Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A man who needs no introduction.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Black Information Network is committed to bringing you up
to the date news stories that are relevant, informative, and inspiring.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to your midweek memo on the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast with Me ramses Jaw and I Am q Ward.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This first story from the Black Information Network. On Monday,
January twentieth, Trump was sworn in for his second term
in the Capital Rotunda, location change that occurred due to
freezing weather in Washington, d C. During his roughly thirty
minute inaugural address, Trump promised to give the people back
their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom
(00:55):
quote from this moment on America's decline is over, the
president told the crowd of politicians including Biden and Harris,
billionaires and tech titans such as Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook,
and Jeff Bezos in the rotunda on Monday. Trump also
detailed several executive orders and policies he plans to mandate
on the first day of his term, which he touted
(01:16):
as the Golden Age of America. So I know that
we've been waiting and now we're here. I know that
you said that you were trying to take the day
to honor doctor King as a lot of us were
(01:37):
a lot of us chose to Michelle Obama the president's inauguration.
But it is news and it is something that you know,
you ultimately ended up paying attention to. I know, talk
to us a little bit about kind of I don't
know what the moment was like because you kind of
took one for the team here because I didn't.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
See it at all. I was I was still on
my mental health break, so it was interesting paying attention
to it at all. People that care about us, people
that love us, would have encouraged us to just like
just turn it off. Man, Why are you doing that
to yourself? And what I have to remind people is
(02:18):
that we don't get to do this part time. We
take our mental health breaks when we can, but when
it comes to the news and the stuff that we cover,
like if if this was the super Bowl, we could
have skipped it, that probably be bad for clicks and
you know, bad for the virality of the moment. We
try to keep up with whatever's most common and what
(02:40):
people are paying the most attention to, so, but if
it was something like that that's kind of out of
our scope even though it's popular, then maybe we can
excuse ourselves. But we are a civic engagement, social activist,
social justice political show. All the work that we do
is in this space, so as much as we want to,
we couldn't just disconnect and turn it off. And unfortunately, man,
(03:05):
it was whatever. The opposite of how you feel on
Christmas Eve as a kid and then going into Christmas
Day was how I felt night before inauguration, going into
the inauguration and the pre and the post, and I
just wish they would they've stopped pretending that they're not
(03:29):
who they are, but they haven't stopped treating us like
we're stupid. And that's the part that kind of bugs me.
I'm watching black people even make explanations for that salute
that Elon Musk did, like we didn't see it with
our own eyes, Like we didn't see him do it twice,
Like we don't know exactly what that meant, and like
(03:51):
everyone who he was signaling to didn't reassure us that
it meant exactly what we thought. Neo Nazi groups whites
from his groups and white Christian nationalists all responded in
kind to that salute that was dedicated to them, you
know what I mean. So it's just really insulting to
(04:12):
just have them play in our faces in that way.
You know, Trump right away reminded us of everything he
told us when he was running. So again none of
it was surprising. You know, everything he said he planned
to do. All the executive day one orders, his top
priorities of business were all evil, cruel, mean things, nothing important.
It wasn't like on day one, I'm going to make
(04:34):
sure that life is less expensive for everyone. I'm going
to make sure that Americans have access to healthcare and education.
I'm going to make sure that because all these things,
he could as easily as he could do a mass deportation,
he could do a mass student loan forgiveness, as swiftly
(04:55):
and as aggressively as he could do a everyone as
a man or a woman, he could do. I'm going
to make sure that insolince stays capped like he could
have just as aggressively done kind things, even if it
was performance. And here again is where I'm confused. Ramses.
(05:16):
Even for his base, he doesn't pretend to be a
good guy, and they will still tell us to our
faces that he is and that he's doing things for Americans.
And it's like, he doesn't even pretend that's true. How
come you are trying to convince me that it is.
He's not trying to convince me that that's true. He's
not trying to convince me that he's a benevolent, kind person.
(05:41):
They asked him why he pardoned a guy who put
a shotgun through a police officer's neck, and he just
changed the subject, Like even in moments like that where
he could lie like he always does, and moments like that,
he's not prepared. He didn't rehearse his lie yet, so
he just talks about something else, like the question was
an act, So you know it was. It was a
(06:04):
tough day. You know, I'm still reconciling with people that
I know and care about kind of switching to the
other side, you know, falling victim to misinformation and conspiracy
theory and contrarianism, and some of them just being fed up, justifiably,
but not knowing an alternative way to think or feel.
So this other person is just as frustrated as I am.
(06:28):
So I'm going to lean into what they're saying. Even
if if I spent one minute of scholastic research, I
would realize it was nonsense. But in the moment, this
is how I feel, and that's how they feel, so
it must be right. It's it's super discouraging man. But
you know here we are, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, I you know, one of the things that we
do in this journalistic space, because you know, it's well
established that we are both journalists and activists, but one
of the things that we do is we take turns
when it comes to some stories. Some we don't watch
(07:13):
every video of a loss of black life. We don't
watch every we don't do deep dives into every single story,
because we would get burned out way too quick, and
we would it's very easy to give into despair. And
we have learned that kind of being each other's keeper
in this space just works a little bit better for
(07:34):
us and provides us with some more longevity in terms
of being able to to cover these things and to
provide some insight and some clarity for people who maybe
they don't know how to make head their tails of
what's happening, you know, politically in this country. But you know,
some of those things I was kind of aware of
just you know, being on social media.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And of course there's.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
More breakdowns coming because we out to you know, we
can't pretend like you know, we can duck and dodge,
you know, some of the bigger stories and bigger headlines.
But you know, I think your point is well made
that it felt like he got in there on what
he said he was going to be on. But you know,
(08:19):
there was nothing that felt inherently kind or humane about
you know, his first day or days in office. And
I think that brings us to our next story. This
next one comes from the Black Information Network. President Donald
Trump declared that he was firing Joe Biden appointee and
former Atlanta mayor Akisha Lance Bottoms, and she quickly reminded
(08:42):
him that she had resigned from her post weeks ago.
On Tuesday, Trump took to his true social platform to
fire Lance Bottoms and several other members of the Biden
Harris administration. Trump tried to explain that the group doesn't
align with his make America Great Again vision. However, Lance
Bottoms reminded the president that it's impossible to fire someone
who has already resigned. The former mayor, who had previously
(09:05):
led the White House Office of Public Engagement, gave her
response to Trump and an Instagram post. This is a quote,
a daylight and a dollar short. My resignation from the
President's Export Council was submitted January fourth, effective yesterday. She
goes on to say, you can't fire someone who has
already resigned. Of all the things happening in the world,
not sure why I'm on Donald Trump's mind at one
(09:25):
thirty am following his inauguration, but I counted as a
badge of honner. Quote Lance Bottoms urged Trump to pay
attention to other pressing issues, including the wildfires in Los Angeles.
She goes on to say, quote, no matter how you voted,
I think we can all agree that targeting me, along
with a man who is feeding displaced people in Los
Angeles and a decorated military general in the early morning
(09:47):
hours via social media is not the best use of
time for the President of the United States. So, yeah,
you know, to your point, he's started off being Donald Trump,
and I don't think there was any hope that he
would start off being the president that you know, we
feel is necessary. But I guess there's something to be
(10:13):
said about, you know, the find out part. There's something
to be said about the devil. You know, there's something
to be said about you know. Maybe this conceivably can
serve as a wake up call. And the only way
we engage in a democracy if we want a president
to be a president, is to vote. Because you know,
for the people that voted for Donald Trump, all the
(10:35):
things that he's doing is right. But for the people
who expect more from their president, and they look at
headlines like this and articles like this and say, why
is he What in the world is he focused on that?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
For? He doesn't have his facts straight.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
He's going after people like there's pressing issues that are
happening in this country.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Why is he focused on this?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And those people didn't vote because of whatever reason in
the last election. Hopefully this can serve as a wake
up call for those people again that didn't vote and
are taking issue with the way that Donald Trump has
started off running this country. I'd like for you to
weigh in here as well, because I mean it's just
as infuriating.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, it's interesting to view it as a wake up
call because I think what I keep trying to echo
to peoples, but I feel like it's too late, right,
like he said out loud. Also during his you know,
Welcome Back to DC tour, admitted that Elon Musk helped
rig the election for him, talked about how good a
(11:35):
job Elon did with the vote counting computers, Like he
said those words. So this is what I'm saying. They're
not pretending anymore. They're not sneaking around in back rooms
and undercloak and being inconspicuous or you know, hiding out.
They're saying all the quiet stuff out loud, and now
(11:56):
no one can do anything about it. And when we
were still in the position to do something, we didn't. Right,
That's the thing that made me so furious. Over the
last couple of months, while still in the position to
do something, we did, a lot of people just stayed home.
And then even our elected officials who were still in office,
he just been punking them for months, like everybody feeling
(12:21):
like they have to be polite and cordial and presidential
and you know, involve themselves in the theater of politics
and play polite with this guy who you guys are
telling us he's the next Hitler. So yeah, it looks
crazy when you sit next to him, cracking jokes, whatever
the reason is, Like, I get that it's pressing they
have to sit at the funeral of another president next
(12:42):
to this man and be respectable. But to your constituents,
that looks crazy because you've been telling us for months
and for years that this dude was an existential threat
and then you go have tea with him because that's
just what presidents do. Well, nothing he does is just
what presidents do. So how come you still feel the
(13:03):
need to go by that playbook or play by those rules.
He's shown he's not decent or honorable. Why do we
have to keep being decent and honorable towards him? The
same people that he insults, he insults them, he insults
their spouses, and then they see him and they shake
his hand and kiss the ring, And it's like, dude,
how are we supposed to feel like there's any hope
(13:26):
when this is how you all respond to him? So yeah,
when Michelle Obama doesn't want to show up, kudos God
bless her for being like, Yo, this is not regular,
this is not normal. I don't respect that man, and
I'll be damn if I'm going to go sit there
and be polite and treat him like he even deserves
to be in my company. She said, Barry you as
(13:47):
the president, you go see him. I'm not going. Yeah,
And you know it's it's infuriating, man, because the find
out part would be cool if only the people that
voted for him had to find out, and then we
could be like, see told you so, But no rueing
(14:08):
in of the find out as mostly us and the
perception is reality thing is important because his followers won't
feel bad about the decision they made no matter how
it plays out. They'll find a way to blame it
on something else. And that's a better place to be mentally.
I wish I was that stupid. I wish I was
that gullible. I wish I was that easy to manipulate.
(14:28):
I wish I was less informed and less educated, because
I'd be less frustrated and less angry. It'd be an
easier life moving forward if I didn't know better. But
here we are.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
This is your midweek memo on the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast with your hosts Rams's Jaw and Qward.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All Right.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Next up, this story from the Black Information Network of Florida.
Officer has been reportedly fired after accidentally shooting a black
man with his own gun during a traffic stop.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Per Tea.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Jason Errington appeared to be cooperating with police after he
was pulled over for running a red light and informed
officers that he had a gun on him. The man
stepped out of his vehicle and was frisked by police
before officer Mindy Cardwell removed the weapon from his waistband.
The gun fired and shot Arrington's upper thigh. Body camera
footage shows another officer telling Caldwell to drop the pistol
(15:23):
as he took Errington to a nearby Patrick Grass. Blood
appeared to seep through the man's pants. Officers stopped the
bleeding with a tourniquit. An internal investigation found Caldwell put
multiple fingers inside the trigger guard of the gun as
she was removing it from its holster, causing the weapon
to go off. Following the investigation, the department has moved
to fire her. Errington, who was licensed to carry, is
(15:46):
reportedly suing over the December traffic stop, alleging that his
injuries have prevented him from working as a crane operator.
So this this this might have been an accident, says
it's an accident. You know, I know, I know how
we get on this one cue, but it's not a
(16:10):
good look because you still have a police officer shooting
and a black man who was I mean, I guess
he wasn't unarmed, but he was no threat to the officer,
and so I guess this kind of doesn't really work
in the favor of the officers. But you know, they
they fired her. He's suing, you know, and oftentimes we
(16:34):
don't even get that. But you know your early thoughts
on this story.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
They talk about more training all the time. Yeah, they do.
Are they training at all? Would be my question? Right
like that, when I became a gun owner, the first
thing I knew before I even went to my instructor
is that I probably shouldn't grab the gun by the trigger,
(17:06):
even when it wasn't loaded, even when it was new.
That was probably not the proper way to handle it.
I'd imagine that law enforcement has been trained a bit
better than me. So sure, if I'm driving my car
from the passenger seat and I don't mean for it
to crash, but it crashes, it's still my fault for
(17:26):
not operating the car properly. So multiple fingers inside of
the trigger guard is mistake won And sure this officer
was fired and it could be deemed negligent. Right, but
is there going to be any actual accountability because the
lawsuit is fine, but in most cases when the police
(17:46):
get sued, we pay for it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah another job, Yeah, so I had another law enforcement job.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah. Yeah, So in terms of actual accountability, she shot
someone not in self defense. Right. If I hit somewhat
my car by mistake, even if I didn't mean to,
I'm going to jail. If I shoot someone, even if
I didn't mean to, I'm going to jail. And a
person with more qualification and more training and more experience
(18:17):
should be held to a higher standard, not a lesser one.
But you know, here we are law enforcement versus unarmed
pedestrian once again, and typically they don't play out the
way that we think it should.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Well for our final story here, this is from the
Black Information Network. A white woman in Ohio has issued
a tearful apology that's important after she was called out
for profiling her black neighbor. Real estate developer Mike Jenkins
shared home security footage of his encounter with his white neighbor,
Michelle Bishop, who falsely accused him of chasing her in
(18:52):
a vehicle and later trespassing on his own property. Okay,
I'm going to read this whole thing. Bishop reportedly fled
to the nearest home in an affluent, Ohio neighborhood after
a vehicle slowly approached her and her children while they
were jogging outside. Jenkins answered the door and identified himself
as the homeowner, but Bishop didn't believe the home belonged
(19:12):
to the black man.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I don't believe that, Bishop said, before leaving jenkins property
with her children and screaming for help. Bishop's husband then
appeared to go to Jenkins's house to explain the situation
with his wife. Bishop claimed Jenkins scared the crap out
of her for simply identifying himself as the homeowner. Jenkins
said he was driving slowly through the neighborhood while looking
(19:35):
at Christmas lights, as Bishop explained she thought he was
following her. After receiving widespread backlash over the incident, Bishop
released several videos apologizing for what happened. Bishop denied any
racist intent in her actions, saying that she was only
concerned about her children's safety. She also claimed that she
wasn't able to see Jenkins's race because it was dark outside.
(20:00):
So I'm gonna let you go first on this one.
But uh, yeah, as that's yeah good.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I just I just always wish we had a counter example, man.
I wish we had the woman scared of the white
man who she didn't believe on the house. If we
just had one example, I would feel so much better.
I would feel like, no, she's not racist, she's just
afraid my view. He's his favorite word that I use
all the time. The benefit of the doubt spectrum is
(20:34):
this fear that they always use as a cape or
an umbre brother to shield them from accountability for being racist. Man,
Like I didn't believe, I don't believe you. You don't believe
that it's you don't believe The house I'm at is
mine mine?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Why?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And the only other thing that you know in that moment,
to your point, quee, is that I'm black.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, she didn't see because it was dark. To dude
with the massive head of locks, she couldn't tell he
was black because it was dark, Like, come on, man,
And and there's no there's no other reasonable explanation as
to why you wouldn't believe if someone knocked on my
door right now, and I answered the door, and they didn't.
They called the cops because they didn't believe this was
(21:19):
my house. What other reasonable explanation would you have for
determining that this this neighborhood, or this house is too
nice for me to own it.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
The only the only thing they could say is, well,
I didn't believe it was his house because he's black,
and there are no black people here, or there should
be no black people here. And so your point is
well made. I think that there's something else here too.
How Bishop interpreted Jenkins, you know, drive through the neighborhood
(21:55):
as somehow a like a like stalking behavior, you know
what I mean, like somehow endangering her and her family. Right,
And that's okay, that's all well and good. Some people
are paranoid and given to you know, all kinds of stuff,
you know what I mean. And that's fine. I'm not
splitting hairs there. But for him, he's driving through the
(22:19):
neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights, and and you know,
you drive slowly when you drive through a neighborhood like
that looking at Christmas lights. So it's it's one of
those things that that part stood out to me, because
it's one of those.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Things that reminds you that even doing.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Normal, innocent, harmless things, if you do them while you
are black, they can potentially.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Be very dangerous for you.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And you know, we say it a lot, and you
know people have said it long before we were born.
That's called being black and nearby. And it's just one
of those things where it's just it's such a crazy thing.
But imagine this gentleman's night, Jenkins. Of course, imagine his night.
He's out looking at Christmas lights, going to his home,
his new home in a nice neighborhood. You know, he's
(23:16):
just living his life. And then this story happens, and
then this tearful apology from this woman trying to proclaim
that she's not racist, because of course she doesn't see it.
Remember we had a conversation the other day, and I
know that our listeners weren't privy to this, but I said,
you know, ninety nine times out of one hundred, it
is bona fide racism, racist behavior, racist indoctrination, whatever the
(23:40):
case is.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And I think that this is another example of that.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So your point was well made and an excellent take,
But go ahead, I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I mean, the most interesting part of the whole story.
If you read the story and you don't kind of
keep track of the order of events in your head,
you can again find yourself giving her benefit of the doubt. Yeah,
of course, an important life in his story is Jenkins
answered the door. This means after this man who she
(24:08):
thought was following her scared her, she followed him home.
She followed him to his house because she was scared
that he was stalking her. He then answered the door,
which means he opened a closed door at a home
he was inside of, identified himself hisself as the owner,
(24:31):
or he opened the door of a car he was
inside of. Again, this door is closed, so he's being
approached by her, identifies himself as the homeowner. The nerve
to say, I don't believe that based on nothing else.
But as you said, the only thing you can see
(24:53):
that you live here. And you know that that stress
on the word you was very intentional. There is no
way you live here. We can kind of smile about it,
right because this guy wasn't harmed, But we know a
(25:14):
bunch of stories that's not new where she screams afraid
and harm is done to the black man that's just present,
justified fear, just because he's black. And that is the
reality for you and I living in this country. It
is now, it always has been. So you know, thank
(25:36):
god we're on the other side of this story and
this man is still with us and hasn't been harmed.
His wife still has a husband, his children still have
a father. But those fake tears, that fake fear, because
she made that, she made it up. She runs down
the streets screaming that he's chasing her and it's not happening.
Imagine a George Zimmerman type vigilante neighborhood watched neighbors showing
(25:58):
up to defend her honor and their ground, and something
happens to this guy and all he did was come home. Yeah,
this is reality that we have to deal with. And
then they tell us we're we're playing victim and we're creating,
you know, racism where it doesn't exist. We always see racism,
We always bring race into things.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Y'all stop, will stop. I want to I want to
say something before we go. One of the things that
we've been doing for all of our listeners. One of
the things we've been doing is going live on Instagram,
on YouTube on various platforms, but I know that you're
(26:40):
on Instagram live right now, right you, Yes, sir, I'm on.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
IG Live now, and just kind of getting the listeners
and the viewers used to seeing us live. We we
iHeart the most incredible partner ever has increased our reach substantially,
and we want to just be engaged with a lot
of new listeners, a lot of new followers across all platforms.
(27:03):
We're going to start doing full shows, fully interactive shows
live on our YouTube page, and so I just kind
of want to get people used to being with us
in studio when we record, taking people with us to
these you know, really incredible large events that we get
to attend all over the country and really you know,
just being more more engaged and from a from a
(27:25):
closer distance, or at least it'll feel that way with
listeners that are all over the country now. Yeah, yeah,
So go ahead.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And let everybody know the the IG and the and
the of course Civic Cipher is always there and Black
Information Network of course you can you can follow those.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
But I think you're live right now on your personal life.
I am q Ward on all social media and we
just are in the process of even strengthening our partnership
with our brother Isaac Hayes and fan base, where we
are also looking forward to, Yes, sir, looking forward to
that one. So anyway, just wanted to put that bug
(28:04):
in your ear just in case you ever wanted to
maybe catch us when we're doing a live or after
the fact, because we're going to stay on and do
a little bit more talking here with some of the
folks that are in the chat, but just putting that
bug in your ear for anyone out who wants to
(28:24):
kind of be part of the conversation outside of the
red microphone talk back feature.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
But those are the stories for your midweek mimmo, So
we'll leave it right here. Don't forget these. Another news
stories can be found at binnews 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 microphone talkback that you're on
the iHeartRadio app. While you're there, be sure to hit
subscribe and download all of our episodes. I'm your host
(28:52):
Rams's Jah on all social media.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I am Qward on all social media as well
Speaker 2 (28:57):
And join us tomorrow as we share our news with
our voice from our perspective right here on the Black
Information Network Daily podcast