Yes, yes, y'all, welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I am your host, Ramses Job.
They called me q Ward and that just so happens to be my real name, Ramses Job.
What's up everything in the world, many, I've been waiting on this one.
We been waiting on this.
We've been waiting on this one.
I mean, y'all, y'all like it's like on time but everything. And then he jumped in and I was like, I'm here too.
Speaking of which man, the man of the hour, the man who has decided to come off of the mountain of greatness and join us. He goes by the name of fresh Maker DJ fresh Maker, Yes, and one of my favorite people in the world.
I got to get him a more than just a DJ shirt though, because the resume is extensive.
Oh yeah, yeah, No, I'm gonna let this great idea. I'm gonna let him lay it all out.
It's a great idea.
But affectionately, we call them fresh and just a pillar in the community, Black community, especially, way more than an entertainer. And so my hope, our hope is that he will join us from time to time on the show, just to kind of keep us abreast of things that are going on. But today it was meaningful for us to discuss the concept behind the brainchild behind the hashtag circulate the bag. And so we're gonna get to that in
just a second. But you know, fresh I need you to I need you to introduce yourself to the people who might not be I don't know who wouldn't know who you are.
Soon it's gonna be a very very niche group of people.
Let's assume that some folks just.
Uh well, I go by the name of fresh Maker. Government is Josan e Manuel godparents' names Jay and Sondra, Jay meaning j birds, Sondra meaning caretaker. So I always envisioned myself as somebody that flied over and took care of people. But I mean, I love music, and so my father actually was a DJ, and I didn't know it until I actually was deep into DJ and so
it was kind of in the blood. But what was also in the blood was just you know, looking out for folks, especially when in a position of power or privilege. And I feel like whenever you put yourself into a economically agile position, it's your you know, it's your privilege and your priority to try and put other people into
the same position. So naturally, once I was able to catch a foothold into the entertainment world and be able to sustain myself financially, I wanted to branch out and create you know, my own mini economy, and in doing so, I would create jobs or invest into other black businesses that maybe didn't have the capital. And so from that, I've been able to develop barbershops and salons and tax offices in the Phoenix metro area, and it, you know, supplied other people with jobs or the insight to be
able to open their own. After doing so, I found myself not really you know, feeling a whole lot of fulfillment or purpose, and I was looking for something to be a part of and I ran into what's called the Archwood Exchange and it was just basically a black business expo where there were smaller black businesses that were
all in one space. And I met a great group of people that's a part of the Phoenix Local Organizing Committee and I kind of just stayed there and didn't want to leave, and so they allowed me to become a part of their group. They welcome in with open arms and basically serving the community through being able to tell people about black businesses and be a part of them and to intentionally buy from them has been kind of a purpose of mind.
And that's exactly why it was meaningful for you to come up here today. Now I want to paint a little bit more of a picture because I think it's important that we kind of lean into this part of the conversation while we're here.
So, you are a DJ.
At many nightclubs in the city, but as Q mentioned, that is a very limited view or description.
Of who you are.
Yeah, and I think that along with DJ, event host is another tool in your tool belt because a lot of folks might just know you for just keeping a party live and keeping the club moving. And there's a huge part of a NIST in the city where we live in Phoenix, the black community, because it's very small community in the city, huge part of it that goes
through your your events wherever they may be. So there's lots of people who have maybe seen you on a microphone, don't know that you DJ, or maybe seen you DJ and don't know that you're want to mind. But also, as you stated, your business man, I know you to be a entrepreneur I know you to be an activist.
I know you to be a.
What's the word I'm thinking about, philanthropist.
Yes, that's the word.
I was gonna say that. Thank you, brother. I'm glad we all the line. Oh no, no, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
We got to talk about that. That's what I was looking for, among other things, and just a presence. And I think it's important to mention all those things because
when we talk about these it's school based initiatives. It's important to know that a person like you, who has achieved a degree of fiscal success or independence, for you to come back and try to empower people who have not reached that place, not by handing out money, but by teaching and by leading example and by championing a philosophy that is based around unity, black empowerment, which is
very important, and independence. That is something that a lot of people who've achieved the type of success that you've achieved, they never come back and do it innovative.
They don't do it that way.
They might give their cousins, you know, ten thousand dollars to start a car wash or something like that, but in terms of like really, like I said, championing and a new philosophy. I think it makes it gives a gravity to this conversation that I think is very important. And I think that you know, there's a hundred reasons that you know you belong on that microphone on this show,
sharing your vision with these cities. But for people to know exactly who you are and where you come from, I think that again, it gives it a little bit more gravity. So with that said, I want you to talk more about circulate the bag.
Okay, So I mean it's it's a bunch of different places that you can start, but I feel like.
Well, let's start here.
Let's start with where did the idea come from? I know it to be a hashtag and a concept, but where did that Where was that born?
I would say the the anger of our communities, addiction to consumerism speak on it, and the anger at not being taught the historical lesson of Black Wall Street in school. So you notice that there's a lot of things like once you're an adult, you're like, damn, y'all didn't tell me that, and or you have to relearn something or a story was told to you as a child in order for you to be able to grasp it or
to keep your innocence right. So obviously the story of Black Wall Street is just it's a beautiful story until, of course, the massacre, and then it's just like something that you wouldn't want to have to tell a child, but not being taught that in grade school and then learning about it, you know, as an adult after thirty, you're like, the idea comes along that it has always been possible for us to be together and to focus
solely on passing each other the ball and scoring. I feel as far as just a couple of parallels or comparisons when it comes to our community and spending money. Oftentimes, if spending money is like being in a basketball game.
We get the ball and we barely dribble past half court before we pass it to another community, you know, so like we never pass the ball to ourselves in order for us to score and then cut another community off as if to say, hey, we have something for you to buy, buy it from us, get the ball again, and then score again and scoring, meaning like reinvesting back
into our community. Right, So that and then one more parallel would be like basically in hunter gatherer days, right, you would have a tribe that would follow their food source right wherever the herd went. I feel like often as Black people, we are the food source for a lot of other communities. They basically follow to where we are, set up shop and hunt us through gouging us for dollars.
So I feel like culture exactly. So I feel like if we were our own hunter, if we were our own offense and defense, you know, we would be able to put ourselves in a position to where we could fortify, end uplift, basically continuously reinvest. Obviously, through our love for consumerism and our lack of wealth knowledge or just having wealth, sometimes you have to incrementally go through the mistakes of
having wealth for the first time. And so I feel like many of us have had that experience or watch somebody have that experience. So since we've gone through that, then the only other thing to do instead of continuously make the same mistake is to spend money with one another intentionally with the intent that it will build us up to where we are not so reliant elsewhere, because we really basically, obviously in this country, we're going to have to leverage our power. We don't have power to
leverage unless we're constantly making each other stronger. And you can't make each other stronger unless you invest in one another. So that's the reason that I preach circulating the bag, like continuously intentionally spend money with black owned businesses, even if it may be less convenient, because a black business may not have the infrastructure as another business will because historically you have less. So the biggest there are two
factors in it that are really big. One is the intent to seek out, you know, a product from a black owned business. If there's something that you want see, if somebody black has it, buy it from. If it takes you two weeks to get it as opposed to one week from Macy's, so be it. You know, you kept another business alive for another transaction. And the second part is the experience that you have from that business, whether it be good or bad. You must say that
to that business. You have to give them their review. Whether it be personal or whether it be public, is very important. If we're going to act as if each other is family, even in business, we have to treat each other as family. Whereas we would say honestly, because honesty is love, we would say to our family, I didn't like this about this transaction or I didn't like
this about this product. What you do is you offer a reality check to that business to not necessarily have a miscas conception about how they are perceived and how they actually are doing business. And it allows for us to level up as far as customer service and customer retention. So it's not only a responsibility on the business to serve, but because we are a family working together, it's a responsibility on the consumer to report absolutely.
Okay. You know what I like about it, though, is that there is.
Intention behind the philosophy. In other words, it's simple to say, Okay, we're gonna support black owned businesses. Here's a cool you know, hashtag, or there's a cool way of saying it. Circulate the bag and leave it there. But I like the second part where you say, Okay, no matter what positive or negative, we're going to give back feedback so that we can actually grow and learn. And I think the education and the experience that we're able to draw from enriches the
businesses in a in a parallel capacity. And so it's not just fiscal, it's also educational. And that's something that you know, a place like Macy's if we're going to use that example. They have a wealth of transactions to draw from, they have buying power, they have you.
Know, marketing dollars exactly, et cetera.
So a smaller business, the way that they're going to you know, keep the fight and to survive is with information about their customers, what their customer base likes, and then super serve their customers until they get to the point where they are a Macy's, or until they get to the point where they are a you know, Walmart or whatever it is, and can play and on equal footing. But even then, I think it might still be necessary to support black businesses, not just financially, but also with
your feedback. You know, any chance there's an opportunity to teach somebody, to pull someone aside, you know, whatever the case is, or just just to support somebody. I think that's important. And while we're on the subject of supporting, I know, I'm gonna switch gears here.
I'm so sorry, Q.
I'm sorry, fresh I'm gonna switch gears here. Please do yourself a favor. You know, I tell you to follow me. I tell you to follow you every week, follow fresh Maker's social media. It's at the DJ Freshmaker put a post up and while we're talking about supporting and.
I forget what the post was.
What it was, it was, I think the police were involved with somebody, and uh, there was a man kind of just filming the encounter.
With the police.
Police are like, hey, why are you filming us? There's nothing going on here, and the guys like, man, I'm just mine of my business. I'm filming it. I don't know who that is, but he's black and I'm black, and we don't know you. So we're just going to film this exactly, film this just to make sure everything's on the up and up. And then the police took
issue with it. You know, the whole thing devolved, and then ultimately the police on handcuffed the guy, let him go on about his business, and then you know, I was right with the world.
But it was the the.
Intent, the intention there, which was to just look, I don't know you, but I see that you're black, and I recognize that this is a this could potentially be a lacke and death situation. So I'm going to stay here and watch you. And I had a similar experience and I get a chance to tell you about it, but I want to tell you about it on the air so that people understand that supporting black businesses goes
There's many levels to it. It's not just spend your dollars right, come turn up at the club or you know, whatever it is that you think is you know, supporting it. Yeah, exactly, exactly, that's a great way to say it. This happened to me the other day walking with my son at it was a shopping plaza, and I see a security guard pull up on a golf cart in front of a black man. He's an older guy, beard, you know, the whole thing. He had a couple of backpacks with him.
And as I'm walking and it's a small corridor that I'm walking through, so it's just a security guard in this man and then me and my six year old, and I'm overhearing the conversation because there's no one else around, and he's like, he's like, the guy's like, why are you bothering me? Man? I just left the store. I spent fifteen dollars in the store and I'm sitting here and I'm eating right now. The guy didn't look he
looked like a normal man. He just happened to have two backpacks and a beard, right right, But I think that what happened is there's probably a Karen or a Kevin that saw him with two backpacks. It's probably like, oh, this guy's probably homeless, he's transient, you know, whatever the case is.
Me call the police on him, or let me call the authorities on him, or whatever the case is. So I hear these guys.
Talking, and then you know, at first it didn't register. So I walked into the store I was going, and I thought to myself, I'm like, wait a minute, I should probably go back out there because even though I know that obviously there's no this guy's just sitting in a golf cart. It's not engaging, there's nothing going on like that. I should probably go out there and make sure that they're okay.
Walk back outside.
Sorry, story's taking so long, but trust me, there's a way to support black people. Walk outside. A guy's still in his golf cart and the man's on the other side of him. So I'm behind the golf cart. The guard is looking away from me toward the man, and I put my thumb up like this so as to ask like you're doing okay, like you got it here, and the guy looks at me and he's like, uh, you know, I I don't know what the thumbs up means.
And now the security guard turns around looks at me, So now you know I'm here now.
So I'm just say it like it is.
You see me.
Listen, man, I see you over there. I know you're sitting there eating your food. I overheard you say you spent money, and my understanding is that you're getting harassed for sitting here and enjoying your food in the shade. So I'm just here to make sure that you're okay, and if you're not okay, I'm here to be your support and changing the narrative and framing the security guard as the aggressor of that situation because you know, a lot of times non black folks will see black skin
as being criminal, aggressive, et cetera. It's important that I took the time to do that because once I got involved, the officer then directed his line of inquiry towards me, and that's something that I'm great at handling.
So anyway, quick story I wanted to share.
But yeah, there's lots more ways to support black people, and there's lots of levels to it. But don't ignore the fiscal component. And I feel like I should take a moment to say that if you like what you hear on Civic Cipher, you can support the show.
You can go to.
Civiccipher dot com. There's plenty of ways for you to donate and keep the show on the air. We love to hear from you, and of course we can circulate the bag in this direction. Absolutely, it can provide a forum to discuss things like this, So.
I think real quickly in that situation, what we can take from that is the like again, the parallel of like being in the wilderness, like or just being in your home. If we say to ourselves that our community is our home, and normally those whom police us don't live in our home. If they are harassing somebody in our home, it is almost our obligation to just double check exactly because you're in my home, this is my community. You don't live here, you just work here, so you're
not gonna really care what happens to this person. You could put this person in you know, jail for a couple of nights, and they have another bad experience compounds onto that. It's it's too bad that I have to think about that, but you certainly don't. There you go, so technically you are in my family's house acting up. I got to make sure you don't get too crazy.
You and I were talking about that not too long ago. We're talking about the Panthers and the way the panthers, the Black Panthers, originally their original call to action was to police the police, because police brutality is I think Will Smith said a bit, it's not new, it's not getting worse, it's getting filmed. Yeah, so you know this historically has been a problem and for black and brown folks.
But yeah, it's it's always, uh, there's.
There's always, Like you said, it's a philosophy of lifestyle when it comes topporting black people. Now, I do want to ask the question just because I feel like there's a lot of folks who are allies, White, allies, round allies, Native Asian, Muslim, you know, allies of black people, fans of black culture, but also allies. They're there when the going gets tough, and those people might not really have all of the details. They might hear, okay, we should
support black businesses, but not know the why. And so that's something that I think that you can expound upon why is black commerce important to the black community.
Well, not only important to the black community, but important to America and the utopia that it tells itself that it is very good, so you and that that utopia never can actually really exist unless you have equity, equality and a narrowing of the racial wealth gap. Right. So, if you understand your racial wealth gap is based primarily on slave labor and Jim Crow and financially castrating black people over maybe one hundred and fifty years after slavery,
is you know, abolished. Right, If you understand that that privilege is there because of that, then as a moral country, you would say to yourself, well, I need to I need to do something about that because I'm in a position of power. However, the question becomes, what do you want more, an equal utopia or your privilege? Right? So, if you want your and this is where the rever mes road, really, if you want your privilege more, it will show because there's only a couple of questions that
need to be asked. And it's like, oh, okay, so you like shaking my hand, you like hugging me, and all these other things. But if we were to have the same opportunity, it would become more more warlike to you and so right, so, the importance of supporting black business brings you closer to that utopia. It brings you closer to the opportunity of black people being able to operate not only with the freedom to be in their communities,
but the liberty to grow outside of them. Right so, right now, like black people, basically, if they stay within the bounds of certain economics, they're not necessarily questioned. I saw a great, great video by a young lady who said she just recently bought a Porsche Cayenne and uh, did you guys see that? No, we actually somebody got a Porsche.
We had we had a similar experience purchasing the same vehicle, so that it was like a trigger. So the young lady she bought this car, but she noticed that in her interactions with white people it was often how do you have that?
What did you do to get that? And she said to herself, this is why supporting black business is so important, because you want to get you need to get used to living and thriving instead of just living and surviving. Right, So, when you live and survive, you expect to have the bare minimum. So when you work to get above it and people question you about it, you dumb it down because you don't really want to deal with the interrogation. But what that is, what that really is, and I
have to battle this within myself. It is your own anti blackness. You are dumbing yourself down for the safety of somebody else's white fragility. So what you have to do is own it, not code switch, and just be yourself in the moment, like, yeah, I got this car, I work hard. Anything else, we'll take that out and oh sorry, and keep it moving, you know, but be unashamed. And so's there's another thing that's important about it, because if you get into a position of thriving, you need
to be used to thriving. So then you pass on that energy of thriving to either your seed, your neighbor, your friends, whatever. It's customary for you to thrive. And when somebody asks you how you're thriving only because you don't look like them, you rightfully take insult. And when you rightfully take insult, you are having a teaching moment with them because they're like, oh, I wouldn't have asked anybody that looked like me. That question that was a
little supremacist of me, wasn't it. Yes, it was. But it's important for you to know the lesson that you have that in your blood. It's inherent, just like I have anti blackness in mind. And so the more that you can be in the same space understand it, like we're gonna be different, You're gonna feel some different things, and you're gonna need to let me know whether you can deal with that or not, because I'm not changing, I'm only gonna grow. But that was a little bit long.
But back to black and brown allies that need to know the importance of it, just the history of it, just the realness of it. Prior to nineteen sixty five, there's pretty much only white and black people in the country, right, and.
From a political perspective especially.
Yeah, and so Civil Rights Act of sixty four allows us to basically be treated more human, right, but again more human right.
Like closer to human, not a human, not not equal, but you know, let's let's move just a little bit more like people.
Right. So what that is is black ascension, and normally black ascension leads to you know, some people feeling not so comfortable about it because it means you are going to be closer to me in this socioeconomic totem pole. So and it's it's my theory and the theory of my mentors that there was never a immigration act to bring anybody else or allow anybody else in this country until after that happened. So basically, when black people begin to ascend, you need a buffer class that's going to
keep a form of segregation. So now Civil Rights Act sixty four, Immigration Acts sixty five, and now you have anybody, Now all your immigration acts before in nineteen seventeen, nineteen twenty four, or only four European countries only, not until sixty five, is it like, okay, everybody can come And for me to me, what that looks like is you're
getting close to me. I don't like that. So and I wouldn't dare put it past you know, politicians that enjoyed a time of Jim Crow to think of doing something like that, because if you think about it, anyone who's coming from a country that dreams of being in the United States when they get here, this is this is like a form of heaven, right utopia, right exactly made it? This is it? Right? But to me, this is a land of demons, So how dare you right?
Right?
So for so then you can create the straw man, like, why aren't you doing as well as everybody else that comes here? Well, everybody else that comes here, you know, bless them. This is like heaven to them. And for me, I'm waiting in line for my debt. Not only that, but I'm also trying to survive the onslaught that comes from being threatened by my own ascension. So we're fighting on multiple fronts. Your ascension is going to be very incremental.
So the reason that it's important to pay attention to black business because of that is to understand that black people are fighting a war on multiple fronts and oftentimes, uh, those who have come from other countries are going to be more likely to assimilate and be totally okay with that,
And that's fine. Not only they're going to be able to assimilate to American culture, but they will have the liberty to preserve their own whereas for us, our own culture is a threat unless it is palatable and able to be you're able to make money off of it. You exploited market and exploded, right, So if somebody else is able to make money off of it and we're not, because if we do, then we reinvest and become more powerful. Then it's okay.
I think that there's something to be said about that. Now the example that you gave, so Q and I have been been friends for a long time and Q always tells me about Detroit and Detroit there's a lot of black.
Folks in Detroit motown from Chicago too.
Yes, so Chicago is another city with a huge black population. I grew up in Southwest California and Arizona, so there are certainly black communities, but in terms of like a Detroit where it's a significant amount of the population, that it is not. But you know what was life like in Detroit when you're from seven Mile you know? So what's that like as far as black businesses and black entrepreneurship and so forth, Because I think that might kind of.
At least for black folks, will be a bit of a utah.
So, first of all, there was a fantastic experience, except I didn't realize it was a unique experience. Gift and the curse was that the preparation to go out into a world where black people aren't attorneys and doctors and business owners, and the pillars of the community were strange. You know, my first racist interaction, I was essentially an adult.
I was well seventeen years old in college for the first time that somebody who didn't look like me looked at me like I was strange and looked down on me, and not in the way where they felt sorry, but in a way where they felt I was beneath them. And you know, that may be a story for another time, but you have to know, like my older brother, all of his friends owned all of the businesses in our neighborhood, the barbershop, the beauty salon, the beauty supply store, the
record store, the liquor store, even the national franchises. My brother went to high school with the people that owned them. So the KFC, the churches, the Little Caesars, whatever it was.
Those people.
You know, I could call them by name when I stepped into their establishment. And you know, and as my brother's little brother, be treated like I was family. So all of my teachers, all of my classmates looked like me. And that was the experience growing up in Detroit, Michigan. It wasn't until I left Detroit went to College in Bowling Green, Ohio, my first day on campus with students there because I played football, so we were there a
few months before everybody else arrived. But when the student body arrived, I remember getting on the shuttle to ride from the stadium back to the quad, and a group of young ladies got on the shuttle and there were four of them, and there were four seats left, and one of them was next to me, and one of them decided she'd rather stand than have to sit next to me, and one of her friends was kind of ashamed that she reacted that way, so she sat next to me like taking one for the team, and the
rest of the girls treated her like she was taking one for the team for having to sit me. And the coolest thing that happened is that she didn't care. She wasn't embarrassed on their behalf, She didn't try to feed into what they were doing and act like she
felt the same way. She looked me right in my face, told me that they were stupid, and she was legitimately upset that they were behaving the way that they were, but caught off guard by that, I didn't even realize that I was supposed to be angry in response.
Right, you know what I mean, Like I didn't.
I didn't have any built up animosity for that treatment or that experience because I had never been through it. The funny thing is the first time I went back home after that, and I remember this because it was a Martin Luther King day and I was home and I got pulled over for looking at a white police officer. Pulled over, pulled out the car, face on the hood, and handcuffed, put in the back of his car.
The crime was looking at him.
Oh of course, Now he didn't say this, but I know this because I was driving to on Wiolward Avenue shout out Detroit. I looked at him. He got in his car, busted U turn, pulled me over, and everything I just described to you happened. And then, of course, you know, put my name into his computer. So I had no warrants, no arrest, no priors. Let me out of the handcuffs, out of the backseat of his car, and back into my car. You know, have a good day.
But that happening on mlkday in Detroit. You know, I'm eighteen now, and this was so foreign to be going through something like that. For absolutely no reason. And I've had sadly plenty of experiences like that since then. But you know, you started off asking me about childhood. I grew up in a city that was all black as far as I was concerned, and maybe it was the high eighty percent, maybe it was ninety percent, but all black, because that's all I ever saw.
So I want to jump in here because speaking of the Porsche, that Qbot.
It's an interesting show where doing so there's a story behind that.
You got it from a black salesman.
We went to uh, Florida to pick that up.
We went, we went to go buy the car there and drive it back and he asked me to say, hey, you want.
To go on a road trip, like, sure, let's do it.
When got the car, we went to after leaving Florida, we went to Atlanta and I had never been to Atlanta before. And you know the example that you gave where you know, people are so wowed by black people who have accomplished something, and how that shouldn't be normal, that should be common and you have to kind of deal with your own anti blackness in moments like that. And I'm glad you said it that way because I've
lived through that myself. Cute knows full well. We went to his cousin's house, and house is not the right word.
It's not the that was.
There was not a single house in that neighborhood.
Oh No, those were mansions, gotcha. And you know, the houses might get built a little bigger on that side of the country or in that particular city or whatever.
Maybe it's to construct maybe whatever. But the cars don't lie.
So if it's Ferrari's and you know, if I just think it's a big no, those are bona fide mansions, you know, there's and and everybody had nice car.
The house was gorgeous, everything was beautiful.
Yeah, the Porsche didn't stand out at all.
No, no, not at all. And it's like we'll just park it on the street like it's fine.
That's how it was there.
So for me, it was very, very much eye opening, especially when he told me what a kicker.
Tell me, tell me what he told me.
Every one of his neighbors is black.
Never seen anything like it.
And I mean it's a subdivision. Every house said, in the entire neighborhood.
The people look like us.
And so in a place like that where obviously there's because of the population. You know, there's a significant amount of money that moves from black hands to black businesses. I've been able to have a glimpse, so to speak, into what that what the long term effects of the circulate, the bag velocity.
Yeah, man, it's a different yeah. Yeah.
And and that's not the only place. We ended up going to Dallas on that same road trip. We went love Dallas. He is, I think your frat brother, yes, yeah, what's his name? I want to say, is jareded And and your cousin's name too, Joey, Joey. Okay, Joey and Jared. I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of both of them. I got a chance to tell Joey, but Jared's house was not a house. And the difference in Dallas was that he said something similar, but it wasn't
the same. He said about in his subdivision again, all mansions, all nice cars, he said, I think six it was.
It was a lot more diverse. Yeah, but in all white community.
Yeah it was. It was the most majority black community.
But then there were Asian folks, and there was like East Indian doctors, and you know this and that and the third So again, uh, you know, and I think that what we what we would all like is just something that reflects the population in the way the population has distributed, you know, something that you know, let's say there's fifteen percent black people, just to pick a nice round number, fifteen percent Hispanic people, and and so forth and so on, that the amount of mansions would reflect
those right, our mansion ownership and that utopia. I don't think it's it's too far off, and it's too far too it's too difficult for us to get there. I think that's something that we absolutely can do. I want to I.
Want to ask fresh before we moved on. I don't know if you were going to pivot or not. And I want to use sports as a metaphor again because you did that earlier and a lot of people have an easier time processing or.
If I could. The beautiful thing about those neighborhoods, if we're able to continuously replicate, is again, people get used to thriving, right, But those are tax dollars that are put into the schools that are neighborhoods that predominantly black children go to, and they get used to being in the schools where it's like, yeah, I'm supposed to have of the latest and greatest in technology, the latest books, and I may not feel the urge to have to go to a prestigious p WI unless it serves what
I want as a passion. I may not need to go elsewhere. I may really just want to solidify where I am or another community that's like it a lot of times because we are in our neighborhoods and they may have some energy that we want to get away from. We practice escapism through either going to the suburbs or going to a PWI, and then we get a little bit further away from what it is that made us what we are.
All Right, I don't know everything. I'm just doing the best that I can. Someone ask this question PWI.
Deperately white institution institution.
Thank you.
It was something like that when you mentioned that as an alternative right.
Schooling or whatever. But just want to make sure and.
That's why we got to celebrate. You know, we can. We can nitpick all we want, and we can point to flaws all we want, but that's why you got to celebrate. Celebrate When Howard University makes it to the White House to celebrate that, and we can poke holes and all we want, and of course we can find the flaws and point to why this person is or isn't perfect, but certain things must be celebrated. As you don't have to go to Harvard. Typically the Ivy League
sits in those chairs. Yeah, it's not there's no use. I was gonna say it's not a bunch, but there's none prior to now HBCUs in those positions, so that that that's something that needs to be celebrated.
Speaking of celebrating, I want to take a moment to shout out someone who's very special to me. If you're in Phoenix and you're hearing this on Power ninety eight point three FM.
She's a young lady.
That I met there years ago, and she has a black owned business. It's black owned business. It's called the black Box. And she actually sent me a black box and it's full of creams and candles and soaps and and just affects. I'm not even sure what all this is because I don't really reckon myself a beautiful person, although she is, and I implore you to check out her social media. I think it's the black Box dot us or get the black Box, the Black Box.
And her name is Talay Hornback, that's t A. L. E. I.
And she's incredible as a human being, by the way, not just black.
Yes, but she is another one that really is Galvani and black businesses together and trying to offer that at least in her way and with the things that she's been able to do, and so far she's been incredibly successful.
Which brings me to.
You, Fresh, What are some of the businesses that you've been working with that you can shout out that you can say these are black businesses are doing black things and these are ways that you can support if you're black or a black ally oh Man.
And as you can think of zero eight twenty candle and you can find that on Instagram. Just like that zero eight twenty candle. They actually sent me a box. I didn't have to pay for it. They saw the work in the community and they sent me a box of candles and they smell delicious. They even have one called p Valley the whole word word and I was like, okay,
then I know you're all right cool. There's also oh Fulani Malik Fulani f U l A n I Malik has some of the best handmade jewelry that you've ever seen. And it's normally uh, copper infused with crystals and uh, I've seen you wear that, Yeah, and then thank you the gentleman pretty much he makes jewelry on the spot, like whenever he's doing the expo, and he will employ you, employ you to read about the crystals that you're picking up or looking at so you can learn more about them.
Star Dust and Sage is a holistic healing space that just moved downtown and they're gonna have yoga upstairs and crystals downstairs. Straw and Wool Hat Company. They are actually just some brothers that I'm extremely proud of because in the Field area, they had an idea that there wasn't really a lot of hat stores that catered to that particular style basically straw or wool hats. You couldn't find
them often. And so they opened up a space, a small suite, and within I want to say, three weeks, they had to take over the suite next door because their business grew so much. Now I want to say, maybe no more than three months later, they're moving to an apartment slash business suite downtown on Roosevelt row So and that it costs money to be down there. But because they saw something in the market, they exploited it.
And they're doing the practice of buy black cell to everybody, which is really.
Where need to be.
You need to be, Like buying black is great, but you also have to participate in the market with everybody else to be able to diversify you know what's coming in. So they're doing a great job. So all of those stardustn't Sage Straw and will Fulani Malik and zero eight to zero Candle Company.
There's some some black businesses that I know that you want to shout out Q as well.
But before I do that, I did cut you off. No no, no, no, don't because this is important. I can't even let you leave without bringing this up. And I want both of you to speak to you know why this is so. And like I said, I'm going to use a sports metaphor because you did that earlier and it helps people understand and digest what we're saying a little bit better when you use something that's familiar to them. Lamar Jackson quarterback Baltimore Ravens plays football a little different
than the traditions would say. And because of this, people are hyper critical of him. So if he has a bad game, it's because the way he plays football is not the right way to do it. It won't lack, it's a gimmick. It's you know what I mean that they're prepared for him to fail, whereas someone like let's say Tom Brady can have a bad month and in their mind it's just he's just off. He's eventually he's going to get back to his level. He was just having a bad few weeks, but he's.
Going to be okay, okay.
The hyper critical nature of us, of everyone to us, but us to us. And I'm bringing this up because you spoke about the way that we treat our family when we support their business, give them that that real feedback. Don't just say hey, this was great, be specific. Let him know how you were served, what you loved, and where they can improve. Typically and all of us have heard it. It only takes a bad experience for us
to completely give up on our own businesses. Where we'll give Macy's and you know I can it's a laundry list of companies that we support that allowed to disappoint us over and over again.
I'm not even gonna say no name, so I was about to do.
Yeah, yeah, I almost wish you would have. Why do you think, or maybe it's just my imagination, why do you think that level of hyper critical feedback exists with us where we're so ready to give up on and and and and shut down each other for the smallest of infractions, where we'll continue to patronize and forgive and understand when it's not us.
Uh. The convenience of somebody else already having an infrastructure to serve you easily allows for you to practice your inherent escapism. Yeah, so you it's essentially just escapism, like but like you could compare it to you know, being like being in a relationship to black people in relationship, they're going to have certain struggles that everybody else won't have with them together, and it's it's important for them to realize, like, you're not a white man, you're not
a white woman, you're not a white business. Things are going to be different, and it's okay for you to hold on to that and understand that. And when it comes to people giving up on black business, like I said, it's escapism, but the responsibility is to understand that that business is lifeblood for your community. When you give up on them, you're essentially saying, you know, I could give a damn, you know, if you're still here or not.
At least I got Macy's. So you're definitely practicing anti blackness when you give up on you know, on just practicing you know, circulating the bag. When you give up on it, it's like, well, it doesn't it's not that really much a big deal. You're in the trenches right now. It's not normal for us to constantly intentionally buy, support and review and rinse and repeat and say I'm gonna do this as a lifestyle. It's not normal. Until it's normal,
it's gonna be hard. So you have to keep practicing, just like going to the gym every day, until it's like breathing. You have to keep doing it because this is a practice that you need to pass down. If you give up on it now, you're basically passing down the generational curse eve anti blackness in business.
There, it is there, it is. Thank you for saying that. And I think it's important to know that, you know, everybody starts somewhere. You know, when them people hopped off of the Mayflower and they tried to set up shop or whatever and selling beaver tails and whatever. It was
just as ghetto as you can imagine. And after eons of you know, figuring out what works but versus what doesn't work, you know, you might have a little bit more polished to it and understanding that a lot of times, a lot of communities, especially black communities, are kind of just starting these initiatives. It takes a little bit of time in some community support, but basically we're all getting behind each other, especially those champions in these various communities,
and we're trying to cause them to do better. You know, nobody's getting rich. The goal is for them to ultimately get rich. But when you're first starting out, usually people are very very much broke, and you know that's not an excuse for poor quality or anything like that, but
it is a teachable moment. And if you are inclined to love your fellow man, if you're not black, or to love your you know, people that share your that melan and that you have and share your culture with, then you know, support is the name of the game. And if it's still difficult for you to wrap your head around that. Then you really need to kind of really figure out where your morals are and where you stand. I do want to say this though, because we're this
show always goes by too quick. I do want to shout out to other black businesses. One is a clothing company. It's called Unlucky Weirdos and a Q you know a little bit more about that, I want you to shout out the website and the social media for those guys.
Yes, Unlucky Dashweirdos dot com and Unlucky Weirdos on your social media's Instagram. More specifically, it's where a lot of time and resources are spent. Another company that this pandemic has really taxed, but pretty confident they're going to have a nice bounce back here pretty soon. I want to shout out the shop by Lefties, A gentleman that went to Arizona State University, a member of Kapa Alpha PSI fraternity.
Dwayne is a great brother, always looking to help other brothers as well, and watching him thrive is something that makes me really really proud. So definitely shout out to the shop. You guys both spoke about something before before we get out of here, the importance of what we saw in Atlanta, that community where those big houses and those nice cars, and those doctors and those lawyers and all.
Those people look like us.
I want Ramses to talk about his experience with the security officer that patrolled that neighborhood, because it was way different. Yeah yeah, okay, it should be way normal, but it was way different.
Well, I'm accustomed to security guards rolling up on me and feeling very much out of place and having to justify my being there. I was just taking a walk through the neighborhood just because I was enjoying it, taking it all, and I'd never seen the many trees.
Security guard rolls up on.
Me and he says, hey, how you doing today, And you know, normally they start off, you know, exchanging pleasantries because they're there to shake you down. And I says, I'm doing fine. I'm just you know, here taking a walk. He's like, it's a great day for it. You've never seen me before, you know. But the thing was he was black. I was black, and he didn't see me as a threat. I thought that was very special.
The coolest thing ever. Absolutely, he was not there to ask him anything except how you doing? And let me reassure you that I'm having a good day too. Man, keep having it and it just bounced. Not where you're from, not who you with, not why you hear. It's almost like a different universe. Oh my goodness. Man, all right, real quick.
Before we get out of here, I do want to shout out Missus White's. I want to shout out Lolos Restaurants, Boom Boom Room, of course, Monarch Theater in Barsmith, all black owned businesses. I do want to shout out Major Threads if you need clothing that is more athletic based, and of course the Change Society, which is a nonprofit that we all work with as black owned as well.
But that's going to do it for us today. Please hit the websites CIVI, excite for dot com to submit your questions any show topics, of course, to donate and follow all of us social media at Civic Cipher And until next week, y'all take care of yourself