Welcome to another episode of Civic Psacher. I'm your host, Ramsey's Jah I.
Go by today and probably for the rest of my existence.
Q War. I think I'm gonna stick with it. I was, you know, remember how I was kind of Okay, never mind, I'll talk about it. I'll talk to you about it. Well, we are here to talk about heavy week that we've been through. Unless you've been under a rock, you know exactly what we need to talk about. Obviously, when you
last heard us, the world was a different place. And but was it we were getting comfortable again, I suppose, because I was certainly surprised and hurt more than I should have been when I found out about the mass shooting in Buffalo. So we will spend a good amount of the day discussing that. Of course, we're going to talk about what we decided in our in our show, producer Maggie decided that we should talk about the people
and how things feel. That's important around here, and so we're going to spend a good amount of time talking about that, and then a little later in the show we're going to get into the whys and what we believe happened and what we can potentially do about it. So yeah, lots to stick around for there. We're also going to be talking for our way black history fact. You know, for those who are fans of Disney, you
know there's a movie called The Princess and the Frog. Well, I learned recently that that movie was based on an actual woman, black woman who lived an amazing life, and we are going to talk about her and how she was the basis of this amazing Disney movie. Wow, that was award winning and made so much profits and so forth. And of course we have the whole rest of the show, so many of stuff to stick around for, things you might not have heard about before, and we're happy to
share with you. But first and foremost, like we always do with this time, Q, can we get into some ebony excellence? Of course we can. All right, then let's do it. So today we are going to split it up a bit. There's been a lot of stories that we haven't been able to get around to, which is a good thing. You know, have any excellence. We have a lot of those, and we want to share them on the show. So we're going to put a few of them together. These are about folks graduating from school,
all right, this is a big accomplishment. And there are some people who didn't even need to graduate from school based on, you know, normal metrics that normal folks might have in terms of what you want from life. And yet and still these folks, either they're setting an example or they just had a personal commitment to themselves or their family, whatever it is, have managed to make it across the stage. So first and foremost, Anthony Anderson. This one comes from CBS News. So he fulfilled a dream
thirty years in the making, graduating from Howard University. Shout out to Howard, Shout out to Hu. The fifty one year old received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the historically black university last week. To quote Biggie, it was all a dream. Words can't begin to describe the emotional Roller Coast ter I'm on right now, he wrote on Instagram. And we also have Stephan Curry's another wardale Stephan Curry talk to him. So this one comes from
NBC News. There's quote we got it done. Steph Curry's celebrates becoming a college grad. The Golden State Warrior Star graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Davidson College on Sunday. And then last but not least, this one comes from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The acclaimed Atlanta entertainer Chris Ludacris Bridges Luda has also graduated, and so we wanted to take the time out to shot
them out because that is definitely some ebony excellence. Now, because of the way our show airs and because of the timing of this hate crime that took place in Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, we weren't able to you know, it just kind of happened after our show air. So for those that might have missed it, I know if you're listening to us, there's a good chance that you did not miss it. But we do have to tell the story sort of from the beginning. There was a mass shooting
at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. Store was called Tops. It was a racist attack and an.
Active domestic terrorism, if you will, absolutely that's a great way to say that.
And as you know, on this show, we do our best to be journalists, but we've never pretended to be what we're not. Q is a DJ and Ramses is a DJ, and that's what we do, right, So we try to protect ourselves, perhaps differently than a traditional journalist would. With that said, we don't always watch ourselves the trauma that the systems in this country put black bodies through, and if we do have to watch these videos, we
will take terms. Neither one of us wanted to jump on this grenade, and so we obviously we saw enough clips to familiarize ourselves with the story we've read about it. But I will not pretend that I have watched the video of this most recent mass shooter, whose name I will not say, but you know he live streamed himself walking through the Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York
and ending people's lives. We did watch the clips that weren't so graphic, just because again we had to familiarize ourselves. But to anyone that might say, hey, you missed this detail or you got this one bit wrong, perhaps, but for us, we're not. I'm never going to watch that video. I was not born here to watch people die. That's just not in my heart. Yeah, that's not the spirit of the show. Ever. Yeah, it's definitely not the spirit of the show today.
Like I've said before, kind of angrily trying to argue semantics with regards to the parts that we know are true, is that he murdered people.
Sure, that's thank you.
Go ahead, like you know what I mean, we don't have to really get into well he made it left and not a right. I mean, that's semantics for the sake some magics were. That's not what we're here, thank you to. That's perfect you. So I'm not going to pretend like I watched the video on myself. To anyone who has, you are a stronger person in that way than I am, and I commend you. But you know
you mentioned a man went and bought a gun. We'll get into the details a bit, but just so that we can start this story, because we want to start at a very special place. Eighteen year old man went and bought a gun, and then he took that gun to a grocery store. He had tactical gear on in the parking lot when he drove up to the gun, he got out of his car and he started to fire on people in the parking lot, and then those
people died. And then he went in the store and he started shooting more people, and then those people died. And there's these might be rumors again I did and see him. Once he sort of ran out of targets, he went back to the wounded people and shot them again to make sure that they died. I do know that this is the most since Dylan Ruth. This is the most the deadliest attack on an African American community since then. Dylan Ruth's name was written on this gentleman's assault rifle.
Yeah. And and for those that may have forgotten, Dylan Ruth is the the man that went into the church and shot nine people when they were at church. Oh so yeah, we knew it's gonna happen, all right, So yeah, he went in and you just killed everybody. And then the police came and they arrested him. He's still alive, beating heart. We have we have to get to that later. Right now, we're just telling the story. I need you
to tell that part of the story. Queue, because when we were talking about what's his name, Sanders, we talked about him last week, Quadre Sanders in Oklahoma, I believe it was. And they were not able to take him alive, or sure they were perhaps able to, but chose not to take him in alive because they were so afraid. As my colleague would have us. Believe I wouldn't have you, but I'm just trying to allow for that part of the conversation to at least exist anyway. So that's what happened.
There was a mass shooting. Man went in, he shot. Believe it was thirteen people. Ten people lost their life that day. A shooter was arrested and taken into custom. Okay, I'm going to take a moment because this is important. If I've learned anything, marching, if I've learned anything study and doing this show something that I will always work on. Because I'm awful with names, but I do recognize how
important they are. We're going to say the names of the ten people who are not here with us anymore. I realized this isn't the most compelling radio but if you will please just listen to me. I have to do this is I'm a longtime broadcaster, so I know it works and I know it doesn't, but this isn't about that right now. This is something that I have to do, so please allow me to read these names.
I'm going to do my best here. ROBERTA. A Jury of Buffalo, New York, age thirty two, Marcus D. Morrison of Buffalo, New York, age fifty two, Andre McNeil of Auburn, New York, age fifty three, Aaron Salter of Lockport, New York, age fifty five, Geraldine Tally of Buffalo, New York, age sixty two, Celestine Cheney of Buffalo, New York, age sixty five, Hayward Pattison of Buffalo, New York, age sixty seven, Catherine Massey of Buffalo, New York, age seventy two, Pearl Young
of Buffalo, New York, age seventy seven, Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo, New York, age eighty six. I need to say those names because those are people, human beings. Those were people that were at the grocery store. They have families and you know they you know, this is these names, Pearl, Ruth, you know like these are you know, these are the people that that pray for us. You know, we know these people. We know we're not from Buffalo, New York,
but we know these people. You know, we know this community. We know that you know, and we need you to know this listening to our show today, because this is who we're talking about. This is this is what happens when hate remains unchecked It's like a cancer. It festers and it boils over and it spills over into things
like this. And I recognize that this has happened in other communities, and we have committed We've already committed to during an episode talking about other unities in this month, in particular because this is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and so we definitely want to take some time with that. Our producer, Maggie aka Maggie b Noan, she has that written up for us, but obviously this week we had to talk about this. Our community is hurting.
These are the names of the people who are no longer alive. It's important that we mentioned that. Now. I'm going to read a little bit from the New York Times. The headline says gunman kills ten at Buffalo supermarket and racist attack. President Biden called for a thorough investigation and said there was no harbor for quote hate field domestic terrorism en quote. The eighteen year old white gunman, who
pleaded not guilty, left behind a manifesto. The police said the gunman, whom they described as an eighteen year old white man from outside the city, was motivated by racism. He appeared in court hours after the attack. Do we know what the.
Charge, what the charges were that were brought against him, murder in the first degree, led not guilty to them, to the murders that he live streamed himself committing that he was charged with.
Yeah, A teenage gunman in entranced by a white supremacist ideology known as a replacement theory, open fire at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday, this would be last Saturday, of course, methodically shooting and killing ten people and injuring three more, almost all of them black, one of the
deadliest racist attacks in recent American history. The authorities identified the gunman as eighteen year old Blank Blank of Conklin, a small town in New York, New York's rural southern tier Mount oh The shooter drove more than two hundred mins else to mount his attack when she also livestreamed, the police said, a chilling video feed that appeared designed to promote his senistery agenda. This is the largest mass
shooting to date in the city of Buffalo. I don't think anyone here in the city of Buffalo thought that something like this could ever happen, would ever happen mister Wingo said most of the shoppers at the Top supermarket were black, mirroring the surrounding neighborhood. Dorothy Simmons, sixty four, typically spends part of her Saturday as at Top shopping for food to prepare for Sunday dinner. Quote, that's what we do in this community, said Miss Simmons, who has
lived in East Buffalo all their life. On this Saturday, Miss Simmons was at work in Amherst. When she heard the news, she cried and said, this is our store, this is our store. Miss Simmons, who was black, said the fact that the gunman was able to surrender showed disparity. Quote if that had been my son, it would have never been surrendered. We would have never had a chance to surrender. Miss Simmons said, it would never be that way. Okay, now talk to me, Q.
It becomes increasingly difficult to keep the faith whichever kind your mind went to when I said that, faith in humanity, faith in each other, faith in God, faith in our systems, faith in our country, faith in our law enforcement community. Every time we do a show, we end up having to make some sort of punitive statement with regards to law enforcement in this country. And the most difficult thing about that is that each of us know police officers. I don't just mean Ramsees and I I mean most
of everybody that's listening. You're probably a relationship away, a relationship removed from a police officer. Somebody is who is related to a police officer. And there's been times where you know, I'm talking to you Ramses and I'm like, man, you know, is there another way for us to do this? Except no, there isn't because we have too much data. We have too much information, We have too many facts to try to be emotional with regards to this topic.
Does not mean that we're not compassionate. It does not mean that we deal and only black and white pardon the pun there, right, But in actual mental health issues, right, police are called because there's a mental health episode.
Police show up and they shoot.
With regards to black people, traffic stop, mental health, jaywalking, toy at the playground, sleeping, the windy's running the other way. We get murdered, we get shot. Young white men apprehended by police while murdering people with assault rifles. Somehow are peacefully and safely arrested and get to see their.
Day in court.
And I'm not certain how many times this has to happen for those who argue against it to change their mind. Gratch that before I even finish saying that I knew better. There's nothing that can happen that will make those people think any differently than they do. Right, So we end up in this echo chamber talking to each other about
what we know is very obviously the truth. Law enforcement in this country, built on a foundation of racism, has not, in hundreds of years, outgrown its own ideology to the peril of the country and the people that it's sworn to protect. When we are the victims of the murders, the murderer walks free. When we are suspected as murderers, we are murdered.
So let me let me I want to say something that supports that, that reinforces that, or bolsters that we mentioned Dylan Ruth. You know where I'm going with this, right, Actually, why don't you offer this what happened with Dylan Ruth. I don't want to talk about what he did, just how it was responded to. That's what I mean.
Not only was he not harmed, Let's go the extra step to make sure that mister Ruf is okay right. It wouldn't happen to be tired or hungry, would you, sir, Because if you are hungry, you know we can we don't have to go straight to the paperwork with this.
We can for you.
We can make a detail over here and get you know, perhaps a sandwich for you. And I say sandwich to not without compensation, promote the business that they supported in order to look out for this young man's well being in case he's a little parted or a little you know, had a little star I'm at grumbling after he finished murdering people.
The church in church.
And then, almost without fail, these men get to be having a bad day because the weight of the world that they grew up in is weighing on them so heavily that it has to have paid any emotional and mental tax on them. Let us list all the reasons why these young men might have come to these decisions besides the obvious truth of them.
And then, when called with.
Regard to someone with a mental health issue, and I know we're going to touch on this topic later, the actual person who you didn't have to guess whether or not they had a mental issue or not. You didn't have to try to draw up or paint some picture for us. You knew that when you were on your way that person gets shot dead on camera.
That's what I was going to say. So, you know, on the right, there's obviously a big name is Tucker Carlson. You know, he has been referring to this more recent shooter as a mentally ill young man, and so many other cases he doesn't afford, you know, especially if the individuals are melanated, he doesn't afford them that courtesy that
they may have been having a mental episode. Now, the reason I wanted you to bring up the Dylan Roof incident when they took him to the restaurant bottom some food and something to drink before taking him to jail, was to show that, you know, they take him in alive. Now, there are some folks who point to the subway shooter in New York was a black man and say, well,
police were able to take him alive. And I do believe those circumstances are slightly different in that it was no longer an active shooter incident at the time when they apprehended him. They didn't approach him while he was shooting. He was sitting in a restauran. He called them to tell them where to come. Day after, I think to something like maybe a couple of days after, and so it's very different set of circumstances there. But I don't want to get too far away from this community because
we realized that that part feels particularly unfair. But I want to make sure that we spend a little bit of time humanizing these people. You know, if you're like me, I've passed through Buffalo one time in my life, but you know, I'm not from there. I don't know too much about it, but I know these people. These aren't people that are bad people. These aren't people that would harm anyone. I mean, you can tell from their ages.
You know they're just enjoying their lives. And to be executed, to die screaming in terror, to have your last moments be at the end of a assault rifle, I'm guessing where you don't know why, you don't know what you did wrong, and then for the community left behind to know that, oh, what she did wrong was be black. And then you know, a woman seventy two years living in a country that feels like it kind of hates
her to die at the end of that barrel. I feel like it you were so the barrel that the barrel that has the N word written at the end of it. Mind you, that feels like a part of this story. That's that's important to tell. Now, we've seen lots of racist videos because that's kind of the nature of the gig here, but that one was different, And if you'll stick around, we'll talk a little bit more about the why