Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Still broadcasting from the Civic Sipher Studios. This is the
QR code where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes.
The man on the microphone you are about to hear
from is the man who helps me navigate cities and
life in general. He is the Q in the QR code.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
He goes by the name of Qbar, the voice you
just finished listening to, as I have said many times,
as the captain of this ship, the north star of
our hearts, intent, my brother, my teammate, He's the R
in QR code. He goes by the name ramses Jah.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Real quick, I want to make sure that I make
a correction. Earlier in the show, I credited an article
to ABC and that was a mistake. It should have
been credited to MSN, where I got that content about
the Democrats win in Iowa. Stay tuned, though, because we're
going to be talking about whether or not racism can
(00:53):
make you rich, and of course, inevitably we have to
talk about the Minnesota mass shooting, and that brings us
to qwords clapback. Because he was making a point earlier
and I stopped him because I felt like it would
make a great clapback that some people are pro life
until bullets fly, like you expound.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Such an ironic thought starter, pro life until the bullets fly.
So let me get this straight and rams correct me
if I'm tripping, if I veer too far left or right,
grab me and recenter me if you need maga is
pro life when it comes to controlling women's bodies. Pro
(01:44):
life when it comes to forcing a nine year old
or you know, a twelve or thirteen or fifteen year
old to carry your pregnancy to term. But when another
mass shooting happens, when kids are gunned down in classrooms,
(02:08):
in churches, suddenly life isn't so sacred anymore. Suddenly all
they got for us is thoughts and prayers. So here's
patterns that are harder and harder for me to ignore
as the years go by. Pro life until birth, why,
(02:36):
pro birth right, pro gun forever after Wow. Every shooting
brings the same cycle, performative outrage from some headlines, thoughts, prayers,
(02:58):
and then nothing, because as we keep being reminded and
or taught, capitalism wows. As I remember, I keep reminding
everyone I speak to that capitalism has no virtues. Capitalism
(03:21):
and of course, campaign contributions from the gun lobby.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Money and politics matter more than the lives of all
of our children.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Why does nothing change, Rams, because gun manufacturers and n
r I own enough politicians to make sure nothing changes.
Every child's death equates to profit margin. Every second amendment
(03:54):
absolutist is a sales rep for the gun lobby, and
every family burying their child, well, that's just collateral damage
to their business model. Once again, hypocrisy is laid bare.
(04:15):
These same politicians who scream pro life when they're campaigning
vote against simple universal background checks for people who want
to purchase guns. The same politicians who want to ban
books and sex education want to arm teachers. The same
(04:37):
politicians who don't trust or believe women to make their
own healthcare choices trust teenagers to buy ar fifteens. The
question is often who's going to pay for things when
we talk about meaningful legislation in this country. Well, in
this case, we know who pays our kids and the
(05:01):
parents who send their kids to school not knowing if
they'll be home after communities shattered by violence and lawmakers
that refuse to stop it, And then people like Ramses
and myself get called dramatic when we demand change But
what we learned when we went to the Smithsonian is
(05:24):
that a child's coffin. That's very dramatic. Yeah, gun violence
is now the leading cause of death for children and
teenagers in America.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And it's not close.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Gun violence, not drugs, not drag shows. Gun violence. Because
they say they ban these books and they and they
ban trans people from reading to our it's to protect them.
But no bands on guns the leading cause of death
(06:06):
for children in this country. And that's not new data.
That's been the case for a long time now. No
other what they would call developed nation or wealthy country
tolerates this. It's not because we have more mental illness
than other countries, or more video games or more movies
(06:27):
or more whatever they will. Don't blame it on. We
just have more guns and more politicians dead set on
protecting the guns instead of the people that they kill. So,
as my brother would say, here's the clap back. Stop
(06:48):
calling yourself pro life when you're just pro gun. Stop
pretending that you care about children as a marketing strategy
when you only care about campaign check. Stop selling us
thoughts and prayers when what we need is courage and policy.
(07:09):
Because the truth here as it always is. It's pretty
straightforward and simple. If you actually cared about life, you
do something about the bullets. Until then, instead of calling
yourself pro life, maybe you should go with pro lie.
(07:32):
That's potent.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You know what else, man? I know in Australia there
was this like awful, horrible mass shooting might have been
in the nineties, and then they all got together and
was like, all right, man, we ain't going to have
to happen no more. And they got together and they
changed the laws where that could not happen again. And
(07:57):
it hasn't. Based on my understanding, and you know, I
don't even know what number mass shooting this is that
we've covered just you and me, but I know that
we've had to cover them individually as broadcasters going back decades,
(08:19):
and every single time there's the thoughts and the prayers,
and immediately after that, instead of there being meaningful changed,
there is a stunning silence from the policymakers. And indeed
there are people that will double and triple down on it.
And I know you'll remember this, but longtime listeners of
the content that we make will know that once upon
(08:43):
a time this might have been. After the Uvalde shooting,
I had to sit my son down in the studio
and have a conversation with him on the radio or
the benefit of our listeners, so that they would know
how to talk to their children. And I talked to
my son and I told him, says, hey, baby, do
(09:06):
you know that sometimes people go into your school and
they take a gun and they shoot little kids? And
you remember He was like, no, I didn't know that.
And I told him if you hear something, if you
see something like that, the only thing I can tell
you to do is run away, run away and hide
(09:27):
and you come home safe to me, because if that happens.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
At a school. We've trusted the state with our children.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It's a law. They have to go to school. And
the state refuses to protect them, or they come up
with these hair brained ideas and responses, you know, then
I say parents should hold the state responsible. And the
fact is that there is nothing that will bring back
(09:55):
the life of a baby. I've heard that, you know,
people getting cheated on is the word pain. I've heard
that kidney stones are the worst pain. Childbirth no the
worst pain, and I'm sure no one would disagree. Is
a parent having to bury their baby and at present
from what I from what I remember reading not too
long ago, there's two new parents that have to bury
(10:16):
their child. So let's get into this Minnesota mass shooting.
I'm just going to share it and bear in mind
at the time that we're doing this episode. Some people
catch this content later, but it's time we're doing an episode.
Details are still coming out, so this is what we
got from ABC News. Police have identified the suspect, who
(10:38):
they say open fire outside a church at a Catholic
school in Minneapolis, Sorry, killing two children and entering seventeen
others as twenty three year old Robin Westman. An eight
year old and a ten year old were shot and
killed when the gunmen fired through the windows of the
church at the Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday morning. Police said, dang,
(11:01):
those ages are heartbreaking because Q and I have children
around that age, all right. Department of Home Land Security
Secretary Christy Noome also confirmed the identity of the suspect,
calling Westman a deranged monster.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
This level of violence is unthinkable. Ugh, it's not unthinkable.
I just talked about Yuvaldea, talked about what Sandy hook.
There's way more too, but I don't like these people's
response anyway, This level of violence is unthinkable. Our deepest
prayers are with the children, parents, families, educators, and Christians
everywhere we born with them. We pray for healing, and
(11:39):
we will never forget them. Unquote Home State in a statement.
Driver's license information reviewed by ABC News describes Westman as
a female born on June seventeen, two thousand and two.
A name change application for a miner born on the
same date was approved by a district court in Minnesota
in twenty twenty, changing the name of a Robert Westman
to a Robin Westman, explaining the minor child identifies as
(12:02):
female and wants her name.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
To reflect that identification.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Police said Westman is believed to be the only suspect
in the shooting. Westman does not appear to have an
extensive or known criminal history. Police set officials are investigating
a series of videos posted to YouTube believed to be
associated with Westman. According to law enforcement sources familiar with
the matter, two videos posted Wednesday morning and since removed
by YouTube, shows someone flipping through dozens of pages of
notes dated over the course of several months, which include
(12:28):
what appears to be doodles of weapons, middle fingers, and explatives.
There are also repeated references to killing. The videos, which
depict handwritten journals in a display of high powered weapon
to be paining a portrait of a person with a
rambling and deeply nihilistic outlook. According to analysts by law
(12:49):
enforcement and ABC News, the writings in the notebooks and
on the firearms, which are written in a blend of
crylic alphabet, English and other languages, indicate a series of grievances, anger,
and ideations to harm, of harm to self and to others.
The writings also appear to show a references to other
high profile school shootings and shooters, and one notebook there
is a sticker that says defend equality with an lgbt
(13:11):
QI a flag overlaid with a gun. A gun also
has writings against Israel. Taking up a full page of
a notebook is a hand drawn bird's eye view of
the inside of a church with views. The drawing appears
to show the interior layout of Annunciation Church. Westman died
(13:37):
at the scene from self inflicted gunshot.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Wounded.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O heresite, Okay, I'm gonna just
power through this next one. This is from the New
York Post, different vantage points covering the same story. So
it's gonna be a little bit harsher, I would imagine,
(13:59):
all right. In another entry, this is again from the
New York Post, and another entry, he writes, quote, if
I carry out a racially motivated attack, it would most
likely be against filthy Zionist Jews unquote, before calling Jewish
people entitled and penny sniffing, before adding free Palestine. I
(14:21):
was on to say quote I hate fascism, and that
was on another page, following it up shortly with quote,
I also love when kids get good. I love to
see kids get torn apart unquote. He later bemoaned the
media is, saying he is tired of the news headlines
(14:41):
quote they only talk about brown people dying, and I
don't care about them. I like to hear when Israelis
get killed, but they don't like to report on that stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
He wrote.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
The Demented Manifesto sheds light on what appears to be
a truly disturbed mind, with Western musing about a grand
final act, stating a desire to take out a target
of political or societal signingficant before he died, targets like Musk,
Trump or some significant exec but he also claimed he
had no political motive. Quote, I don't want to do
(15:10):
it to spread a message. I do it to please myself.
I do it because I'm sick unquote, he wrote, Okay,
I really don't like talking about this stuff. I'm very sorry.
You want to go first? Q Any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I guess the easiest way to talk about things like this.
I don't know about going first, but what do we know? Shooter,
identified as Robin Westman, twenty three year old transgender woman
who changed her name from Robert in twenty twenty, no
prior criminal history, legally purchased firearms a rifle, a shotgun,
(15:54):
and a pistol during a back to school mass, an
open fire through church windows, killing two children in during
seventeen others before dying by suicide. Authorities investigating the act.
That's both domestic terrorism and a hate crime motivated by
what seems to be anti Catholic and anti Jewish sentiment.
(16:18):
Disturbing content. I won't even repeat the things that were
written because some of it is pretty disgusting. Some are
trying to frame this in a very partisan, a very
specific way, and I think both sides of the aisle
or both sides of media could kind of nitpick, conveniently
(16:38):
leaving out a lot of context to make this a
one or the other thing. It's hard to draw a
conclusion here, right, The most balanced and factual understanding that
we can come up with is that, like you said,
the shooter was deeply troubled and that these actions were
motivated by personal anguish, extreme hate, and seation, because that's
(17:02):
how it played out, and that right now, that's all
we have. It does not seem to be a coherent
political ideology because it's kind of extreme with things that
are typically in conflict with each other. It doesn't seem
to be explicitly left or right. Some of the ideology
(17:22):
expressed in the manifesto, if you will again are things
that are typically in conflict with one another. A lot
of narratives are casting to serve a partisan or anti transagenda,
but that's not supported by enough evidence either. So all
we can do is keep reading, explore as they keep investigating,
(17:45):
and report what we know. But it will take a
lot more time than we have to really unpack what's
in front of us. Outside of we don't see any
real change coming with regards to guns.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Thank you for doing that, Q. I don't know what
I would do without you. Man, All right, Uh, okay,
can racism make you rich? So when we were in
our production meeting, uh, we came across the story and
(18:24):
this is a story that we reported on a long
time ago, not here, but uh we did talk about it.
And it's kind of a strange response, or I guess
in the past it would have seemed like a strange
response to someone being racist to a child. A woman
(18:48):
says some crazy stuff to a little boy and ran
to base and told everybody that she was the victim,
was going to be the victim, and that she them
to everyone to give her money so that she would
be able to weather the storm. And so the update
says that she's raised over eight hundred thousand dollars, So
(19:11):
nears makes no difference a million dollars for being racist,
and so well I did. I framed the question like, man,
what do you think about can racism make you rich?
As a as a topic before I let him know
what we were going to be talking about. And he
started laughing as though like the answer was obvious, and
I'm like it took a split second but I'm like, oh, yeah,
(19:34):
there's so many people that got rich off of like
African slaves and doing all the labor, and conveniently they
don't get sunburned, so they can be out there all day.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So just funny how this started off. But I'll get
into the weeds a bit just to kind of bring
you up to speed and let you know that, you know,
in my belief, Trump has brought us in the middle
of this reality in which we okay this from the
Black Information Network. A white woman raised over eight hundred
thousand dollars after she was caught on video hurling a
racist slur of a black child is now facing charges. So
(20:08):
this is kind of the silver lining here. On Tuesday,
August twenty six, Minnesota prosecutors filed three misdemeanor disorderly conduct
charges against the woman who confronted an eight year old
boy and called him the inward multiple times on a
playground in Rochester. Per NBC News, the boy, who was autistic,
had allegedly grabbed an apple sauce pouch from another family's
(20:29):
diaper bag and tried to escape on the playground structure.
The woman followed him and took the pouch back. When
another part goer questioned her behavior, the woman admitted to
using the slur. The woman again hurled the racist language
toward the man, cursed at him, and flipped him off.
The child's father said his son doesn't understand typical social
boundaries and requires constant supervision due to his disability. The
(20:51):
woman used the viral backlash from the incident to solicit
donations on GiB Sang, claiming to be the victim of
silly misinformation. Her fundraising goald was a million dollars. She
raised more than eight hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Keep standing up for yourselves and keep fighting for the
First Amendment, she wrote in a June update. According to
the criminal complaint file Tuesday, the woman quote wrongfully and
unlawfully engaged in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct,
or in an offensive, obscene or abusive language that would
reasonably tend to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others unquote.
(21:27):
The charges each carry a maximum of ninety days in
jail and a one thousand dollars fine. Her arraignment is
scheduled for October twenty ninth.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
This was a situation that deeply affected many people, especially
our communities of color. Unquote, Rochester Mayor Kim Norton said.
She goes on to say, we acknowledge the lasting impact
this incident has had in the broader conversations happening at
the state and national level. So I think that obviously
the bigger takeaways from that is that this woman.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Is and purposes rich.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
For, you know, doing what apparently a lot of people
thought was okay, as illustrated by the fact that they've
given her their money, and it takes a lot of
people chipping in five ten dollars here and there to
get you to nearly a million dollars, and for her
(22:25):
to start off with that as a goal, it's like
crazy work. But there's got to be a racist underbelly
that is pronounced enough in order for this to take place.
And you know, it'd be hard to imagine something like
this taking place in Germany, where they've come to terms
(22:47):
with their past and they've gone to great lengths to
stomp out any remnants of the Nazi Party over there,
and this country just hasn't done that. This country has
allowed that racist underbelly to exist and to continue to thrive.
(23:12):
I mean, for a while it's was at the fringes
of society. But you know, inter Donald Trump and he
marched all of those ideas and people, the actual people,
back into the middle of this conversation. He's like taking
them out of Fox News and put them in government position,
key government positions and giving them power and authority. And
so people that have this belief system look to this
(23:36):
changing reality and say, oh, we're up. And you know
what is name calling? What is you know this this child,
this eight year old is a thief and this woman
was protecting her her child's apple sauce. You know, like
there's like that type of approach to it. And the
(23:57):
last thing I'll say before I let you get in
on this one is, you know, it's I think it's
important to mention that he's autistic. And if you just
flip the colors of the child, make them a white
child and he does something like this, nobody thinks criminal.
They think, oh, this is a child that doesn't know
any better. Make them a black child and he's criminal.
(24:20):
And again, flip it, make him a white child. You
could see autism a lot more easily. You know, we've
discussed this many times when black children are usually diagnosed
with autism or other cognitive imparodies later in life, if ever,
and that's how they go from school to prison. The
(24:40):
school to prison pipeline is something that we've discussed a
lot on Civic Cipher. And so those resources and those
that grace isn't often extended to little black children the
way it is extended to white children.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And so.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
There's this toxic mixture that privileges white people or at
least doesn't deny them privilege, and it absolutely disadvantages black children.
And it turns out that you can become a millionaire.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Off of it. Your thoughts. I wish the question wasn't
so the question was so obvious that it was ironic,
you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, of course, racism
is an industry, especially anti black racism, most specifically, because
(25:35):
there are other groups that if you're racist toward them,
the pushback is so pronounced that the government will step
in and make it it legal for you to even
speak out against that group, no matter how atrocis atrocious,
I'm sorry their actions are. No matter what they do,
(26:01):
if you dare speak out against them as a collective group,
it will be not just shame but you might face
professional backlash, legal backlash, rest to your personal safety. Like
black anti black racism is so profitable that black people
(26:22):
make a very comfortable living participating.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Oh, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
That have become prominent celebrities who've made you know, six
seven eight figures to be black anti black pundits. So
it's a very lucrative industry. And to say we've had
some opportunities makes it seem like past tense. If that
(26:51):
was the game, we'd be superstar celebrities with millions of dollars,
and we'd be an embarrass to everybody that's ever cared
about us. And that is simply the point, Like there
should not be a price on that. You have to
be Ramses, the son of your father, the father of
(27:14):
your son, before you are a capitalist. And yes, folks,
it does somehow always end up back here at good
old capitalism, which, as I will repeat as often as
I can, has no virtues. Profitability and money over everything,
(27:39):
even your dignity, your self respect, your self worth, the
respect of those that love you and that came before you. Unfortunately,
racism is a very very lucrative business, especially those who
would sell their own out for it.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
That's all the time we have for today's episode. I
want to thank our very special guest Bobby Nichols for
having a conversation with us and I guess discussing the
merits of socialism with us. And again that full interview
(28:22):
is available if you want to check out Civic Cipher
wherever you get your content. Today's show is produced by
Chris Thompson. If you ask them about you'd like to share,
please use the red microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app.
While you're there, be sure to hit subscribe and download
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Speaker 2 (28:43):
I am qward on all social media as well, and.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We really do appreciate you sticking with us even when
it's tough. It means a lot to us, and be
sure to join us next time as we share our
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