Civic Cipher 071622 Black on Black Crime is a Falsehood (Part 2)

black history. Fact, this is something that a lot of black folks know about and a lot of non black folks don't know about. And you know, you might live somewhere in this country where you don't get any critical race theory or better said, American history. So we got your daily dose of that right here. So stick around to find out what the three fits compromise in You will be sick to your stomach. But first and foremost, let's discuss how to become a better ally. We shall.

So this one's brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Magazine and it comes from CNM, and we are going to shout out Rage against the Machine and my guy Zach Dayala roche anyway I will read. The members of Rage Against the Machine have always carried a message with their music. In twenty twenty two, they have plenty to be mad about, and after eleven year break from performing together,

they didn't hold back over the weekend. During their pandemic delayed return to stage Saturday night, the rap rock band was typically abrasive, performing its high octane catalog more than thirty thousand people in Wisconsin's Alpine Valley Music Theater. They screened images of real world violence, including an El Paso police car and gulfed in flame games, along with messages related to the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe versus. Wade.

Quote forced birth in a country that is the only wealthy country in the world without any guaranteed paid parental leave at the national level. Quote an on screen message read quote forced birth in a country where black birth givers experience maternal mortality two to three times higher than that of white birth givers forced birth in a country where a gun violence is the number one cause of death among children and teenagers in quote, and then finally

apport the Supreme Court. The next screen read in all caps. Every time we catch somebody using their platform to bring attention to social issues, particularly if they affect black and brown people and other marginalized groups in this country, we try to highlight that as an example of how you can and be the change that you would like to see in the world and help to create the change for some folks who are your brothers and your sisters, but may not be from your direct tribe. And Rage

Against the Machine has done just that. So shout out to them.

one such subject. We talked about black on black crime briefly last week and she felt like, you know, we're not going to wait to develop this to really make this live in our listeners' minds. Let's put something together and really flesh it out so folks know exactly what we're talking about. So shout out to Maggie. Be known now, black on black crime. It's something that I know for a fact you've heard just growing up in the United States,

police or wire black people out protesting police brutality. When there's so much quote black on black crime end quote that they should be focusing on instead. If they were really outraged at black death, then they would start in Chicago. They would start in the ghetto. They would deal with their own problems before trying to uh take on police who are here to protect and serve the community at large. Right, this is a this is a narrative that exists. This

is this is a reality. It's a false reality, but it's a reality. For some people. This is fact, the gospel truth, and they can't see past it. So the conversation begins and ends right there, because in their minds, black on black crime exists, and if black people aren't concerned about that, then why should they be taken seriously about anything else? Right, So, there's a lot of people in this country that that's really how they view it.

And I recognize that you listening to this show might not feel that way, but I also recognize you may not have had conversations with the people in your lives that do feel that way. And so we're going to go over a couple of things that help explain why this term exists, how harmful it is, and what we can do to have some conversations with people who have

kind of stuck in the short loop. You know, that was established again in the seventies, I believe kind of bolstered in the eighties alongside the crack epidemic and the black absent Black fathers, you know, myth and all that sort of stuff to just basically kind of keep from having to discuss what the reality of the situation is, which is basically white supremacy laws that allow black communities to be overly policed, overly incarcerated, grossly impoverished, denied economic opportunities,

et cetera. And it just paints this really strange narrative. That again just lingers, So I'll read this comes from ABC News. Black on black crime a loaded and controversial phrase that has often heard amid calls for police reform. It's a retort sometimes heard in the context of the protests,

but what about black on black crime? These retorts have more recently been mentioned along side you know, conversations about the death of George Floyd, anything having to do with Black Lives Matter, etc. Often as the idea that there is a rampant crime problem within the black and mainly urban communities that some are choosing to ignore in favor of focusing on police brutality.

ever episode of Civic Ciphers, so long ago. How about that, man, we come a long way I'm I'm proud of you man. Anyway, our first ever episode, we discussed this, and we've we've obviously talked about it since.

from all colors. A lot of times that crime is tied very closely to economic conditions. The people who have less are more willing to take what they want or need from the people who have more. Right Hitler, when he sent Jewish people to the extermination camps in Auschwitz in Germany, concentration camps, concentration camps. What did I say,

extermination camps? I don't know, say that concentration camps very good? Anyway, when he sent these people, I remember reading about this in school because I actually did have American history and world history critical race or what the equivalent would be when I got to college. But these Nazi soldiers, what they would do is they would remember, these Jewish people were hungry, they weren't treated well. They were as good as dead, six million of them, exterminated off the face

of the planet, systematically exterminated. This man wanted to wipe the Jewish faith from the planet entirely, sick faith and ethnicity. Sure, sure, exactly, so, they weren't well fed. They arrive at these concentration camps, you know, and my understanding, if I remember correctly, is they did some work here and there, but for the most part they were gassed and discarded, their their bodies discarded. But while they were being held I remember this distinctly.

The soldiers what they would do, because you do have to provide some sustenance unless you want them, to know,

be too weak to be of any value too. Yes, So the German soldiers what they would do is they would take bread, and they would throw bread into like the cells and the and the holding pins where these very skinny, very weak people were being held, and then they would fight over the bread and sorry, they they would fight each other, and I don't think that's fair because you know, I don't think that they really wanted to fight each other. I think they were hungry. And

I think that that's a human No. I think that's anything with a nervous system and survival instincts. That's that's kind of you're forced into that. That's effectively what that is. You're forced to take that action. And that's not fair and that's not kind. And you know, yeah, I mean you've listened to the show. You know me, I'm I try my best to be fair and I try my best to be kind. So those are that's what I

teach my children. That's the best I got. So if you take that example and you you know, bring it over here to this country and you look at these really impoverished communities or oftentimes my people, our people live and then, you know, in the eighties, when these terms were kind of first being popularized in this country, there was issues with with drugs being brought into black communities, Compton specifically where I lived. I was born in nineteen

eighty two, so the timeline checks out. I was there and I saw it with these eyes right here, those sorts of things, deliberate, systemic things, exacerbated the poverty, and then you end up with these now criminals doing criminal activity, okay, and then you start to realize that, you know, just like the Jews, the environment creates the criminals. They're not born bad, right, and the people harmed by that are the people closest to them. Have you ever heard of Jew on jew? Cute?

of this country, big parts of this country. Rather than saying, you know what, we have historically done wrong to this group of people, and we continue to do wrong to this group of people, and we continue to benefit from the wrongs that we are still doing to this group of people, rather than coming to terms with that, it's easier to say, no, let's spin a narrative that suggests that these people are doing it to themselves. And that's

something that's different from what happened in Germany. This is why you've never heard of jew on jew crime, right. But if you come to this country and they, you know, throw the scraps into the pen or the ghetto or whatever, and we're left to fight over what little resources are there and we're all trying to and then of course

right down the street. You know, the component is California is a strange place because you can drive ten minutes in any direction and be either in a million dollar neighborhood or on a beach or in the slums or you know, skid row. It's all you know right there, right for those who haven't been out there or don't know about California or southern California at least. So you're right around the people, but the haves, and if your have not, then you know your aspirations may get the

best of you. Now that's not to say that you know, black people are going to go out to Beverly Hills and you know whatever. No, it's typically the circumstances are a little bit more dire than that.

from those who sign up for that job. So those that look like us are left to fit for themselves. Right, and since I'm less likely to even be investigated. When I'm a criminal and I'm doing crime where I live and where the people around me are also poor, this is where I'm going to do my criminal activities. I'm not, by nature of my skin color, a criminal, but by nature of the circumstances I was born into, with an

entire system working to keep me in those circumstances. So that those who have also, always, I'm sorry, benefited from this system will continue to and their prosperity and their children and the generations after them will continue to benefit from said system. It is in their best interest to keep us right where we've always been and to never acknowledge the foot that is on our throat, because they

want to present themselves as decent people. So they can't say out loud, we're sorry for not only what our forefathers did to you, but what we continue to do to you today. They have to be able to tell their children that they're decent people. Those people over their honey, they do that to themselves.

You know, cues from Detroit, let them set them.

I want to read this before we move on. Activists and academics who say black on black crime, who say that black on black crime is an offensive phrase and it has its origins rooted in America's racist legacy, and it's meant to mean black people as criminally inclined. Some also say it's misleading. White people are mainly killed by white people, they say, but there is no conversation about

white on white crime. The idea that black people kill each other is exceptional or something that can only be fixed by black people is deeply rooted in White supremacists passed the specific notion of black on black crime gain Traction in a book published in eighteen ninety six entitled Race Traits and the Tendencies of the American Negro And

then I want to read this right here. The Bureau of Justice Statistics twenty nineteen Crime Victimization Statistics Report shows that those who commit violent acts tend to commit them against members of the same race as the offender. So that's all stats that paints the picture. There's no such thing as black on black crime. If there is, then there's a whatever on whatever crime across the board. So do not single black people out or otherwise. It's not

a thing. Moving on, sound for the way Black History fact brought to you by Hip Hop Weekly Magazine. This one comes from thoughtcode dot com and we are going to talk a little bit about the three fifths compromise. So at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates agreed that the representation each state received in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College would be based on population, but the issue of slavery was the sticking point between the

South and the North. Obviously, this is in the origins of this country. It benefited southern states to include enslaved people in their population counts, as that calculation would give them more seats in the House of Representatives and thus more political power. Delegates from northern states, however, objected on the grounds that enslaved people could not vote, own property,

or take advantage of privileges that white men enjoyed. None of the lawmakers called for the end of slavery, but some of the representatives did express their discomfort with it. George Mason of Virginia called for anti slave trade laws,

and Governor Morris of New York called slavery a nefarious institution. Ultimately, the delegates who objected to enslavement as an institution ignore their moral qualms in favor of unifying states, thus leading to the creation of the three fifths Compromise, first introduced by James Wilson and Roger Sherman on June eleven, seventeen eighty seven. To three fifths compromise counted enslaved people as three fits of a person. Black people were three fits

of a person legally by law. It's written down.

included within this Union according to their perspective. Sorry their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The compromising not well slavery was a reality, but did not meaningfully address the

evils of the institution. In fact, the delegates passed not only the three fifths Compromise, but also a constitutional clause that allowed enslavers to quote reclaim enslaved people who sought freedom by characterizing them as fugitives. This clause criminalized the enslaved individuals who ran away in quest of their freedom. How the compromise affected politics in the nineteenth century, the three fifths Compromise had a major impact on US politics

for decades to come. It allowed pro slavery states to have a disproportionate influence on the presidency, the Supreme Court, and other positions of power. It also resulted in the country having a roughly equal number of states deposed and

favored enslavement. Some historians contend that major events in US history would have had the opposite outcomes were it not for the Three fifths Compromise, including the election of Thomas Jefferson in eighteen hundred, the Missouri Compromise of eighteen twenty, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a pro slavery state, the Indian Removal Active eighteen thirty, in which indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their land, and the

Kansas Nebraska Active eighteen fifty four, which allowed residents to determine for themselves whether they wanted to allow the enslavement of black people in their territories. Real quick, I want to shout this out. We are broadcasting this show from the unseated ancestral lands of the Akima and Odam peoples. So shout out to our brothers and sisters whose land this belongs to them. Altogether, the Three Fists Compromise had a detrimental impact on vulnerable populations such as the enslaved

and the nation's indigenous peoples. The enslavement of black people may have only been kept in check rather than allowed to spread without it, and fewer indigenous peoples may have had their way of life upended to tragic results by removal policies. The Thirteenth Amendment effectively gutted the Three Fits Compromise by outlonging the enslavement of black people. But when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in eighteen sixty eight, it

officially repealed the three Fists compromise. Section two of the of the Amendment states that seats in the House of Representatives were to be determined based on the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. The repeal of the compromise gave the South moore representation since members of the formerly enslaved black population were now counted fully. Yet this population continued to be denied full benefits of citizenship.

The South enacted laws such as grandfather clauses meant to disenfranchise black people, even as their population gave them more influence in Congress. The additional voting power not only gave Southern states more seats in the House, but more electorals too. Real quick. The grandfather clauses meant that if your grandfather didn't vote in an election, that meant that you couldn't vote in an election, so of course black people didn't

get to vote. Congress members from other regions sought to reduce the South's voting power because black people were being stripped of their voting rights there, but a nineteen hundred proposal to do so never materialize. Ironically, this is because the South had too much representation in Congress to allow for a switch. Until as recently as the nineteen s sixties, Southern Democrats known as Dixiecrats, continued to wield a disproportionate

amount of power in Congress. This power was based in part on the black residents who were counted for the purposes of representation, but who were prevented from voting through grandfather clauses and other laws that threatened their livelihoods and even their lives. The Dixiecratcrats used the power they had in Congress to block attempts to make the South a

more equitable place, which still happens today check out redlining right. Eventually, however, federal legislations such as the Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty four and the Voting Rights Act nineteen sixty five would thwart their efforts somewhat. During the Civil Rights Movement, black Americans demanded the right to vote and ultimately became

an influential voting block. They have helped a slow of black political candidates get elected in the South of nationally including the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, demonstrating the significance of their full representation. So three fists compromise. There it is. And I worry that you're not taught these things in school and life, and that you might not know how that affects the psyche, the self concept, the self worth, the self image, all of these things together.

The police can kill us and get away with it, you know, like that sort of thing. These things they're very, very heavy burdens to carry day in and day out. And I think by sharing this with you, maybe you will understand a little bit more, recognize why we push for so many things that we want to see and shoot where there's an opportunity to be empathetic, maybe you'll find a way to empathize with this too.