Civic Cipher 112021 Is Support for BLM Waning? (Part B)

But first, what we're going to talk about is our Baba segment, and so let's get into that right now. Baba becoming a better ally. So a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago on the show, we had some

women up. They were Arizona State University students. They were in a video that was seen almost six million times, very much viral video, and these women were confronting some these these were black women, two or three black women and one Pakistani woman, and they confronted two white males on the campus of Arizona State University at the Multicultural Center, a center that the women fought to create so that they could have a place to study free of you know,

oppressive systems and you know the world that they see it. I'm not a student at Arizona State, so I won't state their brief, but we invited them up to, you know, share the story behind the video that we saw. I employ you to go back a couple of episodes and check it out. You can find it on civicside for dot com. Well, Arizona State University wanted to take some

disciplinary disciplinary action against those women for standing up for themselves. Obviously, on this show, we stand in solidarity with those women. You know, the males that came in did so with the intention of intimidating them. It wasn't because they were white. It's because they were bringing some anti black paraphernalia into the space and displaying it in such a way that it was intimidating and behaving in a manner that was

inconsistent with the the promise of that space. Well, the disciplinary action has been reduced in at least one instance eliminated because of a letter writing campaign. They got over thirty five hundred letters sent to Arizona State University. And this is my way of saying that writing letters works. So if you have an opportunity to join a letter writing campaign for a cause that you believe in, I

implore you to do so. If you want to find out more about the story I just told, like I said, go back a couple of episodes and check out that that episode that we aired, and plug in with the women on our social media. We follow them on our Instagram at Civic Cipher to follow that story and find out how you can offer them your support as well. Now, the BLM movement, First off, Q, how does this hit you? The eroding of the support for the BLM movement.

those fires, and that just wasn't going to continue. Right once, once video recording police killing black people didn't stop police from killing black people, one of two things was going to happen, a violent revolt by black people, which the country seems to have been waiting for for its entire inception.

Like they think at some point we are going to take up arms and try to overthrow the oppressors, or people were going to become numb to it, and it was going to become normalized and not have the same effect anymore. And because contrary to what they think, we are not barbaric and evil in nature. We are not seeking revenge, just justice. We do not want more than you, just the same we do not want to replace you.

We just want to be able to exist ourselves. Because the things that I'm saying are true, and because the thing is that they try to sell about us as a culture and as a people are not true. It's only human nature that the support would d winder. Right, because we're going to either seem less or more upset about what we're dealing with. We can't get any more upset than we are. Right, the only, like I said, the alternative would be for us to take arms and

burn this down, excuse my language. And since we have not taken that approach, since it seems that we never will, because that is not our goal. Unfortunately, and contrary to what people might think, Black people built are proud of and deserve to be happy citizens in this country. We should not have to destroy it or go back to Africa, as we've been implored to do for hundreds of years we've been here and because of the colonizing your pressures.

I don't have any history with Africa. I have my ancestry results, but I have no idea where my people came from, what tribe, what region, what country? You know what I mean. So the support was always going to dwindle. Bro it was always going to be less. People were always going to be less outraged. As the thing that outraged just became more normal and we became more numb to it. The coverage gets less, the outrage is less, the support is less. It's a human nature experience. It's

not even about Black lives matter and specific. The support for all causes has dwindled. When it's not October, less people are concentrated on breast cancer when it's not February. Less, people are concentrating on Black history right when it's not the time to pay specific attention to specific causes, the

support dwindles. That's why people spend so much money to keep people's focused and attention and awareness or things that they want people to be supportive of, because by nature, the support and the attention will dissolve in some way.

According to a national poll conducted by Civics, a non partisan online survey firm affiliated with the progressive media group Daily Costs, forty four percent of respondents said they oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. Another forty three percent said they support it. That means forty four percent oppose it, forty three percent supported, while eleven percent said they neither support nor oppose the survey has tracked respondents viewpoints at

multiple moments from April twenty seventeen to this month. According to the poll, support for the Black Lives Matter movement peaked in June twenty twenty at fifty two percent, a month after George Floyd was killed. While eighty two percent of the respondents in support of Black Lives Matter is the most recent in the most recent poll sorry, while

eighty five sorry. While eighty two percent of the respondents in support of Black Lives Matter in the most recent poll were black, more than half of those in opposition were white. In other words, black people supported Black Lives Matter iter rate of eighty two percent, White people opposed Black Lives Matter to the tune of over fifty percent, which reflects a pattern of public opinion when it comes

to racial justice movements. This was according to Vita Robinson, the director for the Center for Critical Race Studies at the University of Houston Downtown. Robertson said, the findings reveal the historical phenomenon of the liberation struggles with Black Americans and civil rights movements from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Power movement. And I want to pull this quote from her, these polls are quite representative of America's approach.

Robertson said, there is no historical evidence whatsoever that America has ever been interested in black liberation and building an equitable society. We are simply coming to grips with our romantic ideas that are running up against our political realities. And the fact stands that America has constantly and will constantly struggle with the liberation of black bodies because we

are endemically a racist society. Now, something that I wanted to add to your statement is a visibly visible, well defined, deliberate opposition to black lives matter. You know, it was just talking about the young women from Arizona State University. The white student male student, one of the two white male students in the video. If you want to check

it out again, it's on our our social media. At civic Cipher had a sticker on his laptop that said police Lives Matter, and that was part of what he was pointing toward the women who were studying there in attempts to intimidate them and harass them. Police Lives Matter is one of the things that grew in opposition to Black Lives Matter, the same as all lives matter. You know, that flag thing wasn't popularized until twenty twenty. You know

what I mean critical race theory. I mean there are people that send their children to school because they want their children to learn, but not that. And you can see how well this opposition well defined, very very precise. It is white supremacy. Not to pick on it. It deserves to be picked on, but not to pick on it. Certain systems are built to preserve themselves, white supremacy being

one of them. You know, we could talk about white being the one, the one, yeah, but we could talk about a lot of systems that you know, they they're designed with self preservation in mind, and that's why they continue to orbit on their own access. You know, they continue to exist and continue to you know, we could

talk about a lot a lot of things. But you know, white supremacy empowers powerful people and compels them to retain all of the power and all of the money when you mix it with capitalism, you know, and you know, fortunately there is that forty one percent that's still stands

and support a Black Lives matter. And fortunately there's a good number of those folks who are white, and you know, perhaps nearly enough, right, But that goes to show how effective these I mean, it's easy to pick on Fox News because they make it so easy, but you know they're not the only ones. And what we don't have the same resources. I'm talking about black people specifically as a Fox News as you know, in terms of a way to challenge critical race theory or challenge the opponents

of critical race theory. But we do have this show, and we have people that listen to this show, people who are not black. You know, this is a this is a black show, but make no mistake, this is a black show for non black people.

in theory should just be a statement of fact. But it's controversial. Somehow black lives matter because I believe a good amount of this erosion has come from right wing media in the form of moderates who are you know, obviously, if they see something they're gonna be upset by something like the George Floyd video, they're gonna be upset by it.

But you know, if enough of these folks on the right get in their ear and say, you know, critical race theory is indoctrinating your children to hate themselves, what in the world does that mean. You know, it doesn't teach anyone to hate themselves. It doesn't teach my children to pity themselves. It's the reality of the situation, so that we don't repeat it anymore. But let the right people frame it the right way and get that message out. Then we end up with at least a piece of this,

in my belief, erosion coming from that source. And what you as a listener of this show and an ally to black and brown and indigenous and any marginalized people, and you, as a person who wants to bring a little bit of balance to the universe and to follow the moral arc of of this existence, you the listener, can combat this by having conversations about this, because that's a lot more powerful than Fox News. It's a lot more challenging as well. But we want you to do

that and we need you to do that. We need you to know that this is a real thing. We as Q mentioned, we knew this was going to happen. We knew this was going to happen. And that's why we did our best to capture the moment and do something with it. And our contribution to the moment that

was twenty twenty has birthed this show. And for folks listening to us in Vermont and you know, in Florida and in California, and you know, whatever state you're in or city you're in, listening to our voices, hopefully our contribution will be these conversations that we're asking you to have.

We will have them, and then we ask that you have them as well, because the reality of the fact is that now there are less people in support of black lives mattering, and we are black lives that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm still going to be black. My children are going to wake up tomorrow, They're going to be black. And according to these numbers, it says.

still numb to. It's sad. I know it, you know, and I do my best to you know, encourage people and uplift people that I know are in similar predicaments.

They might look like me, they might not, you know, but you know, we have our own therapy sessions, and you know, we you know, I put little crowns under the Instagram photos and Facebook photos of little black kids and black men and whoever I see that might be able to use a little bit of brightness in their day to let them know that they're valuable and that they're special.

their daughter run down and hug my black son. And there will be a moment, I am certain that there will be a moment where either my son or his dad is going to be reminded that there are people who do not want their children to love, care about, play with, hug, kiss, or have any type of relationship or interaction with my black and Mexican son prove positive by the tens of millions of people that try to re elect a man whose entire base, foundation and campaign

was run on stoking the fire of divisive racism in this country. So you're not born numb to it. Things happen that remind you that it's true, and you somehow find yourself feeling stupid for being so naive, as as if to believe or think that we'd made some progress or that it had gone away, or that it wasn't going to be the case with you. So we know that it exists, but that numbness is developed, and it's developed through disappointment and hurt and pain and anger and fear.

Right we're the ones who are actually afraid initially, you know, we keep painting this picture where these cops are so afraid of us. They're not afraid, like you said, they're shooting people in the back that are running away from them.

That's not fear, that's hate. And our fear and anger at some point turns into numbness because we continue to perpetually experience the worst things that this country has to offer, and we still have to stand when they play that anthem with our hands in our hearts and be proud of it, or get out and go back to our whole countries.

to everyone listening to our voice. Continue to have challenging, difficult conversations, to unindoctrinate those who have been indoctrinated to oppose very very simple, logical, linear things. And you know, uh, spread love, man, just just spread love. It's we need

you to do that. Please. Before we move on, I wanted to say the name Filando Castile, who, if you listened to the first half of the show, was the gentleman who was shot in the front seat of his car by police after letting them know explaining that he had a gun on his person. And was filmed by his girlfriend, so it's important to say his name, and I wanted to make sure I got that in there. Moving on, Alexander Dumas.

an old timey western flip. There's a bunch of horses and shotguns. So I'm like, let me revisit Jango and see if I enjoy it in the same way that I enjoyed Harder They Fall. And toward the end of the movie something stood out to me. So in the movie, there's a man named d'Artagnan. He's a slave, and Leonardo DiCaprio's character says that he wants to have his dogs rip d'Artagnan apart. d'Artagnan attempted to run away, and that's what happens to him. The dogs eat him and terremark.

Later in the DiCaprio's character realizes that d'Artagnan was the name from one of Alexander Dumas's books, The Three Musketeers, Right, and that book was written by a black author. Right, So he read this book, obviously loved the character named one of his slaves after a character in the book, and then found out that the author was was was

not a white person. The author was black and would not have approved of the way the d'Artagnan in the movie met his end, and you can see him coming to terms and they're like, wow, I had no idea

that black people could aspire to that. And if you see the film, for those who haven't seen, if you see the film, you'll see how it comes together because Leonardo DiCaprio's character did not think highly of black skinned people based on bogus science of the time that was not founded in any reality whatsoever, but allowed folks at that period in this country's history to justify slavery that in the Bible Furthermore, my older son has to read

The Three Musketeers for like a high school project he's working on right, which is a book by Alexander Dumas, And so in brief I wanted to share a bit about Alexander Dumas or our way Black history fact. He was born the twenty fourth of July eighteen oh two and died December fifth, eighteen seventy. He was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages, and he

is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo that's him. The Three Musketeers, of course, twenty years after and ten years Later is another one. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly two hundred films, prolific and several genres. Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first He also wrote

numerous magazine articles and travel books. His published works totaled one hundred thousand pages. In the eighteen forties, Dumas founded the Theater Historic in Paris. His father, General Thomas Alexander Dumas Davy de la Pollietari was born in the French colony of Saint Domingue present day Haiti, and he was born to Alexander and Antoine David de Lapierte, a French noble, and Marie Sessette Dumas, an African slave. Sorry these names.

Dumas died on December fifth, eighteen seventy, at his son's home in Puisse, France. He was buried in the cemetery of Viller's Cultritz. In two thousand and two, his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris, where Dumas rests among other such French literary greats like his rival Victor Hugo, Emil Zola and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Alexander Dumas will finally take his place beside Victor Hugo and Emil Zola, his

brothers in literature, said President President Jacques Chirac. With you, it is childhood, hours of reading, relished in secret, emotion, passion, adventure, panache that enter the Patheon with you. We dreamed with you, we still dream and I thought it was important to celebrate that because or to discussed that because a lot of times we associate literature with white faces, especially literature like this, you know, think Shakespeare, you know, think, you know,

whatever it is that comes to mind. You know, when you think of like a literary great, a lot of times you don't imagine there being a black face, and.

And obviously Alexander Dumas is not the first black writer, the first black literary great, but certainly one who has maybe not deliberately been whitewashed, but just as a result of film adaptations, and things like that. You know that part of his story has never really made it, like he himself as the author that has never really made it into our shared public consciousness, the author of Monte Cristo.