Civic Cipher 052122 The Racist Mass Shooting in Buffalo NY that Killed 10 Black People (Part 2)

we can do, you know, moving forward. So yeah, Also, we're gonna spend our way black history fact talking about a lady named Laya Chase who the Princess and the Frog movie, the Disney movie was based on her. Wow, and that felt kind of special. So I'm happy to share that with you. The first and foremost, let's discuss how to become a better ally? Ba shall we we? Shall? You want to take this movie? You want me to get?

This is from TMZ. Okay, let's go. Justin Bieber, a young man who I've met and you know, have a lot of respect for, at a concert in Buffalo addressed, They're very, very difficult and impossible. Why I have to feel mass shooting that happened in the city where he was performing, asking his audience for a moment of silence, He didn't waste any time addressing it, you know, right off the bat, at the start of the show, you know, asked the people and attenders to join them in the

moment of silence. This was Saturday, so this was immediately at the Key Bank Center, just hours after a man allegedly gunned down at least ten individuals and what clearly appeared to be a race driven attack. But even amid the blood bath, Justin called for peace. He posted a few videos showing him talking about the massacre at a few different points in the concert, including right before he took stage, where he went into prayer with his team.

After that, Justin went on to perform to a pack house full of people who were static to see him. It sounds like before he dove into any music, though, he took a moment to acknowledge the tragedy and even called for a moment of silence. You can hear people hooting and hollering during this solemn period, and Justin called them out, asking why couldn't you respect it? I think that that part is important, you know, for becoming a better ally. We sometimes we ask you to share your platform,

share your voice. If you have an audience listening, to please share it. But in this instance we thought that this stood out because Justin doubled down on the Hey, let's have some respect, you know. And so that's our example for this week of how to become a better ally. It's important to point out, as will round us in his IG posts, racism will never prevail prevail God. Does we stand with you, Buffalo and stand against the racist act of terror? Bo shout out JB. All right, replacement theory.

You know what, Let me read a little bit please. So this one comes from the New York Times. From nineteen sixty six to twenty nineteen, seventy seven percent of mass shooters obtain the weapons they used for their crimes through legal purchases, according to a comprehensive survey of law enforcement data, academic papers, and news accounts compiled by the

National Institute of Justice, the research wing of the Justice Department. Okay, the reason I'm saying that is because what we have is people going and purchasing legal firearms right, and this one, this mass shooting, we will be fair. This mass shooting was targeted black mass shooting. There have been mass shootings that have targeted Hispanic people. There have been mass shootings that have targeted our brothers and sisters who are Muslim

or from the Middle East. There have been mass shootings who have been indiscriminate. There have, of course been mass shootings that have targeted LGBTQIA plus brothers and sisters and our family from those communities as well. There's a gun problem here, and seventy seven percent of mass shooters obtained

the weapons they use through legal purchases. In upstate New York a few months ago, the eighteen year old suspect in the Buffalo shooting walked into Vintage Firearms and Sleepy Indicott, passed an instant background check without a glitch, and bought a used bush Master M fifteen semi automatic rifle, a copy of the ubiquitous AR fifteen used in many other mass shootings. Now this is the gun that Q was mentioning.

He wrote all of this stuff on some of the things that I know he wrote was again he wrote the N word at the end of the barrel of that gun, and he wrote, I think he wrote, here is your reparations on the gun. That's been a you know, an ask for black people ever since really the end of slavery. You know, it was once proposed that maybe forty acres and a mule ought to cover it, but that never happened, and so we've just been trying to

figure it out ever since then. But you know, a lot of us and a lot of non black people do feel like there's kind of a debt to be paid there. You know, it's economic empowerment would change quite a bit. He also paid tribute to one of his heroes, go ahead, Yeah, aforementioned Dylan Ruth. And there were other

things written on the gun as well. Perhaps there were just codes for other white supremacists or whatever, but but yeah, you know, another right wing media personality mentioned something that if you took the enrollment numbers of all the white supremacists organizations in the country, that they wouldn't even fit into a college or that they would fit into a college football stadium, right, And that's sort of a strange way to quantify racism, because race, to be a racist,

to be a white supremacist, doesn't mean that necessarily mean that you need to be registered for and receive the newsletters. You don't have to be an extremist in any form, or you can be and just not be a part of those organizations. Yeah, but I mean, let's say double that number, say all of the extremists also registered, right,

so now you've got two football stadiums or whatever. I think trying to make it like, hey, there's only a couple hundred thousand of these people in this nation of millions. It's a small number. But we're not just talking about extremists. You and I have talked that length. There are a lot of very very passive racists, I think, angering us even more, those who can be sort of apathetic about it.

It's not a big of a deal. It's not really bothering us, so, you know, and it's not alarming to you know, people on the right, because you know, the things that they fear are in our estimation, largely imaginary. The thing we're in line with white supremacy. There you go. Now, the things that we fear are real. You know, we've told a story, you and I have told a story before of a real panic inducing incident that happened to the both of us in Mississippi driving back home from Florida,

where we had to interact with some police. And what's so intense, Ramses, is that we've told that story now, let's say, half a dozen times, and every time we tell it, it feels less scary because we're further removed from it until this happens. And then I remember why

we were so terrified when it happened. It's a real it was in the wake of something similar that the country felt a lot like it does now, and driving through the Deep South in this country and the wake of that, like even Ramses and I would stop and take pictures because for those of you that don't know, Ramses visited every state while we were sitting down, while we weren't outside, ram just thought, Okay, let me go see this country that he also loves, because somehow, if

you don't, if you're not a patriot in the way of the white supremist, you don't love America. Now if there's to some degree critical correct, So now that you bring that back up, my heart just started beating fast because we were terrified when that happened. And this is why these are not one offs this is it's more likely that we don't survive that than that we did. And then in the wake of it we can kind of hoof. But during it, especially in this moment where

Ramses can't see me. You understand, I'm outside of the car. It's pitch black outside. There's me and these two members of our law enforcement community in Mississippi at three o'clock in the morning, in the wake of George Floyd. I want to add this too. They took you out of the car, and they didn't need to. They knew everything

they needed to know. So when they came back and said can you step out of the car, then it went from scary to really scary because I knew it was a matter of time before it was coming to getting me out of the car. Q got out of the car to make the likelihood that he died less. Now imagine I'm going towards these guys and their guns, hoping that that makes it less likely that they'll use them on me when there's zero reason for me to get out of this car. So that's the difference between

real fear and imaginary fear. Now I have to be measured here. Fear makes people do strange things. Whether or not it's based in a shared reality or based on some delusion, it makes people do strange things. Right, these are facts, so I have to say this, right. But a part of that imaginary fear that exists on the right,

it's called replacement theory. So replacement theory. Now, I'm not going to explain it verbatim, but effectually, replacement theory is the idea that there is an intentional, concerted, deliberate effort by liberals to increase the birth rates or otherwise maintain high birth rates for melanated individuals, non white individuals, and to bring in other people from other countries to help bolster a liberal political agenda through voting or through numbers,

or through whatever it is. And the reason it's called replacement theory is because a lot of this is largely a white male thing. Feel like that subscribe to this way of thinking, feel like they're deliberately getting replaced and written out of their land and their history. Right now, we could talk about that, because we know that this land actually belongs to our Native brothers and sisters. Nobody

wants to have a conversation about the Aboriginal people. Oh no, we can talk about it here, though nobody will to have that conversation. Well, yeah, but the thing is that this has caused I know you're not gonna like this, cue I don't. I know that I'm me saying this feels like it makes me my stomach turn a little bit. But I know it's true right now. It's hard to say it, but it will always be true because this is the man that I am, and this is the microphone I got, and I got to talk to you.

These people that are so scared of me, they're still my brothers, they're still my sisters. And I don't it's not my responsibility, but there's got to be something there where me understand standing their fears and the nature of their fears, maybe I can help them not be so afraid. I don't push back hard on that, because there's nothing wrong with compassion and empathy. However, you have nothing to base it on. You have the history of humanity that

tells you the opposite is true. Right, there's no longer a redeeming quality here. Like I know, black people specifically have gone out of our way to not just extend this outive branch, but to create this space where there should be a redeeming quality right where we should be able to point to this young man and the difficulty of his life and his fears and his ideology, and point to how that sent him spiraling into this murderous rage.

For what Why do we have to afford them that the redeeming qualities don't exist, the road back doesn't exist. Where is this progress? The nation's getting younger, and as you said, the birth rates are increasing, we have more people and younger people. How old is this kid? It's twenties, not even twenty. This is not some sixty year old get off my lawn inWORD, No, this is an eighteen year old young man in New York a very metropolitanism staate or and three right, and the hypocrisy and even

the way that they think their own ideologies contradict each other. Sure, right, we want to they're going to replace us, right, but then they make self safe and healthy abortions less available to poor people. That's a great point. So right, we must make sure they have babies, But then once they have them, we have to make sure we keep those people off of welfare. So which is it? Folks like your pro life, but you're not pro taking care of those lives once they get here, especially those who are

most helpless and can do the least for themselves. Is a very very confusing pullpit that they preach from. But they're able to pedal ignorance because the audience does not require them to be based in any truth. As long as it's hateful and divisive and racist, it flies. Let me offer this. So twenty twenty, doctor Camilla Westernberg, who's a good friend of the show, reached out to me

and she says, hey, Ramses, the census is there. There's like an effort by the US Census to make sure that black and brown neighborhoods are reporting accurately so that we can have enough fire departments and enough schools and enough resources. So we need the census data so that government funds will be allotted appropriately in black in brown neighborhoods. And without people reporting, without people knowing the whys, they won't report. Without those reporting, you know, the community suffer.

And I will say, because I know this, there is a deep distrust of black and brown communities of the government. So telling anybody your business with reason, Yeah, telling anybody your business is not something that you readily do in those communities. But when you see the why, when you see what it's for, maybe it might help out. So I helped, you know, in Arizona where I live in Phoenix, Arizona.

For those that don't know, I'm a radio personality. Certainly was back then and I'm still now obviously a radio personality, and you know, having a big name and having some status in my city, I was one of those people that can kind of motivate folks to champion this cause, Hey, let's make sure we all get out there and do this right. What it did was it gave me in site into what was happening in the country. And you and I have talked about this on the show before too.

When those numbers came back, it reflected what a lot of people knew to be true, which was that the racial makeup of the country was changing. It just confirmed again what everyone knew to be true that this country, in terms of its percentages, was moving away from a majority white country to a minority white cot. Now they would still be the largest minority, but you know, there's still the largest the majority. That yes, singularly the majority.

But if if you take all of the minorities and put them together, then it would make up the majority of humans. Now, is that eventually or already? I believe that we're on the cusp of it, So I don't I don't want to say that that's true yet. But the writing is on the wall, like it's it's inevitable at this point. There's no way to kind of bring that one back in. So it's a matter of time

now for people who were born in this country. If you were born in the nineties, if you were born in the eighties, you know, born in the seventies, whenever you were born. You know how old you are listening to this show. You know, maybe you are a white man. Maybe you know a white man. I hope at least one of those things is true. Again, those are our brothers, same as anyone else, right, you, if you were a white man, you were born into a country that said that,

you know, you could live the American dream. This has been true since the forties, fifties. You know, this is a country you know you can if you have a little bit of stick to itness, a little bit of fortitude, and you know, drive, a little bit of brains, work ethic, you can you can do anything. American dream, right, greatest marketing campaign of all time. Well, it's effective. It makes everyone think that they have a fair shot at it. Yes,

and face live, but yes, effective effective. You know this American dream is yours. Right. You can be a rock star, you can be a football player, you can be a titan of industry, you can be a millionaire. You can have the prettiest girl you know, wherever in your town or whatever she can. She's going to fall in love with you. If you watch these movies and you know you can be top gun, fly your airplane, you can be I don't know whatever, whatever it is that you

think is cool. That's that's something that's realistic for you. Right, And a lot of your reality reinforces that all the presidents look like they could be you. You know, all of the judges and the people with prominence of people on TV growing up in that time, people look like you, The people with status that people were, the heroes in the movies, et cetera. Right, So of course that makes sense. Right then you get a little bit older and reality

starts to set in. And not only did those things not become true because of what Q and I like to call capitalism, but also you realize that this American dream thing is pretty much the only thing that you got left. Well, I'm not a rock star, but at least I'm American. You know, I'm not a whatever, but at least I'm American. But I know I'm you know, this is a real thing, you know, and this is this is why we see a lot of my belief why we see a lot of flags and American to

that group became synonymous with something else. Sure, sure, but it creates a sense of community. Human beings, we need community. That we're social creatures. That's just what we do. So tie that binds for a lot of folks and for it to becoming us versus them in terms of the American and who gets to fly the flag? That sort of a thing. And then of course Donald Trump coming along and kind of with fanning those flames, it becomes

gasoline on those flames. Here you go, and all the while you see the population shifting away from that last pillar that you can stand on. This is our at least, this is our country. And I got my rights, freedom speech, I can carry a gun. You know that my Bible got my gun. You know, this sort of thing. They'll die on that ship. Well, when it comes to like, well, wait a minute, hold on, the country is shifting away

from you, know what I mean? And then imagine the world changing out from under you that you thought was so solid, right even if you're even if that's all you have and you don't necessarily hate this group or hate that group, but if let's say that's all you have, that's a scary world to live in as it's actively changing away from you. And I just need to say that. I need to say that before we move on. I want to say this out loud. This is from CNN.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not hesitate to call the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo an act of domestic terrorism, condemning the racist ideology of the suspected shooter. Why supremacy is a poison. It's a poison running through our body of politics, Biden said, adding that silence is complicity. I think it's important to say that part out loud, rams

what do you think? Absolutely, there's also a part of this that I feel is important if we understand sort of the root cause of why people are so freid, and maybe our conversations, maybe if we come across someone and we can talk them off of the ledge. Maybe we can let them know that there is not a concerted effort. This is just natural. I know. It's we have to say something thing. So that's what I got. My brother is so hopeful. I don't think we would be on the radio for we did no reason at all.

I don't think we'd be on the radio. We knew we could do something to support the way that you feel with that regard my brother. That hey man, it's just it's a a prayer bless you man. Anyway, it's time for the Way Black History Facts. So we'll leave it there. Yeah, that flow. We're praying for you guys all the time. This week. The Way Black History Fact comes from hip Hop Wiki, sponsored by Hip Hop Wiky magazine. The source is the James Beard Foundation. So I will

read lead Chase. She received the twenty sixteen Lifetime Achievement Award, and I'm going to read from that article article so that she so I can make this breathe. But the truth is she is the inswer again for Tiana, the Princess from Disney's The Princess and the Fraud. So this wasn't something made up imaginary whatever this is based on, like a real person, and a real Black woman at that. And so I didn't know the roots ran this deep. So I'm happy to share this with you, all right.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual whose lifetime body of work has had a positive and long lasting impact on the way we eat, cook, and or think about food in America. Trailblazers don't always intend to beat a new path. When Leah Chase first moved to New Orleans in nineteen forty, she chose not to follow her aunt's to work in a factory. Instead, she applied for a job as a waitress in the French Quarter.

Shout out to the French Quarter. It was a humble, entray entree, I guess is how I say that into hospitality, but also the first step toward her groundbreaking role as the chef at Doukie Chase's restaurant, a position that she has held for seven decades. I do want to mention that she has since passed since this article came out,

but I'll read it as it was written. She has spent politicians and civil rights leaders, celebrities and bus drivers, all while amassing an influential collection of African American art. As New Orleans born food historian Lolis Eric Ellie says, quote missus Chase is an icon of American cooking, of Creole cooking, and of African American cooking. Quote. In nineteen forty six, Leah Lange married Edgar Dukie Chase Junior, a big band leader whose family had owned Dukie Chase's restaurant,

a sandwich shop, and a bar room in Treme. The neighborhood at the heart of New Orleans is black and Creole culture since nineteen forty one. Quote. When we got married, I said we're going to change things. What it calls chase. The black community had no restaurants. We only had fried chicken, fried fish, and that kind of thing. Inspired by restaurants in the French Quarter, she reinvented her husband's business, adding Creole cuisine to its menu, tablecloths to his dining room,

and art to its walls. Most radically, the reimagined Doogie Chase became one of the first restaurants in the segregated South where black people and white people could dine together. Freedom Riders made plans over gumbo and fried chicken, while Third good Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Martin Luther King Junior held strategy sessions in the upstairs meeting room. Quote.

In some ways we changed the course of America right here in this restaurant, Chase says, in a moment when trends come and go, when restaurants come and go, when chefs come and go, she has proven the value of fidelity to place, to community, to purpose, says John T. Edge, director of the Southern Food Bays Alliance, of which Chase is a founding member. Quote. Through her restaurant and her long service to the community, she proved that to invest deeply in one place, by way of your restaurant, is

a higher calling in our world. Quote. Her influence extends beyond the mere culinary end. Quote, says Jessica Harris, author of Beyond Gumbo, Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Grim and longtime friend of Chaser's. She's been an extraordinary force for good and for change in New Orleans. She has captured the imagination of young African American chefs around the country, thereby becoming not only an icon but also a role model.

In two thousand and five, Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters reached five feet inside the restaurant, and the damage forced a business to close for two years. Right Anderson, restaurant critic for The Times Picayune, visited Chase after the water receded. Quote. I have an incredibly vivid image of this hunched over woman living in a trailer in a neighborhood where there

was really nobody living anymore. Quote. Outside were completely devastated buildings, and she was talking so cheerfully about how everything was going to be okay. That's when I realized what missus Chase was up to. She was assuming a certain responsibility during the interview. Sorry, During the intervening decade, the area surrounding the restaurant has changed. The Lafitte housing projects, which sat across the street for decades were torn down, but

Dookie Chase remains as a ballast for the community. Quote. It was a neighborhood restaurant in the best sense of the word in quotes, says Edge. Quote. The people who once lived in that neighborhood have dispersed, but when they returned, the returning to their neighborhood restaurant. No matter where they live now, Dookie Chase is still a family owned restaurant with Lea Chase now ninety three and her daughter stell

A Chase Reese at the Helm every day. Quote. At some point they're going to get rid of me and my grandchildren will take over. Chase chuckles. I push hard every day. I work every day I come into this kitchen and I work that work, ethic, that cheer. These are hallmarks of Lea Chase's life. Quote missus Chase seeks to see the best in people and seeks to be a peacemaker and quote says Ellie, quote if you talk to her about politics, what you'll find is her looking

for common ground. She's often said, quote, if I can get the people on both sides to just sit down at my table, I think we can work this out. There's an optimism there, a faith in humanity that exemplifies who she is and exemplifies her approach to cooking. Purchase the Queen of Creole cuisine. It's simple. Quote, I don't care if you're the Pope, the president. You have to eat and I can cook for you. Unquote, she says, quote all I do is try to make people happy

through food. Now Disney Princess and Frog based a character on this woman. She passed in two thousand and nineteen, if I'm not mistaken, But that's a movie. You know, I have little sisters. When The Princess and the Frog came out, that was the Black Disney Princess. I think it might have been twenty fourteen ish when that movie came out, give or take. It felt long overdue, but it felt special for that to come out. Now there's a princess that my sister named Princess could dress up

like and not feel like she wasn't matching. If you will, you know that matters. The reason we're talking about it today is because there's a woman who lived an inspirational life. You might think of her as a chef, but we know that a woman like this is special, you know, the way our community works, the way our culture works, that's special. And it is our honor to honor her.

And it is a pleasant surprise to know that she was the inspiration for a movie that really mattered, you know, like before Black Panther came out, there was Tiana and the Princess and the Frog in that mattered. And so I wish we'd had a chance to meet her. That would have been awesome. That would have been incredible. But yeah, that's going to do it for us today here on Civic Ciphers. So once again i'm your host rams this job. I go by the name q Ward. Now he's fourth

and forevermore. Thank you for hanging out with us today. Today is you know, we were doing last week's show, we didn't think we would be talking about a mass shooting and having to say the names of ten people who are no longer alive because of a racist attack in Buffalo, New York. But here we are. This is last week's show. We talked about a young man being murdered with his hands up by police. This man was arrested with an assault rifle in his hand while killing people.

What a wonderful world, but it's our world. And so when we got and we got to try to fix it and that's what we're doing. So with you know, the help of our producer Maggie AKA that you be knowing, you're going to continue to bring you this show in the meantime with the website exactly dot com, follow us on all social media, be sure to shoot us a donation if you can, And until next week, y'all, PA Mayo.