You Ride Wit Us Now

didn't get no flyers about it. There wasn't no recruiting. It wasn't at least I didn't know. I was too young. Maybe there was some recruiting. I didn't know. I just woke up one day and was like, oh, oh, we're crips. At least my neighborhood was. I ain't signed up for this. This is just where I live. And then don't mess around and make a friend, because then you mess around

and make a friend. And if you and your friend one day y'all walking home and somebody with some other color shoelaces decide that they was gonna, you know, take your bike right quick, and then that friend go tell his big brother and then march you and y'all Homie back over there to either squaw up you saying to get your bike back, or he do it to guess what. Guess what, Your shoelaces the same color as that big brother. Now in the eyes of the other hood, this just you.

You wanted them now, Homie Bamboo was telling me when I asked him how you got put on the hood, he was like, look, it happened twice once. I was just sitting outside with my uncles and they was like, Yo, go fight this fool. Now I'm all of a sudden it's like okay, and now I'm I just got jumped in. I don't know just what happened. Of course, later on he made his conscious decision to be in the hood, but that that first jump in, that was like, oh, we just happened to be over here. The district lines

have been drawing money. This is where you at. Somebody drew the districts. I had. Don't say then it might get even worse, because you know, sometimes depending on who go off to jail and who's able to hold down the block, sometimes the neighborhood changes, I know, and a lot of parts of Los Angeles just neighborhoods went from black to Latino quick. Quick, of course is in air quotes. But once they become Mexican, these ain't cripping blood neighborhoods no more. This is all cold. And what if you

didn't move, guess what you hadn't been redistrict. I want to talk to y'all about jerrymandering. Politics. It's so real right now, Politics, y'all. Politics, All right, y'all, let me tell you this little story from my life. So south of Los Angeles, northeast of Compton City called Lynnwood borders Compton Long Beaches in the South Bay in Wood. When I was younger, you know, child middle school. Apparently I'm

what they call an old millennial black hood. It's I mean, it's Watts, Compton Long Beach, Carson Like, they're all sort of around. It's this corridor right now. What boarders up to Lynnwood is this area called south Gate Huntington Park. These are these other now south Gate and Huntington Park have been as star as far as i've I've understood, those were Latino, those were Mexican hoods. My wife is

from Huntington Park. Uh shout out doctor Alma. So if y'all new here, you don't understand it preferred her by her prefix. But my pH d wife used to gang bang. But we're gonna leave that alone for now. Anyway, So that area of town, Southgate, Huntington Park, Bell Gardens, these areas were, like I said, predominantly Latino and so I for sil Cyper Hills from this around this area, right,

So that's those. But Lynnwood, however, Lynnwood was like it was like it was black, and a lot of areas in this part of town where people who were able to, you know, maybe leave South Central, maybe leave Watts who were just such active hoods and kind of like you know, maybe own a house, maybe start a family like these people had. Like these were to income homes or families, you know what I'm saying. So like they were able to afford something like this, But it didn't mean it

wasn't active. These were active areas that you didn't go necessarily kicking in because I mean, you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a child of of you know, a young child of the heyday of this of nineties. You know, gangbanging. Like I'm a little young for it. But I was a kid when all this was, like all the movies was being made about what was happening in l A. I was. I was a kid then, So you know, you you didn't you ain't just venture in the neighborhoods. You didn't know you know. I think I've I've made

this made this very clear. But the but the borders, the lines, you had to be able to read the Google map. You understand what I'm saying. But the map was essentially it was fixed in the sense that as a black neighborhood, you know what I'm saying. So you knew you know, red blue, whatever you knew. You just read the read the graffiti to figure out where you are or know who know or know somebody over there. You just know the deal. So lynn Wood's been like

that as far as I could remember. Now. When I met my wife, when we first started dating, you know, I was rounding out, you know, I was out of college. I was rounding out in my twenties. She I'm starting to like meet her family, and she tells me, yeah, heard her brother and nephew live in Lynnwood. And I was like, oh where, that's crazy. It's Mexican in Lynnwood. And she looked at me like what and I was like, what do you mean what She's all, we'll go visit them, y'all.

Now obviously this was some years back, but like when we got off the freeway, I mean there was a Kodasa, which if you don't know, that's like that's like a Latino best Buy. So it's like if you're buying like electronics and you don't speak no English, like you would go there. You know. I've said, there's an l which is like you know at a North Gate, which are like Mexican grocery stores. I was like, ain't no sign in English. It was the weird. I felt like I

was in an altered universe. I was like this, when did this get When did this become Mexican? And she was like, what are you talking about? It always has and I was like, no, no, no, it hasn't. She was like, you're the Tweetie. Tweetie is a it's a cholo like a like a vato like like gang over there because it's a street called Tweetie. And she was like, yeah, my my nephew lives over here, and I was like, oh, it got the mug right, Wait what? And I was like,

but I still got home down here. I still got friends who I never would and go visit because I don't know, Like, look I'm not good down there. That like that's dayhood. I thought I come see them in neutral areas. I didn't know when did this become? So this ain't they're not crimping down here. She was like, no, no, what are you talking about? The whole joint got redistrict.

I was like, I had no idea. Now you may have not whether you live you may have lived in Livewood for thirty forty years, this where your grandma stayed where Like all of a sudden, you gotta change your shoelaces you didn't even know, like you know what I'm saying, and and and obviously I'm talking about like us who were civilians, Like who wasn't active? You feel me? When you active? You can't change your shoelaces like nah, man, like you it is what it is you feel me

like yo, we you are we right? I don't care who like you know what I'm saying, Like when they didn't redistrict your zone, It's like, no, that's not your hood. No more homie like y'all. The the g I graphy has changed. Now. This don't happen often, but when it do happen, it's real stark. You didn't move, You ain't change your location at all, but your affiliation has absolutely changed right up under your feet. Okay, I want to

talk to you about jerry mandarin Now. Now the situation I just explaining you had to do with a vast number of so your economic and migratory and just changes in the demographic of the city, you know, uh in birth rates, all this good stuff. Like, there's a million different things that make this jerrymandering is a lot more sinister. To step back to explain jerry mandering. Let me talk about why I want to talk about it. So check

this out. Merrick Garland, the head of the U. S. Department of Justice, is suing the state of Texas over districting. As a lot going on here. So you got the federal government suing a state you know so, and you like, how can you do that? What's happening right now? Well, every so often, around uh time for mid terms or voting things, you have to set up your congressional district and a congressional district is an area of town depending on where you live. And in that district, there is

a representative that goes to the legislature. Um that is supposed to represent your district. That's who you are voting for. And again in the legislature you have the Senate and then you have the House of Reps. Your district is the person that's in the House of Reps or your congress person. We're talking about Congress. There are every state only gets two senators, right, so that's different. Right, your

district goes into the House. Now, how you decide who that person is is you'll vote, you elect them, but you vote based on your address because your address tells you what district you in, and that district is gonna put up somebody will run for Congress for your district and you vote for. Well, how do you decide what district you're a part of? Now? Why is my address a part of a certain district and not a part of another district. I live in the thirty fourth district

in Los Angeles and my Rep is Jimmy Gomez. He'd been in this congressional district since July of two thousand, seventeen. Is next election is next year, it's a Democrat, that's my district. It's also important. I suggest there's a gov Track dot us. Uh if you want to like find your district like that. Stuff is super important because this is how we're gonna see how this matters a little later.

That's why I'm doing this thing. Okay. Uh. You need to know what flags somebody doesn't put on you as you're walking around here, because sometimes imagine imagine walking through a hood not knowing what flag you got, but everybody else know. Nik is out here putting in work for you and you don't know they're doing it. Nick is making decisions on your behalf. You feel me deciding who the OP is for you, my nigga. You just out here trying to just buy some groceries. You're trying to

go get a taco. You feel me over at the over at the Holy Moli and Long Beach niggas and already decided, oh no, we know who you is. And you're like, wait, what now I'm from? And they're like, no, that's not that hood, that's that hood is this now? And you're like, well, I think it. When did you become an OP? When did I become the op you

better know your district. So districts are set up in theory to be geographical, and that the idea of them being geographical has to do with the thought that people in share geographical spaces have similar concerns because people usually cluster around people that they live similar lifestyles, to similar socioeconomics and full of ways of life, YadA, YadA, YadA. Right, So, like, you're not gonna have city folk in a farm, right,

You're gonna have farm folks in a farm. So you just make that one district because they're going to have similar needs and desires and similar things and things are gonna ask for their rep Now us in you know, cities, we're gonna have also similar things. Like we're all of my district. We're all kind of concerned about, you know, whether it's gentrification, whether it's clean streets, good sewage, good schools.

Like we're all concerned about the same stuff. Now, Long Beach, Okay, that's a coast right, So uh, although we're both cities, we have different needs. Right, one of their needs has to do with the beach and with keeping the beach clean, and their sewage system is different. You know, and it's you've got more salt water in the air, so there are certain things that they're going to be concerned about that even though we're both cities, we shouldn't be in

the same district because we have different needs. Does that make sense, right? That's the way that districting is supposed to in a in a type of democratic republic that we have. That's that's the concept, right, But who gets to decide what district? Well, not us. Somebody draws red lines on a map. We'll talk about redlining one day, which is a different type of districting, but yeah, you

just draw lines on a map. Another good parallel that might help, Like if you're not really into the understanding, is like what high school you're gonna go to? Like your school district? You know, some of y'all may live in an area where the high school closest to you is actually out of district. You gotta go to one different and it seems like that don't make sense, right, But it's just how the things were drawn, and then maybe next year it might be different all of a

sudden that schools in your district. It's just it's weird, right, It's it's it's it's in a lot of ways, it feels real colonial. Like now going into y'all's history, like your global history. Uh, this is a freebee. You know, a lot of of North or Saharan Africa or different just Africa period. Once Europe got there and decided that it belonged to them, they they decided to just like divide the land and being like okay, you get this part, you get this part used, and they just drew these lines.

And these lines might have gotten drawn right in between your neighborhood, split your house and half. All of a sudden, Yo, cousin across the street, who's the who's that's your blood? We're the same tribe, we're the same everything. They're a different country because somebody drew a line there. It's just you're no longer and all of a sudden, they're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, that's that you're this

you guys are different countries. What It's ridiculous, right, I mean, but that's you know, in a lot of ways, like that's some of the borders in Africa where you know, we're like that like colonizers drew it. I mean, it's I mean, I've said in a poem before. If you guys are familiar with my other work, I have a poem called two Minutes and thirty Seconds. But I was like, yeah, and once you get up into space, you know, you look back down at the earth. You know, there's no

lines all over the ground. There's no word. The word Florida isn't written across the ground. It doesn't look like it's not because it's not real. Somebody drew a line, you know, saying like and then you you we enforce them.

I guess you know what I'm saying, but like, they don't occur, and there's no no force field at the forty seven parallel that separates Canada from it's not a there's no magical thing there, although it feels like it's sometimes, but it's not like it's there's nothing there except that we said it is parallels not real. It's because it's because of globes. That's why we call it that, right.

So anyway, so back to this, So congressional districting is decided by the state because if you can clump certain people together for their shared needs and concerns, if you get enough people that have the same shared needs and concerns, then what do you have your power? Right, That's how you can solidate power. That's how you get stuff past. That's how you get stuff done if you have enough people with the same shared interests and they all are agreeing. Yo,

this is our guy, this is who we want. We all wanted to be like this. Boom, we got it right, that's that district. I wonder if y'all can already see how this can get weaponized in a white supremacist, horribly racist system. If you have a bunch of black people living in the same space and they become a district. When you outnumber everybody else, guess what, you have the most voting power. So if I draw a line around this city and that city is comprised of black people,

guess who're gonna get to say? Because it's just more of us. So if you're trying to consolidate power, what do you do? You can re draw the lines. It's pretty simple. You divide that if it let's just say, let's just keep it real clean. You got black people, and just for the sake of this argument, the other twenty is white. Now, there's nowhere in California doesn't like that, right, But let's just say that is, then what do you do?

You draw district around the white people and take ten percent of the black people and make that one district. You take another part of that black folks, and now that's only you draw. You go into another district over here that's maybe predominantly Latino, and you take ten percent of that Latinos added to another ten percented in white people. Right, so now this new district is white and ten percent Latino, and then you take this other district. So you just

keep drawing lines that consolidate power for yourself. That's why the district's shapes are ridiculous, because they're not about share the interests. They're about power. Are y'all, y'all, y'all following me? You just draw lines around groups that make you more powerful, so you might wake up one day in a brand new district. I'm looking around my neighborhood. I live in a part of town that's like almost a percent Mexican. Like I'm I'm me and my daughter holding down the

black population in my neighborhoo it you feel me? So we're in this one district, But what if they drew our lines a little different Where our house is now included in area called Monterey Park, which is a almost a percent agent. Then the things that have to do in my community, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna matter my representative, like I don't represent the vast majority of my district no more. But because the guy wanted that wanted to get elected, redrew the lines to make sure

he could make sure she could. So Mary Garland is sue in Texas because Texas is in the process of redistricting. Now, what is the basis of the suing is The basis of the suing is Section two of the Voter Rights Act. I talked about the Voting Rights Act before, right, Uh, y'all do your google's on exactly what that is. But what happened was when that Voting Rights Act came into power in two thousand and thirteen, it got gutted. How

did it get gutted? Basically, one of the things that we were trying to do with the Voting Rights Act was just this was this idea of redistricting oftentime was for the purpose to follow me, disenfranchise black and brown voices because there's so much of us and when you hear white supremacists like the extreme right, talking about like white genocide, talking about the fabric of our nation being changed, the you know, the way that our society is working. Now,

they feel like they're being outnumbered. Nobody's caring about them no more. This is a way to counteract that, because you're right, if we're talking sheer numbers, there's more of us. So why aren't we getting laws passed? Why aren't we being represented? Well, you just redraw the maps. Rather than letting us consolidate and stay together, you just read all the districts. It's it's actually pretty brilliant. But that's what

will always happened. Let me go back to reconstruction time, back to when uh, the slaves were fully freed, When the slaves were first freed and we got the right to start voting. That's why they invented the black codes. Is because we was like, oh wait, we get to choose our electric official choose oh nigger, we're choosing us. And we was winning because just like you use your logic, use your antennas. You got one slave owning family is

maybe five six of them. If they got twenty slaves, you out numbered one the four right four You got it for the one okay, a little bit of Matt. You out numbered one to four, the one right, you out number four the one easy. So that means if you let me choose, what I'm gonna vote is more of us. We're gonna choose the stuff that got to do it. So, yeah, they invent the Black Coast. That was to disenfranchise us on purpose, because when you when you said it, when we get too elected, we're gonna

choose what makes it. That's what you told me. I said, you told me how it works. You said, I get to said I get to choose my elected officials the government, bother people for the people. The people saying this is when we choose. They was like, oh, niket, is this working too good? So they had to change the laws. The Voting Rights Act was a way to say that you just keep doing this because you're you're redrawing these

districts to make sure that our voices aren't heard. So if you're going to redraw the districts, you gotta talk to the Supreme Court before you do it. That was what was in the Voting Rights Act to make sure that you're not just being racist. Well, when it got gutted and it was Like I said, this was specifically because this is what was happening in the South. It's just more, it's more, it's more people of color there, so those who are in power and losing pacts, not

enough of them. In two thousand thirteen, that part where you had to check in with the Supreme Court got taken out. So Texas was like, oh, well, we don't have to when we have to check in, And what does the Supreme Court know about us? Anyway? You're not down here, You ain't out here. She wasn't outside. Y'all know what's up down here. We draw on our own. So they started drawing their own districts. Obviously, these are the Republicans doing this because they they could feel the

wind shifting. How do they feel the wind shifting? NIGGD because Austin, Dallas, in Houston, them is big cities and them is big and what happens in big cities nigade lean left at least right now, that's what happens if if all that, if the rest of Texas is ruled, ain't nobody out there. It's not enough people out there. So according to these Republicans, they're not getting their voices hurt.

These people outside not getting their voices hurt, right, So we need to draw districts that make their voices in rural areas be just as powerful as the ones in the city because the city is getting too much. A lot of this, this, a lot of this was some of the stuff that was happening in California. Why California was talking about um breaking up, breaking it up as a state. Why in the hell should Kerrent County? You know, way Rika California. You ever heard of way Rika? Exactly?

Why they're paying the same the same taxes at San Francisco as l A. It's like, why are we paying what y'all gotta pay? Then? Prices is for you, Like that's y'all's way of life. The rest of Cali ain't like this. That's a good point. You get up to Mount Shasta. Oh, that's that's Trump Country up there. It's I mean, it's like, it's crazy. It's not you think California this this bastion of leftist no nigga, that's the cities. You get out the cities, bro, you get down to

u Kaiper. I'm naming cities that I know. You gotta be from here to know and I know this is a national international pod. You don't know what I'm talking about. But you get down to ukaiper all, nigga. You in Texas, you know what I'm saying, Like they don't rural Texas because y'all saying because Austin becoming a lot like Portland's. You feel me, Dallas, you know what I'm saying, Dallas looking like Seattle these days. You feel me like the city's is changing. So they was like, oh no, bro,

we gotta we gotta, we gotta fix this. They wash, they was they was doing. They're doing too much. So anyway, the Voting Rights Act was saying, listen, you should be able to include not just geographical but racial in linguistic interests, right because that at first wasn't a part of the districting process, racial and linguistics. So when you start adding racial and linguistic, it's again, we have a burgeoning, you know, Spanish speaking Latino community that has very specific needs and

if you're not looking around, they find an outnumber. Everybody you know saying, but they don't have no say how well, this is how you make sure, if you empower, how you stay in power, if you're the guy that you're like, Yo, I'm gonna lose this district because it's a gang of you know what's that have been filling up in my district. I'm about to lose this job. Well, what's the answer. Do you try to convince these people who know for a fact you racist and you're not doing nothing for us.

You're gonna try to convince them that you are, especially when they brought up their own champion. You know what I'm saying, They got their own champion. You're gonna convince them to go with another white boy. You're gonna convince this group. You're gonna convince this whole city of multi colored faces that what they need is another white boy. That's what you're gonna do. Now, we're just gonna redraw the districts. You feel me, y'all, y'r bloods now now

a blood practice, practice, a blood practice. You got it? You got it, dam you know I'm saying you got it, Pyru, y'all, y'all, bloods now, you redraw the district Now, you gotta worry about it. How we become bloods So I just drew another line around Compton. So now we now were bloods now you're a blood like it just happened right under your feet. So this is what Texas is doing, and married Garland is like, I don't know, man, this feel real.

I mean, you're saying this to protect the rural community, but it feels a little I don't know, man, it feels a little. Uh it's a little like paragraph feel little like you're protecting protecting your whiteness kind of what it feels like because Nikki, y'all almost lost last y'all almost lost. It's just your your state flipping and uh, it seems like you're not representing the people, you representing

yourself and just I don't know if y'all could do this. Um, let's give you a little background history of like how long people been jerrymandering and where we even got that word. Let's take a break. All right, we're back, y'all. Peep that headlights yet? Did he drop it? I don't know when this episode is coming out. He better have dropped the album by now, if not hit him again, dropped the album. I listened to it. We don't help to put it in in order. This fool got slapstock. It's

just good vibes, Like if you had. You know, this is the holidays. You know you kind of tired a family. Keep it real that, uh you need something to chill out in, or even background music while everybody there. Man, throw on that headlights tape. Man, it's good vibes. You feel me anyway? So jerrymanderin All right, listen this mug go all the way back to I mean, the next day after we became a nation, right, like immediately you

know what I'm saying. Thomas Hunter. He's a political scientist over professor over there at the at the University of West Georgia. Right, I mean, like there's evidence in like Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina that they drew districts to benefit some candidates over others. I'm talking like late eighteenth early nineteenth century there. I mean, it was called Jerry Mandarin then, but nig has been Jerry Mandarin the whole time, right, it would be called that a little later. I'm an

quote him. He's all, yeah, I'm a quote thomasonr. He says, I think that what they did in Massachusetts in eighteen twelve really was on steroids compared to what had gone on before. Said Hunter. Um about okay, I'm gonna get to it now. Check this out. So eighteen twelve, the Boston Gazette, right, was this politically he ran this political cartoon with this like species. Is the drawing of this like monster right that they called it the Jerrymander. Right.

It was this fork tongue creature that looked like a almost like a dragon, a little bit that was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the States Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party. So again, rather than drawing, you know, district map that made sense, they drew this weird shaped thing around the side of Boston and they called that one district. And it's because they were just drawing circles around people that would vote

for a Jeffersonian Republican. So rather than having a district and trying to win that district over, you just drew a district, drew a circle around people that would vote for you. And now Homie who signed off for this became a future vice president. Eldredge Gary Right, who signed off on his party's redistricting in February, unwittingly submitting his place in the United States lexicon of underhanded political tricks.

So the Federalists reprinted it. That's a newspaper, and so when they reprinted it, it it was kind of like this. It was because it was supposed to be a play on words with a salamander, right, so they called it a jerrymander, even though Jerry's name is pronounced Gary. What we say it like Jerry, It's just whatever. It's just this is what happens when something's two hundred years old. So anyway, he drew a district that did not make

sense to make sure that he could stay in power. Right, But before that they used to call him a rotten boroughs um, which is, again, you make a district that would ensure that these people in this room would vote for you. So if you're living in this in this area, your neighborhood happens to get redrawn. My nig, all of a sudden, you're on the wrong side of town according

to you're voting practices. Now, in a defense of redrawing districts, a defensive redrawing districts can in some ways be like my first example of Lynnwood, the demographic changed, you know what I'm saying, Like the city is it's different, right, the the the borders are different. Um using a gang. Using the gang analogy here, like when you say you from Compton, we have to be like you from east or west because one side is blood, one side is crip.

You know, but maybe it wasn't always like that, because you know, there was a time that bloods didn't exist, you feel me, right? So uh, that means that the city needs to be who's representing y'all needs to be y'all need to this needs to We need to redraw these districts because these two areas have very different interests, right, So because of that, you need different representatives. So there is a time that maybe it is important to re

draw lines. But then it's other times that it's like when it's coming from the top down rather than the bottom up. It's because y'all, these fools is consolidating power. So more of the story for all of us. What do we need to know? Your homework is today? As soon as you finished this pod, go figure out what district you in, who your representative is. Didn't do your googles on this? Dude on this lefe on this food on cuse blood? Do do do do your do your google?

What's this fool about what they what they're trying to do? What's they vote in history? You know what I'm saying, pay attention like who who is this fool? You know what I'm saying. Know your district, Know some of the ballot measures that are in your district. And then after that, like look around as to like, yo, maybe somebody else might be maybe he's trying to start paying attention to your local commercials about who's running for district, Like see who,

see who? See who we're putting up? When you see what your district is, look at the way it's drawn and being like all right, uh, you know your hood better than me, be like okay, this seems it seems real weird, Like why why are we looped in with them and not with them? That don't make no sense. I'll tell you why somebody wanted to keep their gobs.

You feel me so um And then just you know, now that you have this information, like the next time you's Alice come around, you can make a more educated guess as to like who you're trying to send you feel me, who are you trying to send to the table to be representing y'all? Like who's your soldier. Does this soldier Is this soldier really interested in our goods? See, there's a lot of things in politics that are I feel you are so far away from us that it

seems like it don't do nothing. And those ones that are so far away from us usually get the most shine. These local ones, they don't get a lot of shine, But that's the ones that affect us the most. You know what I'm saying. Your vote in your local one is one of a couple of thousands. Your vote for them national ones um a couple of millions. So I mean where you think your voice gonna have problem more weight with a couple of thousands or a couple of million.

You know what I'm saying? Why not talk district on out what color places you've got? You know what I'm saying, Maybe you ain't handle say what you do now the politics y'all, y'all, This smug was recorded and edited by me Propaganda right here in East Low Spoil Heights, Los Angeles. Y'all cauld follow me at prop hip Hop on all

the socials. You could follow the Hood Politics pod itself at Club Politics Pod, where we'll be trying to make takes on stuff that aren't really big enough for a whole episode, but definitely needs a little bit of clarity. This mug was scored, edited, mixed, and mastered by the one and only Headlights. Y'all, go follow my dog Matt Outswellski. I still don't know how to say his name. I'm glad he changed at their Headlights. Follow him on his

socials at Headlights. Underscore music telling you here, all these new other fly tracks, this wool be making, and the theme music was done by the one and Only Gold Tips Gold Tips DJ Sean Pte. Y'all remember every time you check in. If you understand the hood, you could understand politics. Shouts to I Heart Media for making this happen.