That's right, y'all. Welcome to another edition of Civic Cipher. I'my host Ramsay's joh.
Called me q Ward and that just so happens to d my name.
And today's show is a very special show, and I'll say that quite a bit.
But you fortunately this week, our text thread.
That we have between you and me and our producer DJ Swirl plentiful stuff to talk about, and so we've kind of wheeled it down for you, our listener. Today, we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about an incident in the Washington State where a man was attacked by a police dog for a very long time. It's just another kind of weird way that you know police brutality exists and is perpetuated.
You can't wait to talk about that.
Also, we're going to talk about fighting back against voter suppression, So stay tuned.
For that, super all allies of.
Black people and of you democracy, stay tuned for that because there's some mans start seeing information you might want. And we're gonna spend some time talking about a sheriff's department that is tracking kids they think ultimately will become criminals, which feels a little weird. I can't wait to get into that.
How do they? It's weird, right?
And then of course DJ Swirl is gonna let us know about once upon a time when you know, folks used to do some really horrible things to black people and sell their body parts. But before we get there, let's start off where we like to start off with some ebony excellence, so cute. All I do is win, win, no matter what.
You got something for today?
Right?
Yes? And I want to read this to make sure I quote this young man's position properly. Brother Carl Sanderfer of five Beta Sigma Fraternity incorporated from the Elite Epsilon five chapter at Owling Green State University, helps power NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover mission. Owling Green State University alumnus is the Deputy Chief of the Space Science Project Office at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. I was fortunate enough to be a classmate and fraternity brother of Brother
Sandifer in college. And it's interesting watching all the things that he's done. But none of us can pretend to be surprised because Carl had already started his work at NASA before we ever met him. At Bowling Green State University. Just to give you an idea of the level of excellence this young man has achieved all of his life. So definitely want to bring some attention to that if you get a chance. Ramses always reminds everybody that Google
is free. If you want to read a story that's going to make your day and make you feel better, just google Carl and type Mars or type NASA and you will read a really really cool story about a wonderful young man and human being and someone that I'm honored to call a friend. So go mob Carl.
You know there's people like me who are big fans of like Star Trek and you know, sci fi stuff, and it takes folks like that who are pioneering new trails maintaining pathways for folks like me, a young me, to find themselves in those positions.
So yeah, however, I hear somebody sarcastically, jab it's not rocket science. I always think about Carl. Carl's literally an aeronautics engineer and rocket scientist. That's awesome.
Well shout out to Karl one time. You know, I really like doing the Ebony excellence. It starts us off on a positive and a great way to start the show. Yeah, yeah, but you know, we do have to transition here into some real stuff.
You know, that's what we're here to talk about.
So I'm not sure if you, if either of you have heard of this story, but you know, I read a story. So I read the Atlanta Black Star. You know, it's a newspaper or really more an online publication, but it's a place kind of like Civic Sipher where you know, we catch black stories that really don't exist out in mainstream media and we you know, bring attention to them. And this story happened to have a video. You know, videos are for me and u Q. They're kind of
we have a system in place. You want to tell them about our system.
So in order to keep each other afloat, so that neither one of us gets pushed too far down into a dark place and don't have you know, don't end up with PTSD from you know, digesting constant trauma. We alternate. You know, who's going to watch the videos this week? Or you know sometimes you know, I've watched enough of these broken you give this a gander because I can't
take it anymore. So to try to hold each other up we take turns, you know, watching these videos and consuming this, like I said, trauma, so that we can speak to it, you know, for our listeners and our audience.
And I think that's important. I like the system that we've developed here, but also for folks going about their their day, their normal lives. You know, we recognize that a lot of this, you know, I call it trauma porn makes its way to your phone, you know, if you have an iPhone or any other type of phone. You know, it just pops up, you know, black man, assaulted, brutalized, beaten. And this has been true my whole life. You know, one notable incident and when I was ten years old,
Rodney King beating in ninety two. But the one thing that we don't want to grow accustomed to is seeing black bodies brutalized because there's the potential, I guess two for it to become normal, you know, and we always want to be in shock of that. And so while being present and making sure that we're on top of things like that, we also have to maintain a little bit of distance because it is emotionally training. As I'm sure you our listener is aware of. Part of the
reason why you're listening to the show now. I'm sure, sir, so in this incident and this is why, you know, Que and Swirl are not as familiar with this story as I am.
It was my turn to.
Familiar with the story. But I didn't watch the videos. To watch the video, so it was my turn to you know, check this out. I had to draw the shorts and so basically what happens in this video is it's a police chase. You know, we'll call it what it is. Police are in pursuit of a car. It seems like it's a two lane highway nighttime. Doesn't seem like super high speed, but certainly not speed limit. You know, it looked like whoever was getting away was trying to
get to somewhere specific. That's just what it looked like to me, because you know, you see high speed chases where they drive all erratic. You know, this guy was on his you know, on the road. He's like, look, I just need to get here and then I'll be good. But I don't know, so don't let me say something that I'm not sure of.
It.
It was a chase. The police were in pursuit of a vehicle. The vehicle was abating and before I get to the rest of the story, if you're afraid of something, your body automatically responds in one of two ways.
You either fight or you flee, so.
Evading the police when we know that the police often are very brutal in their interactions with black bodies, as we've seen time and again decade in and decade out.
Too many times.
Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world, but you know, some folks really have this idea that hey, if you just pull over, everything will be all right, and we've seen hundreds of times if that's not true at all.
They've they've found a way to criminalize everything, every every reaction.
Everything, even an unnatural reactions. Your head can spend in a circle. Bang, sure, if your.
Head spends in a circle, though, then I might justify it. But be afraid, right, But they've criminalized every natural reaction of a person that's afraid. That's what I was going to get to. But go ahead, no, please, I mean I'm just kind of piggybacking. Yes, so I'm afraid of you, I'm gonna run from you or.
Trolled to until until you can be a penguin. It's built into you if you have anyway. So finally the car pulls over, kind of drives off on the side of the road, pulls over. The guy gets out of the car, and if memory serves me correct, his hands are up and you know, he's like surrendering. I don't know if he was on his knees as he was standing, his hands were up, something like that, but the action that followed was immediate surrender. He was An option of
the video states that the person was very obviously surrendering. Yeah, so you see him, you see him doing the video. I just don't remember what his mannerisms look like in that point. But no one would look at him and say, oh, this person was being aggressive or there was a thread here. And you know, the police, this officer that was chasing them. There was two officers, but the officer that had the dash cam has a dog with him, right, So the dog gets out and goes right to work.
Right now.
Hard to blame a dog because dogs do what they're trained to do.
These dogs are trained specifically to do exactly what the dog did.
Sure, so I'm not coming down on the dog. All your animal lovers, which I'm not not the biggest dog person. I got bit by a dog when I was little.
So let me chime in because I'm not an animal lover. Sounds bad, except when you've been bit by a dog. There is a built in response to that. Yeah, he's not an animal hater. No, no, never. You know, like if somebody said I'm not a I'm not a black people lover, it would come across the way. So I just heard him say that. I had to chime in to make sure people don't think he's not anti animal. There's just not dogs at rams Is house. No, no, no's just be clear.
On that he had a bad experience, shot almost death. So yeah, but you know this is the person watching the video, the person who you know. I was bit when I was three years old by a dog that I was friendly with. I hadn't hurt the dog. I would never hurt the dog. I'm the sort of person. Or if there's a fly in my house, if I can catch him in my hands or her in my hands,
I'll take him or her outside and release them. I don't If some living creature is on its journey and there's no reason for me to take a life, I won't do it.
I know, no matter how small.
So I have a tremendous amount of respect for obviously for dogs, it's an extremely complex creature. And from what I understand, as long as you love your babies, you're good. In my book. Man, I'm not going to bring any harm to you. And I've seen dogs care for their young.
That's my bar.
Anyway, as someone who does not a big fan of dogs, I see the dog go to work and I'm like, oh my god. Immediately it's like, oh jeez, and I'm stuck watching this video this time thanks Wirl And yeah, man, the dog proceeds to bite the man. He's surrendering. He's not running, he can't run, he's already pulled his car over. They're hanging out. Dog bites him. He goes immediately to the ground, gets on the ground. Dog keeps biting him him. And you know the dogs that bite, and they do
that and they try to drag you. So imagine those teeth sinking into your flesh and then the dog pulling and like ripping that skin away from the bone and the flesh away from the bone. So the way the police car was pointed at the scene, he was like in full view, so you could see the dog doing this, and the dog's biting his head. The dog's biting like his arms and legs. Obviously, you know, there was a point where it bit is genitals.
The man has already been apprehended at this Ya's by the.
Way, And the whole time you hear him screaming. He says, you know, please, sir, please, screaming, I'm not in the officer of course.
Stop moving, stop moving, mother effort.
You know, and he's like, sir, I'm not moving, you know. Obviously he's wailing, I'm not moving, you know, And the dog just continues biting.
The way my body responds to being bitten over and over again by your dog that you won't call off while telling me to not move as it bites and make it literally forces me to move. Sure, I want to get to even if I'm not involuntarily moving myself. The dog's moving me, yes, sir, exactly. And so.
This goes on for almost four minutes, the dog just attacking and biting, barking, biting, biting, barking, biting, managers laying there getting bitten, and the police officer is yelling, and no point does the officer go to like place him in handcuffs. At no point does the officer do anything to you know, he just let the dog continue to attack him, right, and the officer was waiting for another police car to show up to then call the dog off and put him in handcuffs. Let me guess because
the officer was afraid. Sure, Okay, that'll be what he's said. So let me say this. The man's name who was attacked is Robert Gillian again of Washington State. He had a broken hip as a result of that. He's suing officer. You know, I don't even want to say this guy's namely cross this outing.
Officer or the police department instead of the individual.
There's a lawsuit, so he might be suing all those folks. I didn't get into that details. But the officer is on unpaid suspension and he's suing for a million dollars. The officer unpaid suspension. Ye, that's a big deal. It's a big deal, right, And here's a direct quote from him. He says, I could not move, I was unarmed. I did not threaten the officers. I have permanent scars on my head to my legs. I thought the dog was
going to kill me. Okay, now I want to talk about what happens when they say don't move, when they say stop resisting, because I think this is what often gets chronicled and in the minds of folks who say, you know, there's a lot of folks who don't interact with the police, right, and they imagine in their minds, if I were to interact with the police, I would just do what they say.
It's that simple.
And you and I are both people who have interacted with the police. Were doing what they say is not a guarantee of anything. You know, again, if someone from Compton, California. The only time in my life when I've ever had a gun pointed at me was from the police, and I have never been arrested. I've never done anything wrong.
And not only just doing what they say, but with an excessive amount of respect and humility. And how do you remember our interaction, which we've chronicled on the on the show multiple times, we were we were excessively to a point of exaggeration, respectful and and and and reverent and humble, you know what I mean? Yes, sir, please, no, sir, thank you. Like every manner you can be taught.
As someone's actively uh, denying you your dignity, insulting you. You know, ours perhaps wasn't as overt and loud, but you know, when someone assumes it wasn't less scary though, But when someone assumes anything about you, when their assumption is already you know that the law is supposed to be your innocent until proven guilty. There had to be police. It assumes that you're guilty until they figure out that
they can't prove any shred of it. Because they can even prove something that was somehow distantly related.
Oh got you see, I knew it. And in some cases, even when they can't make it, they'll pretend that they can't they and create it like the dog smelling some hint of Yeah.
I won't talk about it. That's our story anyway. So there's another thing that I really wanted to talk about here, and it's that we all have a nervous system, right. You know this forgive me, this is a bit morbid, but your nervous system is the makeup of everything in your in your body so much so to where it can eat cause you I remember a pastor told me this that when a person's life has left their body, sometimes though you know, as it's custom and many cultures
around the world they'll burn the body. We still do that here. It's called cremation. And if a person has been dead, even for some time, when you burn the body, the body will shake and convulse and it's a response to the nervous system. Have you seen those weird morbid videos where it'll be like frog legs and stuff, and they'll squeeze lemon on the frog legs and they'll start moving. They're like severed. You know, that's the nervous system. So obviously a frog is not moving its legs because the
frog is no longer connected to its legs. Obviously, a body with where the life has left it is not jumping and moving. It's a response to It's the nervous system's response to that stimulation. And again, forgive me for being morbid, but I needed to establish that because it's like everyone forgets that even if you make a conscious decision, even if you know full well, okay, this is going to hurt These people are going to come and they're
going to hurt me. I'm going to take this and I'm not going to move because I don't want them to be afraid. Because getting hurt is something I can live with. Getting killed, obviously, is something I can't live with, right, pain over death.
Right, So even if you.
Make that decision, it's a firm commitment on your end, and you decide I'm not going to move a muscle. Your muscles might say otherwise.
Especially if you're being bitten and tug that and your flesh is being torn into my teeth of anything that even have to be a police trained K nine. Now for me, there was.
A flat back again, having been bitten by a dog named Josh when I was three years old. Wait, oh man, listen, wait, you make memories with emotion. Listen you guys, so I can remember that because I was emotional. All just learned together that the dog. Now I've heard the dog bite Rams's story a dozen times and I'm not exaggerating, but you and.
I, at today years old, at right now o'clock, just both learn that the dog's name was.
What Josh belong to Melody.
Give me for laughing, because it's not funny that Josh bit Ramses. But man, we all just learned that this dog's name was Josh.
Well, you know what, just to kind of bring you to where I'm at briefly. Melody was a friend of my father's friend is putting it mildly. So we went to Melody's house all the time. My father and Melody would hang out. I was a child, was three, so I would hang out in the living room watch cartoons. Melody had a dog, Josh. I would sit and pet Josh from time to time. I wasn't a wild kid.
I wasn't petting him hard anything like that. One day, I'm sitting in front the fireplace petting Josh, and he just and I have a little baby arm, you know, three years old, just turns it er bit my arm and they let go, and I saw these deep purple sockets in my arm from his teeth having sunk into my supple childlike flesh. And then, of course I cried. My dad responded, my father did love his son. He proved it that day. Josh was not a happy camper. After my father got hold of him. Dad took me,
got me wrapped up. But after that I was not able to trust dogs, and I felt like they were all going to attack me. This is the person that I am now, I can't shake that fear just is there right not fear because I'm not afraid of dogs, but I don't. I prefer I can't predict them, you know. But for a long time I was afraid. Now I don't think fear is a bad word in that instance, but I know what fear looks like, and I know what I just don't really rock what you looks like,
and it's definitely out on rock. Once I got a man body and my dogs are a lot smaller than me, it wasn't fear as much of us. I just you know, you keep your dog over there. I'll be go over here and will be fine. Anyway. With that said, watched the movie called Django Unchained. There's a part in this movie where Leonardo DiCaprio's character has one of his runaway slaves. He was a Mandingo fighter, so he had bought slaves so that they could fight to the death. One slave
tried to escape. DiCaprio's character, I forget his name, didn't like that so much. It says, you know the guys that were hunting them down. He says, why don't you let the dogs rip them apart? Let the dogs send them to heaven. And then all the guys they're like these slack jawed, he'll billy sorts. They let their dogs go. And this man, this slave who's running away, poor guy, he did the dog's rived inmpartant. So that's very much what this video look like. And you know, my heart
goes out to Robert Gillian. I believe that's how I say his last name, or Gillian, one of the two. But I think that what we take from this is that the stop resisting narrative, the you know, be still the comply that, don't run, those sorts of things. It's never as cut and dry as some folks would like them to be.
For their peace of mind.
They want to assume police are not that bad. These people aren't listening, and they fail to consider the human component, or rather the nervous system component, where there are just some things that are instinctive and they happen automatically, and this story illuminates that. And then obviously, on top of that, this officer lets this dog abuse this man for a
full four minutes after he's complied. And what you have is the intersection of a human being getting attacked in real time and the responses and the convulsions that go along with that, and the officer really abusing this person through his dog and not doing anything that resembled policing at all.
For a lot of those officers, stop resisting in the stop moving is like theater. Yeah right, it's it's like a reassurance to themselves to continue doing whatever it is they're doing, and it's it's quite disgusting. Yeah, and now watch my back.
To strike.
Head borders behind and the if you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your host Ramsy's job. They called me q Ward and that just so happens to be. You know, my mother gave baconde And we still got a lot of things that we want to talk about coming up.
First, Uh, I want to talk about some voter suppression, some ways to fight back against voter suppression. But be sure to stick around because we definitely want to talk about what's going on in Florida with the Sheriff's Department tracking kids they think quote unquote will ultimately become criminals. And of course our way Black history fact where it's pretty morbid. Stick around if you want to find out the details on that. But let's start off with our
Ba Ba Baba segment. How to become a better ally. So the NAACP is an organization that you know, we are fan of around here. The NAACP is older than everybody on earth, so so we don't pretend like we know more than them, but we do recognize that we perhaps represent a younger generation. But also, you know, the NAACP is sort of an all inclusive in terms of age at least organization as well. It just has a
lot more relatively speaking, conservative viewpoints. But I think that everyone is on the same page when it comes to voter suppression initiatives, and the NAACP is mounting legal.
That's the word.
I'm looking for legal challenges to all the voter suppression laws that have passed. We know that they were trying to get them passed, but in a lot of places they have passed. And so the NAACP is putting together a defense to challenge these laws and to take them to court to you know, prove that they're on constitutional and so forth.
And of course that costs money. And so.
A way that you could become a better ally to your black brothers and sisters and your Hispanic and Latino brothers and sisters is by supporting I'll be I'll be Frank. Just check out NAACP dot com and you can read all about what they plan to do to fight back. They of course wann't free, fair and inclusive elections. And I just wanted to put that in your ear. That's the call to action this week. So again, yeah, let's
let's challenge these voter voter suppression laws. And since it's Juneteenth, there's also a lot of information in the world around you, so just kind of be clicked into your social media.
It's a good time to you know, get involved with black folks and you know, help out where you can if you don't mind me saying ram good and a time where black people in this country, in a very real and literal way, saved democracy. It's more than discouraging to see laws put into place. It's not just discourage, but prevent that in the future.
Man.
It's really you guys, try to keep me hopeful. Things like this just reassure the way that I feel. And I hey, man, you know, exhausting man.
As long as we you know, there's a story in the Bible that's you know, Jesus's last words on the cross, you know, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. I'm not comparing myself to Jesus. I would never do that. But I think that the idea there is to lead with forgiveness, lead with love, and to understand that, you know, everyone has their challenges ours hour, you know what we talk about on the show.
I think I think there are people that are supporters of what i'll just call the other side, that know not what they do, that really think they're doing the right thing. But I think the people that they are supporting and that they're following absolutely know they're doing well, that they're doing the wrong thing, but it's for their benefit specifically.
So yeah, anyway, Yeah, let's move it on down to Penscoe County, Florida.
I mean that, give my chuckle Florida's but to keep from punching through our table sometimes you got to chuckle it out. You guys will know why here in the second.
So yeah, So, the Sheriff's Department in Penscoe County, Florida has a program in place where they are tracking kids that they think will become criminals. They call it intelligenced intelligen based policing.
Right.
So I got this from Vice right, and the Vice has a tendency to have a liberal you know, skew to it, to its reporting and whatever. But I wasn't looking for it to reinforce a narrative that I already have in my mind. I just came across it. I was like, really, so, you know, these people are just assuming that you're going to be a criminal when you grow up. And I watched the video and sure enough, that's exactly what it is.
And so.
Basically how it works is in the video, at least the uh so, the vice folks are interviewing a father, right, and they're talking about his son, and there's a direct quote he says, this is the father recalling an incident where he interacted with the police who were watching his son. So the father says, he's like, the this is the police talking, right, we heard about your son in the other county. We want you to know we'll be keeping
an eye on you, right. And when they first moved there to that Pennscoe County, what proceeds to happen.
Is the police work with the school.
To get incident reports, behavior reports, things like this, and the offenders are placed under a watch by the police department.
Are we talking about children.
Children, Yes, elementary school children, middle school and high school as well. So anybody under eighteen as a child. My son Christian is fifteen as a child.
So some people at eighteen are still children. But listen, man, my child.
So anyway, so what happens is in the vice story, just to finish up, the police end up harassing the father of the child. So the father ends up getting arrested a bunch of times. The child, of course gets arrested.
Blah blah blah. Story goes on, and then the father is like, you know, I'm just gonna move my family because the police are He's told a story of the police showing up to his house, knocking on the door when he wasn't home, scaring his other kids, scaring his wife, you know, arresting him because the paint on the you have to paint your address on the sidewalk or whatever, the paint was a little faded and you couldn't see it,
and they gave them a reason they'll harass him. So they would harass him over and over again for years. But I think that you know, and I want to talk about this. I think that this on its face doesn't feel like policing as much as it feels like harassment right now in your world. That goes without saying right,
but follow me. If you know, if you're if you're a civil servant, and you know that a child has had some behavioral issue, was a child right has had some behavioral issues, they're acting up, you know whatever, you.
Would think, hey, we should fix this, not.
Not oh, let's keep an eye on him because he's going to be or her because she's going to be a troublemaker. You would think, like, these are babies, they just got here, they're still figuring it out, and you don't know where they come from. You don't know what's going on, you don't know what the state of their
mental health is. And you know, policing is supposed to like make the community safer, and there's a way to make these people constructive, contributing members of society by offering resources that are not along the lines of gun and jail, and you know, like let's talk, let's figure it out.
What do you need? What's going on? You know, you know there's this weird thing that happens.
And I read this story where kids if they have like parents that are real old school and they like beat 'em, right, which I'm not talking about here on this show, but you know there's kids that have a problem where if they get beat, they're more likely to wet the bed, right, And those same kids, when they wet the bed, get beat. And you see how like
quickly they get in a cycle. And it only happens with children, right, and that weird And so this kind of feels like something very similar where it's like, oh, you're creating the cycle that you want this child to go in, n You're not. You would think that the police could put together something, some sort of program, community outreach, something like that, but no, everything is heavy handed and with a gun and prison and jail and that sort of stuff.
We have a criminal justice system that is not incentivized by reform and has decided that a very specific portion of its population is irredeemable. Of course, its kid is going to be a criminal, right, he didn't get a good citizenship grade last card marking, so he's of course going to be a criminal. And it's probably not in writing, but I'm certain that a very high percentage of these students that are being watched and profile are students of color. Yeah,
it talks about that. It's the same with epidemics that we've had in our history. You know, the War on drugs criminalized addicts. Those people were poor and black, they were criminals. Now you have an epidemic that has moved into a different sector of our community, and they are treated as people who are not well. It's a health issue. It's not a criminal issue. Now. It's not by accident. It's because the people that are being affected are redeemable.
Therefore they don't look like you and I by nature. Those acts were criminal because of the people that were involved, not because of the acts themselves. It didn't take them this long to realize that people that were addicted to drugs was a health issue. It's just the people that
were addicted weren't valuable enough for them to care. And there is a system in place that profits heavily from criminalizing those people and again creating that cycle, knowing absolutely well that what they're doing is wrong, but someone benefits immensely from it, so it's perpetuated on purpose. Once again, it's quite disgusting when you start paying attention to what the very obvious truths are to a system like that. Do you know the.
It might have been like the FBI director or they some sort of director. I think he worked under Nixon.
Forgive me.
I don't have the notes in front of me, but I do remember reading it on the show before even where you know, this was when they just before they started that just Say No campaign or whatever. So what they did was they criminalized marijuana. And what they were trying to do was, well, the activist movements from hippies and from the Black panthers. There was like a revolutionary you know, movement taking place in the country at that time.
And the direct quota is by criminalizing the marijuana, we could disrupt those communities.
And that's exactly what they did.
Marijuana, as we know now that it's legal and everywhere, was never really creating a harmful society. It didn't, you know, if anything had made it better. People who chilled out and hung out and had fun. But because the government had perhaps fiscal incentive or otherwise needed to, you know, maintain their grip on society, and you know, you know, thirsty for power, decided that marijuana was going to be criminalized, and then we end up in that situation. So the
other thing about this, though, in Florida was that. You know, again, it's called intelligence based policing, which is it misrepresents what it is. You know, it's not the opposite because it's not stupid. It feels very deliberate, and it's just it feels like busy work. If we look busy, then people will think that if we can tell them that we're doing where, people will feel safer doing stuff right a lot,
But there's no real help. I mean, I would imagine that at least some people, some of the nobler officers that say, you know what, I want to have a noble profession. Policing seems noble. You know, everyone drinks the kool aid at a certain age, they go into it with those intentions. I really want to make a difference. I think I can keep people safe. I feel brave, I feel strong, and I want to protect people who can't protect themselves.
Right.
It's very noble and sensible, you know. And if that's really if you don't have any other options, you know, sure, why not?
You know what I mean? Or maybe if you do, who knows.
Everyone has their own story and some people I don't know what it's like to want to be a police officer but I do, well, then you.
Know what I mean.
You My.
Mother's brother and my father's brother, so my uncle's on both sides of my family tree were distinguished police officers in in Detroit. Yes, my mother's brother had the unfortunate pleasure of policing the police, so as you can imagine, he was not a very popular person amongst officers. He was the chief inspector of internal affairs. And making police police police seems like a bad idea to me, anyway. I know I just said that word a lot, but I was trying to say, it's slower, you should be
able to track it swirls tracking too. So I wanted to be a police officer when I grew up. The most handsome and accomplished and distinguished men in my life. My uncles were very successful police officers. One of them still he retired and then did it again, and you know, in different parts of the country, and you know they both up the ranks as high as you can go. So you know, he's speaking to someone and very close to someone who wanted to be a police officer and even tried to be well.
I think what happens is whenever I talk about policing. I don't have anything super awesome to contribute to it because I never wanted to be a police officer. It never appealed to me. I grew up in LA so it's the LAPD. So that's like I want to grow up and join a gang, you know.
What I mean?
Like nobody says that I wanted to grow up and be a police officer. The police were the bad guys. You know that I saw the police hurt people for no reason. Maybe there was a reason, but in my young mind, I didn't see anyone doing anything wrong.
It wasn't a justifiable reason. But there was absolutely a reason. Okay, that reason remains. We see it on our smartphones and on our TVs. They're daily.
And one of the stories I told before was that I saw the police take a man's head. They take him out of his cart red light after pulling the more. They took a man's head and they smashed his head into the door of the car and it din at the door of the car. In this isn't an eighties, so it was a metal car. And he was black of course, heavy heavier guy who's wearing like a tank
top T shirt. And that's what I remember. It was a night time and then once that happened, you know, we sped through the green light and left and that was it.
But I'm like, why would the police do?
He wasn't even fun, you know anyway, So I recognize that I don't always speak about police with a certain reverence that perhaps police are accustomed to hearing about themselves or people are, you know, and it's not. I never want to be disrespectful because I recognize that beyond that uniform, they're humans. And I've committed my life to all men are my brothers, All women are my sisters. That means them too, That means I have to love them, right.
But I appreciate you bringing that into my world, the story about your uncles, because and then you're wanting to do it, because that helps me to have a bit of reverence for that profession and folks that do want to do that.
Chief Inspector Harold Scott, Detective Gerald Ward. There it is.
So do you guys remember the movie Minority Report, which sounds eerie to say now?
Correct? It was science fiction once upon a time, except it is a.
Book written in nineteen fifty six, made popular by Tom Cruise and two. But the premise was they fought crime be where it had to happen because they had the information to stop it.
And the way that movie ends, I'm glad you brought that up, sir. The way that movie ends is they have to disband that program because, as it turns out, when it comes to the last minute, it left the come doown. When it comes down to the comedown, people still have a choice. Despite all of the information pointing to this, the crimes be committed, there was an error in the system. They had to release all the prisoners from their pre crime unit, all this sort of stuff,
and that's the way the movie ended Crime. So watch this now, want to I want to talk about something that happened in this video and this was very important to me. Right, So again, this is the backdrop. These police are policing children under the assumption that they're going to be the ones who are going to be criminals.
Right.
What do the teachers have to say about this? You might hear me speak with a bit more reverence when I talk about teachers, because I have some teachers that made my life very special. Doctor Camilla Westenberg, who's been on the show a couple of Times is one such person. There's a teacher that is interviewed and she says, I'm gonna paraphrase, I'm gonna just kind of tell her story. I don't know exactly what she said, but it was
something like, you know, I love my students. Not all of my students are perfect, not all of them come from perfect circumstances, not all of them have everything that they need to thrive, but I love them. Somebody has to love these people, and I've chosen to love them. Right now, I'm speaking for it. I'm not saying she said this, but I'm trying to convey what I took from it.
She says that these students show up.
And you know, the school has betrayed them because the school says, oh, we're going to share your behavior.
We're not going to take care of the behavior stuff.
Here, We're going to share it with the police, the grown up police, right We're going to share your behavior or your incident reports. You're times in detention with the actual police.
You were in detention because you didn't get to class before the bill rung or something. For whatever reason.
You see, this is part of the reason why you Janelle Wood has been on the show for before from the Black Mother's form. And she's a big opponent of in school policing. You know, when you went to high school there was a police officer on the campus.
She does not like that.
She feels like that is a big part of the school to prison pipeline. And let her make a case for it, you will be on board. She is a powerful speaker and she has her facts straight.
But I digress this other teacher she's.
Saying, you know, the school has has condemned these children to bad quote unquote criminal behavioral issues, you know whatever. You know a lot of times, a lot of places in society. Maybe they had to move and they're living with an aunt or you know whatever they you know, whatever happened in their story, right, and no one tries to fix the problem. Everyone tries to diagnose the problem.
And what happens is if you get bounced around, if you go from this place to that place, you go even if you have a steady home life, and you go from school to home and you hear, oh, this is a bad kid or this is a bad student. There's a behavioral issue or whatever. What motivation, what incentive? What prospects do you see for yourself. If that's all, These aren't adult minds where they say, you know what, you're wrong about me, I'm going to prove you wrong.
That's not a common thing with children. Children their whole reality. What they know is what they see. So if you tell a child over and over again you know this is who you are, they don't have the frame of reference to expect that they are anything different, and it
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And that's why it was so important to stop and say, what is the benefit of policing these children when you could take the same resources, the same man power, the same fiscal resources, and put together What's to stop a police officer from working overtime putting together a basketball league for all those fourteen hundred students and playing basketball with them. What's to stop them from ingratiating themselves with these people?
You know what I mean?
And I know that's me pieing the sky talking, but that seems like am I am I crazy?
You have to give a damn about those kids to start a basketball league and invest your time in them.
You have to care about them. Well, I know that this happens. This isn't an incident in Florida. But I do recognize that while it might not be as formal as it is in Penscoe County, Florida, these are sorts of things that happen all over the place. You know, there's plenty of stories of people getting harassed by police. You know, the police that lives on the other side of town, but patrols in your neighborhood and they come and you know, hang out in front of your place
all the time, stop of your business. You know that it's just how it works. And so far be it from me to assume that this is the only place where this type of thing happens. And you know, this show was part partially born out of being critical of the way policing is done, not the humans, but the system. And so that is something else for us to ponder here. So yeah, stay out at Pennscoe County, Florida.
To keep your kids away too. What did at all cost? Yeah?
So uh got to move it on here a bit, brace yourselves. Yeah, it's time for the Way Black History Fact, sir man. What you got for us today?
Today's Way Black History Fact comes courtesy of mister Khalil Green. You can find on Instagram and TikTok at Khalil Green dot Green which is ka j l I L dot g r e E n E And Khalil does this series it's called the Hidden History Series where he talks about the creepy, crazy and covered up parts of American history, which you know, I had Central Indiana public schooling, so a lot of what he talks about another young folks
on TikTok and on social media. The education continues. In this clip, he discusses an article from eighteen eighty eight which describes a doctor who's wearing shoes made from the skin of negroes. The doctor, who was interviewed said that he had no sentiment on the matter because he wasn't from the South and he had fought to free black
people in the Civil War. Uh. The article goes on to highlight that the doctor was not an exception and more practical uses of Negro skin included cigar cases, slippers, and of course the best leather was always obtained from the cadaver's thighs. Khalil Green on ig and TikTok Hidden History series, So.
Wow, wow was all I got rams My.
First My first mental image is Chaps.
Like leather chaps, Like, wow, it's all I got.
About Django earlier, Like that feels right, it feels on brand. Wow.
Yeah. And by the way, him not being from the South, as if that absolved him from like this idea that we can't have empathy unless we've literally experienced something ourselves, unless something directly affects us or our.
House, Like, come on, people, you know there was I read something recently and it was about like a riot on Wall Street in eighteen hundreds, and in that article it mentioned that one in four white families owned.
At least one slave.
So based on that, seems like there's a lot more folks who owned slaves than what some folks might have you to believe. But you know, I wasn't there, so who knows. But yeah, man, how would you like a
Negro skin wallet or some Negro skin shoes? And as insane as this sounds while you're listening to our voices say it today, once upon a time, no one would flinch from this, you know, Just like we talk about a lot of the photos that we see that are gruesome, but you see families and their children in these photos, and it's every day for them. It's a normal thing. These people don't see themselves as immoral or unkind.
I think that that.
Kind of points to this undercurrent that exists in this country, this base line of emotions with respect to black folks and the black plight. You know, there's this you know idea that hey man, slavery was a long time ago. Man, you weren't a slave, I wasn't a slave, you know, blah blah blah. But that attitude of like, hey man, that's just that's just how it is. That's how, you know,
like whatever. That's kind of the attitude you see in those old photos of these people hanging out with at lynchings and burnings and you know, all these sorts of things where it's just like, hey man, that's just how it is, you know, smiling, smile, happy, having a great day.
I mean, that was an occasion. We're going to the lynching today, you guys ready, they called it picnic. Don't forget your lunch pill. So you know, there's you know, that's that's obviously a very gruesome thing too. To know, obviously, I've I've heard of that before.
I remember reading about that in high school, that they would sell like alligator skin and Negro skin wars.
They peddle them, you know in the South.
But you know, for black folks that don't know that, you know, it's just another atrocity to throw on the back of, you know, all the other things that we carry. But for folks who you know, maybe have listened to the show this far and are doing their best to be better, kinder people and more supportive people of their black brothers and sisters, that might be.
Horrifying to hear.
And you know, I don't know how true it is, but you know, we've talked before about you know, generational trauma, traumas that like exist in our bones, things that make us sort of predisposed to triggers and things that really we're not able to be comfortable with make peace with. And I know that if you've heard that for the first time that once upon a time, the people that look like you, they took them and they took their skin and made clothes out of it and made jackets
and shoes. You know, what comes to mind is, Okay, this person didn't get a proper burial. This person didn't get probably when you get a proper story, they were a thing.
Yeah, they were an object. They weren't.
And that's the thing, Like, there was just I read something recently. It was jeez, I read so much stuff. But they were talking about, you know, some of the slave owners treated their slaves really good, right, and then they were like families. You know, that's just kind of how it was, and they would love for you to think that that's the way it was. First off, that's never what it is. Everything that has consciousness wants it's customary freedom. Human beings are paramount in that regard.
But imagine if the the couple from the first story that were giving reparations, imagine if they pulled out their wallet and it's negro skid. That's the kind of mindset that they would be oblivious to that level of gruesome.
But still that's how it was.
Yeah, absolutely so. So anyway, that's that's the way Black History fact for the day. Unfortunately it was a little a little heavy, but you know, you need to know this. We need to know where we come from to know where we're going. We need to really have a come to terms with what's happened to really understand what's happening. We need to know where we've come from to know where we are and where we need to go, and we will take time now and in the future to
know point out things like this. Hopefully some are a little bit more positive or less gruesome, but certainly I think it's worth knowing so that we understand who we are relative to each other and how to best support each other. And I think that's going to do it for us today on Civic Cipher. So once again i'm your host rams this job. They called me q Ward. A big shout out to our producer d J Swirl Swirl you the greatest, Yes indeed, and yeah check us
out online. Hit Civic cipher dot com to download this in all previous episodes. You can also check out our social media. It's all at Civic Cipher and please donate to the show. This show exists because of your donations. We're able to keep doing it and keep growing. So if you can please make a donation, we'd love to keep bringing you this content. We think it's important and hopefully you do too. And until next week, y'all peace. Know we had.
These brothers the Fabulus our Ladies show. When you move on, travel well, speak to you from sunlight