Civic Cipher 061122 The Real Issue is Guns and Gun Control (Part 2)

the reality of the situation here in this country. We're also going to spend some time talking about uh, a young lady named Latasha Harris and how important she was to Tubac. I don't want to tell her story before we get there, but you might know the name. He mentioned her in a lot of his music, so we're going to dedicate our way black history factor her. But first and foremost, we're going to discuss how to become

a better ally bah bah. So if you are a NFL boss, you should probably turn up your radio right now. I got some real game for you. If only they cared to listen all right. This one comes from Sports Illustrated. The NBA has fifteen black head coaches for the first time. I will read with the lakers hiring of Darvin him that was official. As of Friday, June third, fifteen of the NBA's thirty teams will have a black head coach

for the first time in league history. The NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at the NBA Finals quote, this isn't unique to the NBA, and I've learned this from other businesses. You have to talk about these issues all the time. If you care about diversity and inclusion in your workplace, you've got to look at the data. You've got to constantly present it to your colleagues, to your department heads, to your teams, and it has to become a focusing quote.

Silver discussed his hope for a day when the color of a person's skin is no longer newsworthy, when they are hired to a prominent role going on to stay. Quote. At the same time, while I'm particularly proud of these numbers and that roughly fifty percent of our head coaches are black, now, the goal is that's not newsworthy, is that that's not newsworthy, and that when people are hired,

their first reaction isn't the color of their skin. I don't want to be naive either, though, because I know that what we do in this league is important symbolically, not just for sports, but for other industries, and people watch us all around the world. Now, sometimes we give you advice, sometimes we give you examples. That very much is an example diversity at its best, and I think that the NBA is better for it. I certainly have

noticed a lot of people engaged this go round. Indeed, now back to the lecture at hand, that was a Snoop Dogg reference for those not old enough, very very hard not to continue with those lyrics. So forgive that pregnant pauls. Why is everyone focusing on everything but the real issue, which is guns and the real answer, which is gun control? So ms Maggie aka Maggie be. No one points out to us that the main issues are

that whoever wants a gun can have a gun. The lack of community and conflict resolution skills means that anyone with a gun can use the gun to solve problems that shouldn't be solved with a gun. Of course, the NRA suggests that there should be more funding for police and security, and police and schools, which we both wholly reject. School security. Not mad at that school police. That's different. Maybe a conversation for another day, maybe a conversation today.

We'll see how I feel. And for those that want to do a little bit more research on that topic, you can check out this show. One of our first episodes, we had a woman up named Janelle Wood who came up to discuss the school to prison pipeline, and she is much more able to articulate how troubling the data is from schools that hire police officers and what the implications are when that happens. Also, I saw recently John Oliver do a segment on school police as well, and

he did it masterfully. We appreciate it's another ally, yes, So it's not just me, it's not just this show. These are people who have compiled data on their own. But perhaps we'll circle back to it. The other thing that Maggie b no One wants us to make sure to mention is that right wing and gun supporters suggest the following nan traps, new doors, fewer doors, trip wires, God and religion. I mean, I've been there have been

lots of thoughts and prayers so far. So for him to say that we need God and religion, I don't know what the basis of that is. Not knocking God, not knocking religion. That's not my way. But you know, we need to do more. We need to take responsibility. We can't put the responsibility squarely in God's lap. If we have the tools among ourselves to fix the problem, that's what I mean. Investments in classroom should include colorful

ballistic blankets. That's another idea suggested by the right, and of course.

you know what I mean. Like death is not around the corner for these folks, you know what I mean, to the degree that would justify them having AR fifteen style rifles. You know, they're not soldiers on the front line of the battlefield, right. But that identity is something that keeps a lot of folks supporting these very vocal talking heads on the right, keeping them elected, keeping them

holding office. And that identity now has to coexist with an identity of we are a nation that will move forward past multiple school shootings Sandy Hook, Parkland, we had there was one that we talked about in in Michigan not too long ago, you know, of course, while they is more recent, but not just school shootings, not just

school shootings. And I don't want people to get that narrative and think that that we're really addressing the problem, because school shootings are just some of the mass casualty events that happen.

very plain, very approachable. You know, these are the conversations that you and I have all the time. We're actually friends, you know, we hang out all the time. So this is a thing that we are doing together because we decide to do it. But we've been friends long before the show, way long before the show, decades before the show.

But you know, having these conversations, and because we have access to this information and some microphones and some transmitters and some signals in a couple of cities of a good number of cities around the country, we feel like that by having these conversations, we can empower our listeners to have conversations in their communities as well that are based on plane, everyday language. They're not tied up in some extremist identity, even if that extremist identity is an

American identity. No matter what, I'm an American, right, I'll say it before anyone else, Unlike other people. I have a couple of solid claims that I can make about how much I love this country. I've been to all the states. Got proof. You can check me out on Instagram at Rams's job. Look for the flag. It's all there.

Got the flag. Got the flag player. But this identity that is keeping us kind of locked into this holding pattern, this identity of you know, the Second Amendment, is it's all right to you know, tout the gun in the Bible. You know, it's toxic. It's very, very toxic, you know. And I know that there's been lots of conversations about mental health. Obviously the pandemic. We saw some things happen

as a result of the pandemic. My belief, my estimation personally, is that people got afraid fear cells in this country, you know, And then the media says sells fear, not us. We don't do that, you know, perhaps why we're not a bigger show. But you know, we're not here to be a big show. Hopefully we're here to be a smaller and smaller show because the necessity of the show will eventually dissipate. We'll see. But people got afraid at

the beginning of the pandemic. They purchased more guns, thinking that people were going to start robbing each other. And then when you have more guns, guns attract gun energy. People think you can solve problems with guns, you know, and guns tend to be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And you can't undo a child missing her head. Now, I'm not necessarily talking about the Valde shootings because absolutely mentioned there's handgun violence, which makes up a good number

of the shootings in this country. There's suicides, there's you know, inner city crimes that are based on what is statistically proven to be or rather data has shown to be largely based on economic inequality. So again, addressing economic inequality and stricter gun laws might be the combination that we might need to really see our country become what it can become and reach its fullest potential. I digress back

to identity. These are the things that we need to learn to let go now, far be it from me to say that nobody should have a gun, even though that's really how I feel. I really feel that way, if I'm honest, but I wouldn't say that. I mean, there's no way that the world wouldn't be safer if that were the case. Absolutely, And that's not up for debate or argument. That's just a very very simple and easy truth. The logic is all there. Yeah, you don't

even need to like run the numbers there. But I realized that for some people, some of our listeners, you know, I talked to a man earlier in the week named Ed Shelby. Ed Shelby is a He's the man that went viral for standing outside of his son's school where his wife works as the nurse in Colleen, Texas. He went viral for standing out there. I believe it was the day after the shooting in Uvalde. He is an ex military obviously a family man who decided that he

was going to do something and he provides security. That's what he does since leaving the military. So he knows security, how to implement, you know, how to strategize that sort of stuff. And he's been working with schools and other you know, groups around the country to try to put together plans to help us all out. He's not doing nothing right. So I talked to this man on the daily PODCAS cast that I do called the Black Information Network Daily Podcast check it out on the iHeartRadio app.

And he is a proud gun owner, right. So I couldn't in good conscious say you know, no guns, right knowing that a man like him from based on what I can tell, is a good guy with a gun. My very own co host q Ward is a gun owner. I believe him to be a good guy with a gun. I'll even take it this far. Some people are gonna get mad at me for saying it, but I do believe that some police officers are good guys and women with guns. Right. If bad turned worse, one number I would call.

But I thought that was important to point you. Thank you if I don't think people would be upset, because our struggle is not with individual people, it's with a system that was that does exactly what it was designed to do, and that design is flawed, tragic, especially for us, especially for people that look like us.

American identity. Me Ramsys, who does love this country and who was born in the eighties. Yeah.

scary position for a citizen to be in. However, I don't care how many guns you have today, folks, If our government became a tyranny and they decided to turn their weapons on us, you don't have enough to defend yourself against our nations military or our nation's police, right, And when our nations police turn their guns on us, we march in solidarity with them. And when I say we, I mean the Second Amendment, people, you can't have it both ways.

that's the government right and the military right. So we're supposed to have a second Amendment to rise up against the tyrannical government. To your point view, Now, if we have AR fifteen's right, and we know that their military style weapons, then we have to assume that the military is going to come with something bigger than an AR fifteen, if the government was going to turn against us, right,

So we're losing that battle every time. At no point is the government going to say, you know what, everybody can get every weapon, it's fine, right, because of the potential for us to become destroyed by just some wacko I mean, for the same reasons that they shouldn't be able to have an area fifteen today.

of people on a battlefield. The ready assumption there is that your house is going to be under attack by zombies. I don't know, you know whatever, you know, whatever it is.

not cool to me. I will never celebrate the loss of life. It doesn't even if you hunt animals, you know what I mean, if you hunt animals in that way, that's particularly unsettling.

or social worker. I think that that's very telling because any number of those other people's could work to help prevent crimes from happening in the first place. And as we've seen, police oftentimes do not make any difference.

someone else's kid. I never even had to describe him. They described him, her and him and the card they were in without me saying a word. So these exact people have been back to try it again and are still that large because nobody even cares to look into it.

bit late, but let's talk about it. So we're gonna This one comes from MTV News sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly magazine. Latasha Harris an American girl. Sasha Harlan's Harlan. Sorry about that. Natasha Harlan's from South Central and they remember the fifteen year old girl killed thirteen days after Rodney King was beaten. So I'll read. This is not television,

this is not the movies, This is real life. This was how Deputy District Attorney Roxane carve Hall cautioned a jury before showing them the last seconds of Latasha Harlan's life was captured by a security camera on March sixteenth, nineteen ninety one. The video showed the fifteen year old girl first struggling with soon John dou the owner of Empire liquor Market and Delhi on South Figueroa Street, then walking away and finally falling down having been shot in

ahead by Duke. According to the Los Angeles Times, the tape drew gasps in the courtroom as the jury watched, and Dew, sitting at the defense table, cried, Was her fear reasonable? Was this legal? Was this the legal standard that judged Joyce A. Carlin, who heard the case against Dow later that year, used to evaluate the then fifty

one year old store owner's culpability. Was Due's fear reasonable when she became suspicious of a teenage girl who entered the store at nine thirty five am on a Saturday morning. Was Due acting reasonably when she accused Harlan's of stealing the bottle of orange juice she had put in her backpack after quickly browsing an aisle. Was Due reasonable when, after engaging in a physical altercation with Harlan's over the juice, which Harlan's had insisted she was going to pay for,

she shot the girl in the head. Was all of this the final moments of Natasha Harlan's life. The girl lying on the store floor clutching the dollar bills she had intended to purchase the juice with the rational result of the reasonable fear that an adult woman might fear of a teenage girl. Carlin sentenced due to five years of probation, four hundred hours of community service, a small fine,

and no prison time. Speaking twenty five years after Harlan's death at an event held last month at the Hammer Museum, Loyola Law School, professor Priscilla Osin argued that the court proceedings were marred by the same social disdain that motivated duce fatal act of racial profiling. When I see that case, one of the things that strikes me is the way in which anti black bias, anti black girl bias is embedded in the jury's verdict and is embedded in the

judge's decision to grant soon joh due to probation. Bessine's specification of the gender aggression that colors the perception of young black girls in public restores to Harlan's story the precision of its tragedy in the prestige projects that have been urged a generation after the Los Angeles riots, including Ezra Edelman's notable twenty sixteen documentary OJ made in America, Harlan's death has figured as a sort of informational prologue

to the narratives of black men like Rodney King and O. J. Simpson. Quote. It's important for us to remember that the riots were not just about Rodney King, said legal scholar Kimberlee Crenshaw at the same time at the same Hammer Museum event. Sorry, for many Angelinos, Latasha Harlan's was the only point. Was

the only point. As we look at the families of Trayvon Martin and Ezelle Ford, we can do the role call of racially charged killings, said David Bryant, co founder of the Latasha Harland's Justice Committee, speaking individual held on the twenty fifth anniversary of Harlan's death. In the nineties, the committee would conduct yearly protests, demonstrating outside the courthouse where Carlin handed down her decision. We were the forerunners

to all that misery. UCLA professor Brenda Stevenson. The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlan's Justice, Gender and the Origins of the LA Riots, published in twenty thirteen, gives readers a detailed portrait of the girl and her familial, geographical and racial context. She was born in Illinois in nineteen seventy five. She had moved to South Central when she turned six years old. Harlan's father left Latasha and her siblings when they were still young. Her mother, Crystal, was killed at

a nightclub in nineteen eighty five. The trauma, her family surmised, contributed to Harlan's quet and shy demeanor through her grandmother, though her grandmother lamented that right before her death, Harlan's was showing interest in dating. Tasha, as she was called by friends and family, was raised by her grandmother, Ruth, a quote strong willed and dignified woman from Alabama. They lived about five minutes away from the market owned by the Dew family. She told friends that she was acutely

aware of the eyes watching. In her book, Stevenson maintains that much about the outcomes of this case can be understood when one examines closely the personal biographies and group histories of Latasha, Harlan's, Soon jah Do, and Joyce Carlin. Their individual life stories and the stories of their ancestors are windows into their personal socializations and perspectives that must have affected the ways in which they regarded and responded to each other. Now, I want to read this because

it's important. You know, obviously we're talking about history and you know, twenty fifth anniversary and all these things, but we also want to make sure that we do this carefully. This is not an anti Asian conversation at all. This is a thing that happened in the community that kind of triggered a lot of what we're now seeing today. We did have a conversation on this show where we discussed the history of the relationship between black people and

Asian people in this country. Asian people were able to come over to this country and get small business loans based off of some government programs. Those loans were only good in poor neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, and because of a lot of anti black bias, and because of a lot of economic inequalities and opportunities going away from black people who had an entrepreneurial spirit to folks just moving here, largely Asian Americans. It led to a lot of resentment

in those neighborhoods. We on this show love wholeheartedly and move full throadedly support the fair treatment and the support of our Asian American and Pacific Island brothers and sisters. But this story is history and this is our way black history fact for today, I do want to end with this. Tupac had an infinity for Latasha, has mentioned her name in several songs as well as dedicating the iconic song keep Your Head Up to Latasha, So we

wanted to make sure that we celebrated her today. But that's going to do it for us here today on Civic Cipher. Once again, I'm your host, Rams's Job. Q is still with me, but today's show was also produced by our producer, Maggie aka Miss Maggie aka Maggie b Knowan. Be sure to hit the website Civiccipher dot com download this in any previous episodes. If you feel like supporting us, we could use the support. The show is still growing. We're looking for our thirtieth radio station and we will

get there soon. Your support really helps us toward that. In so be sure to make a donation if you can, and follow us on all social media. We're at Civic Cipher. You can follow me at Rams's Job. You're going to follow Cute at I am qboard and talking this during the week. Send it's any ideas show topics who just hollow us and we'll talk to you next week, all right, correct? So then please y'all like yo, we had to leave. These brothers are fabulous.