Empathizing with the Wildfire Victims in California (Part 2)

in some markets. Some markets it's less than that, and so we don't always get to get to all the stories in a timely manner. But we felt like these fires is something that's really important to discuss because we've seen obviously the coverage of the fires, which has subsided a bit now, but it's still very important for us to talk about it. But we also recognize that a lot of people think that it's just celebrity houses burning up, and a lot of people think it's coastal elites and

and that sort of thing. It's and and there's real people out there live human lives that are not celebrities, are not millionaires, And we're going to share a story of a black community, so stay tuned for that. But before we get there, it is time to be Aba. Become a Better Ally BABA and Today's BABA sponsored by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for the freevoter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with

your spending again fotemglobal dot com. And this is something that we wanted to get to as well, but we're just getting to it now, so forgive me it's a little late. But this from People magazine, Caitlin Clark had a strong response to Megan Kelly's criticism about her recent

comments regarding white privilege in the WNBA. After twenty two year old Clark, who was just named Times Athlete of the Year, said in her interview with the magazine that she's aware there's privilege as a white player in the league.

Kelly fifty four called Clark's statements condescending and fake in a post on X A day later, Clark spoke at a Year in Time event in New York City where NBC Sports Maria Taylor asked her about Kelly's criticism and how she handles the pressure of heavy topics coming down on her shoulders. Quote. I feel like I've always had a really good perspective on everything happened in my life,

Clark told Taylor. The Indiana FIEB Star went on to reiterator comments made in the Time article, telling Taylor, quote, I feel like I've earned every single thing that's happened to me over the course of my career. But I also grew up a fan of this league from a very young age, noting that her favorite player growing up

was Minnesota Lynk's great Maya Moore, a black woman. Clark continued, quote, I know what this league is about, and like I said, it's only been around twenty five plus years, so I know that there's been so many amazing black women that have been in this league, and continuing to uplift them is very important and that's something I'm very aware of. And Caitlin Clark, for that, I say, you are this week's example of a better ally using those platforms to

make sure that black women are lifted up. Especially at a time when these huge corporations are turning their backs on black women. That feels even more special, and you know, keep going.

were not actually fans or supporters of her. They tried to make her the avatar or the mascot for their hate and when she did not share it with them, all of those people immediately turned their back on her. So shout out to Kaitlyn Clark for showing up when it wasn't easy to do.

Information Network. We've had a number of conversations with people who are on the ground, you know, making a difference out there, and for people that have taken a moment to try to imagine what it would be like to look around one day after waking up and everything that you have ever had is burned up, and there's no towel to dry off when you get out of the shower, and there's no toilet paper, there's no toilet, there's no house.

Everything you ever earned, everything you ever purchased, everything that you held dear, every memory, every photo all gone. You know, for people that understood what it's like to flee in fear of your life, people that you know have not been in that position. I've been in that position. I've been in a house fire before. I lost all my baby pictures. That's what I have done, all my stuff when I was a little model, child model and child actor.

I couldn't show you that it was true, the stuff I did for HBO and early that can't show you any of that because it's all burned up in the fire. Before the Internet, of course. But for people that took a moment to try to empathize, to try to understand what that might be like, we slute you. You know, that's the first step in, you know, trying and making

a difference. But there is the truth of the matter, which is his country is as divided as it's ever been, and there's a number of people who are looking at the fires in la as though this should be happening, you know, and you know, fire does not go to Democrat's house only. Fire does not go to Republican's house only you know what I mean. I think Mel Gibson was at Mar al Lago when he found out that

his house was on fire. A lot of those wealthy people whose mansions got burned up, as you can imagine, a lot of those people, maybe not all of them, but a good number of them are people that stood to benefit from Trump's policies and were likely Trump voters, and they lost everything. We're not even talking about money. Just all your pictures. I grew up in a world with no baby pictures. I have two, and one of

them I'm kind of blurry. That's it. And it's because they We're at my aunt's house and everybody else has so many pictures. They have videos. I don't have that. They know what clothes they had. Wasn't that so cute? They get to use it. I don't have any of that. I don't even know all the memories that I could have had access to to keep over the years gone. So it's not a matter of money, that's a matter of like a part of your person your personality, humanity.

So what I'm trying to say, But I also want to talk about the fact that there are black neighborhoods in Los Angeles that you may not know about. Black neighborhoods in southern California you may not know about. Funnily enough, I'm from one of those neighborhoods. Well, I mean, my family has roots in one of thoseighborhoods is called Lafayette Park. For folks with short memories, Once upon a time black people could not buy real estate next to white people

or in white communities. There was segregation. It was the law of the land. And so there are these historical black communities that still have largely black populations in southern California and many places around the country. And there the story that we're going to share today comes from one of the communities that was affected by the fires, known

as Altadena, California. And we're going to share stories about people who are not celebrities, people who are not millionaires, people who lost everything, that lost their insurance and then they have to rebuild everything from scratch with no support. Our hope is that you know, by sharing this with you, this combined with a larger forgive me for saying this to partners that aren't you know, but there's a larger

effort from iHeartMedia. Thanks, you might be fueled to try to make an impact in some meaningful way with respect to some of these families. We're going to share from Capital b News and this comes from the middle of the article, but you know, you can check out the full article at capitoalbeanews dot com. But I'll start Less than a week after two major fires tore through the mountains and into the neighborhoods. The death toll stands at

twenty four. Two thirds of the lives lost were in Altadena, which again is the primarily and historically black suburb in southern California. In Altadena, where thousands of structures were destroyed. Economic losses around across Los Angeles are estimated at over two hundred bills billion dollars. But the wildfires are more than a test of California's economy, firefighting capabilities, or policies. They're a devastating reminder of how climate change and political

inaction compound vulnerability in black communities. As weather whiplash worsens, the insurance market collapses, and the housing crisis deepens, the state and nation is failing to meet the demands of a changing planet. For Fred Daniels, The destruction of his home and neighborhood has brought a profound sense of loss that feels all too familiar. His grandmother, a New Orleans native, was displaced by Hurricane Katrina in two thousand and five,

then Hurricane Harvey in twenty seventeen, and now this. I hope that we're able to rebuild, the US Navy veteran told Capital Be. Although everybody has the sense of it like, hey, let's stay put, let's rebuild, there's not going to be a cookie cutter approach to this. Since twenty twenty, major insurers have abandoned Altadena, leaving hundreds of black fams families like the Daniels without coverage, and like many other black families in the area, they're still expected to pay their

mortgages while covering rent elsewhere. Three days after the fire, a real estate broker contacted Daniels's mother with a deal seven thousand dollars rent for a three bedroom apartment in neighboring Monrovia, double the average rent in the area. And while we're here, that's a real thing that you know, there's been these huge rent spikes for airbnbs and you know whatever, because there's so many families. Now, California already

had a housing crisis. There were not enough homes for the people, and homes that they had were way too expensive for normal people to afford anyway. And then now with the fires and all these people displaced, there's now more families that need shelter, and so the rent shot up.

Of course, all right, so it's clears back to the article, so it's clear half a dozen residents told Capital B that those who lost homes and jobs in the fire now face recovery with a fractured safety net and the mental toll watching their community burn and during displacement and living with the constant fear of more disaster has only magnified the instability. So you know, again, for those that may not have known that this crisis goes beyond the

coastal elites. This crisis goes beyond the movie stars and the millionaires. This crisis affects people just like you. And you know, again, with that political divide, it's easy to point the finger and say, yeah, you know, that's that's what you get for being liberal. But I think that the simplest way to reframe this is using kind of that that golden rule the christ Golden rule, do unto your name as you would have them do unto you.

And you know, kind of the step one for empathy, Like if you're a human being with the capability of being empathetic, imagine if it was you. And I think that at that point you might start to kind of understand that there are people in need, the people that lose, that've lost everything, and they didn't do anything to bring this upon them, just like when they talked about, you know, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey and any other natural disaster

that happens. These aren't people that signed up to go into combat, and you know that's sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. No, these are people that went to work and when they came home the house was on fire. These are people that got up evacuation order and then they left and then the house got on fire. And I just never thought that we would live in this world with the Trump effect that you mentioned earlier in

the show. The Trump effect, for those just coming to that conversation is the Effectively, it's the effect that Donald Trump has had on the population to be more like him. And I don't know that he is the best example of a human being. It's not our finest example of what humanity can be.

way through other people's realities to achieve that. They were not the type of people to grab people by their genitals. They were not the type of people to suggest that, you know, immigrants are eating dogs and cats and all kinds of you know what I mean, like that, They're not the type of people to get folks fired up off of baseless claims, you know what I mean. So Doctor King is a great example, but you know there

are many others throughout history. If Doctor King is not the flavor you savor because he wasn't a perfect man, then you know, a good luck finding a perfect person,

you know what I mean. But the thing is is that the Trump effect and our estimation is what has happened to the population, especially the MAGA voters who have moved more in terms of their humanity, not necessarily their politics, but their humanity more in the direction of Donald Trump, which again I don't believe is the best example of humanity.

That's if the spirit of brotherhood, you know, the spirit of the aspirational spirit that we are supposed to have in terms of trying to build community with each other. We are social creatures. It is in our dmage. It's a part of who we are to form bonds and to build collectively. And the divisive nature of Donald Trump's of course, his politics and his policy, but his character should have been an alarm. But we're past that, of course.

But not only is it that he was elected, it's that the human beings that have elected him are moving toward that personality type. And for those of you that might fall under that umbrella, or more likely for those of you that know people that have fallen under that umbrella and are moving away from what should be their humanity more towards something that is more based in hatred, fear, whatever divisiveness. I wanted to make sure that we took

a moment to again interject some humanity into this. I can't believe I have to say this on the radio, but these are human beings just like you. These are people that have hopes and dreams, and they have children, and they want their children to be happy and do better than them, and they want to accomplish goals, and they want to laugh. It's not more complicated than that.

And for me to appeal to you, more than likely I'm appealing to you so that you can appeal to the people in your world on our behalf as a people, on black people's behalf specifically, that's kind of the nature of this show. But make no mistake, I know how to find my brother, my sister, my sibling in any person. I know how to find that even my brother or my sister or whatever is lost. And a lot of people are losing the capacity to find their brother, to

find their sister, to see themselves across the aisle. And I think that this was kind of necessary so that we can kind of make that plea so that we don't lose sight of the fact that, hey, we're supposed to help each other, not to kick each other when we're down. And again, with the efforts that we've seen not just from my heart but from a lot of other of our other partners, National Partners, Broadcast Partners, Radio Pacific has done a fantastic job and know OKKFR and

Phoenix has done a fantastic job of organizing. I know there's there's stations around the country that have been really on top of this. We say that you can help us too, and the first step is reminding yourself of your humanity and their humanity, and then reminding the people that are up right now they got their guy in office and they're beating their chest and they're adopting that

bully type of mentality and bully type of behavior. To remind them that that is not their natural state and the only way they get there is based off of hatred, fear, or both.

you said everything that needed to be said. And the lack of humanity, the lack of empathy, is the biggest symptom of the Trump effect, the most pronounced, the most aggressive. That people not caring about each other, only about themselves.

And when you put people in that space where all they can think about is what's best for just them, and you interject a little bit of money into that conversation, people will sell themselves, out, sell their souls, sell their families, out sell anyone who they might have had any solidarity with. Make people so desperate that you can simply offer them enough money to give up everything else that means something

to them. So you see people of every ethnic background, you know, I see gay billionaires signing with the person or siding with the person that hates gay people, Black millionaires siding with the person that hates black people. Wealthy immigrants siding with person that hates immigrants. Is going to make laws to make sure their brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles and children are not welcomed here, but they think they did it the right way, So go ahead, He'll only get the bad ones.

more excited, but here we are. So you know, I know there were some organizations that you wanted to talk about that are taking place in that are taking part rather and helping people try to get back on their feet. So I want to leave you enough time to shout them out.

so pet Colove is petcolove dot org. These have all been vetted by iHeart. This is kind of uh a lot a lot of folks have been putting time and resources into making your support translate on the ground out there. And so again c A Firefoundation dot org, la Foodbank dot org, Pasadena Humane dot org and petcolove dot org. Whichever you like, any or all of them, and uh, let's let's not forget who we are supposed to be to each other. With that said, we're gonna leave right here.

As always, i'd like to thank you for tuning into another episode of Civic Cipher. I have been your host Rams's job. He is Ramsy's jah. I am qward. You have been once again tuned into Civic Cipher. Thank you guys once again for spending some time with us like comment, subscribe, follow share, and send us a good comment every now and then. And that goes a lot for the long way.