Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I'm your host, ramses joh he is ramses Jah, I am q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Cipher d R and we have a special show for you with a special guest. This has been a long time coming. Too long, extra special guests, extra special sauce on it. Yeah, too much sauce,
but yeah. A friend of the show, a friend of ours in real life, and a person that we look up to and respect a whole lot is back in the studio with us. She goes by the name of Suzanne Aslam and she is a human rights major, former Miss Airbusay actress as well as activist turned writer. You should also know that as an activist in Palestinian American she spent time in Palestine working with a peacekeeping team
and as a deep personal understanding of the occupation. You can pre follow her at the Activist on social media and she's going to have a conversation with us that we feel again is a long time coming. There have been a lot of changes since our last conversation about Palestine, how to best show up for Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and really she's in a unique position to offer insight into the mind of a Palestinian person and how to be present in a very human moment for our brothers and
sisters who call Palestine home. So welcome back to the show.
Thank you.
Yeah, and we're also going to spend some time talking about what we should be thinking about when we head to the ballot box in November in terms of keeping our Palestinian brothers and sisters in mind as well. So all that and more coming up on the show. But before we get there, let's do like we always do and start off with some ebony excellence. Shall we think you shall?
This week's Ebony Excellence is sponsored by actively Black. There is greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. Story comes from USA today. Kendrick Lamar is headed to the super Bowl. A Compton to.
The Super Bowl to Compton One Time.
Then Not Like Us.
Rapper, at thirty seven years old, is set to perform during the twenty twenty five Apple Music.
Super Bowl halftime show.
He shared this new Sunday in a YouTube video that showed Lamar on the football field in front of a giant American flag. He said, quote, my name is Kendrick Lamar, and I'll be performing at Super Bowl. I think this is fifty nine. Will you be pulling up? I hope so. Rock Nation, Apple Music, and the NFL confirmed the news in a news release, and the NFL shared a promotional poster on Twitter that showed Lamar sitting on a football field.
Rap music is still the more impactful genre to date, Lamar said in a statement on Sunday, and I'll be there to remind the world why they got the right one. Kendrick Lamar is having a incredible year, wouldn't you say?
Ram?
I would say that, and everybody who's being critical, I would say that, you know, bite your tongue.
Yeah, there's a and bi critical. There's a swell on these internets and social media places that people are determined that there should be more New Orleans.
Hip hop artists featured in this show.
And I'll say this one, we have no idea who's going to be featured in the show yet it's five months away.
Two.
The only time in the history of the Super Bowl that a hometown artist performed was in Los Angeles two years ago. Three a hip hop artists singularly headlining the Super Bowl should be celebratory for every one.
We're gonna talk more about that on the Black Information Network. That needs some unpacking. Anyway, Suzanne Oslam is back on the show with us, and you have been up to something since we last spoke, so.
Bring us up to speed.
I know you've been doing some traveling.
You know.
What was the nature of your travels?
Just kind of Oh, yes, I went to a tiny little place no one's sort of called Palestine.
Yeah, okay.
I was there in July for a wedding because, believe it or not, life still goes on as much as possible, and my cousin was getting married, so I had the privilege of going and spending a week's worth of just ceremonies. You know, every night there was something and it was
so incredibly beautiful. And it was extra beautiful because the night of his actual wedding, between leaving the church and going to the Hall where Christians, so we had the ceremony at the church, we got news that down the road and the next town over, some Israeli snipers had just like pulled up in tanks in front of the Mehad which is the Church of the Nativity, and then in beit Jaala, which is another town nearby, they rolled up in tanks, snipers came out, and they kind of
just posted up and we didn't know why, and so everybody was a little bit nervous, and it was so strange to kind of watch it from this vantage point where we're at a wedding and my cousin just got married to his beautiful bride and we're so celebratory and everybody's dressed up and makeup and dresses and it's so fun. And then at the same time we had to hold that information and going, Okay, what's happening to our brothers
and sisters down the street. What do we do? So when we got to the hall, the DJ said, look, we're gonna go on, but take take the pictures that you want, take the videos that you want, but let's, out of respect, just not post anything tonight until we know more. And they're always functioning that way. They're always trying to find this balance of joy while also living
in chaos. And having that moment to experience that was really was really beautiful because it just shows so much of the resilience that they have, and they're not willing to joy is a part of resistance, you know, they're not willing to.
Give that up. I forgot who said it, but when you say that joy is a part of resistance, I've heard that, Like it almost might have been Bar for Bar what you said. It's such a special thing to think how surviving and thriving and being happy and smiling is it'll break the spirit of your enemy. Yes, yeah, and that's something that I think that is. It is certainly noteworthy. I want to mention something here. Did this take place in the West Bank?
It did in Bethlehem.
That's incredible.
Congratulations and blessings to the family as well.
Absolutely. One of the things that happened while I was here and you were there. You don't know this, but I was invited to a I guess it's a form of protest. It was a movie screening.
You know.
I had been, of course, to the college campuses for those protests, and I had been, you know, all these neat little places where I can support in any meaningful way that I can. But I was invited to this movie screening and it was like transformative in a way that I didn't expect. Forgive me, because I know we've we've shouted out this movie on the show before, Q and I have, but I feel like it's called Where
Olive Trees Grow. That's it, okay with Okay, I love him, Okay, And I can't spoil the end of the movie for you.
Do you know the ending of You haven't seen it?
You haven't, Okay, Well, then I can't spoil the movie the ending of the movie for everyone. But if you're able to watch this movie, then I'm sure that you will kind of appreciate a perspective that I had come to appreciate famously on the show. I mentioned to you before, I mentioned to our our brother resistance is beautiful.
That I grew up.
Being nurtured by Jewish people, and so my default setting has always been protect Jewish people, Protect Jewish people, and it still is and it will be in perpetuity. So I didn't think beyond just the faith, to what is the political structure look like in Israel. I didn't even think Israel, you know what I mean? This was just a problem that was too far away from me. I didn't I didn't know what Zion is meant and I
did all these things I was unaware of. And during this time, since last year around October seventh, we're about a year in. Now I've come to know much more, and I can see more parallels in the Palestinian people's plight and black people's plight in this country. Then I'm able to see, you know, I'm also able to see like the political structure as being oppressive in Israel over Palestinian folks. And a year in having at least a
basis to receive that movie, it's heartbreaking. It's just flat heartbreaking, I mean. And the craziest part about it is, like you said, the whole movie there's gunshots, there's people trying to do interviews and they're afraid, and there's people talking about their children, and I can say that's part the whole movie takes place in the West Bank, right, But they smile. There's joy in that movie, and then it has like an m Night Shalaman ending and you're like,
You're like, what you know? So I highly recommend that you check that out. Now, I don't want to get too far off. I do want you to talk more some recent things that have happened, and you know, just
kind of give us your thoughts, your reflections. There's been news news stories, headlines of hostages being recovered from hamas and news stories of hostages being killed, and you know, net and Yahoo had this big pushback on the ground because of the hostages that he had been saying he was going to rescue, rather than him being able to kind of twist that narrative and say, see, I told you these were bad guys that people kind of turned
against him a little bit, at least that's what I sawloading. Okay, so talk to us a little bit about kind of how that moment hits you.
Well, they still remember. The Israeli people still remember that before all this happened, they were out in the streets protesting Netanyahu because he's been on they'se got allegations against him for corruption and fraud and some other things. And for a while a short amount of time, he wasn't a prime minister. A guy named Naftali was prime was the prime minister, and so they were out on the streets protesting him, demanding elections. So they already kind of
have a bad idea of bb BB's his nickname. So when this happened when he didn't get the hostages back, when he didn't make the hostages a priority for the Israeli people, this just just kind of further cemented their opinion of him. He I think, as a politician, was using it to go, oh, this is so great, like now I'm going to go to war and we're defending our people against these terrorists. But so many Israeli saw it, well, you're not. We don't care about that. We want you
to get our hostages home. And the fact that wasn't his focus. They saw through that they had so many opportunities for a ceasefire deal, and it was always you won't hear this in the mainstream media because my whole life people have said, oh, Israel offered a peace deal in the Palcini and said no, it's always the opposite.
Or they'll offer a peace deal where we get absolutely nothing, and then they go, I don't understand why you said no. So there's been so many offerings of a peace deal, of a ceasefire and Israel will say no, or they will say something like sure, but we're going to keep bombing, like it just doesn't make sense, and so they see through that. I will also say though, that when you see the protesters out in the streets in Tel Aviv, half a million, Yes, they are not protesting the end
of the genocide. That needs to be noted. They are not saying, hey, the genocide is terrible, or even calling it a genocide. They just are focused on their hostages. I flew into Tel Aviv, which is really weird to do, and to share the airspace with the same airplanes that are bombing my brothers and sisters in Gaza. It was very weird for me. When I got into the airport, there were you know, the the yellow tie that represents the hostages. We used to do it for soldiers who
died inn I rocked the ribbon. Yeah, thank you. They were everywhere, and it was pictures just on the floor, just lined against the halls of the airport, of the hostages. That is the primary focus of the Israeli people. In the Israeli government's view, like the narrative that they want to push is oh, the hostages, that's why we're doing what we're doing. But their people are not happy with it.
Another thing that I want to add here is there was a recent article that came out that said, a number of country have stopped supplying weapons to Israel. The United States is not on that list, correct yet. I don't know that the United States will be on that list, but I just kind of wanted to get your thoughts because the last time we spoke, it was about how global support had continually shifted away from Israel in favor
of Palestinian folks. So when you came across that headline, you know, well.
So two things. The UK recently suspended licenses to send weapons some kind I can't remember the terminology, but they suspended like thirty out of three hundred and fifty or some like ridiculous number like that, So it'd been a It's kind of a good start, but thirty out of hundreds doesn't seem like you're really trying. It seems like you're trying to just shut us up, because if you really thought what they were doing was bad, why wouldn't
you just suspend all licenses. Secondly, the United States is it supplies seventy percent of Israel's arms exports seventy percent. Not only that, but the US is responsible for the upkeep of these weapons, so when they need parts and things like that, we also participate in that.
If we were.
To stop, we as in the United States.
Yes, if the America was to stop, and everybody else even tried to keep going, if America stopped, the genocide would stop grind to a halt. Yes, because we are seventy percent of the arms exports that they receive. So it's nice that the other countries are doing that, but it's not as important as the United States stopping.
All right, We're going to get to some of the We're gonna shift gears here, do it. Okay, you are our sister, we are your brothers. This conversation is for us to learn and for our listeners to learn. Everything that we say, and if it sounds challenging, will come from a place of love.
Uh, We're like that.
That's it. We were invited to Kamala Harris rally. We're gonna talk more about this in the second half of the show, but we were invited to a Kamala Harris rally and we went this is what we do and she was talking and there was a group of people up in the corner of the stadium and those people got active. And that's my kind of people, right, because I get active. I get outside. You can see me in the streets with a sign with my sons doing whatever,
right Q two. I mean I'm not gonna you know, but I like that energy.
I like.
Okay, let's direct action, voting and all of that too, but direct action.
Right.
So when they started getting busy, and remember I march with these people, like some of them, I know, you know, sit ins, you know, pass out water, receive water from, you know, wrote signs with all of that, these same people when they start interrupting her speech, as they should in my opinion, in my opinion, as they should. Not everybody agrees with that, that's okay, but some people got the mic and some don't. And those people have lives and their lives have work, and they have values, and
they have to end if they can't express themselves. And they get together and they shout that's how it goes. That's you know, you can fight me in the street over that. Kamala Harris says something that says she I don't know exactly what she said, but effectually she said, you know that she wants to do more.
Or to support.
Palestinian independence, autonomous determination determination. Now, that same thing happened while I'm reading a headline on my phone that says the United States sends however many billion more worth of weapons to Israel. Right, how does that take us into a moment like that with you where it might feel like somebody is talking out of both sides of her mouth, or do you make a distinction.
There's there's no distinction, okay, so talk to us, zero distinction.
That is your.
Insane to me for her to go what she has said, almost verbatim, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is so sad as if it were a hurricane that went through. Okay, that it was completely out of our control. It's just so sad and so horrible what's happening. And then in the same breath say, I support Israel one hundred percent, and it's right to defend itself, defend itself from whom. The bombs that they're dropping on innocent civilians in Gaza, it makes no sense, but it makes sense if you
realize that APAC has given her millions of dollars. A pack is technically, legally in America a lobby group, but really they're a foreign agent. They're a foreign agent that is in line with only Israel's interest, and they are single handedly responsible for turning this place into the United States of Israel. They have managed to get laws passed that only benefit laws in America that only benefit the
State of Israel, like anti boycott laws. So and she's funded by these people, she gets she has gotten more money from APAC than Trump has. And I'm not saying Trump's a good guy. I'm just saying that she's not this savior that's going to come and save us from Trump. She's just taking us down a different path to the same hell. Hers is just prettier and is blue. That's it,
And she might get us there slower. But there's nothing about what she's saying that actually shows to us that she wants to stop the killing, actually provide self determination. Because if she cared about the self determination of Palestinians, she would want to stop the settlements, the illegals Raeli settlements that are happening across the West Bank. She would want to stop Israel Gaza from being demolished so they can actually rebuild. Right now, it's uninhabitable. It's just like,
there's no way you can't live there right now. So what about what she's allegedly saying proves to me that she actually cares. Right now, it's an election season. She's supposed to be saying the things that get her elected, right she is saying things that to us show that she does not care about the Arab American vote, She does not care about the progressive vote. She does not actually care about ending the thing that we are most
complicit in, which is genocide. So it kind of doesn't matter to me if you come to me with a list of all of her accomplishments, if she has any and says, oh, but look look what she did. She's lowered taxes. Does that matter if she commits genocide? And she is, because this is not the Biden administration. It is the Biden Harris administration. It's not like she's not in office and she's running for office. She's already in office. She has the second highest position in office. So to
tell me that she's not currently complicit is insane. And again, she's not using any of her words to prove otherwise. She unequivocally stands with Israel and has stated as such. So what about her makes her better? In that she's again I don't like Trump. He uses Palestine as a slur he uses our name is a slur. But what about her? She's the one currently camitting genocide, That's all I got to say. And we created the United Nations to stop genocide. Like that's the line, right, isn't that
the line? Hey, we're not going to support people who commit genocide? So does it matter? Like how many good things does she have to do to equate the fact that she's still committing genocide?
So what we're going to do is we're going to talk more about that in the next part of the show, because that's what the whole next part of the show is dedicated to. How do we kind of reconcile the position that we're in with the things that we want. And I feel like you can give us some insight into the mind of a Palestinian person and how that
must feel. That's something that we can provide. I do want to also add to the APAC thing that they spent a lot of money to oust a lot of really good candidates, and really specific primarily black.
They want in some cases and they lost in some other cases.
So we got a lot to talk about and it's going to be heavy, But before we get there, let's talk about our way Black History fact. Today's Way Black History factice sponsored by Major Threads for innovative, fashionable sportswear. Checkmajor threads dot com. Today's reading comes from Politico and we're talking about tipping. You might not think of tipping as the legacy of slavery, but it has a far
more racialized history than most Americans realized. Tipping originated in feudal Europe and was imported back to the United States by American travelers eager to seem sophisticated. The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as US employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid
paying formally enslaved workers. Tipping further entrenched a unique and often racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer to earn anything at all. A journalist quoted in Carrie's Seagrave's two thousand and nine book Tipping and American Social History of Gratitudes wrote in nineteen oh two that he was embarrassed to offer a tip to a white man.
Quote.
Negroes take tips, of course, expects that of them it is a token of their inferiority. He wrote, goes on to say tips go with servility, and no man who is a voter in this country is in the least justified in being in service. The immorality of paying an insufficient wage to workers who then were forced to rely on tips was acknowledged at the time. In his popular nineteen sixteen anti tipping study The Itching Palm, writer William Scott described tipping as an aristocratic custom that went against
American ideals. Quote the relation of man of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation of master and slave. Goes on to say, a citizen in the Republic ought to stand shoulder to shoulder with every other citizen, with no thought of cringing, without an assumption of superiority or acknowledgment of inferiority. Several states sought to end the practice in the early nineteen hundreds, often in recognition of its racist roots, but
in the restaurant industry. Sorry, The restaurant industry fought back and was powerful enough to roll back local bands on tipping and tip workers along with most others. As the Act applied to industries that together made up only one fifth of the labor force were excluded from the first limited federal minimum wage law, passed in nineteen thirty eight.
It took until nineteen sixty six for advocates to win a base wage for tipped workers, and that amounted to only fifty percent of the minimum wage already guaranteed to other workers. Congress continued to raise the subminimum wage tipped until nineteen ninety six, when Hermann Kine, who headed the National Restaurant Association at the time, offered legislators of bargain the industry would accept a small increase in the minimum wage as long as the tipped wage was frozen at
two dollars and thirteen cents an hour. Congress agreed to the deal, and the tipped minimum wage remains at just two dollars and thirteen cents to this day. Research also shows that tipping itself has a racial component. Customers generally give white workers bigger tips and black workers regardless of service quality. Thanks in part to segregation within the industry and discrimination from patrons, Restaurant worker poverty rates are highest for women and people of color. Now, that is not
at all the entirety of that political article. If you want to find out more about the racist roots of tipping. Please check it out again. It's tipping on Politico. I know that we live in a world now post COVID where tips are, people are asking for tips everywhere, and there's a not insignificant movement to change that. Tipping actually hurts a lot of people on all fronts. If you're not aware of it, there's just no Google is free,
as Q would say. But to know that it has its roots in the racist history of this country is something that you know you should be aware of. And the next time you're dealing with the service worker who happens to be black and female, just kind of check how you're treating the circumstances. Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am your host, Rams's job. He is
Rams's jaw. I am q Ward. You are tuned in the Civic Cipher and we are in the middle of a of a.
Neat little conversation.
H Suzanne Oslom joins us once again on the show. For those who don't know, she is a human rights major, former Miss arab Usa actress as well as activist turned writer and as an activist in Palestinian American she spent time in Palestine working with a peacekeeping team. She also has a deep personal understanding of the occupation. Please follow her social media at the Activist and today we are going to be discussing casting our votes while bearing the
plight of our Palestinian brothers and sisters in mind. That is a tough one and I know that I will be doing less talking. You probably will be talking more to C this time. And so before we get there, let's discuss Baba becoming a better ally. Baba. I think you should knock this one out.
Sponsored by Friends of the Movement, you can sign up for the free voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's fotmglobal dot com. This week we are highlighting Detroit MotorCity Track Club in oak Park High school track coach Brandon Giles from varied sources in Michigan media. Nothing is promised, but betting against oak parkgirls to not win the state title is starting
to become a perilous exercise. The olk Park High School Michigan girls track and field team recently won their eighth Division one Michigan High School Athletic Association state title in the last ten seasons. The Knights we came back to back winners with their performance this past year at East Kinwood High School amounting to the program's fifth champion in the last six finals.
Oak parkhead coach.
Brandon Giles said when his team won regionals, We're going to do what we have to do to put ourselves in a position to win, and the kids know what to do.
They're willing to do whatever it takes to win.
If we bring our best, we'll be the team to beat. But at the same time, we've got to show up. Coach Giles previously served as the assistant manager and assistant coach for the USA Under eighteen World Championship team. It's important to point out that coach Giles funds this team entirely out of his own pocket, and we want to amplify what he's doing and shine a light on it. Anyone interested in donating can go to Civiccipher dot com and we will get your donations to him, or if
you use cash app dollar sign MotorCity Track Club. But we will be highlighting the work that he's doing because I think it's incredibly important and powerful that he's taking it upon himself to fully fund this initiative singularly.
All right, so.
Than you, yes, sir, kay h, the floor is yours. Where do we start?
That's a good question, Okay.
I guess where did we leave off?
Well, Kamala Harris is now the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. When we last spoke, Joe Biden was. Kamala Harris presents a different dynamic. She galvanizes, franchises a different.
Group of people.
She excites people top to bottom in a way that Joe Biden couldn't because of his age, because of a number of things. And yet she still represents the Biden Harris administration that is actively committing a genocide in Palestine. There are people who are excited about Kamala Harris's candidacy. There are Black women who are excited about Kamala Harris's candidacy.
There are Black women who are aka's who are excited about Kamala Harris's candidacy, and reconciling that with the truth of the matter, which is that there are human beings on the ground who I feel and I'm not the only one we feel. I'll say, have supported us, have stood with us? Have you done what we would have hoped in solidarity with us in the past. They feel
at odds with at least Joe Biden's agenda. But as you placed it, and I don't want to pretend like you didn't say that, and that it's not factual the Biden Harris administration. Yeah, it leaves us in an interesting position because, as Q would say, and this is why I was setting him up, somebody's going to be the president any takers.
Sure. The most difficult thing to reconcile is that our.
Country, not just our current president, especially our legislators, our politicians, our leadership. It's not opinion to say that they are complicit in the genocide that's happening with our brothers and sisters in Gaza, our current president self proclaimed Zionists.
The question that we are left with.
In a two party binary electorate, on November sixth, a new president would have been elected, and somewhere around January sixth, a new president will be inaugurated and expected to lead us forward. Toward whichever path we will be on from that point forward. For the next four years, we have been faced with the idea for now multiple elections, the lesser of two evils. The very interesting position for specifically
black people. I won't even say people of color, because that's even different for black people in this country is making sure that we show up when our brothers and sisters that are not black need us, but having to find a way to show up for ourselves at the same time.
Yeah, which in some cases.
Is very, very difficult. Our sister has acknowledged there's no way to paint Donald Trump as a good person. There are zero redeeming qualities as a politician or as a human being. His views on minorities, his views on women, and his views on people who are not also billionaires are often vile, often disgusting, and often kind of.
Crazy.
I was looking for a better word, but I think crazy delusional does it. Vice President Harris is the former running mate and second in charge too, again a self proclaimed desionist, and I think her ability and this is
purely opinion. I don't know our vice president, but her ability to make the type of change necessary even without her association with Apak would be more limited than people would imagine when the person that you work for, because I've been the second in charge somewhere before, the first in charge is the person who typically makes the decisions,
and your job, by definition, is to support it. I won't know until the day after, or the year after, or years after how much different she'll be than Joe than President Biden. I'm sorry, but a friend of mine before it was just obvious that he was a Zionist, a friend of ours by the name of Sean King, told me to my face, Q, I love you, but there's no way I can support that man, And nothing in me felt any need to challenge that because I
completely understood it. I, however, was left in a position where, sitting on this show talking to Ramses at the time that you weren't even here, bro, how do we move
forward supporting that man? Once I watched him declare himself as Zionist on television, and even greater challenge was being presented, And I think, and again, none of us can speak from your perspective, but there was something to me at the acknowledgment of the right to life, the right to happiness, the right to self determination, for Palestinian people, because I hadn't heard anyone else say it, And of course it's just words at this point, we don't know what the
pending actions will be. But I never heard Joe Biden
say that. I had never heard anybody in Washington say that, especially with the history of Israel as an ally politically and with regard to military, with regard to money, which seems to be the most important thing to a lot of people that we call leaders, I'd never heard anyone say declaratively that Palestinian people had that right to self determination, that their right to their own statehood, that right to all the liberties that we pretend are so important to us.
And I say pretending, because so often we show that again, money tends to be or seems to be, more important
than everything else we pretend has value. Here, what we wrestle with is knowing that one of these candidates would have us, where we live, with our families, with our children, and our brothers and sisters, regressed to a point of random stopping frisk, the idea of mass deportation, because I know the three of us would fit the description of people who would need to be at least checked for documents, And what does it mean when you can't present the
document that says you're allowed to be here because you're stopped and first randomly on the street by who knows who. We don't know what law enforcement agency or what office is supposed to handle this. These brown people don't belong here movement that they're trying to press forward. I think all of us are very familiar with Project twenty twenty five. It's nine hundred pages, so we don't have enough show to get into all the very disgusting things that are in that document.
When it's time to.
Make a choice, some people will throw their hands up and not make one, some as a form of protests, some as really just not knowing what to do. I cannot let this group of people down, but I can't let that group of people down either, So I can't participate. When people love you and want to show up for you, but love themselves.
Too, what decision are they left to make?
And this is not a question that there's an expected perfect answer for, but it's just the kind of questions that Ramses and I have to ask one another. When someone with your very unique perspective isn't present, how do we show up for people that we love when that doesn't just represent one group, when there's a ven diagram that not everyone's interests fit inside that crossover circle part.
Until you realize it does. So you realize it does. Those police officers on the street frisking us for who knows what reason. Israel's the ones that trains those guys. They have their hands in here so deeply. We're so unaware of how much we're affected by the state of Israel here. That's why I made the offhanded joke that this is the United States of Israel, because it really is. So if we let it keep going the way it's going, they are only going to inflict more of their apartheid occupation,
ethnic cleansing, genocidal thoughts into this. It's going to be embedded further and further. The fact that we still have to have a conversation about whether or not this is a genocide, The fact that we have to have a conversation where we have to explain to people that two million people and Gaza did not bring this upon themselves just shows the twisting of the narrative in the minds, The sickness that is a hold of so many people here when we talk about the lesser of two evils.
I wrote a quote and I wrote it down. It said, when out of fear, you twist the lesser of evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to differentiate between good and evil. And the problem is two black men. You know this that it's not that we have to get the system back to where it was. The system is already set up, so it is not in the interest of people like you and I. Right when do we finally get to
break the system? When when we are complicit in genocide? Feels like a really good time because we are complicit in a genocide, but we still have a little bit of rights here, not as much as we deserve, but we still have rights. So while we have our wits about us, wouldn't now be the time to break out of the matrix that is the fear cycle that we live through every four years of saying, oh my god, we have to vote for this guy because this guy's worse, Like,
why don't we find a moment to break that? And why isn't it now when we still can? Okay, good question, So I don't idolize politicians. I used to love Obama, remember that, Remember how great he was at first. I don't idolize politicians at all. They're human beings and they people usually who want power shouldn't be in the position to have power. Right. However, if I have to vote the person that has actually put their money where their mouth is. If you really want to know, is Jill Stein.
Have you heard of her? I have Jill Stein is. She's a doctor. She found out about her because I'm originally from Saint Louis and she was at a protest, a pro Palestine protest on a campus in Saint Louis, and she got arrested. She's Jewish. She is a very strong Jewish woman. Does not support the state of Israel.
She said.
The first thing she would do if she were elected is she would create an arms embargo, which is what we need. We need so much more than a ceasefire. We need an arms embargo. We need money to come back into America. You know, while we're sending billions and billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel. How much does food cost here? How much does our rent
cost here? Things are skyrocketing here? Why aren't we taking you want to talk about like benefiting us, We're not taking care of us because all our money is going over there. It's another reason to make sure that we don't offer felicity aside from the fact that you're just killing people. You me, you are responsible for this, you know, with our tax dollars, and we're not giving it back to ourselves. We're giving it to the people who were
murdering my brothers and sisters. So she is an alternative that feels like she's actually putting her money where her mouth is. And again, do we just live with this and go what are we going to do? Like it's not like she's gonna win, it's a throwaway vote. Those are really great points to keep us under the thumb of this matrix that we live in.
So one thing that you said that is an absolute, almost without equivocation. Almost every system in our country, from its foundation right was not designed to benefit us when they.
Wrote those beautiful words.
No, we weren't considered human beings here, specifically rams us in myself and our great great grandfathers and grandmothers. So yes, I've seen these words before and they ring true. These systems are working exactly the way that they were designed to and that is not to benefit us in any way. However, the problem that we are kind of faced with is not even the what because what you said we should do.
I agree with the exception of doctor Stein, and this is why in a binary system, in a two party system, which is kind of the problem, not kind of the two party system is the problem.
It's binary.
You have to pick this one or that one, even if you don't think either of them is great, one of them will prevail. And the problem is we got fifty days or something like that where the rights that we have might not exist anymore. And I think people think that rings us hyperbole, but Ramses and I have actually had time to read most of those nine hundred pages, and it's not The ability to elect again might not exist, The ability to protest could get you not just arrested, but unalived.
I think the problem is we've said the lesser of two.
Evil things too many times, so it's kind of oh, this is it's it's exactly what you said.
It's manipulation.
This is how we keep them in this system going the exact way that it's been going forever. I think on November seventh, we should start organizing to try to change the entire system, cause we don't often get to celebrate who we're voting for for president. It's almost begrudging, like, oh man, I gotta, I gotta, especially the last three elections, I gotta make sure that Donald Trump isn't the president.
It's how it's felt.
Yeah, it's always your voting against somebody, not for somebody.
So again there's multiple things to reconcile here, Ramses and I have seen me shed tears about voting for Barack Obama because when my mother became of age to vote, women couldn't. So once again, the perfect candidate kind of doesn't exist. And like you, the people that fight with people they care about for people they've never met that
don't care about them personally, I think is insane. I don't love any presidential candidate enough to offend or disrespect someone that I care about, So I would never fight you to support any candidate, because you're someone that I
love and care about. But I think in the amount of time that we have left, we need to be able to ensure that we can get to the work of breaking the system and not wait until the next presidential election to start having the conversation about how, because I agree with ninety nine percent of what you said, I just don't know if that how can be accomplished in enough time for us to even be able to
complete that work. Because there's a gentleman saying he's going to be a dictator on day one, who I know doesn't care about your people or mine and would have women and people of color with no rights in this country moving forward, and that's a way scarier truth than that's at least being able to continue to work on what the right solution is.
No, I don't want there to be that to be the last word. So in terms of what people can do, what people should do, what people should consider. Take the last thirty seconds. I'm sorry, it's show a lot of pressure. Just yeah, we'll come back on the black information and work. We'll have a longer conversation, but your thoughts.
Just know that the Arab American presence, I mean, we will not vote for somebody that is complicit in the genocide of our brothers and sisters, and to ask for that is incredibly hurtful.
What about for.
People who might not be a part of that community, What would you ask of us.
To understand that having it the way that even voting for Kamala is a privilege where certain privileges are thought over other privileges, like the privileges of the people here are being trumped over the privileges of the people that we are genociding over there. And that's the reality.
Okay. Well, like I said, we're going to have to have the rest of this conversation on the Black Information Network, So.
If you like, check out.
Our show Black Information Network Daily Podcast. In the meantime, I'd like to thank you, thank you for coming onto the show. Once again, our guest has ben Suzanne Awslime. Please follow her social media at the Acturvist. She has some really potent, insightful things to share every day. We learn a lot from her and.
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