Civic Cipher 072322 Racist Sports Fans (Part 2)

a lot of stuff to talk about. I wish I had more time because there's more there, but just the way the show goes, yes, everything requires a little bit of nuance, but trying to give a little grace. But for now, let's discuss how to become a better ally BAA. So this one comes from the hill. Nine to eight

eight is officially live, all right. So with last week's official launch of nine to eight eight, the number to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line, individual seeking help for suicide prevention or mental health crisis will quickly be connected to a trained crisis counselor who can provide support over the phone and dispatch a mobile response unit if necessary, to take that person to a place where they can

get more help. Nine eight eight is the product of the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of twenty twenty, a federal law aimed at creating and easy to remember, easy to access pathway to mental health care when people need it most. Essentially, it is designed to function as the equivalent to the nine to one one emergency number, but

for mental health emergencies rather than medical ones. So the reason Maggie put this one in the script for us today is because there are a lot of instances that we talk about on show, and we've seen her heartbreak over and over again. Our hearts breakout all the time, almost every week, and a lot of those stories have to do with people being overwhelmed by the realities and they don't know how to process that, and mentally they just are at their wits end. And you never know

how you're going to behave until you get there. And we see people having mental crisises, mental breakdowns, et cetera. And what happens is we call the police, and the police often lack the training, and sometimes those incidents turn fatal when they don't need to. So now there is a new number that you can call for a mental health episode rather than calling nine to one one. Again, that number is nine to eighty eight and it is here to stay nationally. Moving on sports, all right.

will say anything. And it's fine. I mean, if it's my wife, she's been dealing with them her whole life, I don't mind it. I hear it. I hear someone close by, I check them real quick. I move on to the game. Whatever the F or whatever the F they're going to say, whatever the F they want to say, they might throw something. I got a beer thrown on me leaving a game. So this is Lebron James talking

about playing in Boston, Massachusetts. And when we were trying to figure out how to approach this topic for today's show, I talked to some other sports people. I've been to Boston. It was pretty cool, But I never been to a game in Boston, you know. And Maggie, you're from there, aren't you. Yeah? Yeah. So now it turns out this is this checks out. Unfortunately it does. Okay, all right, I'll continue. Lebron then asserted that the Celtics sold apparel

that was intentionally disparaging towards him. There was like a f LBJ T shirt. I believe they probably sold it at the efing team shop. They sold it at the team shop. I'm like the Celtics. The Celtics had something to do with that stuff. Safe to say, if Lebron does ever leave the Lakers, he's definitely not taking a free agent meeting with the Boston Celtics. Okay, before we move on to some of the other stories, hercue, make this live a little bit for us easy. There has

been this long living narrative in this country. Unfortunately, the torch for this narrative is carried far too often by people who look like Ramses and I. Ramses has heard me get annoyed, frustrated and angry with one of our colleagues in media. And I will say his name, a gentleman by the name of Jason Whitlock, who believes that with success, black people grow out of racism. If you got to Benz and some money, what are you talking about? Racist? How? How is this a racist country for you? Right?

with it. And unfortunately, in these spaces when you're home, there are thousands of people cheering your names. Large portions of those people look nothing like you, so it's very very easy to forget where you are. It only takes for you to be a visitor in places like Salt Lake City, Utah, and we'll talk about that in Boston, Massachusetts, just to name a couple, for those people to not just remind you that you don't play for their home team, but that they are on a different team than you.

All together, it has nothing to do with the color of the jersey on your back, but the melon and the skin that you walk around and live in every day, there is no level of achievement that you can reach that will make the racist look at you and say, oh my bad.

scene in that movie that stands out to me. I think this is nineteen sixties United.

She brings them some lemonade to drink outside. They sit, they talk, they catch up, and this man is just letting Jim know how very proud of him he is. And you can see a sense of self pride and self efficacy in Jim as he receives this admiration and adoration from his family friend who's so proud of all of his accomplishments. The daughter at one point needs help with something in the house, and it's something physical. She

needs a man to help her. Jim, as naturally inclined, jumps up to help as well.

the same. Jim Brown, one of the most accomplished and famous people in the history of our country, who also just so happens to be black, is reminded in an instant by somebody who presents himself as someone who cares about him. You can't come in my house, Jim, like, as if to say, what were you What were you thinking?

And because white supremacy and racism ultimately go unchecked. I mean, somebody can make you out to be a bad person, but there's no actual penalty for being a racist bigot except people in the public looking at you kind of funny, you know, some people and some people only in the public looking at you kind of funny. They might send you a message earlier like yeah, you told him, But nobody wants to appear to be racist in front of others. Right.

Racist people get offended by being called racist while being racist. Right, They're offended by the idea, how dare you refer to me as that? But I'm going to continue to act in direct alignment with the definition of racism in front of everyone out loud on camera, right, So your hopefulness and I smile and kind of laugh at it as a bit of naivete, but it reminds me of a truth that it's easy to ignore because it doesn't live in front of us. I do believe more people in

this country feel like you. I believe that that's true. Unfortunately, the people that feel the opposite still make our laws, still run our courts, and still govern our cities. And as long as that's true, I don't care how hopeful you guys are. Our reality remains the same. So I don't get to smile and cheer and be as bubbly about the ideals of the things that we think should be true, because the things that are true still suck. I'm sorry for saying it so plainly. That's okay, let

me jump in right here. One thing that I do want to say is that I can't change who I am, and I believe tomorrow is going to be better than today. Right, So I need people who are dealing with today in a measured way, in a practical way, that are based in reality right now, because to me, that means balance. There's you know, Obviously, being stuck in the past is not going to help it. We need an eye on the past, we need an in the future, we need it on the present. My tendency is to be optimistic

without the future, So I want to say that. Another thing I want to say is when we were talking earlier, that very much reminded me of a quote I believe to be true. You can you can verify because again you're more sports dude over there. But there's a quote. Jay Z said it on a song later, but I heard it but long before then. O J. Simpson once upon a time said I'm not black, I'm oj This is when he was still the Jews doing sports stuff,

you know what I mean. And the irony of that is that later in life he was real black, you know what I mean, everybody was. He had to like kind of lean on it, you know, with the Johnny cochranes and the borrowing money from Michael Jackson. You know, like you had to go back up that black street, you know what I mean. So conveniently, of course, I think that, yeah, exactly, but I think that there's there's

obviously something to be said there. One of the things that ah, I will do you know we talked about this in the first half of the episode the episode. When I see an incident, it's an incident. It can be sad, it can be happy, it's an incident. But when I see a pattern or whether there's data or there's you know, things that you know, we're dealing with

stuff that is national, generational in its scope. When it's those things that we need to call attention to, when I see them laid out that way, or I'm able to put them together in that way, it's a lot easier to kind of nail that stuff to the wall and address it and say, look, there's a problem you may not know about. For this, you and I both have talked about how you know, this is not an American thing I'm going to discuss here. But one thing

that's still very hurtful. You know, when they play soccer or football around the world, how sometimes when the melanated players do well or get the ball and kick it around or whatever they're doing, that people will throw ba as banana peals onto the soccer field as if to say that black people are lower life forms or monkeys or apes or whatever. And so there's that. Then we have a very rich history of you mentioned some of the names, Muhammad Ali being one that I love. Muhammad Ali.

I'm not into boxing. I'm not a violent person and it's not into that sort of stuff. But you got my respect when they said, you can't put my Hollywood star on the ground, you have to put it on the wall because I bear the name of our prophet Muhammad, and people cannot trample on that name. And they listen to him and they put it on the wall. You got my respect for that, you know. So I like kind of got into him and did a little homework, and that guy stood for some stuff and he went

through some stuff, right. And then there's other people, obviously, you know Colin Kaepernick being the more recent one, people that have kind of used their proficiency and their position within the world of athletics and sports. I think that's the right word, you know, not you know in the Olympics, you remember, you know, the Blackfist and the Olympics in the forties, and you know, there's a lot more instances

of racist behavior and people reacting to racist behavior. So Lebron James with this most recent reaction is obviously something that we definitely wanted to highlight. But the thing is, again, if this was the only story that would be that, we probably wouldn't be talking about it. I want to share another story briefly. This one's a little older, but I think it helps paint this picture a little bit better. This one's from two thousand and eight. Just a line.

This comes from bleacher report dot Com says last year during the Golden State Series, fans apparently shouted racist comments at African American players on the Warriors talking about the difference between playing at home compared to on the road during the series against the Jazz Warriors. For it, Warriors forward Steven Jackson said, and here's this quote, Well, we're not hearing racial slurs. We're not hearing people wish for me to go to jail. That's the difference from me.

I'm loved here in Oakland, right, So I think that kind of speaks to your point. Now, if it was just those two stories, one from two thousand and eight, one from last week, that'd be that. But the thing is, I saw a pattern with Utah, and as you mentioned, so you know, maybe there's a little bit of cultural difference there, but it's certainly something that we need to talk about because this is, at least to me, the one space where you would wouldn't expect to see that

sort of thing. You know, these people come together to put on a performance, and your team either wins or your team loses. But you're going there for the show, right, you cheer for your team, I'm sure, whatever, But you recognize that these are all top athletes and some have good days and some have bad days. This is my assumption, you know, and for you to respect these athletes and want to go see a good game. And everyone loves a post game, but no one loves to lose. Right.

You can't have it both ways, right, at least not for a long time. All of a sudden, you go to racism. It's a real thing. I want to read one more story here. This was from ESPN dot com May twenty one, So this is last year. Ja Morant, I like that name. Jah my Man. Amrant's dad says three banned Jazz fans made lude racist comments during game two in Utah. Quote. I know heckling, Tia Morant said, in a phone interview with ESPN Thursday night. Quote. We're

doing that whole game, but that's different than heckling. That's straight up disrespectful. That was too far out of line. You don't say nothing like that. Heckling, that's beyond heckling. John Morant, in a tweet posted later, agreed with utah's decision to ban fans, writing quote, my family should be able to cheer for me and my teammates without getting inappropriate stuff said to them. Right, So, if I'm able to say something good, positive, my understanding is that the

NBA and the individual organizations do not tolerate that. This was about the NBA's failures or you know, the players, or you know whatever. This is about how Ramses. Basically, if we're being honest, how Ramses managed to find racism, like a whole pattern of it in a place where I had never expected to see it. And I feel comfortable talking about it because I have someone who knows a little bit about sports.

still know your place. I won't even say every word that I wanted to put at the end of that sentence right now, because several popped into my head, but.

we see it. Moving on, it's time for the Way Black History Fact. This week we are discussing Jim Crow Laws. Funnily enough, I don't believe we've touched on Jim Crow Laws yet. I mean, we've touched on it, but we haven't done a full on way Black History fact. So this comes from history dot Com. So I'll start. Jim Crow Laws where a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation, named after a black minstrel show character.

The laws which existed for about one hundred years from the post Civil War era until nineteen sixty eight. It's almost the seventies. Man, We're meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, whole jobs, get an education, or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow Laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence,

and death. We might get to it, but I just want to say, because while we're talking about voting and the disenfranchising of voting, this is why we've talked about at length on this show Redlining. We talked about voter suppression initiatives. Every time doctor Westernberg comes up here and talks on the show, she's always talking about voter suppression and how important our votes are, and how she came from a time, and you know she's related to people.

You know, her mother and father and grandmother and grandfather could not vote because they couldn't pass tests that says how many bubbles are in a bar of soap. They were only given to black people, and white people get tests that say how much is OnePlus one? You know, this sort of thing.

how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled, and to seize children for labor purposes. The legal system was stacked against black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges, making it difficult for African Americans to win court cases and ensuring they

were subject to Black codes. These codes worked in conjunction with labor camps for the incarcerated, where prisoners were treated as enslaved people. Black offenders typically received longer sentences than the white equals, and because of the grueling work, often did not live out their entire sentence. It's very unsettling, all right.

danger a regular aspect of African American life. Black schools were vandalized and destroyed, and bands of violent white people attacked, tortured, and lynched Black citizens. In the night, families were attacked and forced off their land all across the South. The most ruthless, sorry, the most ruthless organization of the Jimcrow era, the ku Klux Klan, was born in eighteen sixty five in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a private club for Confederate veterans.

The KKK grew into a secret society, terrorizing Black communities and seeping through white Southern culture, with members at the highest levels of government and the lowest echelons of criminal back alleys all right. At the start of the eighteen eighties, big cities in the South were not wholly beholden to Jim Crow laws, and Black Americans found more freedom in them. This led to substantial black populations moving to the cities, and as the decade progressed, white city dwellers demanded more

laws to limit opportunities for African Americans. Jim Crow laws soon spread around the country with even more force than previous Previously, public parks were forbidden for African Americans to enter, and theaters and restaurants were segregated. Segregated waiting rooms in bus and train stations were required, as well as waiter as, water fountains, restrooms, building entrances, elevators, Cemetra, Terry's, even amusement park,

cashier windows. Another thing doctor Westernberg mentioned on the show that I felt was super strange is that she was not able to try on shoes when they went to the store because she was black. And as a result of that, her feet were because of the melon, you know, and they just would not let black people try on shoes. They could not go into restrooms, so they had to carry a portable bathroom as they traveled. Is that crazy. That's a real person that we both know. No, it's

not crazy. I'll live here.

Marriage and cohabitation between white and black people was strictly forbidden. In most Southern states, not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African Americans that they were not welcome there. And if you would like to read more on Jim Crow laws and exactly what that was like and how those very much shape the laws that we have in place. Now it's all there History dot com. That's not ramss dot com.

on Civic Cipher. Once again, I'm your host, Rams' Jah Forever, Rams's Jaw and q Ward listen together. This is a Civic Cipher, This Indeed show produced by our producer Ms. Maggie aka Maggie. Be knowing and subscribe to our podcast.