November 2, 2024. Courageous Conversations - Black Men Unplugged

Ramses Ja and cohost Q Ward share their reflections on a recent discussion they conducted with Black men expressing the need to be heard prior to Election Day 2024. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Recently, Q and I sat down to have a very
important conversation. Conversation was called courageous conversations, and we had
this conversation in a room full of black men ahead

(00:23):
of the election. Now we've discussed on this show that
you know, black men were in the news for a
number of reasons.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Because of their.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Support of Donald Trump or their lack of support for
Kamala Harris or whatever. And we finally were able to
sit down and have it out with a room full
of black men from all different political backgrounds, and we

(01:05):
got some perspective on how some people felt. We got
some information in terms of where some black men get
their information from and whether or not it's vetted, if
it comes from far right sources or online.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Sources or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
And then we got some, you know, just some opinions,
and you know, some of the opinions were very similar
to ours, and some of the opinions were very different
from ours. And all of this was okay because we
needed a starting point so that we could continue to

(01:45):
grow as individual men, but we also could grow our
cohesion as a group of individuals who have more or
less similar experiences in this country. So we look at
that event like it was a positive experience. Indeed, we

(02:07):
want to do more of them. And one of the
things that we didn't get to do was answer all
of the questions that were submitted for us to answer
as best we could, and so we were given a
handful of questions after the fact, and we thought that

(02:28):
we would make this episode addressing some of those questions.
Some of them we kind of touched on while we
were there, so we'll, you know, be sure to include
some of that here and hopefully bring you into the
conversation that we were able to have on the ground
during Courageous Conversations. So I'm ramses joh.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
And I am q Ward and glad that we're getting
a chance to have the conversation because the last thing
we wanted to do when organizing Courageous Conversations was to
have a bunch of people leave feeling unhurt, when the
entire reason that we cultivated that space was that sole
people in a very non hostile way could have their

(03:17):
voices heard.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
So I'm glad we're getting a chance to sit down
and do this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, our first question, we're not going to say the
names of the people who submitted the questions just because
the nature of the Courageous Conversations event was very private.
There was no media coverage. It was just us and
some black men and getting some perspective. But the first

(03:42):
question asks us, are we voting based on skin tone
or actual tangibles that.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Can be produced?

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And we hold the politicians accountable? And what's our plan
to hold them accountable?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Great question.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
I think it's a fantastic question, and I want to
because we're not sitting face to face with the person,
I want to try to translate what I think they mean.
And then all we can do is give insight how
we view this and answer according to how we feel.

(04:18):
So it's not the gospel, according to Civic Cipher, it's
just our position.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
On the question.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Are we voting based on skin tone? That I think
is a fair question to ask. I think an important
thing to point out is that for the history of
the United States, black people have had to deal with
being under the thumb or under the boot of the oppressor.

(04:50):
We've been manipulated, we've been taken advantage of, we've been
taken for granted. We've been made to feel we don't matter,
we've been forgotten about, We've been. The list goes on
and on, and one thing we don't like is being
put in a position where we feel like we're being
pandered to, where we're being used, where people are kind

(05:12):
of using blackness as a token that they can just
cash in in a lot of cases simply by being black.
So I understand why that challenge is presented. The thing
that often troubles me in cases like this one, or
in this case specifically, as that our vote in this

(05:34):
particular election, this is not a vacuum. It's not just
are we voting for this candidate. It is, as we've
echoed on the show multiple times, a zero sum, binary decision.
At this point, there are two candidates and one of
them will be president, whether we participate or not, whether

(05:59):
we disqualify one candidate because they're black or not. And
there is one person in this race who has been
president before. As much as people try to make it
seem as if Vice President Harris is the president now,
she's not former President Trump. However, we got four years
of that, and I've heard people say they don't know

(06:23):
enough about Vice President Harris's policies. Will get to that shortly,
but we know a lot about former President Trump's policies.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I know a lot of.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
People saying we don't know enough about Vice President Harris
as a candidate or as a person, but we know
a lot about former President Trump. So is this a
vote for her simply because of her skin tone or
I'm guessing because she's black? No, but I'm black, and
I know what this experience in this country will be

(06:52):
like for me if the other candidate becomes president, and
that colors. Forgive my use of that term, but that
color is the way I see the decision making process
in this election.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
As far as.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Accountability, the way that we most actively hold our elected
officials accountable in this case is by first exercising our vote.
And I know that sounds counter intuitive, right. If I've
already voted from they already got what they want. It
will again. We have to talk about the two candidates

(07:29):
that are present. With one of these candidates, Ramses and
I can turn on our microphones and disagree with her
all the time. We can point out her flaws and
her mistakes. We can even incorrectly point out her flaws
and mistakes and then learn more and then come back
and have to apologize to her. Have we done that
we can continue to exercise our right. The next time

(07:52):
the calendar says it should be time to vote again,
we get to vote again. We can start organizing and
having conversations as a collective community now so that we
can flex not just our vote, but our money and
our voices collectively as a community to hold our elected
officials accountable. We will not wait until the next time.

(08:13):
The election is now right in front of us to
start talking about accountability.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
A lot of things that we wait until election time
to discuss and to try to exercise, we don't realize
that at that point it's too late, right, So, I
know it seems backwards. You know that you would take
the test and then learn the lesson, But in this case,
that's how it works. You vote so that you can
vote again. You vote so that you can disagree. You

(08:42):
vote so that you can organize an attempt to hold accountable.
One of these candidates plans to make all of the
above illegal. He has already started to refer to me
because maybe you agree with him, but he's already started
to refer to me and those of us that don't
agree with him as the enemy with from within who
he can weaponize police and military against He's already pointed

(09:05):
out people who are political enemies of his who he
plans to seek out revenge on. He's already talked about,
or not even just talked about, but helped push and
encourage allies of his to get rid of reproductive freedoms
for our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our wives. He's
already shown us that he wants to be a dictator.
His word is not mine. He's already said to his followers,

(09:27):
to his people, to his congregation, that you'll no longer
have to vote because we're going to fix it. So
he said a lot about the type of man and
the type of president that he wants to be. We
know about how he views women in general, the things
he thinks he's allowed to do that to them, just
because we've heard him say that he's going to do
things that are not popular with women and that he
does not care about that either. So we know a

(09:51):
lot about who we're voting for and what we're up against.
And I think those are things that we should consider
from both parties before we decide to just simply disqualified
one candidate while holding her to levels of scrutiny that
the other couldn't stand up to for five minutes, we've
now drug her through for months. I hate to take
up all of the oxygen on this question, but it's

(10:12):
a talking point that we've seen before where people are
deciding we're not going to vote for her just because
she's black. And that's fair, but when you see what
she's up against, this should not for those of us
you know, who share that skin tone be a hard
decision because it's not because she's black.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
It's the if.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
We're talking about policies, and again there's more questions about that,
so I don't want to speak too much on the
policy part because there's more coming up. But look at
the other candidate. Find me a single redeeming quality, and
I would love to continue this conversation with regard to
skin tone.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
I think that was well stated. Next question, let me
find this one. Okay, policies, you have the foresight. What
are the policies and issues of either candidate that actually
serves us and is in our best interest? Is our
best interest individualized or as a collective? Okay, I'll try

(11:15):
to take this one. First off, for a person that
sincerely wants to know what it is that these individual
candidates policies are. That is something that you don't need
us to articulate for you. That is something that's very googleable.

(11:36):
You can you know, you can find that out on
your own. But we have had a chance to become
familiar with Project twenty twenty five. And even though Donald
Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project twenty twenty five,
which we know better, some of us do some of
us know better, Yeah, but he's he also has it's

(12:01):
called Agenda forty seven. So if you are the sort
of person that still believes Donald Trump, you can look
at what he has up as Agenda forty seven and
a lot of it is stuff that you would find
in Project twenty twenty five as well. Kamala Harris has
it's referred to as an opportunity economy. This is basically

(12:24):
her strategy.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
It's just one of her strategies, by the way, right
you go to Kamala Harris dot com. She has a
chapter by chapter breakdown in the execy policy that she
plans to put into legislation and law exactly. So, like
Rama said, if you really want that information, you can
very easily.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Go search it out.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, they made it very simple. And in terms of
the policies of Kamala Harris, how she wants to ensure
that black men have money to start businesses, understands the

(13:02):
inequalities that black people face, and so far as housing
is concerned, you know, one of the things that you
know she takes about for is the cost cap on insulin,
which is something that has disproportionately affected you know, black
households over the years. And then you know, the other

(13:25):
forward thinking, more progressive things that she has identified that
will benefit black men. Not exclusively, of course, it doesn't
work that way, but these are areas where it will
make more of an impact for Black Americans than maybe

(13:46):
some historical legislation has. It's kind of like she reverse
engineered it. She looked at the areas that impact us
most and then developed policy to speak to those areas,
and then they ultimately translate into more prosperity in black
and brown communities. But it's, of course it's not exclusively.
This is America, the United States of America. So so anyway,

(14:08):
the short of it is that all of those are there,
and they're well documented, and you know, you're welcome to
check all of those things out. Another thing I want
to add right here is that historically Black people have
voted for more progressive, more liberal policies and candidates because

(14:34):
they have tended to serve us well, you know, the
You can look at the civil rights movement, you could
look at affirmative action, you could look at the SNAP
program and assistance you know, for for families that are
enduring you know, poverty.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
You can look at.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Anti discriminatory legislation that's being passed, that's been passed historically.
That stuff has has historically come from the more progressive
facet of this country. I'm saying Democrats. And so when
you look at it long term and you look at
what has been done for Black people historically, granted it

(15:17):
might not be everything, it might not be everything that
you want. In this moment, progress is slow on the
scale of a country. But for folks that feel like
we're just throwing our vote away every time, I feel
like we have a lot of evidence to the contrary.
We can look back and see the progress. And if

(15:38):
you feel like you're throwing your vote away for your
own self or for your own lifetime, then you're ignoring
the fact that you might have kids or grandkids, or
nephews and nieces or grand nephews and nieces that we'll
have to inherit this world, and your vote could shape
their lives, because indeed, people that live before me, her

(16:00):
votes shape the life that I'm living right now. And so, yes,
progress can be very slow. But you know, for folks
that feel like, you know, we're throwing our votes away
because we're voting for Democrats again, you know, I I
challenge that, I challenge that narrative, you know, And I'm

(16:21):
not telling you to vote any certain type of way
in this moment. Other moments I would I what I
rather would say in this moment is that to not
vote is like there's only one way to engage in
a democracy, and for you to not engage, it's that's
not how democracy works. No one looks at the person

(16:42):
that didn't vote and says, oh my gosh, we should
be doing more to get his.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Vote or her vote.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Rather, they look at the people who voted and how
they voted, and then they shape policy according to that.
So and for anyone that says, you know that they
don't want to vote or you know, voting a certain ways,
throwing your vote away.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
I would push back against.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
That, but you just planted a seat in my head
that I had not articulated prior. The reason why it
has become so popular to be so conspicuously and vehemently
racist is because a certain candidate noticed that's a good
way to be elected. A lot of people voted to

(17:27):
support that rhetoric, so he's tripled down on it. And
you just said that right now, and it kind of
sparked a thought like, Wow, that's why they're candidates all
over the country now marching to that same tomb because
they saw people come out in numbers and vote that waste,
so they voted according to that, not contrary to it.

(17:47):
So that's a really brilliant point that you made. No
one says to the people who aren't participating, let me
do more for you. It's never worked that way, But
you saying that right now just made that very clear
in my head.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
I have something that I think is going to spark
a thought in your head too, because the second part
of this question is is our best interest individualized or
as a collective? And I think that I want you
to take the last, you know, the last word on
this one. But I think that it's all about your

(18:24):
own personal philosophy. I say that if you're asking the
question of black people in general, if our best interest
is individualized or collective, then the answer is in the question.
It's collective. You're talking to black people. We have collective

(18:44):
interests that we need to address before we can deal
with individual interests.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
But there are some people who really feel like you
got the same twenty four hours in your day as
I got in mind, I get off my couch, I
get out there a hustle one, I get to it,
and I got some to show for myself. Don't come
knocking on my door with a handout when you ain't
did the work that I did with the same twenty

(19:10):
four hours.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
There are people who feel that way, and I think
that that is a personality type. In fact, there's evidence
to show that that's a personality type. Right. And then
there's people and I've said this before on the show,
and you know Q's gonna be familiar with this story,
but there's people like me who recognize that everybody works hard,

(19:34):
not just that one person. Most everybody works hard. Everybody
gets up off the couch and they go to work
and whatever, and they no matter what they do, they
can't seem to get ahead or even get a fair shot.
So it's not hard work. Some people feel like they
studied harder in school. No, everybody is in school to learn,
you know, for the most part, you know everybody. There's

(19:55):
people that think that everybody has the same access to
the same interim. Okay, cool, what There's a lot of
people that feel that. And then there's people like me
who I got the worst story that you could have.
I came from the worst city at the worst time
and the worst circumstances, with both parents on dope, rats

(20:15):
and roaches in the food.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Of my house.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
People coming after my parents, people coming after you know
what I'm saying. People dying on a sidewalk in front
of my house. People I knew dead, a human body,
a human form laying twisted on the sidewalk in an
unnatural shape. Saw it as a little kid. That's where
I come from, and right now I speak on this
microphone to the whole United States of America. I worked hard, Sure,

(20:45):
I'm smart, sure, but I don't work harder than other people.
I am not smarter than other people. I got lucky.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
So for me. I feel like if I look at
things like it should be individual like. I work hard
and I got what I need, So that's sawing me.
The rest of y'all figure it out. I'll be bogused
if I thought about things like that. I'm not saying
other people are bogus. I'm saying my personality isn't that way.
I recognize that I'm lucky. I recognize that I'm you

(21:13):
might use the word blessed, whatever, And I do my
best to share opportunities and share platforms, and share time
and space and energy and bandwidth so that other people
could have access to it too. That's how I feel.
I feel that way about black people. I'm black, so
I feel that way about black people. I feel that
way about gay people. I feel that way about marginalized people,

(21:33):
feel that way about women. I feel like anybody is
born with a little bit of a strike against you.
Sometimes that looks like white men too, you know what
I'm saying. But I'm here to impart love and bring
some equity and some balance to the universe. So you know,
you decide what's right for you. But Q has he
has a philosophy that I think sums it up a
little bit better. You don't have to lean into that

(21:55):
right now, because I know we got more questions, but
I did want you to get the last word because
that's that part of the question reminded me of you.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, I don't know that I have a philosophy that
leans into a better I think the way that you
articulated that was masterful, and wish more people thought the
way that you did in a collective sense of I
don't have everything I have because I'm better than you, God,
the universe, luck, some teacher, some mentor helped me. And

(22:22):
who am I to not pay that forward to the
next person who They've done this masterful thing of pitting
us against one another with that mindset right that the
other person that doesn't have it's because they're lazy, so
why would you help them? And once that seat is planted,
it just grows. And it's an unfortunate truth because I
think all of our nature should be to want to
help one another, to share, to want there to be

(22:45):
a collective. But it's tough, man. It's tough to be
black in this country period. That's a whole thought. But
when you have to consider the fact that we are diverse,
because not all black comes from West Africa, some from
the West Indies, some from South America, some from places

(23:08):
all over the world, and you make it to this
country and you're just squeezed into black And I hear
black people often very proudly declare that we are not
a monolith. And we have to declare that because there
are those who want to squeeze us into this box
and make us stay there. But in not being a monolith,

(23:30):
there is some vulnerability there.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Right.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
We often do not come to the table with a
collective push. We often don't come to the table asking
for a collective outcome or demanding a collective outcome.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
And in this.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Masterful ability for the oppressors to divide us, and by us,
I don't just mean black people, black people, immigrants, women,
poor people. Collectively, we will be far greater than those
that oppress us.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
But they've made.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
It less clear to us that we should be united
on so many things. And I'm going to take this
into our next question, because there's some similar language as
black men. What are our non negotiables and what are

(24:22):
issues other than criminal justice reform that we should vote
on together locally and nationally. And I brought this into
this same question because that together parts spoke to that
collective criminal justice reform is a very very loud one
because we watch how that ended heps Us on the news.

(24:43):
We watch our bodies laid out and our mothers mourning
and crying, and our funerals, and so that is a
big one. And ultimately, Ramsey, that's a good place to stop,
not because we don't need more. But again, if we
start to list all of our issues, we're going to

(25:03):
have one issue that's very important to some people and
not others. We realize that the more issues that we
put on the table that are important, the more places
we have to disagree, and that disagreement, that disagreement has
us arguing with each other over what's most important instead
of colacing around an issue and pushing it forward. This
issue of criminal justice reformance on the table right now,

(25:26):
they're already actively trying to bring forward policies that were
into George Floyd Act that didn't get pushed through collectively,
but have taken pieces of it. Okay, let's give us
a little bit on this, and give us a little
bit more on this, and again, these are things that
can be researched easily, So we want to speak more
to how you guys feel, rather than trying to lay
out absolute lines of policy only because we don't have

(25:48):
enough time. Reach out to us as a resource. We
will point you in the right direction. We will send
you links. We will send you scholarly reports. We will
send you accurate, reputable, verified data. Civic cipher, doctor civic
sideher on all social media platforms. Trust me, we respond,
So dm us, email us, click any of the links
you will reach us. But collectively having these conversations with

(26:13):
each other starting November sixth, so that the next time
we're ready to vote, we've already had these conversations.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
We're already educated.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
We already know the things that will impact us as
a collective. Most you know, from criminal justice reform to
social programmings that would actually cut into crime instead of
giving us more police officers with bigger guns and better
tanks and better shields and better body armor. We know
because the data tails us that does not affect the
crime rate in our communities, not in a way that's

(26:44):
positive for us. Right, the police get more money, they
can arrest more people, it doesn't and by arresting more people.
You can say that black people committed more crime and
then demand and justify a greater budget the following year.
But we know better, right, So again, in this election,
we have a candidate who wants to get rid of

(27:04):
the Department of Education. Who do you guys think that's
going to affect the.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Most, the people that go to private school or the
people that go to public school.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Right, So these things are far less complicated than we
want them to be. But again, man, black people have
had it hard in this country. Some of us do
believe that our voices aren't heard, that our prayers aren't answered,
that our votes don't count. And when you're disenfranchised and discouraged,
and you're hurt and disappointed and killed and arrested over
and over again, you do get this radical pushback in

(27:36):
you that'll make you look at something that is obviously
positive for you and wrap your mind around that not
being the case. Right, Like this black woman that looks
like your aunt or your sister or your mom running
for president and you think and not as too obvious,
that looks too much like right, so it must be wrong.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
So no, I'm good.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
I cannot vote for her just because she's black. Well,
what about because you're black, and what the policies that
she wants to push forward will do for your everyday
life and those that that look like you and those
that you care about specifically.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
I want to add another couple of things here too,
because again, as black men, what are our non negotiables
and what are the issues other than criminal justice reformed
that we should vote on together locally and nationally. That's
a list that includes a lot of different things. These

(28:31):
are things we talk about on the show quite a bit,
and of course the list goes on, but some of
the more important ones that I believe is restorative economic
justice for black people in this country. Healthcare we need,

(28:54):
We need access to too, healthcare that is that prioritizes
us the same way it prioritizes our Caucasian brothers and sisters,
especially our women. Other causes include housing discrimination. If that

(29:19):
doesn't affect you, it doesn't mean that it does not
affect other Black people in this country. Housing discrimination is
a big deal, and if you need a deep dive,
I know John Oliver has done a deep dive on that.
For those that have access to the internet elsewhere, you
can check out a whole breakdown on YouTube if you want.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
To see how deep that rabbit hole goes.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Environmental racism, and I employ you to research that. That
is something. Again, if you don't live in an environment
where environmental racism affects you, it does not mean it
doesn't affect poor black and brown communities around the country.
And this list, it goes on and on, and you know,

(30:10):
there's always going to be a number of causes that
we can get behind.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
But I think Q said it best. You know, once
we have.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
An idea of something that affects most of us and
we can all get behind that one thing and there's
some momentum there, then we are we are stronger in
that moment than when we are fighting about well listen,
I'm on this path for this certain kind of restorative justice,

(30:40):
and then everyone else is on this other path. No,
you know, q Q has this great analogy where he
holds his hand out like it's a flat palm, and
he says, it's really easy to break my fingers and
render my hand useless when my hand is like this,
And then when he coalesces his fingers into a fist,
he says, it's a lot harder to break my fingers

(31:03):
and to render my hand useless when it's closed into
a fist and all of my fingers are kind of,
you know, collapsed in on each other, and there's a
singular mission.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
I know that was a little wordy, but I'm trying
to describe it for people listening. In any event, hopefully
you could see that visual visually and understand what that meant.
But yeah, there's always going to be a number of issues,
and even when we resolve the issues that we have,
there's still going to be more issues. White people have issues,
Hispanic people have issues, you know, and no matter how
many of you solve, and it's in a complex society,

(31:36):
there's going to be more issues. And we want The
thing is us getting on the same page in terms
of how to be effectives as a voting group and
as a group who are citizens of this country, contribute
value to this country, who are endowed with consciousness from
our common creator, with certain inalienable rights and alienable rightsalienable.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Thank you, I'll be talking anyway. You know.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Us getting on the same page in terms of strategy
is probably the uh, the first order of business, all right?

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Is it true the Democrats haven't fulfilled their promises to
make us as a race of sorry, have fulfilled their
promises to us as a race of people. However, that
would make a black man vote for the Republican candidate.
So these questions are we're reading them as they were written,
so we've got to translate.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
It's a great question, I think the question.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
I think it's important to point out that this would
be a true This would be true across the board
for either party, to any group of people. Every politician
in my lifetime has ran a race to be president, governor,
mayor city council person on a platform of promises. But
because of the way government works, you don't get to

(32:58):
get elected to office and then walk into a room
and say, hey, all those things I said I was
going to do, do them, and then press go and
they just happen.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Right.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Their branches of government have to agree on certain things.
You have to have a majority in a lot of
cases to get legislation.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
That you want pushed forward.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Some people may oppose you because they ideologically disagree with you.
Some people will oppose you because the people who funded
their campaign have a different interest in that right. The
reason why it feels like we are the only group
who is always forgotten is again because we need more
than everybody else needs. And in this country, if we're

(33:35):
speaking specifically, you know black people and white people. Black
people need more from our government than white people do.
And I know we don't like to be put in
a position where we're quote unquote playing victim, but it's
just the history of our country. They gave us the
opposite of a head start by a lot. So when

(33:56):
you talk about restorative economic justice or what you may
have heard people called reparations, is because we didn't just
have a hard go at this.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
You know, we had to start this.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Game way behind the starting line, and then when the bush,
several times.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
We got and we continue to get pushed back. And
not only did the other team not start at the
starting line, they had a head start. So the deficit
is massive. However, this goes back to the conversation that
we kind of started already. We are splintered into things
that we want those who oppose us. I'll do you

(34:35):
one better. I use this. We spoke somewhere publicly recently
and I brought this up, and I'm only trying to
say it faster because we got a bunch of questions
and I want to get to as many of them
as we can before we don't have enough time. White
supremacist have a singular thing that they've united on. White

(34:59):
Christian nationally in this country have decided that minorities and
women are less than human. They deserve less rights, they
deserve less of a voice, They should not even be
allowed to participate in this thing. We're the smarter, and
by we, I'm speaking as them. We're the smarter, stronger,
more powerful class of people. And you know, we'll make

(35:22):
the decisions that are best for everyone, and they should
trust us to do that. And the world would be
a better place if we were the only ones that
made all of the choices and did what was best
for us. And rich white Christian nationalists heterosexual men have
convinced homosexual white men, white women, white poor people, white

(35:49):
that the white part is most important. Don't make being
a woman most important, rich most important, because then you
have to look out for all women. Don't make being
poor important, because then you got to look out for

(36:09):
all poor people. They've even convinced some minorities that the
idea of white supremacy is how they should align ideologically.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Too, and it will ultimately extend to.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Them and will trickle down our prosperous lives to you,
and so on and so on. I don't want to
talk to you guys in circles like you're not picking
up what I'm putting down. So they've united on that
singular focus, and those at the very very top of
that pyramid benefit from it. Everybody else doesn't, but ideologically
and are on the same page. So all those people

(36:40):
get to feel like they're getting what they want from government.
They're not, but they made that one issue the most
pressing and the one that they're most identifiable with.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
So it works on our side.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
That's not the case, first and foremost, because we're not
black supremacists. First and foremost, we don't consider ourselves more important.
We don't consider ourselves the only ones that deserve God's grace.
We don't consider ourselves the only ones that deserve to
have a voice. We don't consider ourselves the only ones
that deserve love or safety, or an education, or food

(37:14):
or wealth or the pursuit of happiness. So that's our
first breakdown, you guys, that's our first weakness, is that
we're not evil. We're not as a as a ethnicity,
or as a race, or as a collective greedy. There
are people who feel like President Barack Obama wasn't a
good president because he wasn't the black Donald Trump, because

(37:37):
he didn't get in office and push forward legislation and
agendas and things that only benefited black people. The same
people have used those saying arguments against Vice President Harris
because she said on a microphone that she will not
bring forth policy just for black people. It's not just
us here, but the other side them about morals and

(38:00):
ethics and being kind and generous and empathetic. They don't that.
So they've tricked a lot of you into believing that
they're going to get in office and make things better
for everybody. But we should know better, right, So part
of our weakness is our heart and our desire to share.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
So we get to this point and the Democratic Party
has fallen short on a lot of their promises to us.
But we have to understand that, typically right, because we
watched our former president throw all these rules away. So
that part is confusing too, because we're like, wait, didn't
you when Barack was in there? Didn't these people have

(38:40):
to agree and didn't, And then this other guy got
in there and broke laws and broke rules and just
did whatever he wanted, and it still seems not being
held accountable for it. So I can see how that
could be confusing. But politicians and politics, the way government
works in this country, no one can actually just walk
in the room and do everything they want to do.
So that's part of the problem. Some people, I have

(39:04):
to acknowledge, don't always get in office and always try
all the things they said they wanted to do. But
in cases that we've seen in most recent history, there
are those who collectively work against us. And even when
we get to the highest seat, because of the three

(39:24):
branches of government, because of checks and balances, because the
need for a majority, because of the filibuster, and I
can go on and on and on. It's been hard
to push forward the agenda for black people in this country.
It's not because people don't want to do it's not
because people aren't trying. It's not because if it's far
more nuanced than complicated than we think. And again, we
will continue to have this conversation. Civic cipher dot Com

(39:46):
civic cipher on all socials message us. We will call
back right back text back email back. We might even
pull up on you and sit down and talk to you.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
It's not beyond the realm possibilities. Also, I think you
said it best initially. It's hard to hold that magnifying
glass up to the Democrats mmmm and ignore what Republicans
are doing or not not do the same thing insofar

(40:16):
as Republicans areything.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
So we do not scrutinize them at the same level.
It's a very interesting thing that we.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Do and asked not to give anyone a free passer
to like unnecessarily condemn anyone else. Rather, it is some
some food for thoughts, something to keep in mind for
people that are overly critical of Democrats every go around,
because there's people I'm not voting for Democrats. There's people
that did that with Obama. It was doing that to

(40:41):
Barock Rock.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
That's wild.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
But anyway, you know, are they are they? Do they
break their promises to us? Or have they not fulfilled
their promises to us compared to who else? Yeah, that's
the part, thank you. It's how compared should be asked,
who's this party who has delivered on all areas for
black people?

Speaker 1 (41:01):
I'll wait, Yeah, if it's nobody then you stuck with
the two choices and the one that is at least promising,
you know, or at least trying or you know whatever.
And we've talked about that at the beginning's conversation. There's
some deliverables that have been hit. It's just on a
longer scale.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, And then we can look at it important to
point out as well, and I love that you guys
might notice Rams just never identifies as a Democrat, more
as a liberal or a progressive, which is how you
should think about this as well, because I've seen people
talk about how the Democratic Party used to do us
and how they would be you know, we should have
always stayed with the Republicans, And then you'd be ignoring

(41:38):
a lot of history just to say that based on
the party designation, because the ideology of the parties switched
once upon a time.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yeah, it was right after the Great Depression.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah, I think nineteen twenties, somewhere in the right, so
very very wealthy rich Southerners became Republicans around that time,
and it flipped the entire eye ideology of that party.
And I think a similar thing is happening to that
party now, where they've changed identity. It used to be
about law and order and the constitution and things like that,

(42:09):
and now they clearly could care less about any of that. So,
you know, more research, more questions, and more conversation. This
is not a judgmental place. This is not a point
of fingers. We just want the conversation to continue beyond
surface level talking points that are kind of designed to
get the answer to a question that you've already determined
the answer before you asked us. And we're about learning

(42:32):
from you and you learning from us. I'm glad you
said that, because we learn a lot too. Granted, we
know probably more than most people because we work in
this space every day, we get paid to read, and
it all has to be all the time scholarly, and so.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, you know, just bear that in mind.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
All right, What are ideas and suggestions that we haven't
tried to improve education and awareness of what's on the
ballot and how to understand it and be a more
informed voter.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
I like that question.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Well, we talked about that a bit at the beginning.
You can go to both candidates websites. They're not difficult
to find. There are a number of nonpartisan organizations that
make cheat sheets where we live all of the propositions

(43:27):
that you can find information you know, what do certain
proposition propositions mean, and get a breakdown for your own
communities and so forth.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Ahead.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Yeah, the important thing when we say Kamala Harris dot
com or Project twenty twenty five, Project twenty twenty five
was written by the authors of Project twenty twenty five.
It was not written by the Democratic Party to try
to make them look bad. So I think people might
think when they see that document that that's something that
Democrats put together to shine a negative light on Donald

(43:59):
Trump and his peak Downald Teople, closest advisors, friends, donors,
cabinet members, and cabinet members put that playbook together for
him so the next time he was president, they could
run that play And I know people question the efficacy
of information that they get because there's so much misinformation
out there. So I will continue to make us a resource.

(44:20):
Reach out to us. We will help you find accurate information.
We don't have all of that information available to us
right now, so I don't want us to.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Take up too much time on just that singular question.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
All right, what are the factors that caused the decline
of black mail voters, What was the results of that decline,
and how do we prevent it from happening. So I
want to go first. Okay, first off, there has always
been a subset of black mail voters who have voted Republican.

(44:54):
The data actually shows when you get a large enough
sample size that this is from the Black Voter Project. Actually, so,
I had a conversation with the director of the Black
Voter Project and he explained this to me. He said

(45:15):
that when you have a large enough sample size, you're
talking a thousand plus and these are just black men, right,
not a not a thousand plus sample size, and it's
black men are a percentage of it, and white people
are a percentage of it, and gays are a percentage
of it. Whatever, just black men. And you have a

(45:37):
large enough sample size, you see that the data. Again,
the assumption here is that a larger sample size will
give you more accurate data. The data reflects the historical
pump scientific more data you have, the more accurate there
you go, your conclusion will be. So the scientific assumption,
I suppose, is probably what I'm trying to say. But yeah,
you're right, these people they specifically poll black people, black

(46:02):
men in this instance, and their determination is that black
people in this election are not voting at any higher rate,
statistically speaking, a statistically statistically relevant higher rate than they
have at any other election in the past, not twenty sixteen,
and not since the seventies. And so the headlines are

(46:29):
exaggerated because there is one section and I believe the
increase was zero point seven percent of younger black men
are actually considering a Donald Trump, voting for Donald Trump
and o' donald trump presidency. Now, the question is what

(46:51):
are the factors that cause the decline of black male voters. Well,
I think I got a theory here because the Internet. Now,
when we're looking at the actual numbers and the actual
age range of these people, these are the people who
are the folks that have spent years listening to the

(47:15):
Andrew Tates of the world.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
These are the.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
People who kind of fully buy into the goofy like
relationship guru advice people on the internet. These are the
people who and I'm not trying to knock them, because
they're humans and they're susceptible to a computer whose job

(47:42):
it is to master human behavior, black, white or otherwise,
and they can be duped the same way any other
human can be duped, or they can be convinced. That's
probably the better word to use. They can be convinced
the way that anyone else can be convinced. And so
I think that at least part of that zero point
seven percent that has made the national headlines and caused

(48:06):
this all to indeed look at these numbers like they
are somehow way more statistically relevant than they have been historically.
I would blame that phenomenon, at least in part, on
some of the rhetorics, some of the information silos, some

(48:26):
of the algorithm outcomes that people end up encountering on
social media platforms.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
I wanted to stop my brother from even theorizing because
the data does not support that those headlines are even true.
The headlines, however, I think, come from what rams' is
just said.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Okay, we'll go with that, right.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
The headlines come from that. It's not an actual thing,
but people think so because of that, because the way
that people get information, and because people are more out
loud about it now. It's cool to be contrarian now
to say the earth is flat. It's provocative. It starts
a conversation.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Some people.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah, it does not matter whether that's how they even
really feel. But they know they'll get the intention and
the engagement. They can go back and forth. They can
be a little bit of a star, you know. So
it's not cool to say water is wet and the
sky is blue. It's not cool to say things that
people consider obvious. But if you can say something provocative,
it gets to people going.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
All right, let's go with this one.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
How does leaving a majority black community for a majority
white community impact shaping policy for places that are predominantly black?

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Hm?

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Well, yeah, I think you're going to have to not
as much as you might think.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
If a specific group of people leaves an area in
mass then of course how that group shows up at
the polls and the voice that they have is directly affected.
The reason why I said may I is because we
didn't talk about a sector of a community. You know,

(50:27):
we're talking about a predominantly black, let's just say city,
instead of a part of town having people financially glow
up and relocate to a part of town that's more white,
like the Jeffersons, Like the Jeffersons, George and Wheezy. What

(50:50):
will happen is that people in that city It's not
a numbers thing, it's a ratio thing. So if the
percentage of people in that city that are black is
the same, So say it's a seventy percent black city,
a bunch of people make more money and they move

(51:12):
into a suburb where they're now the gross minority. Yeah,
the percentage of black people in the city that they
left could remain the same, and their voices will still
collectively be heard the same way. The only reason, the
only way that that dynamic would shift is if only
black people are relocating and then being replaced.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
By people who aren't black.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Gentrification correct, And the question didn't give us enough data
to know if that's what's happening, So it's hard to
answer the question completely. The shaping of outcomes or policy
in a city like Detroit, for instance, Detroit was one
of the top six cities when I was in high
school population for black people by number. By the time

(51:56):
the recession hit in two thousand and eight, millions of
people had left the city, which was the world's largest
auto manufacturer at the time. But during that recession a
lot of jobs went away, so did a lot of people. However,
it still remained a largely black city. So even though
it went from several million people to several hundred thousand,
the political outcomes were the same because it was still

(52:18):
a mostly black populated city, even though the numbers were
smaller by the millions. So I hope that answered that question. Again,
with more information and more data, we can answer that
question more fully. But I kind of stepped in front
of ramses because that's a complicated question that could go
a lot of different directions, and just because there's not
enough factors in the question, we could just speak to

(52:41):
twenty different possible scenarios. And again we got to and
try to get to every question that was at and
then for me, M ra almost done here. But then
for me, you know, you know, I came from California
and I came to Arizona, so there's always been my
communities always been very very mixed, you know what I mean,

(53:02):
even if even in a place like Compton, California, there's
still a significant population of Hispanic people. And that was
a time in my life when I was very young,
so I wasn't like clicked on to like community needs
and that sort of stuff. So you know, I haven't
lived in terms in like a majority black community.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
That hasn't been my my lived experience, but more recently
I have been able to see the impact of that.
And because you've come from that, I know that, you know,
you had more to offer that question than I did.
So that's why I was hoping that that we would
answer it that way. So I think that our yeah,

(53:46):
this might be our last question. Here has there been
talk on how to reach people without internet or social
networks than most of us still need to reach. So yeah,
you know what, we have some privileged information just because
we're connected with some some people and some movements and

(54:09):
things like that, and we happen to know that knocking
on doors, you know, starting conversations, having community forums, reserving rooms,
and passing out flyers, making phone calls, making phone calls,
all that stuff still is still effective and people still
use it.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
And we and contrary to popular believe, Rams and I
still talk on the radio. Yeah, I know, digital platforms
have kind of taken over, but people still get in
there every week and turn their radios on.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Across the whole country, a lot of radio stations, you
know what I mean. And so you know a lot
of you know, legacy methods of communication and reaching people
are still very viable and you know, if you feel
so inclined, and a lot of these things are very accessible.

(55:05):
They don't require some instances, they don't require a lot
of money, and other instances they don't require any money.
So for folks that want to, you know, galvanize people,
engage people after, not just before, but after elections take place.

(55:25):
You know, it's it's on you and and and to
be honest with you, that's part of how you get
started in politics. You know, that's part of how you
like get started in really creating some change, you know.
And so you know, if that feels like something that
you still want to do, do it. You know, if

(55:49):
you need some support. We have an Ebony Excellence segment
on our radio show, and we love shouting out people
that are doing good work out there, and uh, you know,
we'll still be your brothers.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Something I want to say before we get out of here,
there's a manipulation that has happened to human beings as
a collective in the United States, probably more so than
the rest of the world, and it's the construct of race.
We argue black versus white issues, we argue gay versus

(56:20):
heterosexual issues. We argue Christian versus gentile or unsaved or
center issues. And by causing all these different silos and
different sectors of people, those who oppress us have masterfully
gone unscathed.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Right.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
It is a massive cross section of things at the top.
Ramses communicated to me for the first time, and I
was like, wow, right, the white heterosexual Christian male who's wealthy,
that's a lot of things that had to cross over.
But that person then took every other group with people
and made them a silo. Hispanics go over there, black

(57:03):
people go over there. You know, Asian people go over there,
because if we united, that person's position would be threatened.
So you have black straight people versus black gay people
when they have so many similar interest in goals and
things that they want out of life. But if you
can keep them divided on that thing right and use

(57:25):
church to do it right, make that other group and
other and make them bad, and then they won't unite, right,
and then they're far more poor people in this country
than rich, far more.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
It's not even kind of close. It's not even kind
of close.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
It might be like ninety five to five, like something
gross if they all united, right, So you have to
keep them divided. There's a candidate in this race that
has policies that will affect most people positively. There's another
candidate that has policies that will affect most people negatively. Somehow,

(58:03):
this race is like a neck and neck fifty to
fifty thing, and the data shows that shouldn't make sense.
The reason why it does is because they found a
masterful way to tribalize people and put them all on
these different teams even though they have these cross sections
of things they could all equally benefit from. So when
you get in a room and you say, well, who's
going to do the most for the black issues, Well,

(58:25):
if everybody in this room is black but also poor,
there's way more poor people than black people. So if
everybody poor was represented by someone, that person could do
the most good for the most of us.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
That was the ship doctor King took before he was assassinated.
That's why he was in Memphis when he got assassinated.
Go ahead, no, please expound, Well, listen, I think you
hit the nail on the head. I wanted to just
impart this last little bit of wisdom for people that
don't have this context.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
You know, it's just something that.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
I have fortunate enough to know, but I wasn't born
knowing this, So you know, please accept this complex. Societies
have been around for a very very very long time,
extremely long time, and governments have been tried and have

(59:21):
been toppled. Societal experiments have been performed and succeeded and failed.
And this has happened long before the United States of
America was even a thought. Okay, The reason I say
this is because people learning how to wield power, people

(59:46):
learning how to divide and conquer, people learning how to
benefit themselves in their posterity at the expense of the masses.
These books have been written long before this country existed,

(01:00:08):
and in the years since, people have only been able
to refine and modernize the strategies. Again, we're talking about societies.
And so when you look at a person like a
Donald Trump, and you look at a person like a
Kamala Harris, and you look at a system of democracy,
in a two party system, in a country as young

(01:00:30):
as this one is, and you think you got it
all figured out, and you think that you're smarter than
the great human algorithm that has tried and failed and
tried and failed and ultimately become the most optimized version
of itself for those that are familiar with indeed how
algorithms work, for you to think that somehow you are

(01:00:53):
flying above that. Yeah, you're singular right. Most like you
and I both realize that we are just susceptible to
disinformation missing. We know that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Yeah, we've had to own it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Oh my god, we had to come into this room
and say we got that wrong. And the reason I'm
telling you this is because I don't want you to
feel like whatever path you've committed to, I don't want
you to feel like you need to stay on that path.
Because what we see a lot is that people will
make a decision. Q. You say this better than I do,

(01:01:25):
So forgive me if I get it wrong, and correct
me if I get it wrong. But people will make
a decision based off of limited information. But it's they
don't know it's limited information at that time. It's all
the information they have. They'll make a decision, let's call
it a Trump decision for the sake of argument, for
a hypothetical. Right, then someone else will bring new information

(01:01:46):
that casts not only their candidate but their decision in
a different light. And rather than changing the decision with
the new information, they will re engineer a justification for
for the decision that they've made that somehow flies in
the face of the new information, factual information that they've made.

(01:02:07):
And this is something that happens to human beings. This
is something that happens in societies, and this is something
that is as old as the great human experiment that
nature is performing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
The emotional connection to that decision makes the new information
and synthetical to them, not the information they exactly. So
now it's a personal with that defending themselves. They think
they're still defending Donald Trump or their decision to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Vote for him.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
That passion with which they're defending that decision is because
your information that you brought is now an affront to
that person. Go ahead and hit him with the with
the Mark Twain, and they're defending themselves. I believe it
was Mark Twain who said it is easier to fool
a person than to convince them that they have been fooled.

(01:03:00):
It's not about the information that they were provided. It
is about the position that they said out loud was
their position. So now you are in a front or
are in opposition to that person, not just their idea,
because the new information should disprove the idea and cause
them to move on without resistance. But no, now you're
coming at me, and sadly, in a lot of these cases,

(01:03:21):
there is something in Donald Trump that people identify within themselves,
and they are now defending themselves, not just the misinformed
decision that they made.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Listen, man, it ended, I don't want you to feel bad.
I don't want you to feel It is human nature.
Some people are more susceptible to it. Some people aren't.
Some people had the right set of circumstances that got
them there, some people haven't walked that same path. But
it is okay to be wrong. It is okay to
provide a critical examination of your own process. Indeed, we

(01:03:53):
have to do that too, And it is okay.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
We got on microphones and said very critical things about
Kamalin Harris with very limited wrong information.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
And we had to come back and be like, hey,
that was that was a week.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
In complete tend then we've always had the answers, or
that we even have all the answers now, But we're trying,
and we're open to being educated, being taught in actually
being corrected.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
So, so yeah, for those that still have more questions.
You know, q has laid down the framework for you
to reach out. We can still keep having these conversations
and we may end up doing some more of those
in the future that it's looking likely, and then we're
going to hopefully be able to expand it and let
more people into the conversation. But that first one needed

(01:04:35):
to be us. Yeah, that needed to be just and
you know, if you if again, if you wanted to
keep the conversation going, you have everything you need for
the show. Of course, we're going to put this on
the Black Information Network too, because this is something that
Chris Thompson wanted us to have and it just kind
of worked out this way. Absolutely, So you can reach

(01:04:56):
out to me at Rams's job.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I am q Ward on all social media, Yeah, as well,
C I V I C C I, P H E
R on everything dot com, Instagram, Twitter, x whatever you
call it, Facebook, Facebook, YouTube, and don't forget the red
microphone talk back feature. Oh yeah, only I heard radio
app so we can continue this conversation as well. And yeah,

(01:05:21):
meet us on fan base because we are.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Going to do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Some unique content that will only be available on fan base.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
So hey, I'm gonna say this man. First, Q, I
love you. I love you too, brother, I'm proud of you.
Everybody that listened to this point in the show, I'm
gonna say it to you. I love you, and I'm
proud of you. Even if, even if we end up
at on the other side of it, you listened. And

(01:05:50):
that's more than we can say for a lot of folks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
And and like you said, we're willing to listen to
because you've listened to us. So let's keep going on
until next time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Peace.