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 am your host, Rams' job.
He is Ramsy's jah. I am q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Cipher well Mogain, and we appreciate you tuning in. We've got some stuff in store for you so.
That you can know what we know, navigate the things that are headed our way, and understand how to make your live and the lives of those around you. Better stick around because we are going to be talking about the dismantling of DEI. For longtime listeners of the show, you're aware that DEI is something that we have been
fans of. We've been supportive of companies doing their best to adopt DEI initiatives to make their workplaces workforces more diverse, which, as we've discussed, leads to more profits and more success, more equity, and more inclusion. And with this new election, obviously, companies are adjusting their posture, which leads us to believe that a lot of what they were doing was performative and that's very sad. But you need to know about it.
We're going to cite Walmart because they were kind of one of the first big ones to shut the door on including black people in the conversations of promotion and you know, giving black folks an equitable and inclusive experience inside of the company. But they're not the only ones.
There's other ones as well. And second part of the show, we're going to be talking about some Republican hypocrisies that we have been encountering, and we will be talking about the pardoning of Hunter Biden and the ignoring of Donald Trump's distancing himself from Project twenty twenty five and hypocrisy therein. But before we get there, it's time to discuss any excellence, shall we? I think you shall, all right.
Today's ABNY Excellence is sponsored by Actively Black. There is greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. This story comes from BI in Massachusetts. Rep Ayana Presley warned House Republicans to keep doctor Martin Luther King Junior's name out of their mouths admit their efforts to dismantle DEI. During Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing. Presley condemned Republicans for backing the dismantl DEI Act, a new bill seeking to
weaken diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the government. Presley called out the anti DEI supporters for twisting King's words to advance their agenda, and she said in the quote, I'd also like to take a personal note of privilege to say, please keep doctor Martin Luther King Junior's name out of your mouths end quote, Presley said, per News.
The dismantl DEI Act, which is set to eliminate DII offices in the federal government, in DEI requirements for federal contracts and grant applicants, and provide oversight to ensure tax dollars aren't being used to pay for DEI initiatives. Wow Man ultimately passed in the twenty three to seventeen vote. During the hearing, press they gave House Republicans and lesson on the country history of racism. Quote do you all know your history? Do you know American history?
She asked.
The original Constitution counted enslaved individuals as three fifths of a person. During World War II, the federal government forcibly relocated and incarcerated one hundred and ten thousand Japanese Americans. The FHA practiced redlining in the nineteen thirties and sixties to deny mortgages to black Americans, which is why we
have a racial wealth gap today end quote. Pressley noted that King's family has called for politicians to stop wrongfully referencing the civil rights leader, your perversion of his words and his mission, when his children have asked you to stop invoking his name and perverting his work, when he has a proud and unapologetic black man fighting for equality for Black Americans and all marginalized people.
She said, well, I think that that is a perfect segue to what it is do we have to talk about now. I thought, once upon a time, Q. That we were moving in a direction as a country that prioritized everyone having a fair shot at the American dream. And there are people who would argue that a fair shot exists, but the data would argue that the results don't show that. And those people that argue that the fair shot exists look at the data and say, well,
you're responsible for that. You need to stop listening to rap music, You need to keep dads in the homes, pull up your pants, cut your hair, all that, right, and the truth of the matter is that even if you wanted to have those conversations, there's root causes for each and every one of those things that you know, the opposition takes issue with Representative Presley mentioned, you know, redline, red line creating the racial wealth gap that we see
in our country today, which informs schools and that leads to outcomes and education. Obviously healthcare because where you live and what part of town you live in, there's disproportionate health effects. People live longer, healthier lives. You know, poor people in poor communities don't over policing, and you're you're further relegated to the margins of society. You know, there's these these connections have been well established on they've shown
many others. The point of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives was, I in my estimation, the biggest benefit of those was the equity part. Because a lot of people on the opposition, uh, they they think that the world is equal, and they've made that case that that not the world, but this country is equal. Equal justice under the law, equal protection, equality for all justices, blind, all that sort of stuff.
It's equal, and it's about individual responsibilities. And the equitable part in THEI is the part that I think was the big push, because just because something is equal doesn't mean that it is equitable, right, and these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were meant to offset the historic injustices that were enacted upon black communities by the government, by institutions, by the citizens of this country, so that there was there would end up being more access to the American
dream for those communities that have historically been marginalized. And this is why the dismantling of these DEI initiatives is so disheartening, because you know, everyone on that side thinks that's simply a matter of hard work. And something that I say quite a bit, and we've said on the show before, is that you know a person like me, who for all intents and purposes, is a successful black man.
I can look at my circumstances and say, okay, I was born in nineteen eighty two in Compton, California, in a drug infested neighborhood, and everything around me looked like the world I knew no better, And if I had stayed there long enough, I would have grown up and become a gangbanger. The same as everyone else, and I would have been really good at it until I died or went to prison, and that would have been my reality. And the only reason that that's not my reality is
because I was lucky. So everyone on the opposition that says, well, you know, you worked hard and that's why you're Oh, everybody works hard. Maybe not everybody, but people that work, they typically and at least in their minds, they work hard. You know, you could ask any random American going to work today, do you work hard? And most folks would say, yeah, of course I work hard. Hard. Work in and of itself does not guarantee success. They could say, Rams, is
your intelligent. There's a lot of intelligent people in the world, a lot of intelligent people that end up dead or in prison from the same place where I where I come from. On this show, at least, the assumption is that you know, talent and intelligence and those sorts of
things are distributed equally among all races and tribes in humanity. Okay, And you know, I believe that I'm a reasonably intelligent person, but no more or less generally speaking than anyone else, right, So that in and of itself is not the deciding factor. There's a lot of dumb people that are very successful and a lot of smart people that are not right, and so you know, and on and on and on. These folks will make these arguments all day that it's
about the individual, not about the circumstances. And I feel like I am the product of circumstances. And you know, I would even meet you in the middle. It's a combination of me being who I am and circumstances. I meet you there in the middle, okay. But what I won't let you do is simply say that it's just ramses you are the reason that you qualify as a quote unquote successful black man. I will not allow that,
because I know that I was lucky, right. And equity finds the people who could be qualified and brings them to the conversation. That's what equity does. Equity finds the people who can take advantage of these opportunities where the opportunity would not even make its way to them because of circumstances, because of other limitations, because of a societal framework, because of historic injustices. It's the equity that I've always loved about DEI Initiatives and the companies that did more
than simply put a black square on Instagram. In twenty twenty, the companies that said, Hey, we're finally listening black folks. We got something for you. We see what's happening to your communities. Understand the historical context of how you got there. You guys aren't not just born evil, criminal, born to die sickly stupid. You're not born that way. You are born the same as any other people. And there are circumstances that lead to the outcomes we're seeing in the data.
And we this company X, let me company Y, are going to put together a program so that while we carry out our business operations, we will be mindful, respectful, and cognizant of the fact that there have been some historic injustices perpetuated on your communities, and we are going to do our best to offset those as much as we can. And if that means hiring black women, then we will do our best to make that a priority.
In addition to hiring the best talent. If we're going to, you know, bring in marketing people to where we can reach these communities without offending them, that not only helps our bottom line, but it also keeps us from offending people that we don't intend to offend, you know, or misrepresenting ourselves in front of people that we don't intend to misrepresent ourselves in front of right, and on and on and everything all seemed well and good, and to
be fair, there were some people back then that were like, oh, this is performative. This was performative. And I hate being at this point having to say that all the people that called out a lot of this DEI stuff is being performative were right because of the story I'm about to read, and then I'll let you jump in because I know this is something we both wanted to talk about.
But this comes from the Black Information Network. Walmart is reportedly rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies nationwide. On November twenty fifth, Conservative activists whoever broke the news on Walmart's massive shift on DEI quote massive news. Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what's changing and how it happened, this person wrote on Twitter. This person goes on to say, last week I told execs at Walmart that I was doing a
story on wokeness there. Instead, we had a productive conversation to find solutions, according to The Gentleman Who the Conservative Gentleman, Walmart will no longer use the term DEI or LATINX. The company is reportedly discontinuing training through the Racial Equity Institute and terminating its Racial Equity Center, a special five year initiative established in twenty twenty. Walmart is also reevaluating its policies to ensure the company isn't providing preferential treatment
or benefits to suppliers based on diversity. Wow. That means those suppliers just simply get overlooked again this person, okay. In twenty twenty, Walmart said it sourced more than thirteen point one billion dollars in goods and services from diverse suppliers in the wake of George Floyd's murder, which sparked
protess test against police brutality and racial injustice. So that thirteen point one billion dollars that went to let's be honest, perhaps mostly white women because they are the biggest, biggest beneficiaries of minority centered initiatives. That all goes away now and we need to know this now. I know that we had a conversation you and I about this when we were thinking of doing the segment, So take us into your mind.
Microsoft's Ford, Toyota, Harley Davison are named here. I am certain that that's not the entire list.
Oh my god, it's a long list.
And the very interesting thing about people saying that a lot of these DEI initiatives were performative is that I'd argue at the time and to this day, that that didn't matter. They still spent the thirteen billion dollars and if that meant some women, be they white, got some money that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten, then it doesn't matter that it was performative.
The action still happened.
And that's been my pushback to everything that everyone says is performative. Once upon a time, Ramses and I started a nonprofit called the Change Society I Know where You're going, and in conjunction with Living through Giving, based out of Los Angeles, my really really good friend AJ and hashtag lunch Bag, we collectively all over the world fed somewhere in the range of two million people. People accused us of being performative because we used social media to grow
that initiative. That does not change that two million people were fed. So I don't care about it being performative, just like I didn't care about people being performatively polite to me and my children when we walk down the street.
Before they started.
Chanting build that wall, and before people were so emboldened to be racist jerks out loud, a lot of racist people because they didn't want to be shamed or fired from their jobs, pretended to be decent people. And the fact that they were pretending does not matter to me and people that I care about, because that pretending meant they had to treat us with respect, performative or not. They had to be polite, performative or not. They had
to try not to get fired, performative or not. And what we will face with these rollbacks and these and the dismantling of DEI affirmative action and just civil politeness and decency as a whole, is we're going to have a more aggressive, more violent, more dangerous country to live in because respecting, providing opportunity for, and looking out for your fellow man is no longer a requirement. So since it's not required, people will show you just how not decent they are.
I think you have a little bit more to say here because I was in Los Angeles with you, and in order to get there, you had to stop somewhere and you had an encounter with a person. Tell me that story.
So en route to Los Angeles. You know, post election, I have not done a lot of outsiding me and outside ain't really been interacting much. You know, you know how I feel about outside and outside of it. Outside is family to me, you know what I mean? You know I wouldn't forget about you outside. I'm gonna go hang out on the radio. But I haven't been outside. I haven't been outsiding. I've been discouraged, man, I've been
let down, heartbroken, disappointed, disappointed. I mean I could go on and quiet and just kind of to myself, just trying to recover from learning that I live in a place that's still what it was one hundred years ago, you know what I mean. That's that's that's worse than it was back then because people know better now and they chose it.
People elected this, And.
Because I hadn't been outsiding, I dismissed myself from why I was so sad. The reason I was so sad is because I realized the country I have to live in and raise my children, and it's going to be a less comfortable place to live. It's going to be a less joyous place to live. It's going to be a less equitable, less successful, more angry, more scary, more disrespectful, less polite place. And it doesn't matter how many maga hats I see online, it doesn't matter how many I
see on TV. When I encounter these people in real life, it always catches me off guard. I don't know why, but it doesn't. I'm talking about in a way that's almost paralyzing. I'm like, Wow, these mean, evil people actually exist in the real world. And I encountered this really, really mean, rude maga woman at a rest stop, and
the interaction was short. I was pumping gas. I walked into the rest stop to use the restroom, and as human beings do, we were both walking and eventually going to get to a spot on Earth that we both reached at the same time. And I stopped, as a normal person to be polite and let her walk by. And the disgust that she made sure I received from the look that she gave me was just so like, Oh, I forgot y'all, I forgot y'all up, and y'all outside and y'all ready to just bring this unwarranted hate to
anyone you encounter. And the funny thing is the Trump effect. But she doesn't know that I didn't vote for him. And this is important to my quote unquote brothers and sisters, brown or black that voted for that man. She does not know I didn't vote for him. She does know that I'm black. Oh, and that was enough to get what I got from her. That was enough to get that vitro, that disrespect, that anger, that contentiousness, that was It was enough just me being black.
I don't have on no.
Political paraphernalia, no bumper stickers, no yard signs, no T shirts, no hats, no nothing. All that took for me was to not be the person or a part of the group that they're all writing for. They're not writing for you, black or brown person.
And if you even if you don't consider yourself a MAGA person, just a Republican and you had to vote for Donald.
Trump, nonsense, don't say that.
But there are people who think that about themselves, so they don't them that grace I have to hear, don't watch because some people they mentally distance themselves from that. And we have to talk to them too. So even if you think that you're not that, you still voted for that, and we have to live in the aftermath the Trump effect. Right, So I'm gonna.
Tell you to say, while my voice can be heard, RAMS, this is giving you that benefit of the doubt, Q is not.
Yeah, no, and you should not give them because but I just want to make sure we're reaching everybody who might listen. Now, I want to add to this. The first time Donald Trump got elected, I was in North Dakota, no, sorry, South Dakota, and as you do in South Dakota, there's really not a lot else to do. I went to Mount Rushmore and I had almost verbatim the same exact experience that you had, excepted was with a man. He was with everybody there. It's South Dakota, so you can
imagine everybody. That's Trump's country, right, And I'm out there with my afro and I'm like, yeah, it's Mount Rushmore. Ain't nothing else to take a picture. I was taking pictures around the country. I was, you know, traveling, doing whatever, and nothing else to take a picture of in front of in South Dakota except that there's nothing this known. So I went and got a flick, and you have to work your way up to the front and then
work your way back. And when it was my turn, I kind of got a little bit of a like a shoulder push from a guy who was he was staying with a couple of guys. But I turned and I looked at him, and I saw that at Trump stuff, and I realized, oh, man, so Q is not the only person. I'm not the only person. This is what we have to feel, even if it's not as pronounced as these stories you're hearing right now. This is what we have to feel. And this is what DEI was
traded in for. So when black people are kind of carrying the weight of this election a little heavier than you might be a customed or then you might imagine as appropriate, that's the reason why this is tough for us. It's the Trump effect.