August 7, 2024. The Midweek Memo

Its the middle of the week. Time to check on the latest developments surrounding stories in the news with guest host Q Ward 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A man who needs no introduction. The Black Information Network
is committed to bringing you up to the date news
stories that are relevant, informative, and inspiring. And while news
stories are always being updated and others are breaking, we
understand that you need to be in the know all
week long. Welcome to your midweek Memo on the Black
Information Network Daily Podcast with Me your host q Ward

(00:30):
First Up. Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor
Tim Walls as her running mate. The sixty year old
Democrat served in the House for twelve years before being
elected governor of the North Star state in twenty eighteen
and re elected in twenty twenty two. Walls is thought
to be a help to Harris in the key Midwestern
battleground states. Now I wish I could pretend I wasn't

(00:54):
personally excited about her pick, but this is who I
had my fingers crossed hoping he would select after I
had to do some research myself. Now, admittedly, when I
saw the list of potential candidates, and when I say saw,
I mean literally saw photos of them, Tim Walls was
not first, second, or third on my list. A huge

(01:18):
point of emphasis during this election has been the age
of the presumptive candidates, which at the time were our
current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. People
have been going back and forth and really out of
their way on both sides to bring up the age
of these men. So when I saw pictures of Governor Walls,

(01:42):
he just looked to be the older of the people
that she was considering as her running mate. But because
of what I do, I knew that just looking at
photos wasn't going to be enough. And as soon as
I started doing research, and I mean the very first
result that came up, I saw a video of Governor

(02:04):
Walls and his daughter at the state Fair, and that
led me down what some would call a rabbit hole
of awesome. A kind Midwesterner who has an every day
every man appeal. He talked about policy, he talked about uniting,
he talked about uplifting, and it was a very refreshing

(02:27):
break from the divisive rhetoric that has kind of taken
over this country's political landscape. So I can tell from
the reaction among people that I know and care about
that there is a real excitement about her selection, about
this campaign and about the possibilities of a more united,

(02:47):
more progressive, not just Democratic Party, but country in general.
Someone who seems to want better for everyone, not just
the people that look, love and think the way that
he does. So it's a very refreshing choice. In other
news from the bi in. According to his fuel report

(03:10):
per CNN, the Illinois deputy who fatally shot Sonya Massey
after she called nine to one one for help thought
she intended to kill him when she said, I rebuke
you in the name of Jesus. Massey called nine one
one on July sixth to report a possible intruder at
her home. One of the Sangamon County deputies who responded

(03:31):
to the call, Sean Grayson, shot and killed Massey following
an exchange over a pot of hot water. Prior to
the shooting, Grayson had directed Massey to remove the pot
of water from her stove. As Massey grabbed the pot,
Grayson moved away from the hot, steaming water. According to
the fuel report released on Monday, August fifth, Sonya turned

(03:54):
to face me holding the pot, he says in a quote.
I did not know the type of liquid that was boiling.
Grayson wrote in his report following the incident, quote, I
advised Sonya to put the boiling liquid down. Sonya stated
she was going to rebuke me in the name of Jesus.
She stated this twice. I interpreted this to me and
she was going to kill me. Following Massei's comment, Grayson

(04:17):
pulled out his gun as she ducked behind a counter.
Grayson said he walked around the counter out of fear
that she would grab a hidden weapon. Stories like this
will never become easy to talk about. Often, highly trained,

(04:37):
professional law enforcement agents are forgiven for being afraid, losing
their cool, and making hasty, fatal decisions, while normal citizens
without said training and oftentimes without a weapon, are expected
to act calmly and make every decision properly just to

(05:02):
survive interactions with law enforcement. Now, often we see officers
who in some cases are shielded by immunity, claim that
they are afraid or that they were afraid when they
made life altering, and in a lot of cases, life
taking decisions. Things like this make it important when you

(05:26):
see our lawmakers, our legislators, and even our candidates for
president speaking about granting full immunity to law enforcement officers.
The call for accountability needs to be step one, and
what many think is a much overdo full reimagining of

(05:48):
the way law enforcement agencies operate in this country. The
lack of empathy and the lack of connection to the
communities that these officers work in often lead to outcomes
like this. You know, just more familiarity with the people
that they are policing would have put this officer in
a space where hearing something like I rebuke you in

(06:08):
the name of Jesus might have been comforting instead of
something that made him feel like he was going to
be killed. We often hear about sensitivity training, but I
think a more ingratiating experience with the communities that you
work in, and even you know, in some cases, incentive
to live amongst those you police, might be a great idea.

(06:31):
This is your midweek memo on the Black Information Network
Daily podcast with Me your host Qboard. Another story from
the bin. Social media users are celebrating the first anniversary
of the viral boat brawl at the Montgomery Riverfront on
August fifth, twenty twenty three. Videos captured the moment when

(06:51):
a group of white men attacked riverboat co Captain Damien
Pickett on the dock at Montgomery Riverfront Park. Pickett, who
had instructed a parked tune to move from the dock
to make room for a riverboat to offload his passengers.
Was seen on the ground while the group struck him.
Several bystanders intervened to defend the co captain, including a

(07:12):
man named Reggie Ray, who wielded a folding chair. After
video of the brawl went viral, the folding chair became
known as a symbol of unity among black social media users.
I have a tweet from jeff City Mac Happy augusteenth
to all who celebrate and honor the Alabama Sweet Tea

(07:32):
Party aka Fade in the Water aka the Montgomery Boat Brawl.
Shout out to Aquamane aka Scuba Gooding Junior aka Michael B. Phelps.
It's the greatest tweet ever. Maybe all pull up our
pants and skip to our loo on any ops presenting
themselves today and the fist emoji. Many of you may

(07:57):
remember this video that could have been a status quo
video right a group of white men bullying, attacking, and
assaulting a lone black man. But much like an analogy
that I've used before, the Avengers showed up to support

(08:18):
and to lay the SmackDown if you will, in retribution
for this Fallen co captain. The Montgomery brawl sparked many memes.
I think we all saw the chair with the do
rag and the Black Air Force ones. Detroit rapper g
Mattcash has a song about it, and many have turned this,

(08:42):
as we saw in this tweet, into its own unofficial
holiday August teenth. So this is a moment that I
think will forever kind of just incite a warm chuckle
or interject a warm smile into your day. Lastly from
b I in former CNN A Don Lemon is suing
Elon Musk after a deal with X. Formally, Twitter went

(09:05):
sour on August first, news broke that Lemon filed a
complain against Musk over an X show starring the journalist
that was scrapped before its debut. Per People Lymen, who
exited his longtime role at CNN in April of twenty
twenty three, announced in January that he was partnering with
Musk to create The Don Lemon Show, which would premiere
exclusively on X and feature honest debate and discussion without

(09:29):
haul monitors. However, Lemon said Musk backed out of the
partnership just days before the show was set to debut,
forcing him to air the first episode of his show independently.
Lemon's lawsuit claims that Musk committed fraud and breach of contract,
misappropriated Lemen's name and likeness, and became unjustly and rich
when the platform kept the money made from Lemen's video post,

(09:53):
among other allegations. People reports Lemon is seeking financial restitution
at a jury trial. On August first, Musk responded to
Lemon's lawsuit on x saying he was made a series
of impressively insane demands. We declined, therefore there was no deal.

(10:13):
Very interesting to see people who have, for lack of
better kind of been tent polls for the culture partnering
up with Elon Musk, who is overtly anti our culture. Anyway.
Recently we saw Timberland and Swiss Beats. On Juneteenth, of
all times, Photoed Smiling announced that they had a partnership

(10:37):
with Elon Musk. And here Don Lemon, who used to
be one of the loudest anti Trump voices in media,
speaking about a deal with Musk that's gone sour. Sometimes
all money isn't good money. The idea that Don Lemon
only had this opportunity would be a surprise to me,

(10:59):
and maybe it was a very lucrative deal, But I
think who you allow yourself to do business with is
just as important as how much you can make from
set opportunities. I'm hoping that Don Lemon lands on his feet,
that there will be other opportunities presented to him, and
that he's able to take advantage of better partnerships moving forward,

(11:22):
and that's going to do it for your midweek memo,
don't forget. These and other stories can be found at
bionnews dot com. This has been a production of the
Black Information Network. Today's show was produced by Chris Thompson.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share, use the red
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(11:42):
be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes.
I'm your host, I amqword on all social media and
join us tomorrow as we share our news with our
voice from our perspective right here on the Black Information
Network Daily Podcast