Pushing Back Against Nazis with Lincoln Heights Resident Sharen Sierra King (Part 2)

We are joined by Sharin Sierra King, journalist, public speaker, and former radio host, life member of the NCNW as well as NAACP, where she is actively engaged in public public policy advocacy, voter protection efforts, and racial justice initiatives at both the local and national levels, and also a resident of Lincoln Heights, Ohio, the place that is making national headlines for the Nazi demonstrations and the community response.

And we will be discussing that community response during this part of the show, So stick around for that and so much more because this is such an interesting conversation that a lot of people are able to learn from. But before we get there, it is time to discuss Ba becoming a better ally Baba and today's Baba. We're going to share from the website of Libertybank dot net. Yeah'

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the Nazis. Yes, And now we're going to discuss the community's response to those two elements, the Nazis' initial move to try to intimidate this black town and the police's do nothing approach to I don't hate Tate, thank you. There it is. That was way simpler. So I want to share a bit of a story and then we'll have a conversation about the community response, because it turns out that community is quite resilient. And you know, I'm not a big fan of historically on this show. I'm

not a fan of guns. I'm not a fan of violence. I'm not a fan of That's not my thing. My heart just doesn't it's not in my heart that way. Q. On the other hand, he's got a little bit more room for that, right, And that's okay, you know, that's that's okay. It takes place for all of it, right, right. But i't me to share the story and get everyone

brought up to speed, okay. This from Newsweek. Residents of a majority black town in Ohio have reportedly launched an armed patrol for their protection after criticizing the police response to a neo Nazi demonstration in February, the Cincinnati suburb of Lincoln Heights garnered national attention after a neo Nazi group way swastika flags and hurling racial slurs demonstrated on a highway overpass on the edge of the community on

February seven. The incident sparked outrage, with residents at a town hall questioning why officers from the neighboring village of Evandale and deputies from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office who responded to the incident made no citations or arrests. They expressed concerns that they would not be safe if another similar incident occurred. Residents then stated the Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch Program Sorry. They then started the Lincoln Heights

Safety and Watch Program. I hope I say this right.

own a gun to open carry without a permit. The group also patrols in your bus stops to make sure students go to school safely. According to an NBC News report, So you know again, I'm not a fan of guns. Historically on this show, I have said, you know, I'm not going to hide from this. Now, I'm going to tell you how much I love this, but I'm not going to hide from it. Okay, guns exist to end life. That's it. That's the only that's the nature of the

deployment of that device. It's not a knife where you can carve something with it, prepare food. No, it's just to end life. And I don't believe that my purpose. I was not created to end life, right, So for me personally, my decision that's not right. When it's my time, it'll be my time. I will live my life well, and when my time comes, I will look at it like a man and I will face that moment and hopefully live that moment well too. However, I love this.

I love it, Oh my god, I love it so much. Right, Oh, because you know, there's there's something to be said about people who do feel like guns are for protection. I historically have pushed back against that narrative because if someone has to drop on you, something that's more protective is a bulletproof vest. Right, protection is the name of the game. But in mass this display certainly does provide a preventative

form of protection. Right. And as a fan of the Panthers from from Oakland, right, I'm a fan of the Panthers. You know, these these great leaders, these great movements in history. I, like you, was made to learn about them, Yes, from my father, doctor Rudolph Wayne Taylor, you know, who was a minister. And you know, as we discussed in the first part of the show, the church is again the

cultural watering hole for a lot of black communities. So in Compton, California, Greater Grace Memorial Church of God in Christ was that I hear it, right, But also you know there are people like doctor Kimilla Westenberg, my teacher in college, who was also a member of the NCNW, who made sure that I learned about the Panthers and about the misinformation and disinformation campaigns from the government. What the Panthers stood for and stood on. The Panthers were

not They did not exist to harm people. They existed to protect people, and that's what they did, largely children exactly. And because there is such a deep did hatred that is emboldened by the political administrations of the time or even this even this current administration, because there's a deep seated fear of black people gaining too much relative to white people, that violence often erupts from that phenomenon, not from black people just owning guns and patrolling their own streets.

And so I wanted to make sure that I stated that now I want to let you, let you go right now, because these are people, these are your people, Okay, so let me get you started. Is this the right response?

Alabama where we lived. It just was a matter of fact. My mother was epitome of a black panther as far as that the high yellow red hair come from Selma, raised by her grandfather who kept a shotgun, you know, by him at all times. Now do I believe in the carry and just going into restaurants, No, but you know here in Arizona happens all the time I was at the doctor's office, guy was hosting his forty five. And that is the state we now live in. Now, I am a proponent of protection. And if it takes

patrolling your neighborhood, because they're still come in there. I could show you a picture where they've been like throwing all this literature around about the KK. Literature can't hurt me, but their guns can't. And for me when it comes to my elders, my community in general, but my elders and my babies, at all costs, you know I'm willing to lay down my life because I was only raised to make sure that I did everything I could. I'm a peaceful protester, but I am literally arming myself with

the information to do the work. As a public policy advocate. I go to DC, I go to the state capitals, I go advocating for the funds for the health departments. The state health departments, they look at me like, Okay, S're in whatever, But no, all of this matters. If we have healthy communities, then we can have a thriving community, if we have collaboration with partners who see us in affordable housing. As I mentioned, Avendo has their grocery store.

Lincoln Heights had everything they needed within Lincoln Heights grocery stores, butchers, they had wood makers, they had I hired from my home in Kentucky. I hired a granite man who taught whose sons didn't want to learn it, but he did all my stonework. We had everything, and we were cut off. They annexed the land around Lincoln Heights so to commercial so we couldn't expand. So that's how I feel about what they're doing with the hate groups. They are cutting

us off. They are demeaning us or attempting to demean us. So yeah, you know, the movement to patrol and protect our citizens is real, and it's necessary at this time because we can not depend on the Evendale Police. I talked to Carton Colins, the co founder of the Heights Movement, yesterday, and they've been waiting for three days from a response

from the Hamilton County Shriff's office. Three days for a response to a meeting that happened this past week where there were a drone, eleven police cars and they wanted you before you came into your own community council meeting. They arrested a young man. Now, I don't want it throw anybody who leaves the bus. Somebody made a complaint

because they wanted to bring their guns in. Well, you know, I've gone to places where you have to leave your gun outside, the biker the Blues place downtown where the bikers go, they lay down their colors and they leave their guns outside. I'm not wanting to tell anyone what to do with their gun. But there was a complaint and the sheriff and the Hamilton County Sheriff showed up in force. Where was that force when we were being intimidated.

don't have guns, nobody. I've been to places where only the police have guns, but they keep it in the trunk of their car. Right. I've been to places where everybody has guns, but police have guns, and they keep their guns in the trunk of their car and they have to make a call to get it out and blah blah so that no one gets accidentally killed. Right, there's responsible rules. So I've been to all these places.

I just know that no matter where I live, for me, I don't think that I'm I was put here to end of life. For other people, I recognize that this is kind of a part of our nature, our history, you know what I mean, Like we've going all the way back to the beginning, we have killed each other. That's just a part so to others vcs too, So it's perhaps just a part of nature. And it may be inescapable folks could argue that that's not where I'm

trying to go with this. I do feel like, however, with this particular display, those masks that I saw in the article, the black people masked up with the tactical gear and the bulletproof vests and the big, the huge guns, walking children across the street, black children across the street, I believe that that is it is necessarily intimidating. It is it is a display that suggests, all right, well, if you want it, I got it. If you want

to try me, come try me. And that, I think switches the narrative from add these are people who are vulnerable, and we can go and pick on them, and we can go and further marginalize and subjugate them and diminish their what are their capacity to push back? It changes the narrative from that to Okay, these people need to be real expected. We need to be very careful how we go about trying to intimidate them, or we should probably leave these people alone. And that's a more favorable

position to be in given this current administration. We can get back to the kumbayas and stuff. Once we get to the we get to the table, to the table. Thanksce, Will you allow us to the table, back.

I don't want to pick on Democrats unnecessarily, and I do want to make sure that I do acknowledge that there are at least more than one Republican person. We don't see the world the same way, but they're trying to do the right thing by black folks, the Constitution, et cetera. They just feel how they feel whatever. But in terms of like the way that this political administration has really stripped from the federal level a lot of the progress that black people have been pursuing. And there

you go that too. Yeah, you know, kind of where we are is let's let's use what we can where we are, when we're when we can right now, when we can write and you know, if at present it's still legal for black folks to bear arms because we're still considered citizens, yes, so far, but that's what I mean, if that's still the truth for us, then where we are right now, using what we can right now, that feels viable in the same way that and I was going to ask you about this, in the same way

that boycotting feels viable. You know. One of the things that has come not from Democrats specifically, but from we'll say more progressive minds, has been okay, well, if all these corporations are going to ben the need to Donald Trump when they don't.

leaves Community or Chaos? Where do we go from here? And it's his last book and his wife did the forward to it. But if we do not boycott with our voices and our dollars, then without a gun, where else do we havet I.

Lincoln Heights in terms of the community's response. But these these boycotts, this this this exercising of what freedoms we still do enjoy to spend our dollars and invest where the soil is fertile. Yes, and to deny. And I'm very petty and I hold grudge it so well and I kind of love.