Welcome to another episode of Civic scipher I'm your host, Rams's job.
He is joh I am q war. Together we are Civic Sciphering. That's the truth stick around. We've got a great show lined up for you.
Today. We are going to inform you about a situation that is taking place in Kansas City where black women were ignored for some time and the consequences that you know, people may not consider that come into play when black women are ignored. In fact, you may not even know that this is a real thing. You know, we mentioned that we touched on a couple times on the show.
We talked about, yes, we have healthcare disparities, you know how mortality rates, maternal health care especially, and today we're going to be looking into policeing. We actually did talk about missing while black, the phenomenon surrounding the Gabby Petito thing, the missing white woman syndrome where the media jumps on a missing person if she is a woman, was white, of a certain age, and often enough blonde. But if you are black and a woman and go missing, oftentimes
there's no coverage. So today we will be listening to black women. This story came from our show producer, Miss Maggie aka Maggie Be knowing she do, and so we are going to listen to at least that one black woman today and bring some attention to this situation. Further on in the show, we were going to be talking about the La City Council leading that ended up turning racist to something we have to talk about.
I'm just asking you out everybody else, I'm just talking to Ramses.
Do you think racist.
People ever get tired of being racist? But they take a break at home that they could they take a lunch. It's gotta be a full time job, fifteen. It has to be an exhausting undertaking.
I'm absolutely sure that it is, and we are going to have to figure out why this happened and a lot more on for you to stick around for it. But first and foremost uh q's favorite segment in fact you why don't you take this one? My favorite segment Excellence.
Ebony Excellence is my favorite.
Said that before, I'm.
Sure be getting heavy and I'd be like almost crying. But furthermore, Ebny Excellence sponsored by Major Threads where high fashion meets timeless men'swear. Visit they at major Threads dot com. And this is via the Big Three dot com. Uh, the Big Three is now the first professional sports league to be certified by by Black the US Black Chamber of Commerce as a Black owned and operated business.
UH.
Shout out to ice Que the city of Compton. I just don't get me started, because ram is from Compton. I'll be getting excited. I'm gonna just read. The certation establishes the league as part of the by Black network and distinguishes the Big Three as the first and only professional sports league to be certified. It says a quote, myself and the entire league are honored to be officially certified by by Black and the US Black Chambers. This is from ice Q, the Big Three CEO and founder.
Quote From day one, league has been dedicated to providing opportunities for black players, fans, investors, and partners, and we are proud to be a part of a nationwide network of black business owners. Supporting black enterprise is a long lifelong passion of mind and the Big Three, and we will continue to build upon its success and uplift other black entrepreneurs.
En quote.
For more information, visit Big Three dot com.
Shout out to ICEQ. Shout out to ICEQ. I threw up the west side to yay yay. You know, it is one thing to play the game, it's another thing to own the board. The lesson that we've learned and an announcement will make very soon and be all right. Moving on, today, we have to talk about how America and in particular, the police continue to fail Black women in particular. We know that the police are not perfect, you know, but today we're going to center black women because often enough, Black women.
Get the worst in terms of outcomes, the most of the brunt when it comes to most everything, especially bad stuff.
And you know, we're trying to change that narrative. You know, everything bad should happen everybody, and everything good shoud happen everybody. Everybody deserve to have a fully balanced life. If anything, only good things should happen to everyone. But you know, I mean, but if there's.
A group that only good things should happen, to go ahead and say it, like, come on, black they deserve it. They lead in the nation and everything and every statistical category that shows greatness and triumph and perseverance, perseverance and resilience. Sure, black women are leading the nation. And we discovered recently the world and a lot of outstanding categories business, enterprise, entrepreneurship, college education, college graduation.
And yet and still come on, there are many many categories that are the worst of the worst, that are black women lead in as well. And these things need to be remedied because there's historical.
And that's no fault of their own, by the way, exactly on those bad categories.
So we're gonna tell a story here. Today's story we're going to pull from the Guardian. Okay, this is a little git, this is a little grizzly here and there, and there's some trigger warnings here, so if you are sensitive to abuse, just giving your heads up here. So from a Guardian. Woman who escapes month long captivity says other black women killed by abductor. That's the headline, right.
A twenty two year old black woman in Missouri who escaped after a white man abducted, tortured, and held her captive for weeks in a basement has said several other black women were killed by her captor. Less than a month after police dismissed community concerns about a serial killer as completely unfounded. The woman escaped on October seventh, after about a month in captivity, still wearing a metal collar
locked with a padlock that authorities had to remove. She told Kansas City police that thirty nine year old Timothy M. Hazlet had imprisoned her in a basement room in Excelsior Springs, a city just northeast of Kansas City, where he whipped and raped her repeatedly. She escaped while Hazlitt was dropping off a child at school, and she sought help from neighbors when she told that her friends did not make
it out and were killed by Hazlit. Around the time she went missing, several prominent community leaders raised concerns about the disappearance of multiple black women and girls. So I want to start, I want to stop right here, because this is really we're talking about a story. You know, this is just a story. We don't we don't really focus on stories unless they help us illustrate trends or narratives that we are trying to establish in the minds
of our allies. Right, So, we wouldn't tell a story just to tell a story unless it was reflecting of a trend. And I think this last sentence I read really suggests what we're trying to convey in this segment, So I'll read that again to you. Around the time she went missing, several prominent community leaders raised concerns about the disappearance of multiple black women and girls. And so if you back up a little bit further in that reading that I just did, remember that the police dismissed
community concerns about a serial killer as completely unfounded. Right. And so what you see here is folks not listening and black women being kind of in the middle of it, right. And I think that this is something that is if I were to say that it was taught, that might not be the right way to say it, right, because no one teaches you to ignore black women. That you
don't go to a class in school. Your parents don't sit you now if you're a normal, reasonable person from a background, normal background that's not like super racist or anything crazy like that. No one's your mom or your dad don't sit you down and say, hey, make sure you ignore black women when you get older. But I think that this country has a tendency to espouse certain women, look a certain way, to romanticize or you know, amplify
and jealousize certain women. And there are other women who completely get ignored and so if I said Disney Princess, what pops into your mind?
Cinderella.
Okay, now here's another thing. This happened to me last night. I was in a grocery store in a place called Fountain Hills, Arizona, right, And I was walking through the grocery store and I ended up in an aisle where they sell beauty products or whatever. I don't need to be on this aisle whatsoever, but I just was there. While I'm there. You know, if you know me, you know I got all this hair. So I'm always checking for the latest conditioner because it does get a little
cocoa pappy up top, you know what I'm saying. I don't know if you all know what that means. Nappy rhymes with cocoa paps. You know what I'm saying, naps coco paps. So anyway, so I'm looking for some conditioner, just new brands, you know, stuff I might want to try in the future, just to kind of ease my way when it comes to coman and maintaining this crown of mine. Right and right next to that is the makeup. And I'm looking at the makeup as my hand is
reaching for the conditioner bottles. I'm like kind of going through them, and I'm like, WHOA, Okay, I get it. Makeup. You're supposed to put it on, and it's supposed to match your skin, right. I don't wear makeup, but you know, something just clicked in my I never really thought of it before, you know, but this is kind of what
that makeup is for. I don't know what the name of the type of makeup it is, but it was the makeup that was the color of your It was like human flesh colored like a whole range, and I couldn't find a color that would match my skin right, And I was like, what WHOA hit me like a ton of bricks. They built this whole thing without me and mine or people like me and mind. Now, I'm not a woman, so of course they didn't have me
in mind. But if I was my sister, who is my same skin tone, she wouldn't not have found her a makeup product that would have worked for her in that store. Now this happened to me yesterday. I did not know that I would be telling that story today, because you know, Maggie brought this story for us, and you know we're talking about it. But little subtle things
like that here and there. I think accumulate over time where we recognize, Okay, these people get get celebrated, lifted up in these other people we just we don't know that they're in the shadows of our minds, you know what I mean?
Can I piggyback?
Almost say?
Can I push back? No? No, go ahead, but I'll say piggyback. And I think you'll get why you chose one term of the open shirt. You said that America doesn't teach or we don't teach maybe into in your yeah black women, right and maybe not? And so what's so as much as you go into a class and the instructions are.
To do so.
Once upon a time, I had a disagreement with my children's okay, and raised my voice, and my son said, Dad, you can't be mean to my mom if in that moment I don't apologize to him and her and just out of sure ego and anger or whatever, try to justify the way that I spoke to her. Aren't I teaching him that it's okay to speak to wow and or other women like that?
Okay?
So I didn't instruct him, Hey, this is how you talk to a woman. But but that moment, my example to him is I was upset, so I can do this. Then, Okay, when I get mad, I go to my mom, to my teacher. That's how I got to do it. So in that moment, I don't care how upset I was. I have to humble myself and I have to stop. And however her and I are going to resolve this.
It can't be like that because I cannot tell him how much I love or her how much I love her, because it's not just how he feel how she felt. If she would have said, you shouldn't speak to me that way, I can't be like, well, I'm mad, so yeah, I mean I can't. But then I'm now teaching her and my son that this is the version of me they should accept. The circumstances don't matter, especially for the five year old who I just tried to explain to
that that was okay. So even though I'm not giving him explicit instruction to do so, if in that moment I do anything other than tell him your daddy is wrong and your daddy is sorry, and then to his mother in front of him, tell her that I was wrong and that I'm sorry, I'd be teaching my son, Hey, when you get upset, you can get that off, you know what I mean. So sure, there's not a class that says so, but when the entire society does it,
everybody looks around and accepts it. Okay, we've now taught everyone that this is acceptable behaviors not explicitly instructed.
So, first off, incredible example. I'm glad you shared that. That was as spot on as anything you've ever said. The next thing I want to say is that I think to your point, what we have is exactly that
we have grown up in a world. All of us have grown up in a world where we tend to run after a spouse, celebrate whatever things that look a certain way, and ignore step over, you know, block out things that don't look a certain way, people that don't look a certain way, right, And the way to remedy that is to discipline ourselves, each of us in our own mind, in our own paths in life, to recognize
the humanness in everyone that we see. Now, I obviously am super rainbows and unicorns that since the day I met Yeah, that's that's me.
Maybe one of the first things I ever said to him in front of other people man, you really see the world as rainbows and butterflies. This was like a month into our friendship. That's an standing outside downtown in front of what's now his nightclub. But at the time we were just patrons, and all of us laughed really
hard because it was so obviously true. Ramses does see the world with a different pair of glasses, and the rest of us, sure it is to be applauded though, I'm gonna be like him when I grew up.
I remember that night I was doing my guitar thing walking down the street and then yes I did Endaji and.
Beanwa with us that night too, shout out to the.
Fellas, and I ended up buying that nightclub. Absolutely right. So anyway, yeah, back to this. The uh, the crazy part about this is that through subtle things like that like you mentioned, you know, examples of folks doing things or not doing things in front of their children and in front of each other. You know, you were born, you, our listener, were born into a society that just does this. So we're not faulting you, but we are charging you
with changing that. Fixing it right. A black woman missing deserves the same type of love exposure et cetera as anyone else. A black woman who says there is a problem deserves the same type of response, you know, grace, latitude, everything that comes along with being a human being. They deserve that too, right, And as I read more into this story, you'll see that that just simply wasn't the case for a very long time, and the consequences of
that are dire. If you are a person who believes that human life is special and precious and valuable and sacred, then you should respond to this in the same way that anyone else would. And if you've had to be led to this point to say, oh my gosh, don't feel bad, because we black men are not immune to that either. Right. I had to get into media. Then I had to do a story on Gabby Patito to find out, well, you know what, As it turns out, I haven't heard of Oh, there's that many missing black
women and Native women. Native women are go missing. We'll get to the numbers. But I didn't even know that, and I worked in media for years, you know what I'm saying. So it's not we're not faulting anybody, but we now have now that we know this, we have to listen. And we have to hold other people accountable so that they listen. And we have to prioritize our
sisters and our mothers. And you know what, I would bet my life at the end of it, when I go to heaven, that old woman who looks akin to doctor Westenberg or my grandma or something will be sitting on that throne in the clouds as God herself. You know what I mean? That would not surprise me at all, right one bit. And I do my best to cultivate my relationships with especially with older black women accordingly. Now I'll continue, she told the Kansas City Police. Oh sorry.
Last month, the Kansas City Defender, a nonprofit newsroom, published a video of Bishop Tony Caldwell, saying that he had received information that the missing women had all been kidnapped from Prospect Avenue in Kansas City. That police dismissed the concerns is completely unfounded, saying in a statement, there is no basis to support this rumor. The case is just the latest example of a predominantly white police force refusing to take seriously reports of missing and murdered Black, brown,
and Indigenous victims, especially women and girls. Now, I want to take a moment and shout out the Kansas City Defender. There's a very special individual who founded and runs that. We had the pleasure of sitting down with him and talking with him. His name is Ryan Sorel, and he is a person who fights the good fight. If you get your news about the country or you know anything like that, I know it sounds like Kansas City, and you might not be in Kansas. In fact, I'm not
sure that we have any stations in Kansas. So you definitely are in Kansas if you're listening to this or Missouri. So please search out this publication because it is not just Kansas. It is just an awesome voice to have, and it is a national publication just based in Kansas has since gone national. Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri. Right, So this next part comes from NPR kidnapping investigation raises
new questions about reports of missing black women. The NPR interviewed Ryan Sorel at the Kansas City Defender, and the reporter asked, what is the hope of the community about where this investigation is going to go from here at this point? And Ryan said, they did not reach out to us to ask where do we get the information. They didn't reach out to the bishop that initially made the video, They didn't reach out to any community members.
The black community generally was silenced in essence because of that, and so that was also deeply concerning to us. And that is another aspect that is deeply troubling about the situation. To be frank and honest, we are doing investigatory work ourselves, because that's truly how this information came about, and it was from us in the community. In other words, no
police support, no police help. You know, police officers have police departments rather have like investigators and detectives and that sort of stuff. Well, the Kansas City Defender had to be their own investigators and detectives and so forth to get to the bottom of this story. And it's not to say that that has doesn't happen elsewhere, but we see things like this happen in black communities, which is why black media is very important, which is why black
listening to black voices is very important. You know, because the power structures that exist in the world exist to support the movement of money, and at the end of the day, the movement of money benefits the wealthy, and for those of us who cannot see that, we think that these things exist independent of cases like this. And the truth is they ignore things like this because it doesn't serve their ultimate agenda, which is to keep people
with money and power in those positions. Almost nobody knows that. It's the wildest thing. Now, I do want to share some statistics with you, So this comes from CNN. According to a twenty twenty one FBI data report, black people make up thirty one percent of missing persons reports, but
only fourteen percent of the US population. Okay, so that means that Black people go missing at nearly a third of Black people make up the missing person's report, only fourteen percent of the population White people.
To say that, again, a third of the people missing are black. That's what I'm trying to, like to start, thank you.
White people meanwhile, make up fifty four percent of missing persons reports and seventy six percent of the US population. So black people go missing at higher rates, you know, proportionately, an insanely higher rate. And some black families are still searching for answers even after their missing loved one is found, Like, how did this happen for so long? And a lot of times after a very long time, if you find
a missing person, the circumstances are not good anymore. You just find them, you know, they don't get to pick
up and continue. The FBI is National Crime and Information Center says the largest disparity among Black people make up about a third acting active missing persons, and those numbers look like this twenty nine thousand, three hundred and fifty seven people versus white people which is fifty thousand, five hundred and forty four, Asian twenty one hundred and nine, and Native Americans which is one thousand, five hundred and fifty four. And also the NCIC includes people who identify
as Hispanic or Latino in the white category. In other words, this is a real thing. You know, we're not just talking about, you know, the people that go missing at higher rates, but we're also talking about the people that don't get listened to, they don't get reported in the news.
And when that happens, I think the result of that rather is that if you were a predator, you would perhaps pray on the most vulnerable, the people who are least likely to get a strong reaction from news, strong reaction from the community, strong reaction from those with power and influence. Oftentimes people with power and influence don't look
like us. But the victims of these sorts of kidnappings and you know, this type of brutality, they look like our women and children, They look like Native women and children, they look like you know, marginalized groups. And so again having a bit of empathy, giving a bit of a voice, and listening, listening. This is about listening to black women, and this has kind of been the charge of this
whole segment. Listening goes a long way. And we mentioned healthcare and that's another one that you know, and there's a lot of people fighting that battle on that front. And so again we just thought that kind of bringing this to your attention today would certainly help paint the picture a bit further than we've been able to do before and now