Welcome to another episode of Civic Sacher. I'm your host, Ramsey's Jah he is Jah, I am q Ward.
You are listening to Civic Ciphers. Indeed you are great show lined up for you.
Today we're going to talk about some stuff that is pretty interesting, so a lot to stick around for h including some stuff you may have seen in the news in recent months. These powerful black people who are effectively white supremacists. We're going to discuss that phenomenon because we recognize that that can be a very confusing thing if you don't interact with a lot of black folks or you know, human nature oftentimes is to kind of stereotype
paint with broad strokes, that sort of thing. You might be getting mixed messes, messages if you look at these black people who really prot white supremacist ideas and you know, stand for just very hard nosed, hypocritical ideologies, and there's a black face on him.
So again, it might be very confusing. But we're going to talk about that today. We's gone especially in some of these cases in the name of just personal political gain and absolutely in parting the politics of the far right. Thank you.
So we're we're gonna peel all those layers away, and this one is going to be a deeper dive. I know we've we've talked about this sort of thing before, but we're also going to talk about forgiveness in the black community. And I really want to pay particular attention on today's episode to Will Smith stopping by Trevor Noah's show and discussing his upcoming movie, but also discussing the
Oscars slap of the infamous slap. He offered a lot more insight into that, and I think it's worth looking into what forgiveness looks like, especially when it comes to Black men interacting with each other. And so we're going to do both of these things on full display for all of you to witness. But first and foremost, we are going to start off with some Ebny excellence. So this week's Eventy Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly magazine. For all the latest in hip hop music, check out
hip Hopweekly dot com. Today's segment comes from Black Enterprise, So I'll read from the middleary article here Bob Johnson from be ET. This is old news, but it was news to us and we thought it was We're celebrating Bob Johnson.
They found specifics of it we're new to us. Yeah, the overall story we knew already. Right right there, you go, Thank you.
So Bob Johnson is the man that founded BEET as a black man, I'll read the challenge did well in its first years, but didn't turn much revenue until a new and exciting form of entertainment came into the picture. And there's a quote along the way. Came music videos and MTV started playing videos, but they wouldn't play black music videos. So I said, this is Bob Johnson speaking. I said, there's a chance to play black music videos,
and that's where we started. And the thing about it that may BET such as success was the videos were free. So imagine a business where the cable operators pay you to carry a program, the record companies give you the content for free, and the advertisers pay to speak to your audience. So he ended up winning in three different ways. So this is how BET rose to prominence. Because MTV, I think they would only play Michael Jackson at the time,
but they wouldn't really go any deeper than that. And the part of the story that I didn't know that we believed to be ebony excellence is in two thousand and one, again a while ago, but in two thousand and one, Johnson sold Bet to Viacom, the infamous Viacom and BET employees, and in doing so created a large number of black millionaires who Johnson gave equity and Bet. So he created the largest number of black millionaires at
one time in American history. And even though that's old news, we didn't know it, and we believe that's ebony excellence. So shout out to Bob Johnson for that.
For Bob Johnson.
All right, so let's talk about black white supremacists. And we're not talking about black conservatives. We're talking about something different. If you are a black conservative, if you know someone who is black and has conservative beliefs, that is normal, that is healthy.
That is okay.
You know, we recognize that all black people don't feel the same way, we don't all espouse the same values and.
So forth and so on.
But there is something to be said about those folks who really fortify and uphold white supremacist ideals and institutions that we really need to discuss because it can be very confusing. Uh, And you know, some folks may not know may not know what's right unfortunately. So I want to start with a phrase that or a saying I guess that we use in the black community. Uncle Tom.
We've talked about Uncle Tom on the show before. The actual Uncle Tom person that that name comes from, was actually not an Uncle Tom, but his name has been co opted in the black community to refer to black people, often black men who are not down for their people. You know, black men that want to be accepted at all costs, you know, to at cost to their dignity, to their culture, their people, their family, et cetera. They want to be accepted in often enough white circles. Right.
So I need you to be familiar with an Uncle Tom, and that's not to be confused with a person like for those familiar with the original Chappelle's show, Clayton Biggsby sort of a person, right, Clayton biggsye be sort of a person is a person that doesn't wreckonognize his own blackness as having value or being even real. There are black people that do not wish to identify as black.
We know that this is a very strange thing to encounter, but we have to acknowledge that there are people who try to think of the world in different terms, and I feel, I personally feel like that's often a desperate move. That's a move of a person who hasn't been able to connect with his ancestor. It's very sad because no one would want that for anybody. You know, it doesn't matter what part of the world you're from. There are some parts of your ancestry.
That are beautiful that you should be able to connect with.
And to completely turn away from your ancestry, we think that's a very sad thing. But there's some other names I want you to know. There's a guy named Uncle Ruckus. This is another fictional character. It's in a show called The Boondock. Shout out to my sister Jamar Taylor. The boon Docks is an anime cartoon about two black kids that moved to the suburbs. You should definitely check it out.
But there's a character, Uncle Ruckus, and he's another sort of white supremacist type of character very openly and they use his character to flesh out concepts in the program. So and last, but not least, I'll mention another fictitious character. This guy's name is Steven. For those of you familiar with Quentin Tarantino films. He had a film called Jangle Unchained. Steven is another kind of like Uncle Tom type of person Steven was. The character was played by Samuel L.
Jackson in the movie Jangle Unchained. And for those of you familiar with any of these movies or shows or anything like that, it kind of gives you an idea of basically a black person that hates black people. They may not say that out loud, but their actions and their their ideas and their their you know whatever, it often enough suggests that they don't really think very highly of black people and they can get away with it.
They can.
They almost always get platforms because they are saying things that white supremacists can't say without being canceled or challenged. So they end up being.
The racist or white supremacist, which they like being those things. They just don't like being called them right right, And if you're black, you can do it.
And of course I find black and I say, you know, black people are awful, and you know, police brutality is a myth, and you know, black people, it's it's all your fault and that sort of stuff. No one can come to me because I'm black and say, well, you're being racist, although that's exactly what I'm doing. It is possible for people to hate themselves and to hate the people that they come from. And this is what we're talking about today. So I want to talk about a
name that makes cues I twitch. This is a person that is very dangerous. This person gives a black shield to white supremacy.
I like that. I should write that down. I'm black, umbrella, a black shield, a black overcoat. There you go.
This person is intelligent, this person is charismatic and all. And this person has also been propped up. This person goes by the name of Candice Owens.
There goes the eye twitch. I see it close. You couldn't see the twitch.
And I want to say something. We've been through recently. Q and myself, we've been through some interesting things lately. Rights, that's a way to put it. Yeah, yeah, And we want to be very careful because we do not and we're asking you, our listeners, to hold us to this. We do not want to let this show ever devolve into the type of program that tears people down. Rather,
we want to hold people accountable, hold people responsible. We want to challenge people and institutions to become better the best versions of themselves. And we have to be very careful because we have to decide where that line is. But we also have to be mindful of the fact that our words carry weight, especially now, and so we're
not trying to tear anyone down. But it's important to mention this woman in particular, because this is a woman who actually does believe that police brutality is a myth.
Hold on, wait, you think she believes that? No?
No, this So I went through, you know, researching today's topic, and I gathered my notes from credible sources that talk about Candice Owns and who she is and things that she said. So I know that this is definitely That's why it's first. That's definitely something that she said that's a very alarming No, No, we.
Know that she said it. What I'm asking you is, do you think she actually believes that?
Oh?
No, I don't think this is not I think the woman is a con artist. Yeah, and it's faking everybody out because of its fiscal implications. No, I can't see me, but I just almost touch face. I guess what happy that he said that? And I couldn't articulate it properly. I don't think she believes that at all, which is why I despise her. Yeah, so.
You're absolutely right, and we're gonna get to that in a little bit too. But a fiscal benefit, political influence, there's there's lots of reasons that a person might do this, But what we look at, you know, I'm talking, I'm gonna speak for the general It's hard to say that, but most black people in this country, and I think most people who are not conservative, would look at this woman and realize that her words don't really reflect a shared reality among black people.
Right.
She is very much a black outlier. But again, what she does is gives people who want what she says to be their truth a reference point, something that is quote unquote credible, that they can lean on when they themselves are challenged for there often white supremacist or racist beliefs right.
Now.
Candice Owns also praised Hitler for his nationalism. You know, he wanted everybody to be German. What's wrong with that? You know that sort of thing, right, And something that you brought up on the show before Q is that she made a documentary about the murder of George Floyd and did her best to try to make anything else the reason for his death other than a police officer kneeling on his neck for eight minutes or nearly minutes
everything else in the world. Try to make that argument in this film and then released it on when on his birthday. And so it's those little things that go a little bit beyond just a conservative black voice, that little bit of extra hatred, that little bit of extra genesse equa talk about being intentional, right, and this sort of thing often takes a person from simply being a black conservative voice. We've had black conservative voices on this
show before. That's not something that we're afraid of. It's something that we I admit every every third episode that I'm a bleeding heart liberal. It's not my deal, but I recognize that.
Other peopleticians, law enforcement.
Yeah, yeah, all be above right. But I think that again, releasing a movie on his birthday to try to somehow make him the bad guy in the story where he died, it feels particularly offensive and it's very upsetting for those of us who have a beating heart and empathy, right, and we all saw a man's life end on a video that should be sad to everyone. I'll admit something too on the show. I mean, the MIC's on, everything's rolling.
I'm gonna say it. The worst person in my lifetime that I ever knew about was Osama bin Laden right by far, the worst person.
I'll say it. You know, I recognize that.
But when the news came back that he was dead and I had to go on the radio and share that with the city and pretend to be happy about that. Like, I was definitely happy that the story had an ending. I was definitely happy that it felt like there was a little bit more justice in the universe than I had anticipated. But I was not happy about a human being's life getting ending. Even though I guess the right ending to that story, it just didn't feel like worth something to celebrate.
Maybe right in my mind, the right ending. He gets captured and or arrested and has to Like even when watching movies as a child, the bad guy dying was never the outcome I wanted. Like, that's not justice, that's just death. Yeah that's yeah, it's a different type of thing. But here's the thing.
What I want to do is be fair. Okay, so we often say this, especially you, but and I learned from you. When you say this a recent Instagram post of yours follow him I mq word check him out a recent.
Instagram post of yours.
You say I'm no one's moral superior or moral guidepost or something like that.
Effectually, this is what you're saying.
I'm just a Stella's son from you know, seven Mile, you know, Detroit, Westie, something like that, right, And I think that that is kind of the posture I want to adopt when talking about the death of a person, right and explaining why this thing that Candice Owens did is particularly offensive.
And so.
I wouldn't tell anybody else how to feel about Osama bin Laden dying.
Right.
You feel how you feel, But it's hard for me to be happy about that thing. If justice is served, cool happy, you know these people got closure. Cool happy a human being, you know, It's just a sad thing for me. And I'm that type of person. I recognize
other people may not be like that. So for me again, looking at this documentary that this woman put out and recognizing that the angle that she took, the approach that she took, is offensive, and then to put it on his birthday and frame him as like again, the like the bad guy in his own story and he's dead.
Her levels of malcontent is really hard to understand. The whole point of it seems to be, I don't want you all to be sad that that man was murdered.
So here's all the reasons you shouldn't be right, and that feels like yo, now let me move on. Oh, let me not forget. She wore the White Lives Matter shirt next to Kanye West, allright.
She also, before we move on, announced the NAACP after it helped her claimed that white supremacy and racism don't exist, except the NAACP helped her win a lawsuit. We sued because she was racially discriminated. Except that doesn't exist. So we Oh, I'm sorry, No, I just I like to say true stuff allowed sometimes.
Yeah, that's okay, that's what we're here for, all right. Moving on, Justice Clarence Thomas. This is another name that you might be familiar with, bless. This is the guy that looks so much like Samuel L. Jackson's character in Djangle Unchained. He might look more like from your sisters either with like a combination of the two.
Anyway.
He is a Supreme Court justice and a black conservative, right, and he wants black people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Right, Which, for a second, for the record, let me say that saying was initially made in jest. Think about it. Is it possible for you to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps? No, it was a joke,
especially if you don't have boots to begin with. Anyway, the idea meaning that black people are responsible for changing our own reality is not something that we don't brush up against in our day to day lives. Right, So a person feeling that and championing that message isn't the
worst thing in the world. We recognize that we have issues that we need to deal with in our communities, just like every other community has issues that are more relevant to their actual lives and their actual cultures.
Right.
So if that was the end of his story, that would be all well and good. But bear in mind that this man who is the physical embodiment of the phrase all skin folk ain't kinfolk as a black saying for those that are uninitiated. This is a man whose wife participated in and protected those involved in the January sixth insurrection to try to overturn the election results and
basically overthrow the government proceedings. Right, And this is a person he's famously quiet, but if you look at his voting record, you recognize that his record is nowhere near in alignment with what it is that many black people would say that we need in this country. Quite the contrary. Yeah, he's almost intentionally right against And this is a little again, this is a little bit more than just a conservative voice. This guy's a little bit more like intentional here herschel Walker.
This man is the embodiment of everything that the right supposedly despises about black men in America. My belief is that we live in a celebrity culture that kind of gave him a head start because of his name, and then he's been.
Managed to ride that wave.
That's the only way that makes sense to me, because if you've heard him talk, If you've.
Heard him, and that's the thing that troubles me the most, you've ever heard him speak about any topic. It doesn't matter even the topic you think he'd be an expert at, which is football. When you hear him talk at length about any topic, just how grossly qualified he is to
be in front of people for any reason. Becomes clear the unqualified, and then presenting him as someone who should be in a leadership role with regards to our nation's government should seem like insanity, except there is a portion of our population that have shown that there is no depth.
Now I will not steep to Okay, now watch this. He is more than happy to play that role, which is why the people on the right that are really, really deeply conservative are pushing so hard to get that man elected, knowing full well that he's a complete hypocrite.
I think completely unqualifies better than saying deeply concervatively racist.
Thank you, Q, I appreciate you helping me out, all right, And then we're going to dedicate a few seconds to a gentleman named Kanye West or better said yay, and
we will recap here. He went from the man that we knew saying George Bush doesn't care about black people, to the man we know who has the Confederate flags sown into his clothes years ago, who said slavery was a choice, who said Harriet Tubman never actually freed slaves, who of course wore the make America Great Again hat and later the White Lives Matter shirt.
We know a little bit about that.
And it's now ratternizing with known white supremacists, right, and any one of flagrant bigot ways out of sea level white supremacists. Absolutely now any one of those things by themselves, maybe two things, hey man, maybe he's just on his journey, right, but all of them together, let you know full well that this is a black white supremacist more than just
a conservative. And what are the reasons, well, grift, self hatred, desire for attention, desire for money, lunacy, the list goes on, right, But what we need to do is let you know, don't be fooled. As we said, all skin folk ain't kinfolk. You need to do a little bit more in the way of gaining a consensus before you decide what your truth, or rather what other what you believe other people's choose to be. So sit with that.