Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Still broadcasting from the Civic Cipher Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is the QR code where we share perspective, seek understanding,
and shape outcomes. The man you are about to hear
from is a man who is actively as in like
right now, actively learning how to deal with stress, and I,
for one, intend to love him through all of it.
He is the Q and the QR code goes by
the name of q Ward.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
The voice you just heard is the eternal optimist, the
man that is filled with hope as we like the
joke rainbows and butterflies what he sees every time he
looks out of his front door. He is the R
in the QR code. He goes by the name rams
this Jah and.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We need to stick around. We're going to be asking
each other the question does black privilege exist?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Really excited to hear Q's thoughts.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
We haven't asked the question before and we like doing
that on the show, so I'm going to answer it too,
So stick around for that. We're also going to hear
from q Ward for his clapback, and it is entitled
because racism them so cute?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Take it away, So family, because we're all family here.
Sometimes we have to tell the truth. Or talk about
the truth in a way that kind of cuts deep.
Because America's biggest tragedy, specifically politically, it's not just that
(01:24):
the wealthy took everything from us. I know a lot
of people don't want to concede that yet and don't
see it yet, but they have is that they've convinced
poor white Americans to help them do it. And it's
just because racism. I could do a dissertation on it,
(01:46):
but that's the whole answer.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Racism was weaponized to block almost every social program that
would help almost everyone, from free education to universal health care,
to affordable childcare. All of those things would lift all
of us out of poverty, all of us, not just
(02:12):
black and brown people, not just immigrants, and not just
poor people. Those things would help everyone. And the receipts,
my god, the receipts are quite damning. So what other
developed nations have? Every other developed nation has that the
(02:39):
United States doesn't. And I'll just start with the basics. Germany,
for instance, free college, want to go to give the degree?
Just go Canada. Universal health care. There's a lot of
myths about the universal health care system that people here
tell each other and themselves so they can feel good
(03:02):
about not having access to it and try to make
it like there's some downside to being able to go
to the doctor when you're sick without being bankrupt. But
you know, France, full paid family leave, both parents paid
one year off full pay, Finland free school meals for
(03:24):
every child. Denmark students are paid to attend university. I'll
let you guys digest that one for a second. Japan
universal health care with lower cost and better outcomes, Australia
(03:46):
childcare subsidized nationwide. Norway housing is a right, you know,
like a human right, and in the UK nationalized healthcare
that everyone uses. And these places are not perfect, they're
not utopias, but they're real places and they function just fine. Meanwhile,
(04:13):
the richest nation on earth, America, tells us all that
we can't afford any of it, while sending hundreds of
billions of dollars to other countries, in most cases to
fund conflict violence war. It's the biggest lie ever. We
(04:39):
can absolutely afford it. Economists across the political spectrum confirm
that we can. We simply choose not to. And the
reason we choose not to, you know, racism decades of studies,
because this is not Qan Ramsa's research. Think Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Yale,
(05:05):
the University of Michigan all reached the same conclusion. A
significant portion of white Americans oppose these social programs not
because they think the programs are bad, but because they
believe minorities will benefit from them. I just can't I
(05:27):
read that again because I'm reading this. Yeah, a significant
portion of white Americans opposed social programs not because they
think the programs are bad, but because they believe minorities
will benefit from them. This is not an opinion, This
is not a Facebook theory. This is published science. When
(05:48):
policies are shown with black beneficiaries, white support drops every time.
When immigrants are mentioned, white support drop every time. When
racial stereotypes are activated, white support drops every time. And
(06:09):
when certain white people feel that their racial status is
being threatened, they oppose welfare that will help them personally.
White Americans statistically the largest recipients of social benefits across
the spectrum, but poles show that they believe that immigrants
(06:31):
and minorities get the most of these benefits, and the
idea that helping black and brown people will hurt white
people creates a zero sum mindset fueled by racism. They
don't argue economics, they don't prove that these programs wouldn't work.
(06:56):
They just have to whisper.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Those people are going to get your tax dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Those people the others, and suddenly free college, socialism, universal
health care, tyranny, childcare, big government is parenting your children,
food programs, handouts to welfare queens, and student relief rewarding laziness.
(07:26):
I'm gonna have to talk about this again at some
point because there's so much in the way of data,
but it's clear and playing rams. We could have had
free college, free universal health care, paid family leave, and
no one would go bankrupt because they got sick. And
there's a single reason that we don't because racism.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That is such a disheartening thing to.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Here.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But because I've kind of walked this path with you,
I know full well that you're telling interest. All right,
next up, does black privilege exist? Q? You want to
take this one? You want me to go.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
First, go for it, all right?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Every time?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Okay, I'm going to approach this question as though I'm
in a room full of people that assume that black
privilege does exist. Okay, I will acknowledge that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
There are.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Some things that come along with being male that provide
some privilege. Right, there are some things that come along
with what there's privileges wherever you look, wherever you see.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's
maybe it's relative right. To a person who is white,
(09:28):
it's easier to say, what are you talking about black privilege?
Speaker 1 (09:31):
That's insulting.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
But to a person who is you know, Cambodian, you know,
at present in this country, they might not have the numbers,
the sense of community. You know, of course there's Cambodian people,
of course, but not to the degree that black people have.
You know, there's a lot more safe spaces for black
people to go, there's a lot more bargaining that Black
(09:55):
people as a community are able to do with respect
to the government and so forth, And at least a minimum,
there's a voice right for Cambodian peoples that may not
be true to the same degree. And I don't mean
to pick on Cammodian people, but it's just a group
(10:16):
that popped into my head. But this would be true
for a number of groups, right, So it's relative right,
So to people that look at black people from that
vantage point, they could look at black people and say, oh,
you guys have black privilege, and of course white people
have white privilege.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I have nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I have no there's no history of my people here,
significant history of my people. There's no you know, so
I want to make sure that I see that up front.
But I want to also say that based on the
things that we tend to measure as a society, things
(10:57):
that we identify as mark to success, right, I cannot envision, conceive,
of conjure, imagine anything that would give you even the
(11:18):
capacity to start at zero when it comes to chasing
those goals that we, again that we set aside as
a society to say, you know, accomplishing these things mean
you're successful. Thailure to accomplish these things mean that you're
less successful. Right, And if anything, if there is any opportunity,
(11:44):
it usually exists in the ways of maybe opportunity is
not the right word, but propensity, likelihood, that sort of thing.
Usually it exists, and it's pointed in a decidedly negative direct.
In other words, the propensity to become a dropout or
(12:06):
teenage pregnancy or you know, caught up in the carcial system. Right,
So wherever there are these, they're not advantages. What's the
word I would use, increased likelihood And whenever you find
increased likelihoods or black people, typically it's something that's negative.
(12:27):
And so it's hard for me to fix my mouth
to say to one group that black privilege exists, But
to another group I could. I could understand how they
could see it relative to their station in life and say, well, shoot,
you guys have a lot more that you're working with
than we do. Right, And I want to say while
(12:49):
I'm here before I turn it over to you, UQ,
because I want to make sure you have a long
run right here. When we talk about white privilege, one
of the things that I established a long time ago,
I'll say we estible published it is a white privilege
is not being born and having like a bunch of
extra stuff. It's not like you're born, you got an
account with your name on it and a million dollars
(13:10):
in it, and everybody gets a golden key to the
city and blah blah blah. It's not white privilege. White
privilege is the benefit of being able to start at
the starting line, being able to start at zero, and
run a fair race. And to a black person that
often is born with you know, black skin, let's call
that a strike against you. If you're a black woman's
(13:33):
two strikes against you. Have a black gay woman, you know,
it's a much tougher race to run. You're not starting
at zero, you're starting behind the starting line, and then
you know, it can get more complicated from there. Were
you're born poor, Were you, you know, born in this
environment versus that environment, did you know whatever? You might
have hurdles on your race. Whereas the person born at
(13:53):
zero and gets to run a fair race, born at
the starting line, they don't have those same hurdles, right,
And so this is how we envision white privilege.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So the privilege is getting to start at zero.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
So once you kind of reoriented around that, because the
language of white privilege, I think it throws some white
folks off, But once you reorient you're thinking around what
it really truly is, it typically is a little bit
more easier for more people to process que your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You know. Rams the first time I saw black privilege,
and in a way that stands out to me, I
was on the cover of Charlemagne's book and it was
jarring to me, triggering almost what's wild is it? It
really depends on who sang it because you have very
different meanings. Right, So when some people say black privilege,
(14:44):
I don't think they mean it the way that they
mean white privilege, the same way. Black power and white
power are not antonyms. They don't They're not equal in
the opposite. They're two very different things.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Sure, yeah, I go with that.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Black people are. It's more like Bible self worth, you know,
it's like a reaffirmation, just like black excellence and black power.
So when you grow up in a society where whiteness
is the default for everything, beauty standards, measures of intelligence,
gateways to opportunities, I think we come up with our
(15:18):
own counterprogramming just to stay mentally and psychologically whole. So
like black girl magic and black joy and black excellence
and even black privilege. It's a deeper conversation that we'll
have to have another day because the rest of Charlotta
Magne's title talks about opportunities come when you create them,
(15:40):
as if that's all black people need to do. And
we know it's a much deeper conversation that so our
table that will put a pin in it. But that's
not privilege. It's almost therapy or like black identity repair
and real time, like we've been devalued our whole lives.
(16:01):
How do we reaffirm ourselves now? On the other side
of this, you have people who's used the term black
privilege as a way to deny white privilege or to
pretend that racism is now somehow running in reverse. And
that makes me crazy. So it's like an avoidance thing,
(16:23):
like you said, for those who are not where they
feel they should be were I don't have any privilege.
I wasn't born with a silver spoon. It just means
you weren't born behind the obstacles that we have to
overcome daily. White privilege is real, and it is across
every measurable system in this country. Then admitting that means
you have to confront some very uncomfortable truths and acknowledge
(16:45):
that you benefit from a system that doesn't make you
earn everything. And for a lot of people, that's uncomfortable.
So comparing feelings to facts, white discomfort to black oppression
as a comparison, and it's really ridiculous, but that's what
we're witnessing in real time. Two very completely different things happening.
(17:06):
So when black people say black privilege, sometimes I think
it's satire. Sometimes I think it's like an absurdity intentionally
holding a mirror up to the fragility of some white people, like, yeah,
you know, being followed in the store and pulled over,
it must be our privilege, right, you know what I mean?
Like turning that into a joke that we don't scream.
(17:27):
But you know, when other people say it, nine times
out of ten, they're trying to flip a conversation and
kind of ignore a system that's still in place that
they want to pretend went away. So this is a
more nuanced conversation than we have enough time to have.
But black privilege, in my mind, is more like a
psychological mental resistance thing than an actual thing in real life.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And that's going to do it for us here on
the QR Code. Today's show is Always was produced by
Chris Thompson and if you have any thoughts you'd like
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(18:15):
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(18:35):
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Speaker 3 (18:47):
Mine is an S fancy I am q Ward. That's
the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And Jonas next time, as we share our news with
our voice from our perspective right here on the QR
code