom. And there's a lot that you have to consider again when thinking of that. You know, we haven't even begun to talk about systemic racism.
We haven't begun to talk about real disparities and political representation in terms of you know, the judicial system and the criminal justice system and those outcomes and so forth. We're talking about teasing and words and things like this, right, because a lot of times that's easier for people to understand. Right, But that's just a very thin, surface level representative layer,
if you will, of everything that is below it. But this is worth mentioning because there Again, there are people who would say, well, it's harmless if you don't feed into it. It's just a kid. He did a stupid thing. He thought he was making a joke, and blah blah blah. But to me, I look at a society, I look at a family, I look at a group of friends,
and I look at a culture. Granted this is Minnesota, but you know there's a culture that exists there in the sided at large that is really more exclusive to white folks than anyone where stuff like this is totally fine, which is why this child was able to live I'm assuming seventeen eighteen years and think that this was not only okay but funny, and they don't recognize how exceptionally offensive it is. They don't recognize the human cost of that joke, that there were people their whole lives.
I don't want to cut you off, good, but the sad part is to that kid, there is no human cost, right, there's no educor doesn't have friends that look like us, clearly not actual friends. He might have classmates, he might even have kids that he hangs out with and plays basketball or whatever, but he doesn't have friends like us. So there's no one that he cares about, that will
be hurt by that. And it's not an off the cuff thing he said without thinking, he wrote, he made a sign colors, and he designed a sign, put it in a car or on a bike, and took it somewhere for this person to see it, and then presented it to them. There's so many moments where this could have been lied not this isn't a good idea. Mine never went there. And his mind, it was absolutely hilarious.
We'll get this.
Off and when he gets it off, everyone's going to talk about how funny he is.
So I think that what we have here is more a reflection of let's start with education, because you know, when the previous administration was in office, there was this big push to dilute education. I know this is true. In Texas, they teach slavery, since that's what we're talking
about picking cotton. They teach slavery. Now as workers were brought over from Africa as opposed to slaves, were brought to you know, work and kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and then because of the economics of it, then it ended up you know, really taking its toll. And then you know we've studied this that the people in Africa that did participate in the slave trade had no idea what they were selling their country folk into, because the forms of
slavery that existed in Africa were very different. You could conquer a tribe and then you incorporate them into your tribe and that's that, you know, but they work, and then after a while they're like, it's like in densured servitude or something like you can pay for your freedom eventually or whatever. But there was nothing like, Okay, we're gonna change your name, we're gonna take your language, you
can't practice your religion. We're gonna beat you. We're going to bear you and rip you apart by horses to race, subjugate you, We're going, yeah, we're rape under yeah, all these sorts of things. And then we're going to systemically oppress you and economically, uh, make sure that your disadvantaged for hundreds of years thereafter, so that you have no real chance it self determination. That's a whole different thing
that no one knew about. But anyway, I digress. When you take education out of schools and you don't really give people what it is they need, which is again a reflection of a racist society, a society that doesn't want to deal with it because either a they think it's fine or b they don't want to face it, which I think that are both. To see all of the above exactly, so we're not in a post racial society, especially if we haven't dealt with the racism that we're
still dealing with. Right, But when you when when you don't teach these people this, when you take it out of school. I think in Arizona, where a Q and I live, there's uh some legislation that's being voted on now where if they teach one side of history that now they have to teach the other side. It's of course a Republican initiative because that those people tend to be the people that don't really want to come to terms with their past and their role in society by
and large and shaping modern society. So that means that if they teach the Holocaust that you know, the Jews were murdered by the millions by the Germans, they also have to teach the other side of the Holocaust, which somehow is the why I love to hear what there is and that's but the thing is this this These rules weren't written for the Holocaust. They were written so that you could teach two sides to slavery. The Holocaust is the big hang up because everybody agrees across the
board that, yeah, the Holocaust was bad. But in this country, we don't mind dealing with what happened in Germany. We don't want to deal with what happened here. So they wanted to teach slavery like well, you know, you know slaves, some of the slaves love their masters physically or whatever. Sorry that might have been too graphic, but you know, they want to teach it like that.
In addition to Stockholm syndrome, if you google Stockholm, you'll see where that term came from, where it was born, and apply that same rhetoric to what happened two slaves who did, in some cases end up loving their captors.
We call that Uncle Tom, we call that. We called that a lot of stuff. But for the most part, there is no two sides. We're very well informed as to what happened. But this initiative is to deny the youth of you know, that knowledge, so that in their belief that if they don't know what happened, then everybody
gets along better, you know. And the truth is, I think that by coming to terms that we can really understand where we are and why we're at different places in society, and that we stop blaming each other in terms of like our character. We stop blaming, you know, we stop using excuses like well, you should pull up yourselves by your bootsteps, and we really start examining critically the systems that are built in the place that reinforce white supremacy in today's society. And it starts with all
of the sins that America has committed. Shouts to capitalism.
I always have to shout capitalism out for the role it plays in sustaining a system built on the foundation of white supremacy.
So, yeah, that's enough about that Minnesota stuff. Now now we can talk about some stuff that sucks. I was waiting to see if there was a colloquialism for that, and it just sucks. Sucks, really hit the nail on the head. So another publication that we read around here
is The Atlanta Black Star. It's a publication that's really dedicated to you know, black news, sharing stories that you know might not be carried on your CNNs and you know that, you know, Fox News of course wouldn't carry anything on any Atlanta Black Star, but just critical examination of things that happened around the country that really affect black folks and so that we understand what's going on
in black America. And a lot of these stories, of course, they, like I said, they won't make it to the news cycle that you're accustomed to seeing and your weekly, yar daily newsfeed. So this story is about a Baton Rouge police officer named Jeremiah are Doin, I believe. So it's a story about police corruption. By the way, So Jeremiah are Doin is a black officer again Baton Rouge, Louisiana Police Department. That's a big city in the United States.
He worked in the narcotics division and ultimately he became a whistleblower. Now I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that if you're a police officer, there's this blue wall of silence where you don't tell on other police officers when they don't do their job correctly. Right, you don't tell on other police officers when they break the law. You mean, that's what I mean? Okay, yes, but sometimes I stutter,
So I didn't no, no, no, you got right. Yeah, but yeah, they just if they see something, they just
protect them. They protect each other, right, which is why a lot of these officers when they do ultimately have to Like the Derek Chavin trial, the person who murdered George Floyd, he believe he had like nineteen complaints filed against him in I think eighteen years or something or something ridiculous, which they were all able to submit in court to show that this officer was consistently operating beyond the scope of his his job description, you know, and
causing harm to people, and so much so to where they would complain about him, which suggests that there's probably hundreds that didn't even get to that point, right just to you know whatever. But you know, we never hear about it, because these police protect themselves and they protect each other. So this guy decides that he's not going to stand for it. This Jeremiah are doin, this black officer, and he blows the whistle about a corrupt narcotics division
again which he worked for, and his whistle blowing. Ultimately, there's two stories happening simultaneously here. But the whistleblowing part of this ultimately resulted in seven hundred criminal cases getting thrown out. Could you imagine I didn't say seven, I didn't say one hundred, I said seven hundred. And then they said, I think there's an estimated sixteen hundred more
potentially that can get thrown out. And there's hundreds more cases that have been tainted because these people would plant drugs on people, they would falsify documents, they would lie to, you know, with each other, to put people on the sea. They would do all kinds of stuff to you know, either trump up charges or get folks who had nothing to do with it wrapped up in some nonsense or whatever. The case is hundreds of times, and if everything ends
up panning out, it'll be literally thousands of times. And of course we are aware that the war on drugs was launched initially to criminalize black people, specifically the Black Power movement, sick black people too, and hippies. Right, So, my belief is that this narcotics division in Baton Rouge, Louisiana overwhelmingly interacted with and convicted black people by an order of magnitude I would imagine right now, I don't have hard numbers on that that speculation, but I mean,
it's safe to assume. Again, this is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and it's a narcotics division, you know, and I know the country I live in, and I've been to Baton Rouge, actually we both have, so we know what we're talking about there. Anyway, and then ultimately, because he was the whistleblower, they set him up. And you want to hear the way they set him up, please, you're gonna love this. So he someone reached out to him saying, hey, do you want to buy some electronics for a really cheap price,
like a TV and whatever. I'm selling a TV and then a video camera something like that. He's like, yeah, man, of course that cheap, let me buy it, right, goes to meet the person buys it. Turns out it's stolen. Boom, they arrest him. He's like, yo, I had no idea was stolen because he knew it was stolen. Yeah, and then he's like, clearly it's a setup. So now this
officer is in jail for buying stuff. So he's in the criminal justice system now because of that, and now the police can exact their revenge from their former narcotics partner. So to everyone that still supports, you know, the police need our support, their heroes and this, that and the other. And granted this is one example, but I'm from Compton, California. I've interacted with the LAPD. That's another example. I've interacted
with the Phoenix Police Department. The only time in my life I've ever had a gun pulled on me, look down a barrel of a gun, actually lots of guns. Phoenix Police Department least have never been the heroes in my story.
And do you know how overwhelmingly obvious the evidence had to be against those officers in the case is to actually get thrown out right right and overturned. Yeah, they were anybody to even be convicted of anything and be told that they're either losing their job or for there to be any type of repudiation, the evidence had to be so overwhelming against them.
Yeah, absolutely, And that's why I say that it's such an an interesting thing that, you know, Yeah, you know when when people have this idea, you know, police are are heroes. They keep us safe from this and that and the other. And I get it, I do get it. You know, if you don't know any better, if you read the you know, if you've been fed this propaganda your whole life, and you've watched every movie and so forth, you know that's what you're taught to believe, right, But
I know better. I know that they're public servants. I called the police. How about this? I called the police the other day. Excuse me. I was in a hit and run accident. Right, someone ran into the back of my car and then took off. Right, got his license plate, so boom, I'm calling the police. I can almost guess what the police said to you when they arrived. No, no, no, it was cool. It was cool. It was it was
It was totally cool. But now I'm nervous. Of course, I'm like, shoot, let me get somewhere, let me park, Let me make sure that the door is open, and I'm visible at you know, clearly, you know whatever officers showed up, officer was super cool, right, But what he did was he showed up took my story. I was on the phone when nine one one first, because I was following the person to hit my car. I'm like, yoh,
he just ran into me. Described him as like a ninety year old white male driving a Honda and in my car. Speaking of which farmer's insurance. I want my money. But but yeah, the officer shows up. They told me not to follow the guy who ran into my car. They says, pull over, don't follow him. So I pull over and they're like, we're gonna send a unit out. Officer shows up. Officer takes my statement, shows me an iPad, says this the guy that ran into you. I says, yes, sir,
that's the guy ran into me. He's like cool, gives him his paperwork. He's like, all right, here you go. We're gonna go to his house and blah blah blah. This's none to the other. And that's it. No heroes there. He did a job, same as a bus driver, same, You know what I'm saying.
And so.
When you elevate and I'm not saying I'm not saying when I say I've never the police have never been a hero in my story, I'm not saying they've always been the bad guy. I'm just saying that when we elevate them to heroes or to gods or whatever it is that we're obsessed with doing in this country, or at least half of the country is obsessed with doing, then it really leaves no room for them to be exactly what they are, which is a product of a
flawed system. And granted there is a lot of people who are really taking advantage of that, and some people who are just victims of it. They want to do a good job, they want to they look, man, there's not a lot of people that are like, you know what. The reason I was born is to be a police officer. People will little kids, I want to go to the NBA, want to be astronautic. Usually police officer is a little bit lower down on your list, right, it's a job.
You know.
I tried to be a police officer. Did you three times? Really? Yeah? Talk to me.
Gotten the best physical condition of my life. Took a physical took a written exam, and then they have this thing called an oral board review where you sit in a room of officers. They present you with scenarios. You explain how you think you would respond because you haven't been trained, so you really have no idea, and then based off of that they decide whether or not they're going to allow you to go to police academy. Now,
our listeners don't know me, but you do. I was not able to become a police officer through the process you have to go through to become a police officer, with three separate departments in three different cities. Me, I was not qualified. So imagine what the level of scrutiny should be if me intelligent and educated. Because those are not one and the same fit sound kind empathetic. I
can say these things straight faced about myself. When I sat in a room of a fellow of officers, not fellow officers, because I'm not one, I was deemed and then they don't explain to you why you don't get like a, hey, go work on this. No they you just never hear back and you understand. Okay, they passed on me, didn't. I went and tried it again. One department I tested twice, two separate departments. I tested once and was not able to become a cadet at an academy.
Thank god.
I bring that up because I've met officers that Okay, I'm not going to say that because there's no nice way to say it. I'll just say this. The level of scrutiny for our officers is much lower than it probably should be. I want you people to imagine if twenty five times a year we found out that there were members of the fire department starting the fires every year. So let's say two stories a month, a member of the fire department sets an apartment building on fire, several
people die. How we would look at the members of our fire department, especially if they tried to cover it up for each other. No, I'm talking about yeah, of course, Yeah, there's way more than twenty five fires. But we've seen on video every year them setting twenty five buildings on fire and someone dies in each building. How we would react and how we would scrutinize and treat and view our firefighters our police officers get a pass for what is relatively the same thing.
Just food for thought. Well, one thing that I can say, though, is that, you know, I get that it's a tough job. I get that it's a job. It's also no one's getting rich. It's also voluntary. Yeah that too, And I get that you know, these people are not getting rich. So a lot of folks they're like, look, man, I'm trying to take care of my family, and this is what I can do. You know I was able to do it, so I'm trying to do it right. But really, and really, what we've been critical of on the show
is the system surrounding it. So I want that to be the primary takeaway from this. So yeah, with that said, if you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your host Rams's job. They call me q Ward, and we want to talk about something that brought a little bit of joy into our lives or my life. I'll talk about specifically. You know, there was for those that have HBO Max, Michael cha who is the He's the anchor on Saturday Night Lives Weekend Update.
He's a writer, comedian and cast member on Saturday Night Live and yes, the anchor on the Weekend Update.
So Michael Chay put out, I think it might have been six series episode on HBO Max, and I took an afternoon and watched all six of them and I loved it. It was so funny, and I this is this is I'll say this is an endorsement. I became a fan of Michael Chay when he said in one of his stand ups he said he was being critical of the All Lives Matter movement right because he said he was basically he said, you know, how is it that black lives matter is a controversial statement? Like do
we not love you to? Do we care? Is like, where's the bar do we have? Do black lives exist? Can we start there? Do black lives exist? Even like can we agree on that we can't agree that they matter? Can we agree that they exist? You know, And it's just such a refreshing look at it, and it really points out some of the hypocrisies in the all Lives
matter ideology or lack thereof, you know. So that coupled with the fact that on Weekend Update, which you know I've watched quite a bit of over the past couple of years, you know, he is the guy that is able to kind of dig a little bit deeper when it comes to racial issues, you know, when they're talking
about Kanye, when they're talking about whatever. You know, he's the guy that can kind of dig a little bit deeper and get the humor out of it and it still be palatable and in line with, you know, the culture of the show. Because Saturday Night, my sorry, Saturday Night Live, in my belief, is liberal leaning show. You know what I mean. I think anybody with a sense of humorous a little bit more liberal leaning, and so I really have always loved his capacity to be able
to get that out of there. But in his special that he put out or his limited web series, you know, one of the things that he talks about is, of course he talks about police, you know, police saying he talks about white allies and what it's like interacting with with white allies, people who are very apologetic for the state of the world and are doing their best to try to bring some balance to it, you know. But he deals with these things in a humorous way, you know.
And so for folks that you know, we appreciate you listening to our show, and we do recognize that we kind of have a serious tone here, but these are serious topics often. But you know, if if you want to get some additional perspective and also have some fun with some you know, late night entertainment value to it,
you know, I highly recommend the show. And one thing that really stood out to me, and it's interesting that we were just talking about this with the uh you know, what we were talking about, like policing as an institution, is that he really has to in a couple of his you know skits or short you know whatever, short skits I think they're called, he has to talk about the fact that his brother is a police officer, and that really presents an interesting dynamic to what's happening on
the show. And you know, you have to think about that. There's a group of there's a there's a school of thought in you know, the more radical liberal way of thinking, which states, absolutely, abolish the police entirely, right, we need to burn it down. We need to rethink what policing means in community safety, and we need to build it from the ground up, right. And I'm not going to
say one way or another the merits of that. I would rather whoever is more informed about that come up and say that, but I will acknowledge that that line of thinking absolutely exists. And then on the other side of it, there's people who say, well, we need the police, Let's give them all the money in the world because they're keeping us safe, as illustrated by the fact that
I Karen am not dead yet, right. So, you know, and usually with things like this we find that, you know, the truth is or really the path forward, whether or not it's the truth, the path forward is somewhere in the middle. It's based on a compromise. Everybody gives a little bit right, and then that's how we move forward.
And so.
If I was a betting man, I would bet that police are going to be with us, you know, moving into the future, which isn't something that is necessarily a
bad thing, provided that we rethink what that means. You know, do we need a human being who's having a mental breakdown to be engaged by another person with a gun and the license to kill him, or how do we rethink what that looks like or do we you know, with the defunding the police, one of the things that I really like about that, at least when you get past the term defund the police, one of the things I like about the ideas is, well, let's take some
of these funds from fortifying police departments and put those funds into the communities so that we stop the crime from happening in the first place. If a lot of the crime comes from the homeless population, let's try to treat this like it's a separate thing. We don't need more police to control the homeless. We need less homeless, you know, which is on its face makes the most
sense in the world. But because we're so trained and it's so ingrained in our society, that we need police that you know, it's just the norm, and I think our impulse is to continue to fortify those institutions.
And so.
The thing I love about Michael Chay is it forces us, the viewer of his show, to live in a world where there are police officers and we are tied to the outcomes of those police officers work day. Do they come home safe at the end of the day, because you know, this is his brother. He wants his brother to be safe. But also he has to recognize that, okay, well, policing as an institution overall is very harmful to us, even though there are black police officers, and that we
don't we don't believe all cops are. There's a there's a term aca B look it up. I don't want to get in trouble with the FCC. But you know, he would he would argue that, well, you might think all of them are, but I'm not going to call my brother that, you know, And again, it just makes it makes you stop and take a list, a look critically at you know, what are we really doing, what do we really want as an outcome, and what's realistic
in terms of those outcomes? Because again, more than likely our path forward is somewhere in the middle, you know, of those two extremes, And so that doesn't sound like, you know, good news, but I thought it was really great and I really implore all of you to to check it out because if you're like me and you want a better tomorrow for your your self and your family and your future and your brothers and sisters that don't look like you, then you know it helps to
you know, continue to engage, but also to not overwhelm yourself. And I think that's a great way to do it. And so with that in mind, that's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher today. Uh you know, once again, i'm your host rams' Jah and I am Quentin, yes, but y'all can call me q absolutely, and we would love for you to check out the website Civiccipher dot com. On that website, you can submit topics for the show if you want us to discuss them. You can also donate.
The show is growing, growing, growing, and it's your donations that are helping us grow, and we would love to continue to grow and bring this message to more folks and also be sure to plug into all of our social media. It's all at Civic Cipher and of course you can download this in all previous episodes on civiccipher dot com. Just hit the podcast. It's available on odd podcasting platforms and until next week. Y'all. Peace, peace,