August 29, 2025 • 32 mins
BIN news anchors Teri McCready and Kevin Brown join Hosts Ramses Ja and Q Ward on today's podcast to discuss the major news stories of the week.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's been another busy news week and we like to
review the major stories of the week here on the
BI In Today, we are joined by BI News anchors
Terry McCready and Kevin Brown to discuss this week's major stories.
This is the QR code. He is q Ward and
he is Rams. This jah all right, Terry and Kevin,
welcome back to this show. It is always too long
(00:23):
in between our little chats. Terry, why not tell me
what you've been up to since we last spoke.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, it has just been just really a whirlwind if
you are a news junkie and just seeing something happening,
something new, usually not something that's good happening every day.
So it's just been quite a fracture for the nervous system.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Kevin, I'm sure you concur.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Oh absolutely did a not a boring moment here. Yeah
at the network.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Indeed, Well, uh, we know why the people came. Let's
give him what they want. First up, let's talk about
the fact that last week reported that President Trump deployed
troops into the nation's capital under the premise of reducing crime.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
This week, he.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Offered his thoughts on punishment for major crimes in Washington, DC,
and his comments raised more than a few eyebrows. Terry,
let's get today's show started with you tell us more
about the president's comments, and then Kevin and Q will
get your thoughts next.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay, so, first of all, I feel like we're facing
some kind of bizarre new world order. Dystopian comes to mind.
And really, if you look up the definition of authoritarian
in Webster's it says enforcement or favoring strict obedience to authority,
and so that means specifically it's government. So this is
(01:45):
especially chilling when the President says these things, sons irony,
that he can do whatever he wants. These cities that
all happened to be in blue states with black mayors,
many of them women, are falling under this federal siege.
And then Trump says that state and local officials should
be thanking him. Last week he talked about African American
(02:07):
women in Chicago, specifically begging him, mister President, please come
and fix our city. So it's perplexing, and I've heard
some say that the action has been ham fisted, with
no effort to work cooperative, cooperatively. So that's not to
say that these cities are just you know, standing firm
and saying, you know, we're going to handle this all
(02:29):
on our own media, we don't need any of your help.
If they were working cooperatively with the government. We're talking
about Okay, there's government enforcement on the ground, but also
in terms of programs and you know, really investing in communities,
you know, educationally and socially. Those are problems that you know,
(02:53):
these are these cities are looking at that we're seeing
these funds being taken away. I think that's what I'm saying.
So added to the mix right now was these guard
members who are now authorized from Pete Hegseth to carry weapons.
So the question is how does this end. By the way,
the argument that Democrats don't care about crime is really
(03:13):
just beyond week. Maryland Governor Wes Moore said, you know,
we have people who are hard at work every day
doing the heavy lifting to keep community safe. Everyone is
in favor of safe neighborhoods. And finally, I just want
to say it was pretty cavalier or the president to
invoke what you mentioned Ramsa's capital punishment in DC for
(03:35):
murders there. If you look at the statistics, what a
coincidence that forty percent of death row inmates nationally are black.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Kevin your thoughts, well, I think the overall theme should
be if his lips are moving, he's lying, because that's
consistent with his behavior throughout his public life. In addition
to that, most of the crime t'm in this country
occurs in red states, and of course the president has
(04:09):
conveniently not addressed any of the states that have high
crime rates, only the states and cities where there are
black leaders. One of the best responses to the DC
situation actually came from one of the celebrity chefs. Celebrity
(04:30):
chef Jose Andres wrote on social media, Mister President, I
understand why you're confused. All your time in DC, you
haven't eaten once outside the White House or at your
own hotel. I've lived here thirty three years. It's a
flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because
of safety. But restaurants will close because you have troops
(04:54):
with guns and federal agents harassing people, making people afraid
to go out. And he actually added several paragraphs and
instances where this whole DC takeover is just a fabrication.
What's disturbing is that the news media has ignored the truth.
(05:17):
He has intimidated the White House Press Corps so that
none of these issues are addressed, and thus the American
people are blinded to the truth about what's really going
on up.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, it's very interesting.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
That with this administration, more specifically this president, that racism
and cruelty seem to be the point, Like what is
the meanest, most bully like, evil.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Thing I can do and say to rile up my base.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Very interesting that he didn't say that capital punishment will
be the crime, will be the punishment for these crimes everywhere,
specifically in DC, like we said before, in black cities.
Let's make the punishment more harsh where the people are
less like me and don't support me and don't vote
for me, and let's ignore crime all together where it's
(06:13):
most high in these red Trump states.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So it's not surprising that that's the case.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
But once again we have to deal with this new
as Terry said, dystopian reality. Earlier this week, a Gallup
pole focused on the subject of racism against black people
in the United States was released, and.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
The data from the survey is quite revealing.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Kevin, It's time to start with you us a little
bit more about the findings and then Terry and ramsess
I'll circle back with you.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Oh boy, the numbers don't lie the overall theme of
this gallup pole, which was taken last month. Sixty four
percent of Americans say that this discrimination is widespread. Bias
exists for black people, sixty four percent of all Americans,
(07:08):
eighty three percent of black adults said yes, it's widespread.
Interestingly enough, thirty percent of white people believe that they
are being discriminated against, the hardcore base of the President's support.
(07:29):
Also in the numbers, seventy seven percent of people overall
believe that that black people experience bias in dealing with police,
and thirty eight percent believe in bias in healthcare. And
(07:50):
that is contrary to the Republican Party's narrative of this
being a neutral in terms terms of color society, that
there's no need for DEI, which is the basis of
why DEI is being attacked. This is a the system
(08:11):
is working as it is, was designed to marginalize people
of color.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Very yes, some on the right characterize DEI as didn't
earn it very funny. So yeah, the sixty four percent
reading that was the highest periodic measurement, and so that
was since two thousand and eight. But if we sort
of circumnavigate these findings, take a little snapshot of the respondents,
(08:42):
we'll actually see that it is actually quite pervasive. So
seventy percent of blacks say they face the significant discrimination.
And so that's from an adjacent pole, which is the
Pew Research poll. This was back in May, and that
shows some racial disparities. For thirty nine percent Asians reported discrimination,
(09:03):
twenty eight percent of whites said that they experienced it.
So if we compare and contrast that data, it is
still consistent. Gallop and Pew poles are really consistent with
each other, showing eighty three percent of blacks who said
racism is widespread, and even though whites said they experienced
this discrimination less than thirty percent of the time, interestingly enough,
(09:27):
they still said racism was widespread to the tune of
sixty one percent. So let's look at that. What does
that indicate to me? That signals a level of awareness.
There is a swath of the white population that recognizes
white privilege. And when we see things like the dismantling
of institutions like the African American Museum in Washington, d C.
(09:49):
There's a hyper focus, they say on slavery. It's willful
and really it's it's tone death, and it appeals to
the most disdainful among us. And I know, just with
that that incident alone, it's astonishing that the rationale is
always okay, we don't want to subject young children to
the tragedy of slavery. It's just too traumatic. But I
(10:12):
guess it was okay for Ruby Bridges, who was only
six years old when she was actually one of the
catalysts for desegregation. That was nineteen sixty. She was just
six years old. So you know, the rules are good
for the and not for me. That's what I look
at when I see these numbers.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Well, a very very interesting version of the truth when
it comes to us.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Ramses, Yeah, yeah, I think your point is well made.
You know that there it's not true. Too traumatic to
like impose the actual lived experience on a group of people,
(11:00):
but it is too traumatic to teach it. You know,
they had they didn't even have a faint argument when
they were talking about exposing children to it. I mean,
it's a nonsensical argument. It's history, that's it. It's not
actively harming anyone, no, no one physically, nope, there understanding
(11:23):
that the world is good and bad in real time
across the board, so they can learn something that did
happen to this group of people imposed by this group
of people long before they were born. Children are smart,
smart enough to learn that. But in any event, when
they had that as their argument, you know, folks could
kind of see it. I guess, you know, when you
(11:44):
invoke children, I guess it kind of appeals to our
limbic mind and our instincts to protect children. So that
was the narrative that the right went with. So sure,
you know, well played. It's intellectually and moral bankrupt, but
well played. But to take it out of a museum
(12:09):
is a whole other like push entirely, it's because museums
are not specifically for children, there for everyone, and parents
often enough get to be there with their children or
at least sign permission slips, you know, for their children
to go and visit. So but as far as like
these these numbers look to me, you know, Q and
(12:33):
I we talked about how there was an increase This
might have been somewhere in the last couple of years.
There was an increase in the belief that anti white
sentiment was prevalent, and to see that that has now
dipped and people are now kind of going back and saying, Okay, well,
(12:56):
this anti black racism is indeed a thing. It's kind
of like the I told you so. And granted there's
a group of people, as you mentioned, that are never
going to see it because they don't want to see it.
They want to be the victims because life is easier
for them as victims. Uh, they want to they want us.
(13:18):
They want to tell people that we think that we're
the victims because somehow that makes our life easier, when
indeed we're stating the facts, like we can show data
that says that we are the victims of an impressive
system a series of them. They cannot We'll stop. They
can say, well, immigrants took our jobs, but they can't
draw a direct connection to that. They could say crime
is out of control, but they can't themselves draw direct
(13:40):
connection to how their lives are affected by whatever those
you know, Republican talking points are. But indeed, we can
show data about healthcare and housing and income inequality and
education and a criminal justice system and and and and
you know, environmental factors and you know, uh uh to
(14:00):
prison pipeline. And as I mentioned, and and so I
love the fact that there are still people that gather
data and still look at the data. It's heartbreaking that
the data doesn't make its way to the people that
really need it because they are comforted by the lies.
(14:26):
Let's be honest. I think that Kevin you mentioned that
if his lips are moving, he's lying. The lies that
are spouted by this president, they're comforted by that, and
I have to assume that they never step out of
that comfortable reality that he provides them to verify whether
or not that's true. Indeed, his administration is hired scores
(14:48):
of people from Fox News, a network that has been
sued for lying for nearly a billion dollars, and his
administers straation has hired us an entire swath of those
folks that were complicit in those lies, pedaling those lies
to their base for it might have been over a
(15:10):
year before they actually had to issue an apology and
pay that fine. Talk about didn't earn it. These are
lying news anchors that are now working in branches of
government that it didn't study for. They didn't work their
way up nothing, and there is a stunning silence with
(15:34):
respect to that hypocrisy on the right blows in my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 5 (15:40):
This is Ramsy's Jah and I am Q Ward and
we're inviting you to subscribe to Civic Cipher, are weekly
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Speaker 6 (15:48):
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Speaker 3 (15:59):
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Speaker 5 (16:03):
So we are asking you to search for and subscribe
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Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's cibic cip h e R Right here in the app,
Bin News anchors Terry McCready and Kevin Browner here with
us discussing this week's major stories. All right, up, next,
we head to Boston for our next story, involving a
black woman battling white privilege by sitting down for her rights.
How about that, Terry, let's go back to you again,
(16:28):
give us more on this story, and then Kevin and
Q we're going to get your thoughts afterwards.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yes, white privilege on steroids and a woman who was
channeling her in a Rosa parks. So this black woman
is seventy three years old. She heads to the local
YMCA South Boston one foreign exercise class. She grabs her seat.
Then along comes the white woman who says, no, that's
that's my spot, and then she directs the black woman
(16:55):
to move, but she refuses. So then the instructor kind
of tells the woman, well, you know, you just need
to find another seat. This white woman has been using
well she didn't say this white woman. This woman has
been using this coveted spot apparently for a year. But
the black woman, you know, she was still undeterred. She
refused to budge. So they had to call in reinforcements.
(17:17):
So the police show up, really abhorrent for them, accusing
the woman of being disruptive, and they said, you know,
she has a choice at this point. You either leave
or you face trespassing charges. So she does comply, and
so now fast forward, her family wants a formal apology
from the YMCA. The why says, you know, this incident
(17:39):
bore no resemblance to our environment. We're very welcoming here,
and that they do try to create, you know, a
space that is welcoming for all, and that they are
reviewing their policies. But I suspect that a lawsuit is
on the way. I'm pretty sure the family is not
just going to be satisfied with an apology because this
(17:59):
is so blat.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Kevin.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
As a former YMCA employee, I can tell you the
YMCA usually does a lot of good work in neighborhoods
around the country. However, despite its perception as a liberal city,
I have been in and around Boston during the earlier
(18:27):
part of my career, and my friends and I referred
to Boston as Boston, Mississippi, as a very segregated, aggressively
segregated city. When I think of Boston, I think of
the school bus desegregation wars, in which residents in Boston
(18:57):
through bricks and rocks at school buses filled with children,
and the image of a black man being assaulted by
a white man with an American flag. It is not
surprising to me that there was a Rosa Parks incident
(19:23):
in Boston. However, the YMCA issued a statement in which
they said blah blah, blah, blah blah. The interesting part
of this situation is the reaction of the staff and
the police called for a woman sitting in a chair.
(19:49):
I'll repeat that the staff fault, and that is an
indication to me that it is so much more about
is so much more than the chair. It's about the
color of Maria Spooner's skin that offended them, all of them.
(20:12):
White privilege personified.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
QEW weaponizing law enforcement against black people. There it is.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
That is so on brand for twenty twenty five and
unfortunately for Boston, Massachusetts. I could wax poetic about the
way that we've always been treated in this country and
the concentration of anti black racism that is running wild
(20:45):
in the country right now, but the brilliant minds that
we are sharing these stories with and just listening to
the opinions of you all who I look up to,
admire and who I gain a lot of my knowledge from.
I don't want to sound like a broken record, because
you guys are saying the very obvious, very poignant truths already.
(21:11):
They called the police the staff on a woman in
a chair. I know I said, I didn't want to
repeat that, but I thought that I needed to because
it should sound ridiculous to everyone that hears it, except
for some people that's just their go to right. The
quickest way that I can get something that I want
done or cause harm to black people is by calling
(21:33):
the police, placing myself as victim, placing the black person
as perpetrator, and letting the system that was created hundreds
of years ago do what it was designed to do.
It's become a very dangerous and uncomfortable place, this Land
of the Free and home of the brave for people
that look like us. And I'm hoping that something, someone,
(21:58):
someone's prayers, someone something intervened soon before this country once
again becomes an unlivable.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Place for us.
Speaker 7 (22:11):
We head over to the UK for our final story
this week, which involved an increase in school suspensions for
grade school kids and the disturbing reason behind it. Kevin
tell us more about this story, and Terry and ramses,
I'll come to you to close us out for today's show.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Well, other than that, everything's fine.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Here.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
We have a situation that is sadly universal when it
comes to students of color and suspensions. Disproportionately, students are
in the UK being dealt with as black students here
(22:58):
in the US are, and that is the color of
your skin determines how likely you are to be suspended
or permanently excluded from education. The statistics don't lie. The
(23:23):
students most likely to be suspended are those who are
also part of the free school meal program. They're overrepresented
in all of the students who are suspended or exposed
to disciplinary action. African students, students from the Caribbean, students
(23:48):
of mixed ethnicity are also also have the highest rates
of permanent exclusions from the school system. The trend twenty
one percent increase from last year and most of the
(24:11):
most of the exclusions and suspensions are driven by disruptive behavior.
Special needs students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately
exposed to this disciplinary situation. Part of the problem is
(24:38):
that most of the teachers are not prepared to deal
with these types of students, in addition to the socioeconomic
backgrounds that these children are being are exposed to. But
it is a situation that occurs almost in every industrialized
(25:04):
nation where you have ethnicities exposed to a system that
is not prepared to deal with them.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Perry, So in this instance they're talking about in the UK,
these racist children, some of them as young as four,
being suspended for this racist behavior, and the number is
pretty alarming. Fifteen thousand kids or even more than that number.
These students are being failed at home obviously, and then
they're being failed again at school. And this is insidious
(25:43):
because we know that this is learned behavior. Not really
ready to blame it all on COVID. I know they try.
It's an abject failure. But even if you factor in COVID,
even in isolation, notwithstanding, values can still be taught. And
there are psychotherapists who say any expression of racist language
(26:04):
is broader than just mimicry. So it is not just
about these kids saying, you know, things that they heard
being spouted off at home. But because these belief systems
are in place, they're being hardwired at home racial judgment,
skin color, homogenized communities, class, and on and on. When
children are in the classroom, then the teachers are not
(26:27):
challenging these preconceived beliefs, and they are essentially enabling a
toxic pattern of behavior. So I'm really not even ready
to say, well, it's the school, because you cannot just
you know, send the child to school, and now the
school is going to raise the kid. So this is
just an extension of what is already in place.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Absolutely agree, Rams is Josh Well, I was just in London,
like maybe like eight days ago something like that, and
(27:13):
the reminder that that place is so diverse and it
is not subjected to the same forces at work in
this country, many of the same forces, you know, because
they have a different history and a different relationship with immigrants,
(27:35):
and a different relationship with African people and people of
African descent. To see how much further diversity goes like
an advertisement and in various positions and so forth and
so on. Just like any other foreign country, it just
(27:56):
kind of moves a little different. I for one, appreciated it. However,
I have a friend that lives in or just outside
of London.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Was not friend.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This was my first time meeting her, my first time
going to meet her, and one of the first things
she said to me was, well, you know, pretty soon
this is going to be a majority Muslim country and
we have to make sure that, you know, we stop
allowing Muslims into the country or something crazy. And I
(28:33):
was like, did I just hear that? Because I mean,
she knows what I do for work, and she just
let that off in such a cavalier manner, and I
was like, ugh, you know, and by then I was
kind of I don't have a car, you know, I'm
kind of stumb along for the ride at this point.
But I knew that that was kind of the beginning
(28:53):
of the end of that friendship, you know. And I again,
I don't know. I don't live there, so you know,
I don't know what I don't know, but I know
that that type of attitude is very, very toxic, and
so I could see there being people who are seemingly
(29:14):
normal over there. Obviously this lady didn't have any anti
black bias, but her bias was decidedly anti Muslim, particularly
anti Muslim immigrant, and you know, you just swap the
cogs around and then you have racism, you know what
I mean, or xenophobia or whatever version of prejudice fits
(29:36):
the moment. But I could see it on full display
from someone who, otherwise my estimation, would have been a
decent person. So I could see people harboring sentiments in
their homes, becoming frustrated during COVID, having more time with
their children, and then sharing these ideas with their children
(29:59):
than these children taking them back to school when school,
you know, resumes, and you know, when they would otherwise
have had this foundational moment in their life where they
would have been exposed to you know, diverse populations and
making friends and so forth, and had limited exposure to
(30:20):
you know, older folks whose prejudices had kind of taken root.
Now that the situation based on this data feels like
it's flipped. These children got those early years in the
home with frustrated parents who probably are misinformed or underinformed
and kind of leaned into racism because I'm sure, or
(30:43):
xenophobia or whatever it is, because that is the thing
that human beings can be can lean into, as we
well know in this country, and now it's just manifesting
itself in the behavior of these children.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
And so.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
They have their own issues to deal with. Fortunately they
don't have a president that is making it very challenging
to have a school actually confront these issues. So, you know,
my fingers crossed that they'll I'll figure it out. You know,
they just have to deal with that COVID bump. And
(31:18):
then they're they're you know, they're doing their jobs over
there trying to From where I said, it looks like
they were trying to be as inclusive of a society
as I've ever seen, so you know, I wish them
well on that journey, but clearly they have their work
cut out for them, and so do we. So here
we are, but with that in mind, that's going to
do it for us here. I'd like to thank you
(31:40):
all very much for your time and insight. Once again,
today's guests are beinging news anchors Terry McCready and Kevin Brown.
This has been a production of the BIM. Today's show
is produced by Chris Thompson. I have some thoughts you'd
like to share, use the red microphone talkback beature on
the iHeartRadio app. While you're there, be sure to hit
subscribe and download all of our episodes. I'm your host
(32:00):
Rams's Jah on all social media.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I am Qward on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And we'll be hosting another episode of Civic Cipher this
weekend on a station near you. For stations, showtimes, and
podcast info, check Civiccipher dot com and join us Monday
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the QR code
It's been another busy news week and we like to
review the major stories of the week here on the
BI In Today, we are joined by BI News anchors
Terry McCready and Kevin Brown to discuss this week's major stories.
This is the QR code. He is q Ward and
he is Rams. This jah all right, Terry and Kevin,
welcome back to this show. It is always too long
(00:23):
in between our little chats. Terry, why not tell me
what you've been up to since we last spoke.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Oh, it has just been just really a whirlwind if
you are a news junkie and just seeing something happening,
something new, usually not something that's good happening every day.
So it's just been quite a fracture for the nervous system.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Kevin, I'm sure you concur.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Oh absolutely did a not a boring moment here. Yeah
at the network.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Indeed, Well, uh, we know why the people came. Let's
give him what they want. First up, let's talk about
the fact that last week reported that President Trump deployed
troops into the nation's capital under the premise of reducing crime.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
This week, he.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Offered his thoughts on punishment for major crimes in Washington, DC,
and his comments raised more than a few eyebrows. Terry,
let's get today's show started with you tell us more
about the president's comments, and then Kevin and Q will
get your thoughts next.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay, so, first of all, I feel like we're facing
some kind of bizarre new world order. Dystopian comes to mind.
And really, if you look up the definition of authoritarian
in Webster's it says enforcement or favoring strict obedience to authority,
and so that means specifically it's government. So this is
(01:45):
especially chilling when the President says these things, sons irony,
that he can do whatever he wants. These cities that
all happened to be in blue states with black mayors,
many of them women, are falling under this federal siege.
And then Trump says that state and local officials should
be thanking him. Last week he talked about African American
(02:07):
women in Chicago, specifically begging him, mister President, please come
and fix our city. So it's perplexing, and I've heard
some say that the action has been ham fisted, with
no effort to work cooperative, cooperatively. So that's not to
say that these cities are just you know, standing firm
and saying, you know, we're going to handle this all
(02:29):
on our own media, we don't need any of your help.
If they were working cooperatively with the government. We're talking
about Okay, there's government enforcement on the ground, but also
in terms of programs and you know, really investing in communities,
you know, educationally and socially. Those are problems that you know,
(02:53):
these are these cities are looking at that we're seeing
these funds being taken away. I think that's what I'm saying.
So added to the mix right now was these guard
members who are now authorized from Pete Hegseth to carry weapons.
So the question is how does this end. By the way,
the argument that Democrats don't care about crime is really
(03:13):
just beyond week. Maryland Governor Wes Moore said, you know,
we have people who are hard at work every day
doing the heavy lifting to keep community safe. Everyone is
in favor of safe neighborhoods. And finally, I just want
to say it was pretty cavalier or the president to
invoke what you mentioned Ramsa's capital punishment in DC for
(03:35):
murders there. If you look at the statistics, what a
coincidence that forty percent of death row inmates nationally are black.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Kevin your thoughts, well, I think the overall theme should
be if his lips are moving, he's lying, because that's
consistent with his behavior throughout his public life. In addition
to that, most of the crime t'm in this country
occurs in red states, and of course the president has
(04:09):
conveniently not addressed any of the states that have high
crime rates, only the states and cities where there are
black leaders. One of the best responses to the DC
situation actually came from one of the celebrity chefs. Celebrity
(04:30):
chef Jose Andres wrote on social media, Mister President, I
understand why you're confused. All your time in DC, you
haven't eaten once outside the White House or at your
own hotel. I've lived here thirty three years. It's a
flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because
of safety. But restaurants will close because you have troops
(04:54):
with guns and federal agents harassing people, making people afraid
to go out. And he actually added several paragraphs and
instances where this whole DC takeover is just a fabrication.
What's disturbing is that the news media has ignored the truth.
(05:17):
He has intimidated the White House Press Corps so that
none of these issues are addressed, and thus the American
people are blinded to the truth about what's really going
on up.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, it's very interesting.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
That with this administration, more specifically this president, that racism
and cruelty seem to be the point, Like what is
the meanest, most bully like, evil.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Thing I can do and say to rile up my base.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Very interesting that he didn't say that capital punishment will
be the crime, will be the punishment for these crimes everywhere,
specifically in DC, like we said before, in black cities.
Let's make the punishment more harsh where the people are
less like me and don't support me and don't vote
for me, and let's ignore crime all together where it's
(06:13):
most high in these red Trump states.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So it's not surprising that that's the case.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
But once again we have to deal with this new
as Terry said, dystopian reality. Earlier this week, a Gallup
pole focused on the subject of racism against black people
in the United States was released, and.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
The data from the survey is quite revealing.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Kevin, It's time to start with you us a little
bit more about the findings and then Terry and ramsess
I'll circle back with you.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Oh boy, the numbers don't lie the overall theme of
this gallup pole, which was taken last month. Sixty four
percent of Americans say that this discrimination is widespread. Bias
exists for black people, sixty four percent of all Americans,
(07:08):
eighty three percent of black adults said yes, it's widespread.
Interestingly enough, thirty percent of white people believe that they
are being discriminated against, the hardcore base of the President's support.
(07:29):
Also in the numbers, seventy seven percent of people overall
believe that that black people experience bias in dealing with police,
and thirty eight percent believe in bias in healthcare. And
(07:50):
that is contrary to the Republican Party's narrative of this
being a neutral in terms terms of color society, that
there's no need for DEI, which is the basis of
why DEI is being attacked. This is a the system
(08:11):
is working as it is, was designed to marginalize people
of color.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Very yes, some on the right characterize DEI as didn't
earn it very funny. So yeah, the sixty four percent
reading that was the highest periodic measurement, and so that
was since two thousand and eight. But if we sort
of circumnavigate these findings, take a little snapshot of the respondents,
(08:42):
we'll actually see that it is actually quite pervasive. So
seventy percent of blacks say they face the significant discrimination.
And so that's from an adjacent pole, which is the
Pew Research poll. This was back in May, and that
shows some racial disparities. For thirty nine percent Asians reported discrimination,
(09:03):
twenty eight percent of whites said that they experienced it.
So if we compare and contrast that data, it is
still consistent. Gallop and Pew poles are really consistent with
each other, showing eighty three percent of blacks who said
racism is widespread, and even though whites said they experienced
this discrimination less than thirty percent of the time, interestingly enough,
(09:27):
they still said racism was widespread to the tune of
sixty one percent. So let's look at that. What does
that indicate to me? That signals a level of awareness.
There is a swath of the white population that recognizes
white privilege. And when we see things like the dismantling
of institutions like the African American Museum in Washington, d C.
(09:49):
There's a hyper focus, they say on slavery. It's willful
and really it's it's tone death, and it appeals to
the most disdainful among us. And I know, just with
that that incident alone, it's astonishing that the rationale is
always okay, we don't want to subject young children to
the tragedy of slavery. It's just too traumatic. But I
(10:12):
guess it was okay for Ruby Bridges, who was only
six years old when she was actually one of the
catalysts for desegregation. That was nineteen sixty. She was just
six years old. So you know, the rules are good
for the and not for me. That's what I look
at when I see these numbers.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Well, a very very interesting version of the truth when
it comes to us.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Ramses, Yeah, yeah, I think your point is well made.
You know that there it's not true. Too traumatic to
like impose the actual lived experience on a group of people,
(11:00):
but it is too traumatic to teach it. You know,
they had they didn't even have a faint argument when
they were talking about exposing children to it. I mean,
it's a nonsensical argument. It's history, that's it. It's not
actively harming anyone, no, no one physically, nope, there understanding
(11:23):
that the world is good and bad in real time
across the board, so they can learn something that did
happen to this group of people imposed by this group
of people long before they were born. Children are smart,
smart enough to learn that. But in any event, when
they had that as their argument, you know, folks could
kind of see it. I guess, you know, when you
(11:44):
invoke children, I guess it kind of appeals to our
limbic mind and our instincts to protect children. So that
was the narrative that the right went with. So sure,
you know, well played. It's intellectually and moral bankrupt, but
well played. But to take it out of a museum
(12:09):
is a whole other like push entirely, it's because museums
are not specifically for children, there for everyone, and parents
often enough get to be there with their children or
at least sign permission slips, you know, for their children
to go and visit. So but as far as like
these these numbers look to me, you know, Q and
(12:33):
I we talked about how there was an increase This
might have been somewhere in the last couple of years.
There was an increase in the belief that anti white
sentiment was prevalent, and to see that that has now
dipped and people are now kind of going back and saying, Okay, well,
(12:56):
this anti black racism is indeed a thing. It's kind
of like the I told you so. And granted there's
a group of people, as you mentioned, that are never
going to see it because they don't want to see it.
They want to be the victims because life is easier
for them as victims. Uh, they want to they want us.
(13:18):
They want to tell people that we think that we're
the victims because somehow that makes our life easier, when
indeed we're stating the facts, like we can show data
that says that we are the victims of an impressive
system a series of them. They cannot We'll stop. They
can say, well, immigrants took our jobs, but they can't
draw a direct connection to that. They could say crime
is out of control, but they can't themselves draw direct
(13:40):
connection to how their lives are affected by whatever those
you know, Republican talking points are. But indeed, we can
show data about healthcare and housing and income inequality and
education and a criminal justice system and and and and
you know, environmental factors and you know, uh uh to
(14:00):
prison pipeline. And as I mentioned, and and so I
love the fact that there are still people that gather
data and still look at the data. It's heartbreaking that
the data doesn't make its way to the people that
really need it because they are comforted by the lies.
(14:26):
Let's be honest. I think that Kevin you mentioned that
if his lips are moving, he's lying. The lies that
are spouted by this president, they're comforted by that, and
I have to assume that they never step out of
that comfortable reality that he provides them to verify whether
or not that's true. Indeed, his administration is hired scores
(14:48):
of people from Fox News, a network that has been
sued for lying for nearly a billion dollars, and his
administers straation has hired us an entire swath of those
folks that were complicit in those lies, pedaling those lies
to their base for it might have been over a
(15:10):
year before they actually had to issue an apology and
pay that fine. Talk about didn't earn it. These are
lying news anchors that are now working in branches of
government that it didn't study for. They didn't work their
way up nothing, and there is a stunning silence with
(15:34):
respect to that hypocrisy on the right blows in my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 5 (15:40):
This is Ramsy's Jah and I am Q Ward and
we're inviting you to subscribe to Civic Cipher, are weekly
social justice podcast right here in the app.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
We pride ourselves on creating a show that fusters allyship,
empathy and understanding, all the while conducting journalistically credible research
featuring influential, noteworthy gests and empowering historically marginalized communities.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
The African Tava breads. If you want to go far,
go together.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
So we are asking you to search for and subscribe
to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's cibic cip h e R Right here in the app,
Bin News anchors Terry McCready and Kevin Browner here with
us discussing this week's major stories. All right, up, next,
we head to Boston for our next story, involving a
black woman battling white privilege by sitting down for her rights.
How about that, Terry, let's go back to you again,
(16:28):
give us more on this story, and then Kevin and
Q we're going to get your thoughts afterwards.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yes, white privilege on steroids and a woman who was
channeling her in a Rosa parks. So this black woman
is seventy three years old. She heads to the local
YMCA South Boston one foreign exercise class. She grabs her seat.
Then along comes the white woman who says, no, that's
that's my spot, and then she directs the black woman
(16:55):
to move, but she refuses. So then the instructor kind
of tells the woman, well, you know, you just need
to find another seat. This white woman has been using
well she didn't say this white woman. This woman has
been using this coveted spot apparently for a year. But
the black woman, you know, she was still undeterred. She
refused to budge. So they had to call in reinforcements.
(17:17):
So the police show up, really abhorrent for them, accusing
the woman of being disruptive, and they said, you know,
she has a choice at this point. You either leave
or you face trespassing charges. So she does comply, and
so now fast forward, her family wants a formal apology
from the YMCA. The why says, you know, this incident
(17:39):
bore no resemblance to our environment. We're very welcoming here,
and that they do try to create, you know, a
space that is welcoming for all, and that they are
reviewing their policies. But I suspect that a lawsuit is
on the way. I'm pretty sure the family is not
just going to be satisfied with an apology because this
(17:59):
is so blat.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Kevin.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
As a former YMCA employee, I can tell you the
YMCA usually does a lot of good work in neighborhoods
around the country. However, despite its perception as a liberal city,
I have been in and around Boston during the earlier
(18:27):
part of my career, and my friends and I referred
to Boston as Boston, Mississippi, as a very segregated, aggressively
segregated city. When I think of Boston, I think of
the school bus desegregation wars, in which residents in Boston
(18:57):
through bricks and rocks at school buses filled with children,
and the image of a black man being assaulted by
a white man with an American flag. It is not
surprising to me that there was a Rosa Parks incident
(19:23):
in Boston. However, the YMCA issued a statement in which
they said blah blah, blah, blah blah. The interesting part
of this situation is the reaction of the staff and
the police called for a woman sitting in a chair.
(19:49):
I'll repeat that the staff fault, and that is an
indication to me that it is so much more about
is so much more than the chair. It's about the
color of Maria Spooner's skin that offended them, all of them.
(20:12):
White privilege personified.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
QEW weaponizing law enforcement against black people. There it is.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
That is so on brand for twenty twenty five and
unfortunately for Boston, Massachusetts. I could wax poetic about the
way that we've always been treated in this country and
the concentration of anti black racism that is running wild
(20:45):
in the country right now, but the brilliant minds that
we are sharing these stories with and just listening to
the opinions of you all who I look up to,
admire and who I gain a lot of my knowledge from.
I don't want to sound like a broken record, because
you guys are saying the very obvious, very poignant truths already.
(21:11):
They called the police the staff on a woman in
a chair. I know I said, I didn't want to
repeat that, but I thought that I needed to because
it should sound ridiculous to everyone that hears it, except
for some people that's just their go to right. The
quickest way that I can get something that I want
done or cause harm to black people is by calling
(21:33):
the police, placing myself as victim, placing the black person
as perpetrator, and letting the system that was created hundreds
of years ago do what it was designed to do.
It's become a very dangerous and uncomfortable place, this Land
of the Free and home of the brave for people
that look like us. And I'm hoping that something, someone,
(21:58):
someone's prayers, someone something intervened soon before this country once
again becomes an unlivable.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Place for us.
Speaker 7 (22:11):
We head over to the UK for our final story
this week, which involved an increase in school suspensions for
grade school kids and the disturbing reason behind it. Kevin
tell us more about this story, and Terry and ramses,
I'll come to you to close us out for today's show.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Well, other than that, everything's fine.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Here.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
We have a situation that is sadly universal when it
comes to students of color and suspensions. Disproportionately, students are
in the UK being dealt with as black students here
(22:58):
in the US are, and that is the color of
your skin determines how likely you are to be suspended
or permanently excluded from education. The statistics don't lie. The
(23:23):
students most likely to be suspended are those who are
also part of the free school meal program. They're overrepresented
in all of the students who are suspended or exposed
to disciplinary action. African students, students from the Caribbean, students
(23:48):
of mixed ethnicity are also also have the highest rates
of permanent exclusions from the school system. The trend twenty
one percent increase from last year and most of the
(24:11):
most of the exclusions and suspensions are driven by disruptive behavior.
Special needs students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately
exposed to this disciplinary situation. Part of the problem is
(24:38):
that most of the teachers are not prepared to deal
with these types of students, in addition to the socioeconomic
backgrounds that these children are being are exposed to. But
it is a situation that occurs almost in every industrialized
(25:04):
nation where you have ethnicities exposed to a system that
is not prepared to deal with them.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Perry, So in this instance they're talking about in the UK,
these racist children, some of them as young as four,
being suspended for this racist behavior, and the number is
pretty alarming. Fifteen thousand kids or even more than that number.
These students are being failed at home obviously, and then
they're being failed again at school. And this is insidious
(25:43):
because we know that this is learned behavior. Not really
ready to blame it all on COVID. I know they try.
It's an abject failure. But even if you factor in COVID,
even in isolation, notwithstanding, values can still be taught. And
there are psychotherapists who say any expression of racist language
(26:04):
is broader than just mimicry. So it is not just
about these kids saying, you know, things that they heard
being spouted off at home. But because these belief systems
are in place, they're being hardwired at home racial judgment,
skin color, homogenized communities, class, and on and on. When
children are in the classroom, then the teachers are not
(26:27):
challenging these preconceived beliefs, and they are essentially enabling a
toxic pattern of behavior. So I'm really not even ready
to say, well, it's the school, because you cannot just
you know, send the child to school, and now the
school is going to raise the kid. So this is
just an extension of what is already in place.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Absolutely agree, Rams is Josh Well, I was just in London,
like maybe like eight days ago something like that, and
(27:13):
the reminder that that place is so diverse and it
is not subjected to the same forces at work in
this country, many of the same forces, you know, because
they have a different history and a different relationship with immigrants,
(27:35):
and a different relationship with African people and people of
African descent. To see how much further diversity goes like
an advertisement and in various positions and so forth and
so on. Just like any other foreign country, it just
(27:56):
kind of moves a little different. I for one, appreciated it. However,
I have a friend that lives in or just outside
of London.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Was not friend.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This was my first time meeting her, my first time
going to meet her, and one of the first things
she said to me was, well, you know, pretty soon
this is going to be a majority Muslim country and
we have to make sure that, you know, we stop
allowing Muslims into the country or something crazy. And I
(28:33):
was like, did I just hear that? Because I mean,
she knows what I do for work, and she just
let that off in such a cavalier manner, and I
was like, ugh, you know, and by then I was
kind of I don't have a car, you know, I'm
kind of stumb along for the ride at this point.
But I knew that that was kind of the beginning
(28:53):
of the end of that friendship, you know. And I again,
I don't know. I don't live there, so you know,
I don't know what I don't know, but I know
that that type of attitude is very, very toxic, and
so I could see there being people who are seemingly
(29:14):
normal over there. Obviously this lady didn't have any anti
black bias, but her bias was decidedly anti Muslim, particularly
anti Muslim immigrant, and you know, you just swap the
cogs around and then you have racism, you know what
I mean, or xenophobia or whatever version of prejudice fits
(29:36):
the moment. But I could see it on full display
from someone who, otherwise my estimation, would have been a
decent person. So I could see people harboring sentiments in
their homes, becoming frustrated during COVID, having more time with
their children, and then sharing these ideas with their children
(29:59):
than these children taking them back to school when school,
you know, resumes, and you know, when they would otherwise
have had this foundational moment in their life where they
would have been exposed to you know, diverse populations and
making friends and so forth, and had limited exposure to
(30:20):
you know, older folks whose prejudices had kind of taken root.
Now that the situation based on this data feels like
it's flipped. These children got those early years in the
home with frustrated parents who probably are misinformed or underinformed
and kind of leaned into racism because I'm sure, or
(30:43):
xenophobia or whatever it is, because that is the thing
that human beings can be can lean into, as we
well know in this country, and now it's just manifesting
itself in the behavior of these children.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
And so.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
They have their own issues to deal with. Fortunately they
don't have a president that is making it very challenging
to have a school actually confront these issues. So, you know,
my fingers crossed that they'll I'll figure it out. You know,
they just have to deal with that COVID bump. And
(31:18):
then they're they're you know, they're doing their jobs over
there trying to From where I said, it looks like
they were trying to be as inclusive of a society
as I've ever seen, so you know, I wish them
well on that journey, but clearly they have their work
cut out for them, and so do we. So here
we are, but with that in mind, that's going to
do it for us here. I'd like to thank you
(31:40):
all very much for your time and insight. Once again,
today's guests are beinging news anchors Terry McCready and Kevin Brown.
This has been a production of the BIM. Today's show
is produced by Chris Thompson. I have some thoughts you'd
like to share, use the red microphone talkback beature on
the iHeartRadio app. While you're there, be sure to hit
subscribe and download all of our episodes. I'm your host
(32:00):
Rams's Jah on all social media.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I am Qward on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And we'll be hosting another episode of Civic Cipher this
weekend on a station near you. For stations, showtimes, and
podcast info, check Civiccipher dot com and join us Monday
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the QR code
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