July 14, 2025 • 30 mins
Part 1 of today's podcast features a discussion on the rise in police killings in rural America
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Civic Cipher Studios. Welcome to the QR Code,
where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes. The
man you are about to hear from on the microphone,
the professional, the kind spirit, the former model, and the
former great athlete and runner. He goes by the name
of q Ward. So those are either the news to
(00:22):
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the part where ram just talks about himself
and it says my name, but now he's wanted a
couple of facts that he knows about my past so
that I can't flip it on him. That's ram Jah,
He's the host. I'm Qward. I just work here.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well, this is the QR code and he is the
Q in the QR code, so we both just work
here by that by that standard. But in any event,
we want you to stick around because we have a
show that we've outlined for you that we think is
worth your time. We are going to be talking about
the impact on the culture that the latest Clips album
(00:57):
has had. Now we're talking about hip hop culture, of course,
but that to some extent really kind of sets the
tone of the larger culture, and so we want you
to definitely hear our thoughts on the impact of this
latest album, Even if you haven't heard, we think that
there's something there for you. We're also going to talk
about the rise in police killings in rural America, something
(01:18):
that I guess we might have expected, but to see
the data is another thing entirely. Also, we're going to
be discussing how MAGA supporters have changed, have flipped in
terms of their feelings. The honeymoon period is over, I suppose,
(01:39):
ins far as Donald Trump is concerned, because the Epstein Files,
that's been a big scandal over there. So we're gonna
find out what's going on with those folks. And then
for entertainment, we're going to be discussing a TV show
that I recently got into. I guess the Cats out
of the Bag. I'm a bit of a treky and
I got some cool stuff to share with you about
that show. So all that and so much more to
(02:00):
stick around for. But first, as always, we start off
with a feel good feature, and today's feel good feature
comes from ABC seven Denver. New Colorado law establishes black
history education standards in public schools, So I'll share more
Americans have become familiar with juneteen thanks to it becoming
a federal holiday. However, there are still many parts of
Black American history that are never taught in the classroom.
(02:22):
To address that, Colorado Governor Jared Pollis signed House Bill
twenty five eleven forty nine into law earlier this month
to establish comprehensive statewide black history education standards per k
through twelve public schools. Quote. Black history is American history,
and without a comprehensive Black history curriculum in our public schools,
students aren't receiving the full scope of achievements and contributions
(02:43):
of Black Americans, unquote, said State Representative Regina English, who
sponsored the bill in the Colorado House of Representatives. He
goes on to say, we can help our students achieve
a well rounded education by developing and standardizing a comprehensive
black history curriculum in Colorado's public schools. Politics to engineering
Black Americans contributions to society are vast. Our law helps
(03:05):
ensure that students learn about the influential black leaders who
change the course of history and our nation. The law
requires Colorado State Board Education to adopt standards on Black
American history. It also creates an advisory committee to help
develop the standards. And I guess the reason why that's
a feel good feature is pretty obvious. You know, the
(03:26):
bar has been lowered, but Colorado has managed to clear it,
and we're grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Your thoughts, kid, I'm hoping that everything that was once
normal to us isn't gone. Yeah, that you know, education
is somewhere where we can start to try to re
establish norms. We seem to be the only developed nation
in the world that is so ashamed of its history
(03:52):
that we pretend it didn't happen. And that's a really
kind of gross standard to set. Yeah, but shout out
to Colorado for holding the line. All right, So culture, culture,
this is a big part of the show. We try
to stay in touch with.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The people. You know, we are the people, but you know,
for those that don't know that might be a little
news to the show. We come from hip hop culture.
We come from hip hop radio. So we were authorities
in hip hop for twenty years before we started the show,
and we still see how hip hop culture and black
(04:38):
culture shapes the larger kind of culture of America and
the world by extension. And so whenever there's something monumental
like a seismic shift. We like to make sure that
we bring it to your attention, We discuss it and
just in case you're not all the way tapped in,
you at least know what we know and can you
know understand what conversse are being had or what changes
(05:01):
you're seeing in your own reality. So first thing, QUH
talk to us about the Clips album that God's sort
of out.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
It's a really interesting thing happening in the culture right now,
the Clips with their first album together in sixteen years. Yeah,
And it's funny because a lot of people have come
to the party since then.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
A lot of people come to the cookout.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
A lot of people have come to the culture, some
because the genre has become more massive than ever, some
because they weren't old enough yet to even hear hip
hop music. So this is their first time hearing from
Push a t In Malice as a duo, and most
(05:47):
are very very pleased with what they're getting. The thing
that's most entertaining to me, that's outside of the art itself,
is people's reaction to a proper album rollout. Clips dropped
an album back when that's what you did, when you
did a bunch of interviews when you did a bunch
of press when you put out a big single, when
you shot music videos, when there was a rollout surrounding
(06:12):
the release of a new project. But with the advent
of streamers, the Internet and the kind of surprise shock
value that comes with these kind of surprise drops, now
the proper album rollout you don't really ever see anymore,
because you know, artists development and you know marketing, it's
not something that labels really invest in for artists who
(06:32):
aren't already there, right, They kind of ride the wave
of artists who have kind of created their own buzz.
And if you've if you're already a streaming sensation or
an Internet sensation, the label signs you. They put a
bit of their machine behind you, and then you continue
on the trajectory that you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Were already on.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But the clips are kind of an avant garde throwback
hip hop app Yeah, And with that has come every
major platform and print media, which no one does anymore.
But the start of this rollout was a big print story.
(07:12):
It was either The New York Times or GQ, or
maybe both, but stories written stories that we're so used
to the medium of video video, podcast podcast, video interviews.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
What used to be called vlogs.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That the print story, it's like somebody's sitting down and
interviewing you, and then trapbscribing. Transcribing that interview into a
printed out story doesn't really happen anymore. And in that
story came a bunch of like behind the scenes narrative
and story building that we weren't familiar with with regards
to their relationship with Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Parreah Williams,
(07:50):
Travis Scott, these kind of virality sparking stories all in
one album rollout, and then there's push a Ta in Malice,
And if you're fans of hip hop like we are,
there's not a whole out that I have to say
to kind of introduce those two names to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
The story, but introduce them just in case there's some
folks that are just coming go ahead.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Once upon a time, Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes and
Chad Hugo were really really super novas with like mainstream
radio hip hop and R and B production, and you know,
you know, the Neptune sound with Pharrell's falsetto became a standard,
(08:38):
like every other song on the radio, every other song
in the.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Club, every other one.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, you're right, their production with Pharrell's falsetto over it,
and eventually you got Pharrell as an artist, which most
people know now from Happy Fame, but their first kind
of venture as a label and really doing something different
from what was a sound that was working was the Clips.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I think every.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Lunch room and every neighborhood, inner city in America and
probably all over the world got to hear grinding acoustically
from the hearts, hands and lunch tables, physical percussion of
the lunch table kids trying to recreate that sonic genre
(09:31):
shifting beat from grinding. And you know, I was lucky enough,
you know, because of a good friend of mine, Royster
five nine, to hear that entire album.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Before it was out.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I met push a t in Malice as Gene and
Terrence Wow, you know, because I was because I am
you know, friends with Royster five nine Ryan Montgomery, you know,
from Detroit, Michigan, one of the Illis MC's of all time.
And I hear that those songs before or they were
on the radio, before you could buy a CD. It
(10:04):
was a moment, man, and lots of people have missed
them dearly, but The cool thing about this is that
lots of people are hearing them as a duo for
the first time, and for some of those people, the
first time they're hearing them as a duo is alongside
Compton's on Kendrick Lamar Okay with fresh new, once again,
(10:26):
genre shifting production from Pharrell not the Neptunes, just for real,
and you can hear the familiarity, the familial creative space
that they're in as they recorded this album all together
in Paris at the headquarters of Louis Vauton, just where
(10:48):
Pharrell's office slash studio slash creative space is.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So it's for.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Those who haven't heard it, please press play, because it is.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's like that are fun? Okay? All right? So I
like that, I see what you did there, all right?
So watch this. I saw on social media somewhere. I
saw this was just a person doing a piece of
camera or just I guess a selfie video or whatever.
(11:22):
He was just talking to his followers or whatever. And
of course this video got shared a lot. But he
was like, you know what, I realized, And as he's
saying this, I'm realizing, like dang, he's right. But he's like,
all of like the biggest MC's, all the biggest stars
in hip hop are over thirty years old, and he's like,
(11:46):
this is the first time in history where the young artist,
the late teenage artist, and the twenty something artists are
not demanding the spotlight in the way that the thirty
plus artists are. They're not defining the culture in the
way that the thirty plus artists are. And he went
on the list a bunch of artists, you know, from
(12:08):
Kendrick and Drake to you know, j Cole to who else,
to be saying there's like some some people that are
new you would think of newer artists, but they're surprisingly
like aged. And he was trying to like, like, I
guess infer that there's something special going on there where
(12:28):
hip hop is like maturing, where once upon a time
it was very immature, given that it's now had enough
time to like you know, develop and learn what the
what is you know, now it's kind of on its
path and there's a space for you know, all of
(12:48):
these different voices, all of these different people's perspectives from
different stages in their lives. And you know, on the
Clips album, you know, they're talking about the death of
their mother, the death of their father. I think it
happened pretty close together, so they're reconciling with that. You know,
things like this, like like grown adult music that sounds familiar,
that we can sing along with, a rap along with.
(13:10):
Not everybody can sing, but if you listen enough, you know,
you can kind of speak rhythmically, and you know, if
you feel something. You know, hip hop has a tendency
to be more expressive than other types of music because
there's more lyrical content. You know, you get off a
lot more bars, and if you're sing song, y'all slow.
So you know, I just I love how the past
(13:33):
few months, you know, let's call it past see, well,
call it that past year. There have been these huge shift,
seismic shifts, as you mentioned in the culture uh, and
they all seem to be for the better, and they
are kind of showing what hip hop is and what
it can be at the same time. And I'm glad
(13:55):
that there's an audience that's super duper here for it.
It makes me very happy, so be it. So all right,
let's get down to business. I got to have some
opinions on this Wall Street Journal article. So the rise
in police killings in rural America. Okay, so a little
bit of background again for books just coming to the
(14:17):
table that might not know the long standing story here.
Q and I we host Civic Cipher and we host
the QR Code, which is what you're listening to today.
Civic Cipher is like our baby. That's like our first
big national show together. And on that show, we've done
that show for a years since twenty twenty, and it
(14:39):
was it was born in twenty twenty because of the
George Floyd murder that we saw happen. We have been
very critical of the way policing is done, and we've
been we think that policing can be better, and so
we consistently point out the shortcomings using data and verifiable
(15:04):
factual journalistic with so much integrity because people love to
push back. There are so many people with this thin
venir patriotism covering up what I suspect is a mountain
of racism, that have a whole lot to say when
we push back and say, hey, this is not right
or this could be better. So this article is on
(15:26):
brand for us, but this obviously would stand out to
us as something worth sharing because obviously this is a
data driven article. So I'll share again from the Wall
Street Journal. Last year, one thousand, two hundred and sixty
people were killed by law enforcement, the highest level since
data crunching organizations began keeping track a decade ago. A
major factor driving the upper trend is surprising sheriff's departments
(15:49):
that generally patrol more rural slices of America are killing
more civilians. Sorry, sheriff's departments, which generally have jurisdiction over counties,
were involved in about a third of police shootings twenty
twenty four, despite making up just a quarter of law
enforcement nationwide. According to the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, killings
by sheriffs rose forty three percent from twenty thirteen, while
(16:11):
that number rose three percent for police departments which patrols
cities and towns. Again, I'll say that killings by sheriffs
rose forty three percent from twenty thirteen, while that number
rose three percent for police departments which patrol cities and towns. Okay,
and real quick, I just I think that's important because
(16:32):
a lot of people think of, you know, police lives
are scary, and police and blah blah blah, and they
think of, you know, cities and crime and all that
sort of stuff, particularly folks on the right, right, And
so this data might cause folks to rethink the narrative
they've been sold and digested all this time. All right,
let me continue with the article. The numbers speak to
a widening gap between urban and rural law enforcement. Since
(16:53):
the twenty twenty killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis
police officers sent floods of protesters onto the streets of
American cities, big city departments face pressure to dial back
aggressive practices and adopt changes to reduce shootings by officers. Sheriffs,
most elected in partisan races, unlike police chiefs, have long
espoused a tough law and order approach that is supported
(17:13):
by their constituents. Particularly as violence spike nationwide during the pandemic,
sheriff's departments were quick to unleash forceful tactics to tramp
down unrest. Quote. Sheriff's will typically be more proactive, which
entails my deputies being more inclined to use violence to
overcome violence, unquote, said Chad Bianco, the Republican sheriff of
Riverside County in southern California, When protests broke out last
(17:35):
month over Trump's migration crackdown, some sheriffs issued tough public
warnings to demonstrators. The White House endorses this muscular stance.
In late April, sheriff surrounded President Trump as he signed
an executive order titled quote Strengthening and Unleashing Unleashing Sorry,
America's law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens.
The order encourages law enforcement to aggressively police communities against
(17:58):
all crimes and for strengthening legal protections for officers Sheriff's Department. Sorry.
Sheriff's deputies often patrol alone, with backup miles away. This
is why Glenn Hamilton, the former sheriff of Sierra County,
New Mexico, with a population of eleven thousand, describes rural
policing as quote one riot, one ranger, unquote. But the
(18:20):
changing nature of policing rural America is testing these solitary
do it all deputies. Economic decline coupled with drug and
mental health crises forced them to contend with problems historically
associated with big cities. About fourteen percent of killings by
sheriff's last year arose from mental health crisis calls such
as armed suicidal men turning guns on deputies and others.
(18:42):
All right, Some twenty eight percent involved violent crimes such
as robbery, shootings, and stabbings. Nearly three quarters of those
killed carried guns, knives, or other weapons. And I want
you to jump in here, Q of course. But usually
I think one of the things that I've learned, because
I've had to retrain my brain to like speak police,
(19:09):
when police say, well, you know, he had a weapon,
they use that often to justify taking a person's life. Well,
they had a weapon. I feared from my life, And
I think that robs the person who loses their life
of their narrative right because oftentimes a person is carrying
(19:30):
a weapon because they fear for their own life. Right. So,
and in this country, it's legal to have a weapon
all the way up to and including a gun. Right,
that's the second Amendment. Like they got the first one off,
and they were like, okay, number two, everybody gets a gun. Okay.
So when police see that and say, oh, he had
a gun, had to kill him, I was afraid. I
(19:50):
think that's a very one sided approach. And again I've
had to train my brain into seeing that, hey, this
narrative allows for a lot of a police aggression to
exist and fester and grow and infect entire departments, which
then seep out into entire communities, which seeps into the
data that we're saying, and it disproportionately affects us black
(20:11):
folks and brown folks. Okay, que your turn.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
You know, there's an interesting thing that happens with law
enforcement and with our military, which we've noticed on kind
of full amplification over the last few months. They're always
supposed to be sworn in to protect the country, the
community and their constituents, the people that pay their salaries,
the people who live in their communities, as is the
(20:36):
case with our military, that's supposed to be sworn to
protect our nation and our nation's constitution, not the commander
in chief. The problem is, in so many of these cases,
from the foundation, from the establishment of these law enforcement
agencies and in some cases, our military, you have to
(20:58):
go back to the foundations of the country, which are
strongly rooted in white supremacists, white nationalism, and leads us
to a point where when those checks and balances are
supposed to kick in, they don't because the person's personal
ideologies line up with the tyrants with those who would
(21:22):
overstep and misuse their authority and their power, and we
are left to fend for ourselves. And the idea that
you said, You know, people being killed are then treated
as the problem and not the victim. You use the
word narrative before, but I don't even think that's a
strong enough word. They're robbed of their humanity. They don't
(21:43):
get to matter, their families don't get to mourn because
the first time everyone sees their face on TV, they
find the worst picture they've ever taken. Introduced the idea
of a weapon present. Even those same people that will
march up and down the street talking about our Second Amendment, right,
those same people interject the possession of a gun, the
same gun that you will not have your rights tread
(22:05):
on or tread upon or stolen from you. Those same
people make the argument that the very presence of a
weapon for these people who have been killed as the
reason that they were killed. So it's like you can't
have it both ways. We have had to tread and
murky waters and walk a really really fine line with
trying to understand that there is danger in that job
(22:28):
while also reminding people that police officers are not drafted.
People apply for, sign up for go through a rigorous
process to get those jobs. And what we find out
is a lot of people go through all those processes
to get those jobs for the authority and the power
that comes with that badge and that gun, and then
they intentionally misuse that authority in that power, and we
(22:53):
watch it happen and have to pretend that it doesn't
because again, those who are arguing the opposite share the beliefs.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Are a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
People that get killed deserve it because how they look,
because of how they vote, because of how they dress,
because of the community that they come from. And once again,
you know, if you people would just listen and comply,
then everything would be okay. And every piece of data
(23:22):
that is available to us shows us that that's not
the case, not at all.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Also, there's data that shows that increase police training doesn't work.
There's data that shows that increase police presence doesn't work.
Doesn't work either, Thank you. And again, this is why
I love having had so much I guess time and
experience in the data which is fact based and scientific
(23:48):
in nature, because this isn't a personal belief, this isn't
about feelings. This is like, okay, so what outcomes do
we want? How do we pursue it? Well, the data
tells us, tells the story better than anyone could. So
I love that. All right? Moving on? Huh, better do better?
I gotta do the sign of the cross here. So
(24:10):
let's just get into it, all right. This from the
Washington Post. Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants with as
little as six hours notice to countries other than their own,
even if officials have not provided any assurances that the
new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture, a
top officials said in a memo this week, Again from
the Washington Post. Okay. Todd M. Lyons, the acting director
(24:33):
of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, wrote in
a memo to the ICE workers Wednesday that a Supreme
Court ruling last month had cleared the way for offers
to immediately start sending immigrants to alternative countries. People being
sent to countries where officials have not provided any diplomatic
assurances that immigrants will be safe will be informed twenty
four hours in advance, and in exigent circumstances, just six
(24:55):
Those being flown to places that have offered. Those assurances
could be deported with no advance notice. Okay, I know
that people that tune into the show regularly get it right,
but you may not be aware that there are people
who tune into this show to try to find out
(25:17):
how wrong we are about stuff. Right. There are people
who tune into this show because I don't know, they
just love to torture themselves. They want to see the left,
what the lefties are up to or whatever. I don't
know if they. I admittedly am a lefty, but I
won't speak for Q. I won't speak for anybody else
but me. I'm way over there on the left. So anyway,
(25:38):
to those people that listen, I want to ask you
something like, imagine, if you have a modicum of empathy,
imagine that you found out all of a sudden, at
whatever age you are now, that you were born in
a different country and you actually moved here when you
were two. Okay, so you have no memory of this
(26:01):
other country, all your memories are here and whatever, and
your parents tried to get citizenship. They try to do
everything the right way, but it's not an easy process.
And every four years there's a new administration with new
rules and you've got to start at the beginning and
you're trying. But whatever. So as a result, you never
(26:23):
had citizenship, but it never affected you because you were
able to go to school. You're able to do it X,
Y and Z whatever. Now you can if you're still
with me, If you can imagine what it's like to
be another human being, imagine this ruling. Somebody can that
you don't know based off of no action that you've done.
(26:46):
Donald Trump said he was going after the criminals, but
we've seen that it doesn't matter because they will lower
the bar from criminals too. If you're just here and
your paperwork isn't in order, that makes you a criminal.
You need to get out of the country, right. So now,
imagine you've been labeled a criminal even though you never
harmed anyone, and there's a new law that says someone
(27:08):
can pull up snatch you in the back of a truck,
and six hours later, you're on an airplane to a
country where you don't even have any relatives. You've never been,
your family's never been like. Imagine that reality for a second.
And if you have that modicum of empathy and you're
able to put yourself in those shoes, how does that
make you feel? Do you feel happy or do you
(27:30):
feel like afraid? And if you can get this far
with me, then you understand why there's such a pushback
on this. We can set up rules and enforce them
without losing our own humanity as a country. We can
do that. But Donald Trump just bypassed all of that
with the help of the Supreme Court that he elected.
(27:52):
In fact, there's the whole government is people that he
put in place. So this is really the workings of
a king who's giving the people an enemy that he
can show he's defeating, even though this is not their
actual enemy. Migrants and immigrants commit crimes at a lower
rate than US citizens do. That's all I need to say. Now.
(28:15):
I could go on, but I don't want to talk
up the whole time. Q give me your thoughts on this.
Now that people can get deported in six hours to
a country they've never been to, how does this one
hit you?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Some important things to point out? A Supreme court that
he appointed, not elected, Well, they were not elected. They
were appointed by him to do exactly what they're doing.
You also painted a very concise and clear picture that's
not accurate. It has nothing to do with your citizenship status.
They can pull up arrests, detained and deport us citizens
(28:47):
to Yeah, you're right, yes, Rosie o'donald. He said he's
going to revoke her citizenship.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Well he said that to her. I'm not even talking
about that's no, I know, but I just you just
reminded me of that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But I don't want to use her as an example
right now because people will conflate.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And no, you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Actual citizens who have already been detained, deported and arrested,
detained and since somewhere else. And during that process law
enforcement realized they had the wrong person. But they're so
stuck in their ways and so unable to say, my bad,
I made a mistake that they detained and deported the
people anyway and threw their hands up like there's nothing
(29:25):
we can do to bring them back, even though we
knew before we deported them that they were citizens. Stop
looking at the neighbor that might be affected and thinking
it doesn't affect you when it just well might, whether
your parents are from here or not. If you look
like they don't think you belong without any explanation at all. Yes,
you that are listening, not just people that are Hispanic,
(29:48):
anyone that they feel like they don't want to be
here they can arrest, attain, and deport to somewhere you've
never been, and not even assured that you won't be
tortured or even killed in this other country
Broadcasting from the Civic Cipher Studios. Welcome to the QR Code,
where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes. The
man you are about to hear from on the microphone,
the professional, the kind spirit, the former model, and the
former great athlete and runner. He goes by the name
of q Ward. So those are either the news to
(00:22):
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the part where ram just talks about himself
and it says my name, but now he's wanted a
couple of facts that he knows about my past so
that I can't flip it on him. That's ram Jah,
He's the host. I'm Qward. I just work here.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well, this is the QR code and he is the
Q in the QR code, so we both just work
here by that by that standard. But in any event,
we want you to stick around because we have a
show that we've outlined for you that we think is
worth your time. We are going to be talking about
the impact on the culture that the latest Clips album
(00:57):
has had. Now we're talking about hip hop culture, of course,
but that to some extent really kind of sets the
tone of the larger culture, and so we want you
to definitely hear our thoughts on the impact of this
latest album, Even if you haven't heard, we think that
there's something there for you. We're also going to talk
about the rise in police killings in rural America, something
(01:18):
that I guess we might have expected, but to see
the data is another thing entirely. Also, we're going to
be discussing how MAGA supporters have changed, have flipped in
terms of their feelings. The honeymoon period is over, I suppose,
(01:39):
ins far as Donald Trump is concerned, because the Epstein Files,
that's been a big scandal over there. So we're gonna
find out what's going on with those folks. And then
for entertainment, we're going to be discussing a TV show
that I recently got into. I guess the Cats out
of the Bag. I'm a bit of a treky and
I got some cool stuff to share with you about
that show. So all that and so much more to
(02:00):
stick around for. But first, as always, we start off
with a feel good feature, and today's feel good feature
comes from ABC seven Denver. New Colorado law establishes black
history education standards in public schools, So I'll share more
Americans have become familiar with juneteen thanks to it becoming
a federal holiday. However, there are still many parts of
Black American history that are never taught in the classroom.
(02:22):
To address that, Colorado Governor Jared Pollis signed House Bill
twenty five eleven forty nine into law earlier this month
to establish comprehensive statewide black history education standards per k
through twelve public schools. Quote. Black history is American history,
and without a comprehensive Black history curriculum in our public schools,
students aren't receiving the full scope of achievements and contributions
(02:43):
of Black Americans, unquote, said State Representative Regina English, who
sponsored the bill in the Colorado House of Representatives. He
goes on to say, we can help our students achieve
a well rounded education by developing and standardizing a comprehensive
black history curriculum in Colorado's public schools. Politics to engineering
Black Americans contributions to society are vast. Our law helps
(03:05):
ensure that students learn about the influential black leaders who
change the course of history and our nation. The law
requires Colorado State Board Education to adopt standards on Black
American history. It also creates an advisory committee to help
develop the standards. And I guess the reason why that's
a feel good feature is pretty obvious. You know, the
(03:26):
bar has been lowered, but Colorado has managed to clear it,
and we're grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Your thoughts, kid, I'm hoping that everything that was once
normal to us isn't gone. Yeah, that you know, education
is somewhere where we can start to try to re
establish norms. We seem to be the only developed nation
in the world that is so ashamed of its history
(03:52):
that we pretend it didn't happen. And that's a really
kind of gross standard to set. Yeah, but shout out
to Colorado for holding the line. All right, So culture, culture,
this is a big part of the show. We try
to stay in touch with.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The people. You know, we are the people, but you know,
for those that don't know that might be a little
news to the show. We come from hip hop culture.
We come from hip hop radio. So we were authorities
in hip hop for twenty years before we started the show,
and we still see how hip hop culture and black
(04:38):
culture shapes the larger kind of culture of America and
the world by extension. And so whenever there's something monumental
like a seismic shift. We like to make sure that
we bring it to your attention, We discuss it and
just in case you're not all the way tapped in,
you at least know what we know and can you
know understand what conversse are being had or what changes
(05:01):
you're seeing in your own reality. So first thing, QUH
talk to us about the Clips album that God's sort
of out.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
It's a really interesting thing happening in the culture right now,
the Clips with their first album together in sixteen years. Yeah,
And it's funny because a lot of people have come
to the party since then.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
A lot of people come to the cookout.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
A lot of people have come to the culture, some
because the genre has become more massive than ever, some
because they weren't old enough yet to even hear hip
hop music. So this is their first time hearing from
Push a t In Malice as a duo, and most
(05:47):
are very very pleased with what they're getting. The thing
that's most entertaining to me, that's outside of the art itself,
is people's reaction to a proper album rollout. Clips dropped
an album back when that's what you did, when you
did a bunch of interviews when you did a bunch
of press when you put out a big single, when
you shot music videos, when there was a rollout surrounding
(06:12):
the release of a new project. But with the advent
of streamers, the Internet and the kind of surprise shock
value that comes with these kind of surprise drops, now
the proper album rollout you don't really ever see anymore,
because you know, artists development and you know marketing, it's
not something that labels really invest in for artists who
(06:32):
aren't already there, right, They kind of ride the wave
of artists who have kind of created their own buzz.
And if you've if you're already a streaming sensation or
an Internet sensation, the label signs you. They put a
bit of their machine behind you, and then you continue
on the trajectory that you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Were already on.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But the clips are kind of an avant garde throwback
hip hop app Yeah, And with that has come every
major platform and print media, which no one does anymore.
But the start of this rollout was a big print story.
(07:12):
It was either The New York Times or GQ, or
maybe both, but stories written stories that we're so used
to the medium of video video, podcast podcast, video interviews.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
What used to be called vlogs.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That the print story, it's like somebody's sitting down and
interviewing you, and then trapbscribing. Transcribing that interview into a
printed out story doesn't really happen anymore. And in that
story came a bunch of like behind the scenes narrative
and story building that we weren't familiar with with regards
to their relationship with Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Parreah Williams,
(07:50):
Travis Scott, these kind of virality sparking stories all in
one album rollout, and then there's push a Ta in Malice,
And if you're fans of hip hop like we are,
there's not a whole out that I have to say
to kind of introduce those two names to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
The story, but introduce them just in case there's some
folks that are just coming go ahead.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Once upon a time, Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes and
Chad Hugo were really really super novas with like mainstream
radio hip hop and R and B production, and you know,
you know, the Neptune sound with Pharrell's falsetto became a standard,
(08:38):
like every other song on the radio, every other song
in the.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Club, every other one.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, you're right, their production with Pharrell's falsetto over it,
and eventually you got Pharrell as an artist, which most
people know now from Happy Fame, but their first kind
of venture as a label and really doing something different
from what was a sound that was working was the Clips.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I think every.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Lunch room and every neighborhood, inner city in America and
probably all over the world got to hear grinding acoustically
from the hearts, hands and lunch tables, physical percussion of
the lunch table kids trying to recreate that sonic genre
(09:31):
shifting beat from grinding. And you know, I was lucky enough,
you know, because of a good friend of mine, Royster
five nine, to hear that entire album.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Before it was out.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I met push a t in Malice as Gene and
Terrence Wow, you know, because I was because I am
you know, friends with Royster five nine Ryan Montgomery, you know,
from Detroit, Michigan, one of the Illis MC's of all time.
And I hear that those songs before or they were
on the radio, before you could buy a CD. It
(10:04):
was a moment, man, and lots of people have missed
them dearly, but The cool thing about this is that
lots of people are hearing them as a duo for
the first time, and for some of those people, the
first time they're hearing them as a duo is alongside
Compton's on Kendrick Lamar Okay with fresh new, once again,
(10:26):
genre shifting production from Pharrell not the Neptunes, just for real,
and you can hear the familiarity, the familial creative space
that they're in as they recorded this album all together
in Paris at the headquarters of Louis Vauton, just where
(10:48):
Pharrell's office slash studio slash creative space is.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So it's for.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Those who haven't heard it, please press play, because it is.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's like that are fun? Okay? All right? So I
like that, I see what you did there, all right?
So watch this. I saw on social media somewhere. I
saw this was just a person doing a piece of
camera or just I guess a selfie video or whatever.
(11:22):
He was just talking to his followers or whatever. And
of course this video got shared a lot. But he
was like, you know what, I realized, And as he's
saying this, I'm realizing, like dang, he's right. But he's like,
all of like the biggest MC's, all the biggest stars
in hip hop are over thirty years old, and he's like,
(11:46):
this is the first time in history where the young artist,
the late teenage artist, and the twenty something artists are
not demanding the spotlight in the way that the thirty
plus artists are. They're not defining the culture in the
way that the thirty plus artists are. And he went
on the list a bunch of artists, you know, from
(12:08):
Kendrick and Drake to you know, j Cole to who else,
to be saying there's like some some people that are
new you would think of newer artists, but they're surprisingly
like aged. And he was trying to like, like, I
guess infer that there's something special going on there where
(12:28):
hip hop is like maturing, where once upon a time
it was very immature, given that it's now had enough
time to like you know, develop and learn what the
what is you know, now it's kind of on its
path and there's a space for you know, all of
(12:48):
these different voices, all of these different people's perspectives from
different stages in their lives. And you know, on the
Clips album, you know, they're talking about the death of
their mother, the death of their father. I think it
happened pretty close together, so they're reconciling with that. You know,
things like this, like like grown adult music that sounds familiar,
that we can sing along with, a rap along with.
(13:10):
Not everybody can sing, but if you listen enough, you know,
you can kind of speak rhythmically, and you know, if
you feel something. You know, hip hop has a tendency
to be more expressive than other types of music because
there's more lyrical content. You know, you get off a
lot more bars, and if you're sing song, y'all slow.
So you know, I just I love how the past
(13:33):
few months, you know, let's call it past see, well,
call it that past year. There have been these huge shift,
seismic shifts, as you mentioned in the culture uh, and
they all seem to be for the better, and they
are kind of showing what hip hop is and what
it can be at the same time. And I'm glad
(13:55):
that there's an audience that's super duper here for it.
It makes me very happy, so be it. So all right,
let's get down to business. I got to have some
opinions on this Wall Street Journal article. So the rise
in police killings in rural America. Okay, so a little
bit of background again for books just coming to the
(14:17):
table that might not know the long standing story here.
Q and I we host Civic Cipher and we host
the QR Code, which is what you're listening to today.
Civic Cipher is like our baby. That's like our first
big national show together. And on that show, we've done
that show for a years since twenty twenty, and it
(14:39):
was it was born in twenty twenty because of the
George Floyd murder that we saw happen. We have been
very critical of the way policing is done, and we've
been we think that policing can be better, and so
we consistently point out the shortcomings using data and verifiable
(15:04):
factual journalistic with so much integrity because people love to
push back. There are so many people with this thin
venir patriotism covering up what I suspect is a mountain
of racism, that have a whole lot to say when
we push back and say, hey, this is not right
or this could be better. So this article is on
(15:26):
brand for us, but this obviously would stand out to
us as something worth sharing because obviously this is a
data driven article. So I'll share again from the Wall
Street Journal. Last year, one thousand, two hundred and sixty
people were killed by law enforcement, the highest level since
data crunching organizations began keeping track a decade ago. A
major factor driving the upper trend is surprising sheriff's departments
(15:49):
that generally patrol more rural slices of America are killing
more civilians. Sorry, sheriff's departments, which generally have jurisdiction over counties,
were involved in about a third of police shootings twenty
twenty four, despite making up just a quarter of law
enforcement nationwide. According to the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, killings
by sheriffs rose forty three percent from twenty thirteen, while
(16:11):
that number rose three percent for police departments which patrols
cities and towns. Again, I'll say that killings by sheriffs
rose forty three percent from twenty thirteen, while that number
rose three percent for police departments which patrol cities and towns. Okay,
and real quick, I just I think that's important because
(16:32):
a lot of people think of, you know, police lives
are scary, and police and blah blah blah, and they
think of, you know, cities and crime and all that
sort of stuff, particularly folks on the right, right, And
so this data might cause folks to rethink the narrative
they've been sold and digested all this time. All right,
let me continue with the article. The numbers speak to
a widening gap between urban and rural law enforcement. Since
(16:53):
the twenty twenty killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis
police officers sent floods of protesters onto the streets of
American cities, big city departments face pressure to dial back
aggressive practices and adopt changes to reduce shootings by officers. Sheriffs,
most elected in partisan races, unlike police chiefs, have long
espoused a tough law and order approach that is supported
(17:13):
by their constituents. Particularly as violence spike nationwide during the pandemic,
sheriff's departments were quick to unleash forceful tactics to tramp
down unrest. Quote. Sheriff's will typically be more proactive, which
entails my deputies being more inclined to use violence to
overcome violence, unquote, said Chad Bianco, the Republican sheriff of
Riverside County in southern California, When protests broke out last
(17:35):
month over Trump's migration crackdown, some sheriffs issued tough public
warnings to demonstrators. The White House endorses this muscular stance.
In late April, sheriff surrounded President Trump as he signed
an executive order titled quote Strengthening and Unleashing Unleashing Sorry,
America's law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens.
The order encourages law enforcement to aggressively police communities against
(17:58):
all crimes and for strengthening legal protections for officers Sheriff's Department. Sorry.
Sheriff's deputies often patrol alone, with backup miles away. This
is why Glenn Hamilton, the former sheriff of Sierra County,
New Mexico, with a population of eleven thousand, describes rural
policing as quote one riot, one ranger, unquote. But the
(18:20):
changing nature of policing rural America is testing these solitary
do it all deputies. Economic decline coupled with drug and
mental health crises forced them to contend with problems historically
associated with big cities. About fourteen percent of killings by
sheriff's last year arose from mental health crisis calls such
as armed suicidal men turning guns on deputies and others.
(18:42):
All right, Some twenty eight percent involved violent crimes such
as robbery, shootings, and stabbings. Nearly three quarters of those
killed carried guns, knives, or other weapons. And I want
you to jump in here, Q of course. But usually
I think one of the things that I've learned, because
I've had to retrain my brain to like speak police,
(19:09):
when police say, well, you know, he had a weapon,
they use that often to justify taking a person's life. Well,
they had a weapon. I feared from my life, And
I think that robs the person who loses their life
of their narrative right because oftentimes a person is carrying
(19:30):
a weapon because they fear for their own life. Right. So,
and in this country, it's legal to have a weapon
all the way up to and including a gun. Right,
that's the second Amendment. Like they got the first one off,
and they were like, okay, number two, everybody gets a gun. Okay.
So when police see that and say, oh, he had
a gun, had to kill him, I was afraid. I
(19:50):
think that's a very one sided approach. And again I've
had to train my brain into seeing that, hey, this
narrative allows for a lot of a police aggression to
exist and fester and grow and infect entire departments, which
then seep out into entire communities, which seeps into the
data that we're saying, and it disproportionately affects us black
(20:11):
folks and brown folks. Okay, que your turn.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
You know, there's an interesting thing that happens with law
enforcement and with our military, which we've noticed on kind
of full amplification over the last few months. They're always
supposed to be sworn in to protect the country, the
community and their constituents, the people that pay their salaries,
the people who live in their communities, as is the
(20:36):
case with our military, that's supposed to be sworn to
protect our nation and our nation's constitution, not the commander
in chief. The problem is, in so many of these cases,
from the foundation, from the establishment of these law enforcement
agencies and in some cases, our military, you have to
(20:58):
go back to the foundations of the country, which are
strongly rooted in white supremacists, white nationalism, and leads us
to a point where when those checks and balances are
supposed to kick in, they don't because the person's personal
ideologies line up with the tyrants with those who would
(21:22):
overstep and misuse their authority and their power, and we
are left to fend for ourselves. And the idea that
you said, You know, people being killed are then treated
as the problem and not the victim. You use the
word narrative before, but I don't even think that's a
strong enough word. They're robbed of their humanity. They don't
(21:43):
get to matter, their families don't get to mourn because
the first time everyone sees their face on TV, they
find the worst picture they've ever taken. Introduced the idea
of a weapon present. Even those same people that will
march up and down the street talking about our Second Amendment, right,
those same people interject the possession of a gun, the
same gun that you will not have your rights tread
(22:05):
on or tread upon or stolen from you. Those same
people make the argument that the very presence of a
weapon for these people who have been killed as the
reason that they were killed. So it's like you can't
have it both ways. We have had to tread and
murky waters and walk a really really fine line with
trying to understand that there is danger in that job
(22:28):
while also reminding people that police officers are not drafted.
People apply for, sign up for go through a rigorous
process to get those jobs. And what we find out
is a lot of people go through all those processes
to get those jobs for the authority and the power
that comes with that badge and that gun, and then
they intentionally misuse that authority in that power, and we
(22:53):
watch it happen and have to pretend that it doesn't
because again, those who are arguing the opposite share the beliefs.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Are a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
People that get killed deserve it because how they look,
because of how they vote, because of how they dress,
because of the community that they come from. And once again,
you know, if you people would just listen and comply,
then everything would be okay. And every piece of data
(23:22):
that is available to us shows us that that's not
the case, not at all.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Also, there's data that shows that increase police training doesn't work.
There's data that shows that increase police presence doesn't work.
Doesn't work either, Thank you. And again, this is why
I love having had so much I guess time and
experience in the data which is fact based and scientific
(23:48):
in nature, because this isn't a personal belief, this isn't
about feelings. This is like, okay, so what outcomes do
we want? How do we pursue it? Well, the data
tells us, tells the story better than anyone could. So
I love that. All right? Moving on? Huh, better do better?
I gotta do the sign of the cross here. So
(24:10):
let's just get into it, all right. This from the
Washington Post. Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants with as
little as six hours notice to countries other than their own,
even if officials have not provided any assurances that the
new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture, a
top officials said in a memo this week, Again from
the Washington Post. Okay. Todd M. Lyons, the acting director
(24:33):
of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, wrote in
a memo to the ICE workers Wednesday that a Supreme
Court ruling last month had cleared the way for offers
to immediately start sending immigrants to alternative countries. People being
sent to countries where officials have not provided any diplomatic
assurances that immigrants will be safe will be informed twenty
four hours in advance, and in exigent circumstances, just six
(24:55):
Those being flown to places that have offered. Those assurances
could be deported with no advance notice. Okay, I know
that people that tune into the show regularly get it right,
but you may not be aware that there are people
who tune into this show to try to find out
(25:17):
how wrong we are about stuff. Right. There are people
who tune into this show because I don't know, they
just love to torture themselves. They want to see the left,
what the lefties are up to or whatever. I don't
know if they. I admittedly am a lefty, but I
won't speak for Q. I won't speak for anybody else
but me. I'm way over there on the left. So anyway,
(25:38):
to those people that listen, I want to ask you
something like, imagine, if you have a modicum of empathy,
imagine that you found out all of a sudden, at
whatever age you are now, that you were born in
a different country and you actually moved here when you
were two. Okay, so you have no memory of this
(26:01):
other country, all your memories are here and whatever, and
your parents tried to get citizenship. They try to do
everything the right way, but it's not an easy process.
And every four years there's a new administration with new
rules and you've got to start at the beginning and
you're trying. But whatever. So as a result, you never
(26:23):
had citizenship, but it never affected you because you were
able to go to school. You're able to do it X,
Y and Z whatever. Now you can if you're still
with me, If you can imagine what it's like to
be another human being, imagine this ruling. Somebody can that
you don't know based off of no action that you've done.
(26:46):
Donald Trump said he was going after the criminals, but
we've seen that it doesn't matter because they will lower
the bar from criminals too. If you're just here and
your paperwork isn't in order, that makes you a criminal.
You need to get out of the country, right. So now,
imagine you've been labeled a criminal even though you never
harmed anyone, and there's a new law that says someone
(27:08):
can pull up snatch you in the back of a truck,
and six hours later, you're on an airplane to a
country where you don't even have any relatives. You've never been,
your family's never been like. Imagine that reality for a second.
And if you have that modicum of empathy and you're
able to put yourself in those shoes, how does that
make you feel? Do you feel happy or do you
(27:30):
feel like afraid? And if you can get this far
with me, then you understand why there's such a pushback
on this. We can set up rules and enforce them
without losing our own humanity as a country. We can
do that. But Donald Trump just bypassed all of that
with the help of the Supreme Court that he elected.
(27:52):
In fact, there's the whole government is people that he
put in place. So this is really the workings of
a king who's giving the people an enemy that he
can show he's defeating, even though this is not their
actual enemy. Migrants and immigrants commit crimes at a lower
rate than US citizens do. That's all I need to say. Now.
(28:15):
I could go on, but I don't want to talk
up the whole time. Q give me your thoughts on this.
Now that people can get deported in six hours to
a country they've never been to, how does this one
hit you?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Some important things to point out? A Supreme court that
he appointed, not elected, Well, they were not elected. They
were appointed by him to do exactly what they're doing.
You also painted a very concise and clear picture that's
not accurate. It has nothing to do with your citizenship status.
They can pull up arrests, detained and deport us citizens
(28:47):
to Yeah, you're right, yes, Rosie o'donald. He said he's
going to revoke her citizenship.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Well he said that to her. I'm not even talking
about that's no, I know, but I just you just
reminded me of that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But I don't want to use her as an example
right now because people will conflate.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And no, you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Actual citizens who have already been detained, deported and arrested,
detained and since somewhere else. And during that process law
enforcement realized they had the wrong person. But they're so
stuck in their ways and so unable to say, my bad,
I made a mistake that they detained and deported the
people anyway and threw their hands up like there's nothing
(29:25):
we can do to bring them back, even though we
knew before we deported them that they were citizens. Stop
looking at the neighbor that might be affected and thinking
it doesn't affect you when it just well might, whether
your parents are from here or not. If you look
like they don't think you belong without any explanation at all. Yes,
you that are listening, not just people that are Hispanic,
(29:48):
anyone that they feel like they don't want to be
here they can arrest, attain, and deport to somewhere you've
never been, and not even assured that you won't be
tortured or even killed in this other country
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