Civic Cipher 100822 The Importance of Local Government with Harry Curtin (Part 2)

panel for you know, folks running for city council. He's the person that I thought I would lend my endorsement to and I invite him up on the show, and he's here with us to discuss, you know, the role of local government, certain policies that he feels could be beneficial and just you know what the future may hold

for us. So we're gonna talk more with him, and we're also going to discuss Benjamin Banneker for our Way Black History Fact and he's a very interesting person that shows that we were not just slaves and conquered tribes brought over to this country, but great thinkers and contributors to the foundation of this great nation of ours. But first and foremost, let's discuss baba. How to become a

better ally. Today's Baba sponsored by Major Threads where high fashion meets timeless men's where visit major threads dot com from more information. The passage I'm reading comes from SCOTUSblog dot com. And I'm going to need you to pay a little bit of attention because the Baba comes in the end, all right. In February, divided Supreme Court temporarily blocked ruling by a three judge district court in Alabama, which had agreed the state's new congressional map likely violates

the Voting Rights Act. After nearly two hours of oral argument on Tuesday, the justices appeared inclined to permanently set aside the district court's ruling, even if it wasn't clear on exactly what theory they would do so. But even a narrower ruling than the broad pronouncement the state seeks, would, the plaintiffs contend, make it much more difficult to challenge redistricting plans on the grounds that they weaken the collective voting power of black people. So yeah, this is something

we got to pay attention to. The law at the center of this case is Section two of the Voting Rights Act, which bar's election practices that result in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race. Voters and other groups have challenged Alabama's twenty twenty one redistricting map for its seven seats in the US House of Representatives, arguing that the map violates Section two by diluting the votes of the state's black residents, who make

up twenty seven percent of the state's population. The state, the challenge is said, illegally packed many black voters into one district as as part of Alabama known as the Black Belt at the time. The challengers contend the state dispersed black vast voters and the rest of the Black Belt and to several other districts where they are only a minority, when it should have created an additional majority

black district. A three judge court that included two judges appointed by President Donald Trump ruled that the map likely violates Section two, but in February, the Supreme Court, by a vote of five to four, put that decision on hold, allowing Alabama to use the map in the twenty twenty two elections and set the case for argument in the twenty twenty two to twenty three term. If you want to help push back against this, please visit N DOUBLEACP

dot org slash donate. We need our vote, we need our voice once again N DOUBLEACP dot org slash donate. All right, now back to today's guest, mister Harry Curtin. All right, all right, we talked about local government. We talked about homelessness a bit. Yep, let's get to the visit of the meet. Let's get to the meet. All right, what are your thought on the current state of police?

I sometimes knew their names better than I knew my teachers. Little kids don't want to be police officers anymore, and probably for good reason. You know, we haven't evolved that department the way we should. We haven't supported the officers

the way we should. But I think what we're missing is how we policed in the past is not what's going to work in the future today in the future, and we've been unfair to them, and we've been fair to the public, and there's a lot that can change there to make them more support, make them want to be a police officer again, allow them to have the career opportunities that they should have, but also get the officers we want to support the problems we have in

the city. So you know, this is a problem I've thought so deeply about. I mean, I think about it all the time. And one of the things that really drove me to run for office. For me, if I just had like a golden opportunity, if I said, hey, I could just wave a want and get what I want. What I would want is essentially a advanced campus for training for police officers, one that country has never seen before.

Something I mean, I think star trek, I mean advanced, beautiful campus that focuses on social work, mental health, you know, cyber, all these different areas that a police officer now deals with in a daily basis. Not always cyber, but a lot of these areas, because I mean, we're expecting an officer to show up and deal with mental health crisis, at domestic dispute, you know, all these things and solve in one day, and they don't have those skills. You know,

we haven't given them those tools. We're not fair to them. And then we're like, oh, yeah, you did a bad job. Well I wouldn't do it. I mean, how could you possibly do it? What I see is an expanded police force, but a different kind of police force. I'm talking about community policing. And you have a domestic dispute, you have someone that shows up that's highly trained in that era, show up, Maybe have an officer in the background, you know,

the gun if something goes wrong. But you're essentially diagnosing the problem from nine to one to one as best you can to bring the right resource. So we're not escalating, we're de escalating.

We won't get into how the Sanford Experiments is basically a prison experiments where you know.

the world, I've been very fortunate. I've traveled. I've been all fifty states, I've been you know, done, seeing a good amount of this planet. Awesome.

the life. That's the only purpose that if I'm defending myself, it's with a vest or hiding or something. Yeah, yeah, you know, but I you know that's to execute, not to defend.

commands respect. There's no two ways about it, right, And if they have a gun and a way to if you don't respect me, if you don't respect my authority, you know, then they kind of it's it's kind of like a rage quit. You know this, and this is something that we see quite often. I have an example where we will talk about it next week on the show.

Our producer Maggie b. Noan put it together for us, and this is normally we talk about stories that affect black and brown communities, our Asian American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters, so forth, and so on. But this will probably be a third or fourth show where we talk about exclusively our Caucasian brothers and sisters. And there was a young man who lost his life at the hands of police on video, and he was white. He parked his vehicle and he called the police and he said,

I'm I'm having a tough time here. I need some help. And the police came and they did try to talk to him, and after some time they wanted to go home. I guess or whatever he may have had like a pocket and something in the car. I don't remember what it was. You'll get the actual story next week, or of course you can look this up. And they wanted to taste him when they started tasing him, of course he's moving radically and then someone one of the officers

shot him to the front window. He called them because he was having a problem. He wanted to help, but he didn't want to get out of the car because health issue. And he's no longer here for that. There you go. So what we have is a system that puts fear kind of squarely in the middle of the narrative. For police officers.

It was justified blah blah blah. And we're seeing that people are losing their life needlessly. People that didn't intend to wake up and do anything crazy and end up dead end up dead very often. Not to say that police officers shouldn't be able to protect themselves, but when we go into it with fear, the officers are that afraid. Q doesn't like when I use that word because he often sees these videos as being overt racism or you know, like I just don't care about these people's life, and

I'm going to see this through to the end. But for me, a lot of times I try to give the benefit of doubt. I call it fear. When the officers are made to be afraid. When fear is sort of where they operate from, and we give them a device, a contraption whose only purpose is to end to life, then we end up seeing the same stories that we see over and over again. And so to your point, you know, the state of policing is not necessarily about

the individual police officers. It's about police culture. It's based around fear. For giving people guns, and the guns is like the first line of defense. If we're militarizing the police. They got these punisher masks that align with their identity and so forth. It enhances bully culture. It enhances us versus them as opposed to listen, we are in the same community. I have friends right now who are police officers.

I've shouted them out on this show before, and a lot of you listening I know, well, A lot of my listeners. They are going to hear that and be like, oh my god, but I do I be honest, I do have friends.

case with things central to the black plight in this country. Again, there are a lot of institutions that are resistant to change because simply because that's the way we've always done right, And a shift in the narrative, a shift in the identity, and the shift in we'll call this is tough.

the human beings. I don't take issue with the human beings, but the institution, the way that it is executed throughout society, right, exactly, well said it overwhelming right, and it overwhelmingly benefits a certain group of people. They don't see the problems, they don't see the flaws. The police never interact with them other than the wave and say hi. And then there's other groups of people where they are overly policed and therefore overly incarcerated. Not that they do more crimes.

in terms of how their communities are policed. And because oftentimes it's black and brown mothers that are grieving the loss the permanent loss of their children or families are ripped apart or beaten or whatever things that don't make the news, everyone deserves to have a seat at the table. And I think a person who has a degree of empathy and focuses on the human experience of this. All deserves to be elected, which is why I will be for you. You're in my district, yes, sir, So let's

move on. Let's move on.

protect black and brown people. We've told those stories on this show, and we've also had to talk about uvalde.

billion dollar you know, operating problems. So big business is responsible for a lot of what is now being deemed as environmental racism. This is something again that we discussed on this show. For those of you listening who may not be familiar with environmental racism, check out anything on YouTube. John Oliver has a great segments about twenty minutes long. We don't have twenty minutes. I'm sure there's vice, there's you know, other reputable sources, but environmental racism, please look

it up. But again, big business is responsible for a lot of what is now being deemed as environmental racism. How can or how should we address this?

gets very hot here. If you look in places like you know, Paradise Valley, which is very affluent, Scott's Still Arizona, which again is very inffluent, things like this, in those neighborhoods where there's a larger concentration of our Caucasian brothers and sisters, you'll notice that the temperature itself is about I believe it's two to eight degrees cooler on average, exactly, exactly, And what the city doesn't realize is that it affects health,

the health of the individuals of our Hispanic brothers and sisters. It affects mobility, It affects housing prices, it affects you know, so forth, and so on. And so when the city comes up with funds to put in parks, green belts, things like this, and they continue to go into neighborhoods that beautify parts of the city that are not really the hardest hit by you know, the sun, because they're older neighborhoods, because they're underdeveloped, because they're poor and populated

by Hispanic folks. What we all miss out on is an opportunity to bring a little bit of comfort if we invest there. That's the point. So this is an example. How does this is an example getting to the root exactly, thank you. And this is an example one example of environmental racism. Of course, it's often associated with big business pollution things like this. Businesses in black and brown neighborhoods

don't being polluting the air, so forth. It creates health disparities in healthcare, It contributes to early mortality obesity, things, all kinds of stuff and.

be doing it otherwise. You know, if I didn't think we could lead in police, if I didn't think we could lead and homeless, I wouldn't be doing this. I think there's an opportunity here and that's why I'm doing it.

we're learning our platform to you today. Please find out more about Harry Curtin at Harry Curtin dot com yep and your social media please.

A free black man who owned a farm near Baltimore, Benjamin Bannicer was largely self educated in astronomy in mathematics. He was later called upon to assist in the surveying of territory for the construction of the nation's capital. He also became an active writer of Almanacs and exchanged letters with Thomas Jefferson, politely challenging him to do what he

could to ensure racial equality. Born November ninth, seventeen thirty one in Elliott's Mills, Maryland, Banniker was the son of an ex slave named Robert and his wife, Mary Banickey. Mary was the daughter of an english woman named Molly Welsh, a former indentured servant, and her husband Bannica, an ex slave whom she freed and who asserted that he came from tribal royalty in West Africa. Because both of his parents were free, Benjamin escaped the wrath of slavery as well.

He was taught to read by his maternal grandmother and for a very short time attended a small Quaker school. Banneker was primarily self educated. His early accomplishments included constructing an irrogration system for the family farm and a wooden clock that was reputed to keep accurate time and ran for more than fifty years until his death. In addition, Banneker taught himself astronomy and accurately forecasted lunaran solar eclipses. After his father's passing, he ran his own farm for years,

cultivating a business selling tobacco by a crops. Banneker's talents and intelligence eventually came to the attention of the Elliott family, entrepreneurs who made a name and fortune by building a series of gristmills in the Baltimore area. In the seventeen seventies. George Elliott had a large personal library and loan Banniker numerous books on astronomy and other fields. In seventeen ninety one, Andrew Elliott, George's cousin, hired Banneker to assist in surveying

territory for the nation's capital city. He worked in the observatory tent, using a z the zenith sector to record the movement of the stars. However, due to a sudden illness, Banneker was only able to work for Elliott for about three months. For those of you that know like kind of the mysteries and you know the secrets of DC, there's a much deeper story here about Benjamin Banneker and how the buildings are aligned in certain positions and so forth,

how the streets are laid out, et cetera. Anyway, I'll continue. Bannicker's true acclaim, however, came from his almanacs, which he published for six consecutive years during the later years of his life between seventeen ninety two and seventeen ninety seven. These hard books included his own astronomical calculations as well as opinion pieces, literature, and medical and title information, with

the latter particularly useful to fishermen. Outside of his almanacs, Baniker also published information on bees and calculated the cycle of the seventeen year locust. Bannker's accomplishments extended into other realms as well, including civil rights. In seventeen ninety one, Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Banniker considered the respected Virginian, though a slaveholder, to be open to view African Americans

as more than just slaves. Thus, he wrote Jefferson a letter hoping he would quote readily embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevail with respect to us unquote. To further support his point, Banneker included a handwritten manuscript of an almanac for seventeen ninety two containing his astronomical calculations, and as letter, Bannicker acknowledged he was quote of the

African race unquote, and a free man. He recognized that he was taking a liberty writing to Jefferson, which would be unacceptable considering the almost general prejudice and prepe pre possession which is so prevalent in the world against those of my complexion. This is what he said. Banneker then respectfully chided Jefferson and other patriots for their hypocrisy enslaving people like him while fighting the British for their own independence.

On October ninth, eighteen oh six, after his unusual morning after sorry, after his usual morning walk, Banneker died in his sleep, just a month short of his seventy fifth birthday. In accordance with his wishes, all the items that had been on loan from his neighbor, George Elliott, were returned by Bannker's nephew. Also included was Banneker's astronomical journal, providing future historians one of the few records of his life

known to exist. And that is a gentleman that I want you to know about because sometimes a way black history fact tells you about injustices, sometimes away black history fact tells you gives you a historical context of the

current standing of black people, brown people, Asian people. We discuss legislation, we discuss institutions, and so forth, but every so often we get to tell cool stories like this one where we are not just painted as slaves or as people who just simply fought against slavery or just fought against oppression, because on a show like this we have to highlight those things, but we're rather more than

just that as a people. Our stories go much deeper and obviously illustrated by the numerous things that Benjamin Banneker contributed to this country, and of course his influence on DC and the construction of our nation's capital and the layout and so forth of our nation's capital, which shows that our great minds do rather more than just try

to free ourselves. And if you were here, you know, he would know a little bit, He would have a little bit more to say there, because oftentimes the stories that we have to tell on the stories really the stories that we've inherited, as you know, black folks in twenty twenty two, they're oftentimes stories of overcoming a struggle.

And so it was meaningful today Maggie. Of course, our producer Maggie be knowing to share the story at some point, and today just kind of felt a little bit more meaningful. And again I implore you to look up DC, look

up the brilliance that went into it. You know, I shared on the show before that I was in Egypt for my fortieth birthday, and I was made aware of how the stars were incorporated into you know, their designs and the pyramids and the layout of the temples and so forth, so that they could capture the light the sun's rotation and it could hit certain facets and certain smooth surfaces and reflect and light a room up. And you'll see the same type of brilliance in engineering inherent

in the designs of our nation's capital. And there was a black man who was at the table helping design that. And so again, very important to tell these stories, to tell them accurately, and make sure that we tell our whole story, not just the parts of it that pull out the heartstrings or you know, paint us as one type of people, because we, like other people, are very diverse and have a lot to offer. And so yeah, shout out to Benjamin banneker Uh. We accept your legacy, sir,

and we salute you today. But that's going to do it for us here on Civic Cipher. So once again, I am your host, rams this jaw. Big shout out to my man q Ward again. He will be back next week. The show is produced by our show producer ms Maggie A KA Maggie B. Knowing And again I want to thank our guest Harry Curtin once again, do me a favorite plug your website and your social media so we can get folks taped in.

can also make a donation to Civic Cipher. We're at Civic Cipher on all social media platforms and all donating platforms and until next week.