And now bring my mic back. You're like that.
You can strike waters from headquarters behind him.
And if you're just tuning in to CIVI Excite for I'm your host Ramsey's.
Job, he is Rams joh I m q ward. You are listening to a year in review WA Civic Excite.
And Manager. Stick around because we do have a lot more to review. We're going to go from June to November and revisit some of the topics that we've discussed on the show, give some brief thoughts, and of course you're welcome to go back and check out any of these older episodes because we've done a lot of the research for these and they're they're great episodes. We're also
going to talk about a great African Roman emperor. This is something I never knew because when you think of Rome, you think of Roman people, Italian people, that sort of thing.
But first time I ever heard the term Roman African emperor. Was you sending me this story? Yeah, exactly, So stick around for that and also this today, we're going to discuss Baba becoming a better allied Baba. Today's Biba is sponsored by Major Threads for quality men'swear, check out major threads dot com. Today, you can become a better ally by investing in black banking. I told you the episode was going to have that as a theme.
So let's name a few of these institutions because you might think black owned bank where you know, I know, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase.
That's it.
Okay, Well, there's plenty of banks, Greenwood Incorporated, one United Bank, First Independence Bank, carb State Bank, Citizens Trust Bank, Columbia Savings and Loan, Liberty Bank, and Trust, etc.
That list goes on.
Okay, this is very googleable, right, and you don't need to keep your money in a Bank of America, Wells Fargo, et cetera. Now why is this important? Well, traditional banks. No, Let's say you take your money, you put your money into a bank. They're going to give loans disproportionately to non black borrowers, small business owners, etc. They're going to fund home ownership in non black for non black families at a higher rate.
Right.
What happens is we give loans to these banks, and they create wealth for people who are not black. They create opportunities for people who are not black based on just their mechanisms. They fund gentrification they expand the wealth gap between black and white people and families, and they're lending.
Practice sis.
Solidify our position on this end of the spectrum as black people, and so investing in black banks can actually start to make a dent in that. So do the research. But that's how you can become a better ally.
Today's tip.
All right, back to the lecture at hand, So our year in review, June June was a troubling month for us. I know, yeah, you're looking at it too. June was tough. June is when we discussed the val Day mass shooting. I feel like you know what I'm talking about. But in short, Vall Day was when a gunman went into an elementary school and shot all the kids, and when the kids died, and then they had to make like
Spider Man Coffin and all that stuff. Right by the way, this country still hasn't done anything to anything significant to change the likelihood of that happening again. And I will say that where I see the most friction and the most difficulty in creating those changes is with the conservative facet of this country, i e. The Republicans. So again back to you know, why do black people vote Democrat? You know anyway, and they.
Have no intentions on doing anything either. Yeah, we know that governor of the state where this happened went to an NRA rally or just like the next day, the day after. Yeah.
So anyway, the question that we asked ourselves when we actually did this episode was did the police really just stand there while children were shot?
Unfortunately? Yes, So we asked a question earlier, do please make you safer? The evidence would say no, mister John, Right, so, counselor John. So anyway, I remember having to have this conversation. You know, we we have to be very transparent here. You know, we have some longtime listeners of this show
and we appreciate that support. But after the past couple of months, we have a lot of new listeners, particularly in the in the podcast space, and starting in January, we should have a lot more listeners nationally as well. So some of these stories may not have made it to you. But one thing that you need to know is that I'm a father.
I have two little boys, and Q is a father and he has a little boy and a little girl, and they're about as precious as they can be. And so the Suvalde thing hit different because because it did. Why would I have to even explain that. I mean, I'm sure you get what I'm saying. You said it, and I thought it almost at the same time. It hit different because it did to even if we weren't parents.
Thank you. You know what I mean. Like, once upon a time there were people in this country who felt right that the people who vote that way, the people who sympathize with nothing changing after these outcomes. It's because it doesn't hit home from them. For them, it's not their children, or it's not children. And then one of these mass shootings hit in Colorado, where was their children, where the kids did look like them. Nothing changed still because to a capitalist society, it's capital.
Over everything that's fair, profit over everything, even our babies, well even the lives and safety of our babies.
It's enough to make your stomach turning. I remember we had this conversation because neither one of us were really hyped to jump on the radio after that. But I will say this, it might have been two thousand and eleven ish somewhere in there Sandy Hook, another school shooting where a bunch of babies got mowed down. They didn't get to grow up that was the end of their story. They went to school and then they didn't go home
that day. I went and my firstborn from school, and I took him to Toys r us And because that hit different, because you know, I grew up around mass shootings. This is not new, you know as well as I do. But when this aval Day thing happened, I had a little boy who was in the second grade, which I believe was approximately the age of the students that were murdered at Uvalde. And I knew that I was going to have to do something because the government wasn't doing anything.
And I knew I was going to have to talk to my son, and so I brought my seven year old at the time on the radio, you remember that episode cute, and he sat here with.
Of course I do at a nia's naivete, innocence, ignorance to the darkest parts of this story shown right through.
Man. He is not ready for that, But I'm his father. I have to let him know. Hey, listen, if you hear some noises at your school, I need you to run. I need you to don't help anybody. Do you have to survive. You come home to me. Okay, you go somewhere and you hide and you stay there. I had that conversation on the radio for everyone to hear because of the Suvalde shooting, because if anybody was going to do anything, it had to be me, because my son is going to come home to me, and.
You feel irresponsible to not teach that lesson. But man, you don't want to have to.
You know what was real kudo because I monitored that show afterward, because I knew that there were going to be some people that go, hey, man, listen, you can't talk to your kid about nobody sent anything. You know a lot of times our listeners reach back out and they say, hey, you know, I like this. I didn't like that nobody said anything about that one. I mean
because unfortunate everybody, unnecessarily everybody understood that. Like listen, and you could hear if you go back and find the episode. For those we put all of our shows up as a podcast. This is a radio show for those who don't know, but we put all of our shows up as a podcast. You can go and find this episode.
This was in June, and you'll hear his little voice answer these questions and I'm like, hey, baby, do you know that sometimes people go into the school and they shoot little kids, and he's like, no.
Once companies started to market bulletproof school supplies, we were too lost in the sauce. It's like, wow, the answer is not to make it safer actually, but to give the false impression that it is bulletproof book bags.
So yeah, anyway, we also talked about reparations in June.
This is something that.
There's a lot we can talk about, maybe two things a week on the show, you know what I mean. Like at length, there's a lot of things going on, and all of them work together, but they're all kind of independent as well, you know what I mean. And I think that this gives a lot of our listeners a glimpse into what it is that black people are asking for, because a lot of folks, if you don't know, it's like, well, black people always complain, and black people
always want something for free. Black people want this. Black people want that. They want rights. Everybody's got the same rights. So I think, what's privilege? I don't have any privilege. Nobody gave me anything when I started out, you know. So this show we get to explain all of these little things to people and kind of give them a glimpse into Hey, you know, it's not the same over here.
Because it's very easy for us to access what a white reality would be like, it's often more difficult for a person where that's their reality to conceive of what a black reality would be like. And so reparations had its day in June that year. This year, I should say, where we outline some of the less obvious wise in
terms of how reparations make sense. We also took some time to perform another thought experiment that helped our listeners understand how by simply acknowledging the harm that slavery had on black people, just acknowledging it, that could be beneficial. Now, acknowledging harm doesn't have a dollar amount assigned to it, right, And the truth is, if you were to try to, like really put a number on that, you turn off a lot of people who are in a position to actually make that happen.
Right, which is so strange. But the argument would be worth his money coming from we don't have it, yah YadA YadA, but we send there's always money for us that people want of billions of dollars to other countries stay in their wars you know what I mean, Like, it's it's not a lack of funding. People, Yeah, please don't convince yourselves of that.
But in this particular facet, we I remember having this conversation where we were saying that, you know, just simply acknowledging, Hey, this is meant to address some of the things that this country has done, some of the wrongs that we've done on a human level. This was wrong, we did wrong. This is for our part, and that acknowledgement it validates it. Just to you know what I'm saying. When you're born black and you look around and you're like, dam I'm black.
Everybody else is black and is poor, and that's normal. That's just the state of black people. Why why can't we be happy? Why can't you know, I heard someone say on social media post the other days, like why is it that black people are always waiting to get the reward in heaven? But we have to be miserable on Earth and every community, every city coast to coast
and Africa. You know, Africa has been robbed of all of our wealth, of all you know what I'm saying, And it's not unlike what happened, you know in the United States with Native Americans.
It's just how did this happen? How? Yeah, man?
And how is this okay? How's there's this stunning silence associated with it. And when you start to address it by saying, listen, this was wrong. Here's what we're going to do about it right now, that acknowledgment helps you to reorient your place in the world.
Oh, this wasn't supposed to be like this.
I'm not bad because I'm bad. I'm not poor because I'm supposed to be poor. There is something here that definitively happened that set us on this course. And I just happened to be born at this time. And so my reality is not the result of my people me just being punished or being you know whatever. It's it's a result of some bad people making some bad choices. And again we spent that time talking about that my bad I felt like I might have cut you off.
No, I was just going to point out that it's having to be born where the world looks at all of your shortcomings, your oppression, your marginalization, your losses, you being kidnapped, trafficked, sold murdered, raped, It's not just a part of your history but a part of your history that you know yet it happened, and right because you guys can't see me, but I'm a shrug shrugging because to say I'm sorry, you'd have to acknowledge what you did.
So let's not do that, right, because that was so long agoing, why are we even making it a big deal anymore? And you look at throughout the world, right, slavery the way that it happened on this country probably singular to this country, definitely, right, but oppression and colonization, and you know, words like commonwealth used to make that colonization seem like it was for everyone. The words like that's being used today, by the way, it's a it's
it's a troubling reality. Man. You know, I see my brothers and sisters talk about you know, I had never chosen to be anything but black as a very very powerful and proud sentiment to say out loud. It's a hard one to mean though, to actually mean, because there's no point throughout history we're looking like us was in vogue to a point where life was good here anyway in this country. Yeah, so.
Yeah, reparations moving on July. Oh, sorry, this is still in June yes and June teenth. We had a conversation about how to celebrate June teenth with black people. That was a fun one. Okay, all right, let me paint this picture. Juneteenth now national holiday federally recognized. I think that was one of the things that Biden did that many people called performative. Right, And whatever the case is, it's not zero. We're used to getting zero, so anything
that's not zero is something. Progress is slow.
We know that we, like you, are annoyed that it came very much after much grander promises. Right, sure, but we take our wins where we can get them, you know what I mean. And that's something. But we had to help this show for those who don't know. We create a show that allows us to have black conversations in full view of non black people. Our game with this show is to help create stronger allies, to empower people,
to give people knowledge. Just want somebody to teach me how to be their brother because I was born to love.
So if you're like me, then I make this show for you. If you're like Q, then Q makes this show for you.
Right.
So, when it came time to answer this question, how do we celebrate Juneteenth with black people.
This was felt like it was perfect for us. Okay, listen, here's what you do.
All right, So I remember this conversation. We're basically just saying, you know, you celebrate it just like you would celebrate any other holiday, right, you'd be mindful of Like if you're going to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, recognize there's a commercial element to it. You do things that aren't disrespectful to Irish people. If you're go ahead, jump in. I'm jumping in like I had a few more examples, but go ahead.
Yeah, So this is my position then and now it's really really hard to gate keep. Yeah, the celebration of it is now you're saying to hey, everybody, come celebrate this, say don't celebrate it like that. Right, I've worn and it kissed me. I'm Irish shirt on Saint Patrick's Day. I don't know that that's not offensive to anyone Irish. Right.
So it's like the full commercialization of that holiday is why it's so popular, right, So to it's like, hey, recognize us, Okay, now as you recognize there's something like that, No, no, no, you can't do like that either. So there's a there's a kind of hand holding that should happen instead of a gatekeeping and like looking at that's like looking to shut people down for doing it wrong. And it's like, hey, this is everyone's first time and every other holiday in
this country that's from someone else's culture. Those people have allowed the full participation of people that are not from their culture in a way that it seemed like we're not prepared to do.
Now, You're absolutely right what I was saying here is in far as far as the example of Saint Patrick's Day, I have not seen in my lifetime a person who dresses like, let's say, a leprechaun and then puts like a big fake nose on and uh is you know, like there's there's a way to do a caricature of someone's cultural identity or culture outright, and I haven't seen that happen. I've seen people wear kiss me on Irish shirts. I have a grandma who is she was half Irish,
half Cuban. So I guess I what is that of eighth Irish or sixteenth Irish or something like that, sixteenth Cuban, whatever that is.
Whatever that adds up to.
So I guess I could wear it something like.
That if I wanted to sure, but then you still look like Rams, yeah that's my that's my point.
Yeah, right, like but but here's the thing or this hole day. In this episode, we were making sure that folks knew it was okay to celebrate with us. Think about it the same way you would think about any of the other holidays. Know that there are some sensitivities, but be prepared to learn from those sensitivities for your social circle, for your community, and then use that and use your best judgment. But do not be afraid because
there's an opportunity here for fellowship. There's an opportunity to learn. I learned about Saint Patrick's Day. I learned about Thanksgiving and what that was before it became Indigenous People's Day. I learned about the history of all these people, where these holidays and these traditions come from. So use it as an opportunity to learn. If you can learn from the people who are responsible for it, learn why it exists. White people celebrate it, and if you feel you get
the day off of work now. So if you feel like celebrating that at the park, go celebrate at the park, even if you're not black. You know what I'm saying. But you know, don't let the moment pass you by without taking a second to honor the fact that in this instance, there are people who died, you know, during slavery.
There's a tremendous amount of atrocities during slavery. And the freeing of the slaves is why Juneteenth, well, I guess the late fet fring of the slaves why Juneteenth really matters.
So there should be the understanding that they were already free. There you go, that's why that's a holiday. And let's help people celebrate with us instead of gate keeping. Yeah.
Absolutely, and in a way that we might be inclined to that we can build here. I love the idea of building bridges rather than destroying you know, relationships or putting up walls. Bridges not walls. That's it, all right. July, we talked about the Robi Wade decision. We talked about Jalen Walker, he's the man who was shot sixty times by the police. We discussed why black on black crime it's not a real thing, so fellas, we've had that
conversation any times. We talked about that Sesame Street parade where the little Black girls got ignored. We went to August and discussed why midterm elections were important. Of course, we had to get ready for the midterms at that point. To whom are police accountable? That's an important question.
As well themselves.
It seems no one else how stereotypes affect black children and growing up, and we shared examples of our childhood growing up, the stereotypes that we understood to be true, how it kind of closed us. In September, we talked about environmental racism, specifically Jackson, Mississippi, with they didn't have clean running water in Flint, Michigan and Flint as well, very very black communities by the way, exactly, and how you wouldn't see that happening in a non black community.
We also talked about in September. This was when The Little Mermaid came out and the actress was black, and we talked about black people in fairy tales, not just Little Mermaid, but we also talked about it in like a Hobbit or Lord of the Rings thing in the Game of Thrones, you know stuff. And then in October we talked about voter suppression initiatives and what those were. We talked about a couple of videos we interviewed with Isaac Kay's the third and then that brings us approximately
to where we are now. So that's our year in review. Had a good year, man looking forward to next year. But now it's time for the Way Black History Fact. Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by the Black Information Network Daily Podcast and we are discussing the great African Roman Emperor. So I will read from my notes here. In eighty one ninety three, Lucius Septimius Severus was named ruler of the Roman Empire, and doing so, became Rome's first African emperor.
What a name.
There's a lot of names here, but yeah, that's he got.
Might I might change my name?
Say it again, Septimius Severus. Oh sorry, Lucius Septimius Severus.
Yeah, man was doing it. If you guys, I'll think about it, because I might have to go with that all right.
After emerging victorious from a period of civil war, Severus expanded the border of the empire to new heights. Ushered in a period of imperial transformation and founded a dynasty born in eighty one forty five in the prominent Roman
Libyan city of Leptis Magna in Africa. Severus came from a wealthy and prominent local family, and eighty one sixty two Severus went to Rome and was granted entry into the senatorial ranks after his cousin Guia Septimus Severus, had recommended him to Emperor Marcus Arielus.
There's a lot of essays here.
Severus rose through the ranks of the Cursus honorum, which were public offices held by aspiring Roman politicians, gaining entry into the Roman Senate in eighty one seventy and being appointed Legatus, a senior position in the Roman army in AD one seventy three, after his cousin became proconsul of the Province of Africa. Two years later, he married Pasia Marciana,
a woman from his home city of Leptis Magna. The marriage would last a little over ten years before Marciana passed away in eighty one eighty six of natural causes. A year later, during his time as governor of Gaul and living in the city of Lugdanum modern day Lion in France or at Leon, Severus married Julia Domna from Syria, and the pair would have two sons. Lucia's Septimus Bassanius, later nicknamed Caracalla after the Gaelic hooded tunic he always wore,
and Publius Septimus getta all right? In eighty ninety and sorry. In eighty one ninety one, the then Emperor Commodus made Severus governor of Hanoia Superior, a province on the Danube frontier.
I think that's how I'll say that.
The following year, Commodus was assassinated in an eighty one one three, his successor, Publius Helvius Pertinax, was declared Emperor, heralding in the year of the Five Emperors, a time in which five men claimed the title of the Roman emperor. Pertinax's reign would last just eighty six days before a disgruntled Praetorian Guard, which were household troops of the Roman emperors, unhappy with Pertinax's efforts to enforce stricter discipline within their ranks,
assassinated him. Wow The Praytorian Guard then did something remarkable and auctioned off the emperorship to the highest bidder. The wealthy center Didius Julianus offered the most money for their support, and subsequently secured the job. How Julianus had bought his way to the top made him very unpopular in Rome, and as such three candidates emerged as rivals to the imperial throne. Clodius Albinus was the governor of Britain, Pasinius Niger,
governor of Sirius, and Severus, governor of Gaul. By commanding the largest army closest to Rome, Severus had the upper hand. He secured the support of Albinius by offering him the title of Caesar, thus guaranteeing him a place in the Imperial secession if Severus were to be successful. Now, I know it's a lot of names, but baron mind, Severus
is the African right. In June one ninety three, Severus marched on Rome, declaring himself the avenger of Pertinax, and before he'd even entered the city was declared emperor by the Senate. Giulianus was executed in the palace after ruling
for a mere sixty six days. Severus quickly secured his power within Rome by dissolving the current Praetorian Guard and filling its ranks with soldiers loyal to him, as well as raising three new legions in eight one ninety four, Severus looked to quell any threat from Niger in Syria and defeated him at the Battle of Issus. While in the East, Severus turned his forces against those Parthian vassals who had backed Niger. His next move saw him come
into conflict with his short time out Albinius. Hoping to secure family dynasty, Severus declared his eldest son Karcala as Caesar, effected, effectively severing ties with Albinius and quashing any successional hopes the governor of Britain might have had. Albinius subsequently marched into Gaul and the forces of the two men clashed in eighty one ninety seven at the hard fought Battle of Lugbanum, a fight said to be the largest and
bloodiest of all clashes between Roman forces. Severus emerged victorious and secured full control over the Roman Empire. He then carried out a purge of the Roman Senate, executing any who opposed him or shown favor to Albinius. Severus then waged a successful campaign against the Parthian Empire and the East, supposedly in retaliation for their support of Niger. As forces sacked the Parthian capital city of Testiphon, and added the
northern half of Mesopotamia to the Empire. For his efforts, a triumphal arch was erected in several his honor at the Roman Forum. Severus enlarged the Roman Empire further with campaigns in Africa and Britain. He made significant gains in Caledonia which is modern Scotland how about that, and strengthened Harden's Wall, but fell short of his ultimate goal of bringing the whole British island under his rule. It was in Roman Britain that Severus would see his final days.
Ill health, most likely caused by gout, took a toll on the emperor, who passed away in eighty to eleven at the age of sixty five. On his deathbed, he was said to give the following advice to his sons, be good to one another, enrich the soldiers, and forget the rest. It was his treatment of the soldiers that did indeed secure Severus's reign. His military reform saw wage increases for soldiers, along with the removal of the marriage ban,
allowing military men to have wives. His treatment of the army would become a model that future emperors would emulate. And that is the story of not only the africa An emperor you never knew about, but really a story about the expansion of the Roman Empire that you didn't know about. And you know, these little nuggets of history that don't make their way to us make us feel oftentimes like, well, we were just hanging out in Africa with bones in our noses, and there's so much more there.
And it's it's sad that our history has to run alongside what would be considered white history, I guess nowadays, or I guess world history, you know, but it's really our history, and it's because we kept from us too, right, right. But where I was going with this, where I was going with this, is that a lot of our history in Africa. You know, I learned when I was in Egypt that a lot of people thought that was pagan, so they just destroyed it, you know, all this sort
of stuff. But you know, all the Romans and the Greeks and all this stuff they learned from Africa. They learned science, religion, mathematics, everything from Africa and then pass it off as their own. These are facts. These aren't conspiracy theories, Trust me. I know, because I wouldn't share any of that if it weren't true. All right, that's it for us today on Civic Scifer once again, I'm your host, Rams's.
Jah, he is Rams' Jah, I am Q Ward. We appreciate you guys tuning in with us again another I don't like to call these episodes because these are more like family meetings than we have. Yeah, yeah, but.
Yeah, you're right, man. Another episode, another year, you know, another year in the books. So we're going to keep doing.
What we do.
We appreciate all the support, well especially the recent support, because we got a lot of really amazing things in the work. I know, we keep teasing it. When the time is right, we will share more with you. But just know that it's all coming out. And in the meantime with the website civiccer dot com, I'm downloaded in in previous episodes. Send us your topics naked donation, follow us on social media at Civic Cipher. I am Ramsey's Job, tw worders, I am Q World and until next week, a peace.
Y'all, yo, we handle it. These brothers are fabulous. Our lady showing you where ROMB traveled. This will speak to you from sunlight to move, busting on stage like gonna fights the mood, go my mic back.
You're like that.
Jonal list with journalist too. We can strike back all cover borders with waters from head borders behind in the beline sides up and the border for press pass.
We bring it to you as it.
Happens the streets love pop to him from music, your rapping, the street compan the slash, we expando. You'renna fight the slander with the proper propaganda.
What's happening, It's happen.
You've got a questions to ask if Deduce is just a TV show you're pasting and this from a white wartime journalist headlines wait, got previeas and resist like this, like this, like this, like
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