December 13, 2025 • 22 mins
In the second half of the program, we examine several of the problems that have arisen (or otherwise been exacerbated) within the carceral system under the current administration.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Still broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. Welcome back
to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's Jock q Ward
in the building as well, and we aren't going to
make you wait. We got a lot to talk about
in terms of the problems in the car soorles system,
so let's get right to it without further ado. This
comes from EJI dot org, the Equal Justice Initiative. This
(00:22):
is a place that we source a lot of data
from for this program. We're going to talk about these
prison quoteras. I didn't know this. This has taken us
a few days to kind of put all this together
and it was mind blowing. But I think it sets
the stage for the rest of the conversation we want
(00:43):
to have. All Right, here we go. Most of the
private prison contracts in America require states to keep at
least ninety percent of prison beds filled or pay a
penalty to private for profit corporations. Advocacy Group in the
Public Interest of Detain and Analyze sixty two contracts between
states and local jurisdictions and private prison companies that govern
(01:07):
the operation of seventy seven county and state level facilities.
Sixty five percent contained occupancy requirements between eighty percent and
one hundred percent, with many around ninety percent, Arizona having
one hundred percent, Louisiana having ninety six percent, Oklahoma having
ninety eight percent, in Virginia having ninety five percent. So,
(01:28):
first off, you can already see how problematic that type
of agreement will be. If nothing else, it just ensures
that people are going to police communities and imprison people
(01:48):
just to satisfy contracts, whether or not crimes are valid,
and all that other stuff. But I'll continue. Quote. These
contract clauses incentivized keeping prison beds filled, wrote the studies authors.
This goes on to say, which runs counter to many
states public policy goals of reducing the prison population and
(02:11):
increasing efforts for inmate rehabilitation regardless of crime rates and
public safety needs, These contracts require jurisdictions to maintain current
levels of mass incarceration or pay millions of dollars for
unused beds. In Colorado alone, where crime is dropped by
a third in the past decade. Quote as covering three
private prisons has cost taxpayers two million dollars, Arizona officials
(02:33):
ended up paying three million dollars for empty beds because
the state stopped sending new inmates to a dysfunctional for
profit prison after three inmates escaped in twenty ten. The
major private prison companies Corrections Corporation of America or CCA,
the largest for profit private prison company in the country,
(02:53):
Saraizimoufel a GEO Group, and Management and Training Corporation or MTC,
spend millions of dollars to ensure harsh criminal laws and
elect policymakers that support the industry's agenda. CCA alone spend
seventeen point four million dollars in lobbying from twenty and
two to twenty twelve. Bed guarantee contract provisions are an
(03:16):
even more direct way for private prison companies to protect
their bottom line. CCA, Geogroup, and MTC all have quotas
in their contracts. The industry claims these provisions save states money,
but quotas actually lock in inflated rates after the contract
is signed. So you found this out, Q, and I
know there's a lot more here, so I want to
(03:39):
make sure that you have plenty of time to share
your thoughts here before we move on to the next phase.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, when I when I sent this to you, I
think I was as shocked as you were when you
received it. We've kind of always known there was an
incentive to keep prison beds full by the prison in
dust complex. I don't think either of us had any
idea that the states had a minimum requirement to help
(04:08):
keep those beds full, which flies in the face of
everything that those oppose that oppose us say to us
when we talk about abolishing this whole system, as it
is the idea in general that I think I believe
the thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, except for as a punishment
(04:31):
for a crime. There's problematic in and of itself when
you're the people who are deciding what a crime is
and who did it. Yeah, the slaves are free, but
because you're free standing over there as a crime, so
you're not free anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So let's come back over here and get to work.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is an insane thing to have agreed to ever in
the first place, and then now knowing that not only
our prisons privatize an incentive as a profit making machine
for cheap life, which is the new slavery, and the
states that house these facilities have signed literal contracts where
they're required to help keep those facilities full. So now
(05:11):
there's incentive for all of these arrest and you know
sentencing imbalances that we've noticed for years. Like again, the
ties between capitalism and racism, like those things are never
far from each other. That's why I always argue that
(05:31):
there's no merit, there's no virtue to capitalism, because at
its very foundation, it is a mostly racist practice disguised
as what's the word that I'm looking for, disguise as aspiration.
(05:53):
You can be whatever you want to be, whatever you
put your mind to, if you work hard, you can
achieve it. You grow up believing that and pursuing it,
and things that are anti capitalism seem antiva. So you act, vote, organize, march,
and scream against your own best interests because you see
yourself in the billionaire. I can be that too, So
(06:15):
why would I vote into place anything that could stop
anyone from being that? We can all be that. No,
you can't. There's not eight billion people on the planet.
There's eight hundred billionaires. You think you're about to be one, Sorry,
little rams is a little Q, but you're probably not
about to be a billionaire bro. And that's not to
(06:38):
ruin your aspiration. That's not even me being realistic to
protect you. All of the number says you're not going
to be one without being like a cruel, greedy, bad person,
Like almost all are bad. So it's like point zero
(07:00):
zero zero zero zero one percent of the earth is
a billionaire, and then two percent of them are actually
good people who use all of that wealth to actually
help everyone else and not just themselves. So the prison
industrial complex being bolstered by states who signed contracts that
(07:21):
require to that require them to keep these places full
is sick and evil and demented and dystopian and just
like everything else these days. So as shocked as we
are to learn this, it fits in so perfectly with
everything else that's going on now. I think that's why
we can segue into these next stories so easily.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The thing that stood out to me the most is
that these prisons can sue the state if the state
isn't delivering enough prisoners to it. In other words, if
everything the state won comes to pass, crime is down
and blah blah blah, the state get the state gets
(08:05):
sued for that. So it's almost like their rehabilitation of
crimes and diminishing the prevalence of criminality in a population
cannot be the state's agenda if indeed they've signed these deals,
(08:25):
because then they just if they accomplish that, they get
their expose themselves to these lawsuits. And it's you kind
of see where the priorities are. And of course we
already know that black and brown people are at the
under under the boot of this. So yeah, now, if
that wasn't enough, we got more for you. So now
(08:45):
let's talk about forced labor again. Q mentioned the thirteenth Amendment,
but we're going to take it a step further. This
is from the New Republic. So At, a for profit
immigrant prison in Colorado Prisons, say they were threatened with
solitary confinement if they refuse to work as unpaid janitors
(09:06):
cleaning common areas of the facility for free, rather than
hiring and paying regular employees to do the work. The
company allegedly boosted its profits by making the immigrants do
it instead. Quote we are not slaves, we are detainees
and we should not be forced to clean that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Alejandro Menocow, an immigrant who was held in the Aurora,
Colorado facility and is now suing that prison company, testified
in a deposition Across the country, for profit prison companies
are facing similar lawsuits, alleging that they violate the federal
law banning forced labor, as well as the state minimum
wage laws by chorusing immigrant prisoners to work either for
(09:49):
free or for just a dollar a day. The plaintiffs
say that inside the prison, immigrants were well aware of Geos,
so they're back again. Geo's that company we talked about
in the first part of this well aware of geo's
for profit status and how they were being used to
boost the company's bottom line. But with the threat of
solitary confinement forever looming, they felt they didn't have much
(10:12):
choice but to do the free labor. Now, the company
that runs the Colorado prison, the Geogroup, is asking the
Supreme Court for help. It says it needs immunity from lawsuits.
Like mental calls. Much of the government enjoys sovereign immunity
from some suits, GEO believes it is similarly entitled to
immunity as a government contractor. If the company does not
(10:33):
have protection from these lawsuits, GEO argues opponents of the
Trump administration's immigration policies could wage a proxy war against it.
Lawsuits against private prison operators could discourage companies from helping
Trump carry out as policies, amounting to quote judicial gum
in the Works of Democracy unquote, GEO says. GEO is
(10:55):
America's largest private prison operator and the biggest jailer of
immigrants for ICE. It operates both traditional prisons, which hold
people accused or convicted of crimes, and immigrant prisons, holding
people not because they are accused of any crime, but
because they are waiting for their immigration cases to be resolved. Yeah,
(11:16):
I want to make sure you've got plenty of space here, Que,
why don't you go first?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I know, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I think I love when these articles come out because
these are things that we just kind of understand from
being alive, Like do you and I Before we research
these things at length all the time, we kind of
knew they were true, kind of knew that they were happening.
We kind of knew that this was the case, but
it was just we're black, and life has taught us
that all these things are stacked against us, and that
(11:51):
these systems not only profit from but require for some
part of the society to be cogs in their machine
and have no worth and be poor and below the
poverty line and desperate therefore criminal. Right, So we've kind
(12:11):
of always known this, and then you read these articles
and it's like there's this lead Leo Nardo DiCaprio meme
from I Think Once upon a Time in Hollywood where
something happens on TV. He jumps up in points like that, like, yeah,
that we have those moments so often researching for the show,
producing the show, having conversations about the show is like see,
(12:34):
I told you. It's like having someone like I don't
want to rehash the article, like it says all the
things we need the listeners to learn and know. But
you and I have these moments while preparing these stories
and disgusting them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
We're it's like Garrett is, it's.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Right there, it's that, and we've understood that it was true.
And I wish we were having these conversations ten years ago,
where information like this would have been shocking and surprising
and people might have felt like some shock and some shame.
But this is just again, just one of the stories
now one of the things that are happening, and there's
(13:11):
so much happening that people can't be shocked anymore, and
those doing these things aren't even kind of ashamed anymore.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
So, yeah, this is an interesting place to be right now. Man, Yea,
for me, this one is I guess the thing that
surprises me is the lengths to which this geogroup will
go to ensure profitability. The forces of capitalism at work
(13:41):
and on full display for everyone to see.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So they are forcing immigrants. You could say they're paying
them a dollar a day, but the threat of solitary confinement,
you're going to get some compliance there, you know what
I mean. So you're forcing these people to do work
in the common areas and not keep their own cells clean,
but the common areas like mop the floor, clean up
(14:04):
you know, bathrooms and that sort of thing, right or
places where otherwise you would have staff doing this. The
prisoners are doing it for free or for a dollar
a day. I suspect for free more often than not,
so that they don't have to hire a full staff
for the prison, so that they can have more profits.
Right then they take it to the Supreme Court and say, hey,
(14:30):
look we're doing Trump's work, so make sure we don't
get sued. And it's like the level of like this
is what I think you were trying to say, And
this is what I'll say. One of the things that
happens on our social media quite a bit is people
will say, you know what, all you black folks have
(14:53):
a victim complex. You think everything is stacked against you, Right,
everybody's got the same twenty four hours in a day,
everybody's got this whatever, And they make this argument. It's
so simple in their minds, right, But this idea of
black people playing the victim is such a cruel and
hurtful thing to encounter so frequently because I know stuff
(15:19):
like this, like you mentioned Q. You know, we know
stuff like this, and they don't, right. So yes, you
can look at Ramses and you can look at Q
and say, well, you guys are doing just fine. Why
don't everybody just behave like you? But when you look
at data and outcomes, then you start to see the
real problem. So that's my thoughts. Anything else to add you.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I have to say this, I'm glad you brought up
that victim thing, because Black people don't like being viewed
as victims, not at all, even when we are, even
when he exactly actually are victims exactly. Well, you have
black people that will make these same arguments just to
not be the victim in the story. And that's the
(16:04):
gaslighting that I've been dealing with. And then we've been
dealing with these black people that want to stand up
and act like these things aren't happening.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
You know, look I made it, so what are you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And it's like, you know better, But we don't want
to be the victims in the story, so we'll either
pretend we don't know these things or deny them on
their face like it's a really it's a difficult thing
to deal with, man, because like you said, we've always
known these things are true, and we're accused of being
of playing the victim card. And it's like, no, man,
(16:39):
this is what this is just what it is, Like.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I really you say it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I see smart, successful black people try to deny these
things because they don't like being framed as.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
The victim in the stories. And that part it's tough.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, we promise you three parts, so I will deliver.
Let's move on. This next one is from the Guardian,
and now we're talking about human rights violations. So detainees
at the notorious Florida immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz
were shackled inside a two foot high metal cage and
left outside without water for up to a day at
(17:16):
a time. A shocking report published on Thursday by Amnesty
International Allegas the human rights group, said migrants held at
the state run Everglades Facility and at Miami's Chrome Immigration
Processing Center, operated by a private company on behalf of
the Trump administration continue to be exposed to cruel, inhuman
(17:36):
and degrading treatment, rising in some cases of torture. The cage,
known to detainees as the box, is used by guards
for the arbitrary punishment of trivial or non existent offenses.
According to the report, compiled from interviews with detainees and
advocacy groups and a site visit to Chrome made by
(17:58):
Amnesty workers in September, quote it's a box outside, exposed
to the South Florida sun and humidity, and exposed to
mosquitos unquote, one detainee told the group. Quote, one time,
two people in my cell were calling out to the guards,
telling them that I needed my medication. Ten guards rushed
into the cell and threw them to the ground. They
(18:19):
were taken to the box and punished just for trying
to help me. I saw a guy who was put
in it for an entire day unquote, and because we
feel it's journalistically appropriate to share both sides. This isn't
the complete article, but I do want to let them
say their piece, so Molly Best, Press secretary to Florida's
(18:42):
Republican governor Ronda Santis, told The Guardian the Amnesty report
was quote nothing more than a politically motivated attack unquote
quote none of these fabrications are true. In fact, running
these allegations without any evidence whatsoever could jeopardize the safety
and security of our staff and those being housed at
Alligator Alcatraz unquote. She said, Okay, so this is what
(19:06):
is I guess I have to say it this way,
suspected of taking place at Alligator Alcatraz, And I know
I want to give you plenty of time here, but
I want to say something. One of the things that
I learned in doctor Westernberg's class when I was back
in college was some of the really creative ways that
(19:27):
slaves were punished back when you know, slavery was the
order of the day. Those people that own slaves were
about the most creative people in the world when it
came to punishing slaves. And then you can really see
(19:48):
the hate, and you understand the source of the word
hate in our vocabulary, our being black people's vocabulary that
has that we understand to be true about this a
hatred of us. It's on full display for anybody that
wants to go see it. You can go to the
National Museum of African American History and Culture and if
(20:10):
they still have those displays up, you can see exactly
what was there, and obviously some more creative ones outside
of that. But this box reminds me of a scene
from Django where his like love interest in the movie
helped me with her name. I think I want to
say Washington, Kerry Washington.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Her character is in a metal box in the sun, naked,
being punished. Right, So that's what this reminds me of.
So when this when we're talking about human rights violations,
I think that that definitely allegedly fits the bill. The
rest of the time is yours kure.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
They named the place alligator Alcatraz, right for the whole
point to be cruelty and then to like touch pearls
and perform of fence to being pointed out as cruel,
(21:22):
like put this thing in the swamp where alligators are
so that they can eat the prisoners. It's like the
language they actually used when building this place, Like cruelty
was the point. Cruelty was the point of the merch
of the racist people who went there to take pictures
and buy merch for which I saw someone wearing in
public today, which, wow, cruelty is the point. Like what
(21:48):
why are we pretending that we're offended that you would
even accuse us of such a thing at our concentration camp.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
We would never h.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's gonna do it for us here on
Civic Cipher once again, I have been your host, Ramsey's job.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
He is always the host Ramses job.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I'm like the janitor sometimes, but like that, like I'm
like the assistant host.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Stop you like executives have assistance. That's you know, Qward.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Anyway, hit the website Civic Cipher dot com, download this
in any previous episodes, find us on all social media
you know how to find us. And until next week, y'all.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Peace, peace,
Still broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. Welcome back
to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's Jock q Ward
in the building as well, and we aren't going to
make you wait. We got a lot to talk about
in terms of the problems in the car soorles system,
so let's get right to it without further ado. This
comes from EJI dot org, the Equal Justice Initiative. This
(00:22):
is a place that we source a lot of data
from for this program. We're going to talk about these
prison quoteras. I didn't know this. This has taken us
a few days to kind of put all this together
and it was mind blowing. But I think it sets
the stage for the rest of the conversation we want
(00:43):
to have. All Right, here we go. Most of the
private prison contracts in America require states to keep at
least ninety percent of prison beds filled or pay a
penalty to private for profit corporations. Advocacy Group in the
Public Interest of Detain and Analyze sixty two contracts between
states and local jurisdictions and private prison companies that govern
(01:07):
the operation of seventy seven county and state level facilities.
Sixty five percent contained occupancy requirements between eighty percent and
one hundred percent, with many around ninety percent, Arizona having
one hundred percent, Louisiana having ninety six percent, Oklahoma having
ninety eight percent, in Virginia having ninety five percent. So,
(01:28):
first off, you can already see how problematic that type
of agreement will be. If nothing else, it just ensures
that people are going to police communities and imprison people
(01:48):
just to satisfy contracts, whether or not crimes are valid,
and all that other stuff. But I'll continue. Quote. These
contract clauses incentivized keeping prison beds filled, wrote the studies authors.
This goes on to say, which runs counter to many
states public policy goals of reducing the prison population and
(02:11):
increasing efforts for inmate rehabilitation regardless of crime rates and
public safety needs, These contracts require jurisdictions to maintain current
levels of mass incarceration or pay millions of dollars for
unused beds. In Colorado alone, where crime is dropped by
a third in the past decade. Quote as covering three
private prisons has cost taxpayers two million dollars, Arizona officials
(02:33):
ended up paying three million dollars for empty beds because
the state stopped sending new inmates to a dysfunctional for
profit prison after three inmates escaped in twenty ten. The
major private prison companies Corrections Corporation of America or CCA,
the largest for profit private prison company in the country,
(02:53):
Saraizimoufel a GEO Group, and Management and Training Corporation or MTC,
spend millions of dollars to ensure harsh criminal laws and
elect policymakers that support the industry's agenda. CCA alone spend
seventeen point four million dollars in lobbying from twenty and
two to twenty twelve. Bed guarantee contract provisions are an
(03:16):
even more direct way for private prison companies to protect
their bottom line. CCA, Geogroup, and MTC all have quotas
in their contracts. The industry claims these provisions save states money,
but quotas actually lock in inflated rates after the contract
is signed. So you found this out, Q, and I
know there's a lot more here, so I want to
(03:39):
make sure that you have plenty of time to share
your thoughts here before we move on to the next phase.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, when I when I sent this to you, I
think I was as shocked as you were when you
received it. We've kind of always known there was an
incentive to keep prison beds full by the prison in
dust complex. I don't think either of us had any
idea that the states had a minimum requirement to help
(04:08):
keep those beds full, which flies in the face of
everything that those oppose that oppose us say to us
when we talk about abolishing this whole system, as it
is the idea in general that I think I believe
the thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, except for as a punishment
(04:31):
for a crime. There's problematic in and of itself when
you're the people who are deciding what a crime is
and who did it. Yeah, the slaves are free, but
because you're free standing over there as a crime, so
you're not free anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So let's come back over here and get to work.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is an insane thing to have agreed to ever in
the first place, and then now knowing that not only
our prisons privatize an incentive as a profit making machine
for cheap life, which is the new slavery, and the
states that house these facilities have signed literal contracts where
they're required to help keep those facilities full. So now
(05:11):
there's incentive for all of these arrest and you know
sentencing imbalances that we've noticed for years. Like again, the
ties between capitalism and racism, like those things are never
far from each other. That's why I always argue that
(05:31):
there's no merit, there's no virtue to capitalism, because at
its very foundation, it is a mostly racist practice disguised
as what's the word that I'm looking for, disguise as aspiration.
(05:53):
You can be whatever you want to be, whatever you
put your mind to, if you work hard, you can
achieve it. You grow up believing that and pursuing it,
and things that are anti capitalism seem antiva. So you act, vote, organize, march,
and scream against your own best interests because you see
yourself in the billionaire. I can be that too, So
(06:15):
why would I vote into place anything that could stop
anyone from being that? We can all be that. No,
you can't. There's not eight billion people on the planet.
There's eight hundred billionaires. You think you're about to be one, Sorry,
little rams is a little Q, but you're probably not
about to be a billionaire bro. And that's not to
(06:38):
ruin your aspiration. That's not even me being realistic to
protect you. All of the number says you're not going
to be one without being like a cruel, greedy, bad person,
Like almost all are bad. So it's like point zero
(07:00):
zero zero zero zero one percent of the earth is
a billionaire, and then two percent of them are actually
good people who use all of that wealth to actually
help everyone else and not just themselves. So the prison
industrial complex being bolstered by states who signed contracts that
(07:21):
require to that require them to keep these places full
is sick and evil and demented and dystopian and just
like everything else these days. So as shocked as we
are to learn this, it fits in so perfectly with
everything else that's going on now. I think that's why
we can segue into these next stories so easily.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The thing that stood out to me the most is
that these prisons can sue the state if the state
isn't delivering enough prisoners to it. In other words, if
everything the state won comes to pass, crime is down
and blah blah blah, the state get the state gets
(08:05):
sued for that. So it's almost like their rehabilitation of
crimes and diminishing the prevalence of criminality in a population
cannot be the state's agenda if indeed they've signed these deals,
(08:25):
because then they just if they accomplish that, they get
their expose themselves to these lawsuits. And it's you kind
of see where the priorities are. And of course we
already know that black and brown people are at the
under under the boot of this. So yeah, now, if
that wasn't enough, we got more for you. So now
(08:45):
let's talk about forced labor again. Q mentioned the thirteenth Amendment,
but we're going to take it a step further. This
is from the New Republic. So At, a for profit
immigrant prison in Colorado Prisons, say they were threatened with
solitary confinement if they refuse to work as unpaid janitors
(09:06):
cleaning common areas of the facility for free, rather than
hiring and paying regular employees to do the work. The
company allegedly boosted its profits by making the immigrants do
it instead. Quote we are not slaves, we are detainees
and we should not be forced to clean that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Alejandro Menocow, an immigrant who was held in the Aurora,
Colorado facility and is now suing that prison company, testified
in a deposition Across the country, for profit prison companies
are facing similar lawsuits, alleging that they violate the federal
law banning forced labor, as well as the state minimum
wage laws by chorusing immigrant prisoners to work either for
(09:49):
free or for just a dollar a day. The plaintiffs
say that inside the prison, immigrants were well aware of Geos,
so they're back again. Geo's that company we talked about
in the first part of this well aware of geo's
for profit status and how they were being used to
boost the company's bottom line. But with the threat of
solitary confinement forever looming, they felt they didn't have much
(10:12):
choice but to do the free labor. Now, the company
that runs the Colorado prison, the Geogroup, is asking the
Supreme Court for help. It says it needs immunity from lawsuits.
Like mental calls. Much of the government enjoys sovereign immunity
from some suits, GEO believes it is similarly entitled to
immunity as a government contractor. If the company does not
(10:33):
have protection from these lawsuits, GEO argues opponents of the
Trump administration's immigration policies could wage a proxy war against it.
Lawsuits against private prison operators could discourage companies from helping
Trump carry out as policies, amounting to quote judicial gum
in the Works of Democracy unquote, GEO says. GEO is
(10:55):
America's largest private prison operator and the biggest jailer of
immigrants for ICE. It operates both traditional prisons, which hold
people accused or convicted of crimes, and immigrant prisons, holding
people not because they are accused of any crime, but
because they are waiting for their immigration cases to be resolved. Yeah,
(11:16):
I want to make sure you've got plenty of space here, Que,
why don't you go first?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I know, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I think I love when these articles come out because
these are things that we just kind of understand from
being alive, Like do you and I Before we research
these things at length all the time, we kind of
knew they were true, kind of knew that they were happening.
We kind of knew that this was the case, but
it was just we're black, and life has taught us
that all these things are stacked against us, and that
(11:51):
these systems not only profit from but require for some
part of the society to be cogs in their machine
and have no worth and be poor and below the
poverty line and desperate therefore criminal. Right, So we've kind
(12:11):
of always known this, and then you read these articles
and it's like there's this lead Leo Nardo DiCaprio meme
from I Think Once upon a Time in Hollywood where
something happens on TV. He jumps up in points like that, like, yeah,
that we have those moments so often researching for the show,
producing the show, having conversations about the show is like see,
(12:34):
I told you. It's like having someone like I don't
want to rehash the article, like it says all the
things we need the listeners to learn and know. But
you and I have these moments while preparing these stories
and disgusting them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
We're it's like Garrett is, it's.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Right there, it's that, and we've understood that it was true.
And I wish we were having these conversations ten years ago,
where information like this would have been shocking and surprising
and people might have felt like some shock and some shame.
But this is just again, just one of the stories
now one of the things that are happening, and there's
(13:11):
so much happening that people can't be shocked anymore, and
those doing these things aren't even kind of ashamed anymore.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
So, yeah, this is an interesting place to be right now. Man, Yea,
for me, this one is I guess the thing that
surprises me is the lengths to which this geogroup will
go to ensure profitability. The forces of capitalism at work
(13:41):
and on full display for everyone to see.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So they are forcing immigrants. You could say they're paying
them a dollar a day, but the threat of solitary confinement,
you're going to get some compliance there, you know what
I mean. So you're forcing these people to do work
in the common areas and not keep their own cells clean,
but the common areas like mop the floor, clean up
(14:04):
you know, bathrooms and that sort of thing, right or
places where otherwise you would have staff doing this. The
prisoners are doing it for free or for a dollar
a day. I suspect for free more often than not,
so that they don't have to hire a full staff
for the prison, so that they can have more profits.
Right then they take it to the Supreme Court and say, hey,
(14:30):
look we're doing Trump's work, so make sure we don't
get sued. And it's like the level of like this
is what I think you were trying to say, And
this is what I'll say. One of the things that
happens on our social media quite a bit is people
will say, you know what, all you black folks have
(14:53):
a victim complex. You think everything is stacked against you, Right,
everybody's got the same twenty four hours in a day,
everybody's got this whatever, And they make this argument. It's
so simple in their minds, right, But this idea of
black people playing the victim is such a cruel and
hurtful thing to encounter so frequently because I know stuff
(15:19):
like this, like you mentioned Q. You know, we know
stuff like this, and they don't, right. So yes, you
can look at Ramses and you can look at Q
and say, well, you guys are doing just fine. Why
don't everybody just behave like you? But when you look
at data and outcomes, then you start to see the
real problem. So that's my thoughts. Anything else to add you.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I have to say this, I'm glad you brought up
that victim thing, because Black people don't like being viewed
as victims, not at all, even when we are, even
when he exactly actually are victims exactly. Well, you have
black people that will make these same arguments just to
not be the victim in the story. And that's the
(16:04):
gaslighting that I've been dealing with. And then we've been
dealing with these black people that want to stand up
and act like these things aren't happening.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
You know, look I made it, so what are you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And it's like, you know better, But we don't want
to be the victims in the story, so we'll either
pretend we don't know these things or deny them on
their face like it's a really it's a difficult thing
to deal with, man, because like you said, we've always
known these things are true, and we're accused of being
of playing the victim card. And it's like, no, man,
(16:39):
this is what this is just what it is, Like.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I really you say it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I see smart, successful black people try to deny these
things because they don't like being framed as.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
The victim in the stories. And that part it's tough.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, we promise you three parts, so I will deliver.
Let's move on. This next one is from the Guardian,
and now we're talking about human rights violations. So detainees
at the notorious Florida immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz
were shackled inside a two foot high metal cage and
left outside without water for up to a day at
(17:16):
a time. A shocking report published on Thursday by Amnesty
International Allegas the human rights group, said migrants held at
the state run Everglades Facility and at Miami's Chrome Immigration
Processing Center, operated by a private company on behalf of
the Trump administration continue to be exposed to cruel, inhuman
(17:36):
and degrading treatment, rising in some cases of torture. The cage,
known to detainees as the box, is used by guards
for the arbitrary punishment of trivial or non existent offenses.
According to the report, compiled from interviews with detainees and
advocacy groups and a site visit to Chrome made by
(17:58):
Amnesty workers in September, quote it's a box outside, exposed
to the South Florida sun and humidity, and exposed to
mosquitos unquote, one detainee told the group. Quote, one time,
two people in my cell were calling out to the guards,
telling them that I needed my medication. Ten guards rushed
into the cell and threw them to the ground. They
(18:19):
were taken to the box and punished just for trying
to help me. I saw a guy who was put
in it for an entire day unquote, and because we
feel it's journalistically appropriate to share both sides. This isn't
the complete article, but I do want to let them
say their piece, so Molly Best, Press secretary to Florida's
(18:42):
Republican governor Ronda Santis, told The Guardian the Amnesty report
was quote nothing more than a politically motivated attack unquote
quote none of these fabrications are true. In fact, running
these allegations without any evidence whatsoever could jeopardize the safety
and security of our staff and those being housed at
Alligator Alcatraz unquote. She said, Okay, so this is what
(19:06):
is I guess I have to say it this way,
suspected of taking place at Alligator Alcatraz, And I know
I want to give you plenty of time here, but
I want to say something. One of the things that
I learned in doctor Westernberg's class when I was back
in college was some of the really creative ways that
(19:27):
slaves were punished back when you know, slavery was the
order of the day. Those people that own slaves were
about the most creative people in the world when it
came to punishing slaves. And then you can really see
(19:48):
the hate, and you understand the source of the word
hate in our vocabulary, our being black people's vocabulary that
has that we understand to be true about this a
hatred of us. It's on full display for anybody that
wants to go see it. You can go to the
National Museum of African American History and Culture and if
(20:10):
they still have those displays up, you can see exactly
what was there, and obviously some more creative ones outside
of that. But this box reminds me of a scene
from Django where his like love interest in the movie
helped me with her name. I think I want to
say Washington, Kerry Washington.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Her character is in a metal box in the sun, naked,
being punished. Right, So that's what this reminds me of.
So when this when we're talking about human rights violations,
I think that that definitely allegedly fits the bill. The
rest of the time is yours kure.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
They named the place alligator Alcatraz, right for the whole
point to be cruelty and then to like touch pearls
and perform of fence to being pointed out as cruel,
(21:22):
like put this thing in the swamp where alligators are
so that they can eat the prisoners. It's like the
language they actually used when building this place, Like cruelty
was the point. Cruelty was the point of the merch
of the racist people who went there to take pictures
and buy merch for which I saw someone wearing in
public today, which, wow, cruelty is the point. Like what
(21:48):
why are we pretending that we're offended that you would
even accuse us of such a thing at our concentration camp.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
We would never h.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's gonna do it for us here on
Civic Cipher once again, I have been your host, Ramsey's job.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
He is always the host Ramses job.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I'm like the janitor sometimes, but like that, like I'm
like the assistant host.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Stop you like executives have assistance. That's you know, Qward.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Anyway, hit the website Civic Cipher dot com, download this
in any previous episodes, find us on all social media
you know how to find us. And until next week, y'all.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Peace, peace,
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