Civic Cipher 102222 LA City Council Turns Racist (Part 2)

we have to talk about it, you know. And I think this this honestly, it makes me glad that we have this show because no one else can give it in these spaces, no one else can give it what it needs in terms of like, hey, we really need to address this. We can't just sing and dance our way through this one. We have to actually talk about it.

So we will be talking about that. We also are going to be talking about Mahelia Jackson for our Way Black History Fact and how she sparked Martin Luther King Junior's I Have a Dream speech And that's a really cool story that Maggie be knowing what she wanted us to talk about. So first and foremost let's discuss how to become a better ally b A b A. Today's Babba is sponsored by the Black Information Network Daily Podcasts. You can find that on iHeartMedia or at binnews dot com.

We are having discussions in interviews on topics and news stories important to the black community. Today's show comes from our very own Ms. Maggie aka at Maggie B known on IG and all platforms she do so she wants you to learn how the media system fuels anti black racism. Interesting, all right, So there's a great place to check out at freepress dot net by our friend Collett Watson exploring how the United States's dominant media system has propped up

racial oppression throughout history and continues to today. And we invite you to check it out as an active ally. Understanding this history of harm perpetuated by the US news and media industry and the solutions for modern media justice today is critical. Make sure you are fully informed and best

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and of course us here at Civic Cipher. Your donations, your downloads, your subscriptions, you're purchasing our products and services. All of these actions go a long way. And I'll add sharing as well, and yes, do you know and on behalf of all black news and media, we extend our gratitude and appreciation. So normally we have something else, but that came from Maggie, and I kind of love it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're far too kind. All right, let's get to it. LA City council meeting

turns racist. All right. I'll start by reading this comes from the LA Times. Headline reads racist remarks in leaked audio of LA Council members spark outrage. Disgusted Behind closed doors, Los Angeles City Council President Nuri Martinez made openly racist remarks, derided some of her council colleagues, and spoke in unusually crass terms about how the city should be carved up. Politically, Martinis made racist remarks about council member Mike Bohnan's young son,

while others chime in. During this section of the conversation, group was discussing a dispute between council members Karen Price and Marquise Harris Dawson, who were at odds last year over whose district would represent USC and Exposition Park once the new maps were finalized. During the conversation with council members Guil Sidillo and Kevin de Leon and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, Martinez described the bon In at one point as a little B word.

Martinez also mocked Hawkins and said, f that guy, he's with the blacks. While speaking about Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who was another council member. De Leon appeared to compare Bonen's handling of his child to Martinez holding a Louis baiton handbag. De Leone said Bonan, who is white, is like the fourth black on the council,

unimplied he wouldn't stand by latinos. The conversation took place October twenty twenty one and focus heavily on council members for us dreation with maps that have been proposed by the city's twenty one member redistricting commission. Along with revealing cruel, racist comments, the leaked audio offered a rare window into the behind the scenes machinations of the redistricting process and the bare knuckled fighting between various groups trying to secure

political power. Okay, now I'm going to take a moment and I'm going to talk about this. So I'm from La City of Compte. Yes, I grew up around black people and Mexican people. I have no aversion to Spanish. I'm a little unique in that way because my grandmother was from Cuba and my first language that I spoke was Spanish. Don't ask me to speak it now, but if I needed to, I could get by. Don't I just sound like the year old. My cousins blood cousins,

Jan and Tunisia identify as Hispanic. Their mother is black, but their father is a Mexican man, and they both visibly look to be more Hispanic. That's not to say they don't claim, you know, both sides. It's just, you know, that's the way the world treats them. So just kind of how that goes. I have two sons. Both of

my sons are half Mexican. I know you're gonna want to add that, so go ahead and add it, as are both of my children Mexican, okay, And my childhood memories, my friends then and now and well into the future, we'll all be mixed up and that will include a not insignificant at all amount of Hispanic Latino people. So it's like family, and it literally is family. You know, my son, my you know, like my cousin, you know,

literally family. And then you know how I am with my friends that you know when you're in, you're in, right. So this is the man who is going to give his thoughts. I need you to know that because I'm about as close as you can be to something like this and not myself be a Hispanic person. I also am as close to this as you can be because I do this show, I walk this path, and I am a black man, and I also recognize what California

wants to be. Again, I'm from place. I was born in nineteen eighty two, So the first part of my life everyone seemed to get along fine. Later on, these huge increases in the prison population because of the War on drugs, because of let's be honest, Clinton's policies and well Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Yeah, but you know during you know that time, but you're absolutely right, Reaganomics paved the way for all of this. Hence, the war on drugs and other factors, you know, created a boom in

the prison population. My brother explained this to me one day. I have an older brother, his name is raka Iris Science of the Dilated People's. They make the music for the show that you listen to every week, the Rappers, that's the Dilated People's And so my brother is my literal brothers in the group, and he told me this. He says that, you know, what happens in prisons is folks tend to link up with people who look like them, very very tribal, right, and it's just how it is.

It's really difficult to get away from that. But what happens is, you know, that environment is not the natural state of human beings, right, We are not meant to be in cages like that, and so our behavior, our social skills tend to evolve in a very strange way when we are put in an environment like that is not our natural state. What happens is some of those people get in there and learn how to hate, become radicalized, as happens with our brothers and sisters from the Caucasian

tribe as well. And what happens is they bring that now that that prison culture has gotten so big, and you know, the late eighties, all throughout the nineties and early two thousands, and even now, that prison culture ends up spilling out into the street as people tend to, you know, rotate back in this society and you're to anyway, right, And so you have prison politics in an environment where people, in theory would be free from that, be freer to

be who they naturally, would be freer to make children, as my my aunt and uncle did, who are mixed race. My my uncle by marriage, his name was Romero. I love that guy. Man. I haven't seen him in some years, but I did like he was so cool man. He wear a cowboy hat. He was like real, like macho. You know, it's pokespanish. This is a g man anyway, And just be free to be who you are, celebrate your culture alongside other people who are celebrating their culture,

and not hate it. Right. What happens, though, is that that prison culture diffuses through communities and even works its way up to city council meetings as we're seeing now. Because I don't believe that is the natural state of the Los Angeles City Council. We're talking about the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds in New York City, when there's you know, Italians and that sort of stuff. I could see that a little bit more easy. But somebody

who comes from Los Angeles, this feels very bizarre. Seems like you have something I can learn, No, we can learn. And I think that's a large part of not just what our audience gains from the show, what we gain from and having these conversations forces us to become more informed, more learned, and more educated on the topics that we cover. And if you listen to this show before, you've heard

us speak about this. Just like it's hard to not bring racism into these conversations, it is impossible to not bring up the impact of capitalism on these conversations when the resources are scarce and people have to fight over them. Just like in prison people become tribal, they can in city council, where they're you know, redistricting and drawing maps to decide who's going to get money. Let's let's call it what it is, drawing those maps and you know,

reconfiguring the districts. You know, the reason why we're fighting over who gets USC because USC's district is going to get more money. Right.

to government. I mean, our government has been so polarized and so divisive and you know, so partisan that we no longer agree on anything like the definitions of things that have been faccked our whole lives, because in order for my team to have the power, we just got to ride out on the other team. Yeah, and some people who really don't benefit from their team winning have been so you know, and so put into this tribal,

divisibalized partisan mindset. They're gonna ride for their team no matter what, so that their team can win, even if that doesn't benefit them in any way. So these situations we talk about, the rate at which people go to prison in poorer communities also tied to the scarcity of resources.

The reason why some people don't go work at the places where you and I have worked before media was a thing, and get on the corner and do what they feel like is a faster way to get more money, even though it's more dangerous and less safe, and the chances that you're gonna end up get or in prison are high. I got to get this money however I can, because my kids and or my parents might not be able to eat or go to the doctor if I don't do this.

a big deal around the country. We in prison we have I think, yeah, we definitely have the highest prison population in the world, but we have like something like our half the prisons are our prisoners on earth or something in the capita incarceration rate is insane. Yeah, so out of this world. And we also have like police like high police shootings, every mass shooting, all this sort

of stuff. And you know, there's a lot of things that I know, I I this is very naive in me, and it's an oversimplication of how to address these sorts of things. But the quote unquote one man, one vote approach to pretty much everything wild would change quite a bit. You know, if someone were to run for you know, president of the United States and that was their platform, Listen, I'm really going to change the country for the better.

Let's do one man or woman, one vote, and we can shape this country in the way that the people really wanted to shape it. Then you would have something that really reflects a democracy. Now. I recognize there's some people that are like, people don't know what they want, people are stupid, whatever, that sort of thing, but at least we would have a better idea of what it is that people truly want, and it would eliminate these

sort of this fighting, bickering. Jerry Mandering is a big thing that we pushed back against on this show because the black vote has been disenfranchised. Black political power has been challenged at every conceivable step in the political process in this country since it was first permitted. And you know, we see that those challenges are uglier than ever now heading into midterm elections, which, by the way, I voted today,

I voted earlier. I sent my ballot in and if you are not voting in the mid term elections, then you need to sit on attack. All right. All Right, I was going to say something else, but I'm not going to say that. Okay, I'm going to keep reading, because after this was exposed, there are people on the city council who have still not resigned. You would think that's the first thing that you do. I've embarrassed myself, I've embarrassed my people. I've shown my hand. I've exposed

a very ugly side of you know, this process. And I was supposed to be the great solution, and I you know, whatever whatever it is that you would go through in terms of your soul searching as you came to terms with this disgusting behavior being made public. Right, but I'll read and this comes from NPR to LA City council members have lost their committee positions over race scandal.

All right. The head of the Los Angeles City Council stripped two members of much of their power Monday to pressure them to resign for participating in a private meeting in which they did not object to a colleague's crewed and racist remarks and at times joined in the offensive banter. Acting Council President Mitchell Ferrell removed gil Sedillo and Kevin de Leon from committee chairmanships and assignments and named them instead to a board that rare meets as he turned

up the heat on the veteran Democratic politicians. Quote, these members have lost all credibility, all standing, O'Farrell said at a city Hall news conference. By losing committe assignments, their influence in city Hall has dwindled, and they have largely become token figures, unable to participate in the day to day work of the Council and unwanted in council chambers

where their appearance is likely to cause an uproar. The Council has moved to censure Cidillo and daily On, but doesn't have the power to remove fellow elected officials from office unless they've been charged with a crime. Latinos, who make up nearly half the city's population, only had four, or just over a quarter of the fifteen seats on the council at the time. Black people, who made up less than ten percent of the population, have three, a

fifth of the seats. So we know that the the main woman who we don't use here, an main woman who is you know, almost all of the audio it was her, Yeah, and she said in Spanish that, you know, the little black boy was a monkey or acting like a monkey, something like that. She has resigned, she stepped down. But the other folks again who are participating in this and encouraging it, you know, or did not move to stop or otherwise correctly behavior, very very willing, laughing, sure get it.

have been me, I would have had been me. You know we all think that, right, But just like when someone tried to kidnap my son, a moment of pause could have led to him being taken. Because you think if someone tries that, I'll jump over this car and I'll that's what you think. But when I turn around and I see this man reaching into my car to grab my son, I freeze, and once again I feel like a coward.

just say forget this job and walk away. What this person said on his face if I typed it out wouldn't be offensive. But if you were standing there and you heard the joke, you know for a fact that it was offensive. But it was offensive to parties that weren't present, so there was no one there to speak up for them except for me. In my mind, there's ten of us there, so anybody could have said something, But in my mind, the person that should have said

something was you. However, if I laugh at or join in on this joke, that's different.

had a dream. He talked about the dream that the previous April at a sixteenth Street Baptist Church meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, of quote seeing Negro boys and girls walking to school with little white boys and girls playing in the parks together and going swimming together. He continued that dream at at Cobbole Hall speech in Detroit at Gobol Hall, Cobol Cobo ha sorry speech in Detroit that June that he hoped Negroes would be able to buy houses or rent

a house anywhere. Their money will carry them and they will be able to get a job. So for his biggest audience at the March on Washington, he didn't think it was worth dwelling on the dream on that hot summer's day in the nation's capital. In fact, the dream wasn't mentioned in the notes that laid atop of the podium,

and it wasn't in the plans for that day. Then gospel singer Mahelia Jackson, whose life was portrayed in the Lifetime original movie Robin Roberts Presents Mahela, changed the entire course of one of the most famous speeches in American history, probably the most famous. I think I'd give it that. I'd give it that too, without hesitation. Jackson had grown up singing in church from and found mainstream success, paiving

a path for gospel music outside of churches. As an international star known as the Queen of Gospel Music, who had sold out her Carnegie Hall concerts in New York City, she attended the nineteen fifty six National Baptist Convention, where she first met King. Soon King started asking her to join him at civil rights events around the country. She put her career and faith on the line, and both

of them prevailed. Jesse Jackson, who first encountered the singer in the nineteen sixties, told NPR as the granddaughter of an enslaved person, Jackson was committed to the movement, contributing financially as well, quote I have hopes that my singing will break down some of the hate and fear that divide the white and black people in this country. She

had said that that mission was surely met. As Jesse told NPR, quote, when there is no gap between what you say and who you are, what you say and what you believe, when you can express that in song, it's all the more powerful. When it came time for King to choose a singer perform at the Washington DC March on Washington for Jobs and Reform, King quick returned

to Jackson. He requested that she sing the Black spiritual song I've been bucked, Buked, Sorry, I've been buked and I've been scorned, which she passionately performed to the more than two hundred thousand people setting the tone. Understanding how much was at stake with the speech, King had started initial discussions about what he would say at the August March back in the spring of nineteen sixty three. Even with all that advance planning, twelve hours before the speech,

King still wasn't sure what he would say. Everyone had a different take, saying that some felt it should have an ideological and political reform take, while others felt it should lean more toward a church sermon. With so many different opinions, King asked his team to draft up an outline. They came up with an opening analogy of African Americans marching to Washington, d C. To redeem a promissory note or check for justice, and no mention of a dream.

When the team gathered again, the group started debating further about the elements that were missing, but King simply took the notes and headed back to his room, leaving them with I'm now going upstairs to my room the Council with my Lord. On the day the now famous speech. Soon after Jackson's rousing performance, Jones still didn't know what King was about to say when he stepped up to the podium, He started out with the bad check analogy

that Jones had written. When he finished the promissory note analogy, he paused, and in that breach something unexpected, historic, and largely unheralded happened. That was when Mahelia Jackson spontaneously shouted, tell them about the dream, Martin, tell them about the dream. At that moment, everything changed. Sure enough, King went completely off the books. He was speaking spontaneously and extemporaneously, and his whole body language shifted, became more relaxed. And then

some Baptist. As some Baptist preachers do, he would take his right foot and started putting it up against his left leg. Some preachers do that as they're talking, and he began to preach. Inspired by those words Jackson from Jackson, King turned his sorry. King turned back to the dream. Instead of looking down at his notes, he spoke from his heart, engraving that famous dream into the American history books.

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream, he said. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. He hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. Spoke about the dream, the more people felt the message, and now the speech itself is best known as the I Have a Dream speech. Later on I can address the

impact of the moment. Quote. When I got to speak, I was already happy unquote. He wrote to Jackson on January tenth, nineteen sixty two. He continues, I couldn't help preaching. Millions of people all over the country have said it was my greatest hour. I do not know. But if it was, you, more than any single person, helped to make it so. In that same letter, he said he said she was a blessing to me, as well as a blessing to Negroes who have learned through her not

to be ashamed of their heritage. As for Jackson, it wasn't in her very nature. But what can we do but help each other, she once said. In an interview, She goes on, I don't go to these meetings that do a lot of blah blah bline. If you're going to blob put your money up there and do something, and that she did so, I'll be honest I didn't know that. I know, I've never heard. That's never heard in my life.

just very emotional. It's such a hurtful thing to be from California to hear that lady say that stuff. That was very hurtful for me. And I'm proud of myself for having made it through it. So we'll leave it right there. How about that? What a heavy show? Man? Aren't they always? They are always? But man, that like La that's home. I mean, we you know how there's certain things that hold up your world, like Hey man, listen, we got each other. You know. We got to teach

these folks, you know, but we got each other. You know. When that gets rattled, it's a little scary, you know what I mean. But we'll make it. And we are walking our path and we hope that you are walking our path with us or walking your path toward the same goal. With that said, thank you for listening to Civic Scipher. I'my host, Ramsey's job. He is rams' jaw. I am q war. This has been some ex sign for.