April 17, 2021 • 58 mins
Today, we are joined by Shela Yu of the AAPI Democratic Caucus to discuss the increase in violence against Asian Americans, and what steps we can take to support the AAPI Community. We also spend time discussing the week's events including the death of Daunte Wright and the assault of Lieutenant Caron Nazario in Virginia.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Civic Sipher. I'my host, rams
is Jah.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
They called me q Ward and that just so happens
to be my actual name.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yes, indeed, another one for you today, a big one
for you. Crazy week. You say that every week, but
unfortunate saying that every week. Unfortunately, Yeah, a lot to
talk about, and the sad reality is that, unfortunately this
is an hour long show, and so I already know
that we won't be able to cover everything that's happened
(00:30):
in this past week, but we will cover some important things,
some things that are a long time coming, and of
course we'll try to discuss some of the police interactions
that have taken place on the streets this week. If
we have enough time, we're going to talk about what
(00:51):
happened in Virginia with you know, the police pepper spring,
the Army lieutenant pulling him out of his vehicle, and
of course we have to talk about what happened in
Minnesota with the police officer mistaking her taser for a
gun and how that resulted in another lost life for
(01:16):
all of us human beings. And so please stay tuned
because there's those and like fifteen more that we've discussed
during this week, you and I and we just know
that it's very sad. You have to understand that when
we do this show, we have to watch all of
(01:37):
these videos, we have to like live that trauma, and
we do it with the intent of sharing it. And
again it's not always possible to share everything, but we
will do our best. But before we get there, we
have something that is equally important. As I stated, long overdue.
(02:04):
You know, we we have discussed, you know, things that
have happened with our Asian American Pacific Islander brothers and sisters,
and how the climate in the country has kind of
shifted in such a way to where they are under
attack more than they have been in recent years. But
(02:26):
according to the history of this country, it's nothing new
because they, just like us, are very easy target when
things become convenient for the majority. But because of you know,
we had to discuss voter suppression, we had to discuss
you know, all these things that were happening, and you know,
the way the schedule of the show works, we didn't
get to have this conversation until now, but again just
(02:46):
as important and so on today's episode we have Shela U.
So thank you very much for joining us, of course,
of course, and she is a member of the AAPI
Democratic Caucus as well as an activist and an artist.
And I've seen some of your art as well, and
(03:08):
so wonderful to have you on the show today to discuss,
you know, the goings on with respect to your community. Now,
because this is a radio show, not everyone can see
what you look like, and so I'd like for you
to give them a background of you know, your ethnicity,
(03:30):
and then also, you know, talk about yourself a little bit.
You know, your your place in the city and how
you came to hold these positions and so forth.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, I come from Chinese Chinese parents. I'm Chinese American.
I identify as Chinese American. My parents immigrated here from
Taiwan with the intention to raise my brother and I
here in Arizona, to give us better lives. I thought
that the education system was better here. So here we are,
(03:59):
and how I came to where I'm at right now,
that's a long conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Some people they have a story that's like propelled them
into like becoming an activist.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or whatever, and so yeah, okay, I think if I
go back. I was thinking about it on the way here. Actually,
I always root for the underdog because I get really
frustrated when I see any kind of injustice happening. I
think fundamentally, I have a sense of empathy and clear
(04:39):
conscience around humanity and just moral direction, you know, just
just on the just like flatline, Let's be good people
to each other, no matter what the background is, you know,
we all deserve a chance to live good lives. And
I was a massage therapist for ten years and have
always had art and music as a part of my life,
(05:00):
but didn't really feel like I necessarily had the confidence
to go out strongly. And this last year, twenty twenty
Crazy year, I had the chance to be at home
for two months with nothing to do but my art
and music, and so I took that time to really
(05:23):
explore and to have that space almost like remember like
back in the day when you were a kid, like
summertime and time didn't really exist and you're just out
there doing your thing. Like I got reacquainted with that
part of me, and having that spaciousness to sit and
create and just be with myself and not feel obligated
to anything else gave me confidence and then wrapped up
(05:49):
into that, which I think is really key is the
social unrest. Obviously, the Black Lives Matter movement was a
really big component of just the whole year twenty twenty.
I think was really key. Taking the time to listen
to our current civil rights leaders Tana Sea Coats, I
(06:16):
was reading even Kendy, you know, just trying to understand
where I fit into this picture and then wrapped up
into that was the pandemic and being then targeted as
a scapegoat and recognizing like I'm just going to jump
into it. Are okay, Okay. What I think is important
(06:39):
for Asian Americans, if we are not already feeling this,
I think we need to recognize that we now know
what it feels like to have targets on our backs
in the modern world, and understanding that this is not
new for our black and brown brothers and sisters, and
to recognize that we have to do a lot of
(07:01):
soul searching to know that our struggles, though may appear different,
are actually very similar. And it is racism, it's perceptions
of power, it's power over its oppression. So that is
big component of what I'm trying to reckon with within myself,
(07:21):
and so I really want to say thank you for
giving me the opportunity to come set of the table.
I've been having these conversations with my Asian American friends
about how this is new for us. Asian Americans have
been silent, and there's a big history of why that is.
We can go into that, I can talk about that,
but it has prevented us from feeling safe or comfortable
(07:44):
to speak out on matters, and right now is a
reckoning and we have to take the time to speak up.
So here I am hello.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So and we appreciate it, of course, and you're always welcome.
That's what this space is for. I do want to
say that you know, this show is not designed to
look in the past, and we're not looking backwards in
terms of you know, who did what to who that
sort of a thing. We're really looking forward generally speaking. Obviously,
(08:14):
we have to account for the past and we have
to really deal with it, but that's the space that
we try to maintain here. So you know, there's really
no worries. We're all about community and moving forward. So again,
we appreciate you coming up. This table is your table
as much as it is anyone else who is a
part of the human race. It is a decidedly black space,
(08:37):
but you know, my understanding is that all people are
born from out of black people, and so this is
a space for all of our children, if you will,
So we're going to get there together. I do want
to share a quick story, and that's that I met
Shella at.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
A stop Asian hate rally slash candlelight vigil for the
victims of the shooting in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And that was heavy, and I think that I don't
know why I'm saying this, but I feel like I
need to say it. It felt kind of news that
might be a mouthful, that might be very sad, but
(09:33):
it's almost like when we hear about black people losing
their lives at the hands of white supremacy directly, indirectly,
whatever the kid, the police brutality and justice, you know,
and so forth, it's almost like a normal kind of pain.
(09:53):
And because we deal with it so frequently, maybe it's
that we know how to cry in a way that
is I don't know, is that I don't want to
deny anyone's feelings who's lost someone or who has felt
their feelings. But what I'm trying to say is that
(10:14):
this event, the Stop Asian Hate Slash Candlelight Vigil. The
pain felt different, and I was there and I mourned
with a people that were coming to terms with you know,
as you mentioned, a new reality, and for black folks,
(10:37):
it's not a new reality. It still hurts. And you know,
I understand that all of us human beings, no matter
what side you're on, we all love our dearly departed.
But to mourn with folks who had not, really it's
like kind of like we're just born to cry, you know,
(11:02):
and then when you see people who are not, it's like,
oh no, in your heart goes out in a different way,
I suppose. But it was very meaningful to meet you
there and some of the other folks that you work with.
Of course, it was a beautiful event. I was glad
that I was able to participate and listen to the leadership.
I participated just by you know, holding a candle. I
(11:24):
did not speak. It was not my place to do that.
I was just there to participate, and it was beautiful
and it was a time for me to learn, and
I think that that's something that I learned by watching
so many of the other folks that came out in
twenty twenty to the blm rallies, or to the Wee
Rising events, or to the other events that took place
on the streets where there were black spaces and black leadership.
(11:47):
It shared black ideas with black folks and everyone else
who came to support. And in this space where I
met you, it was just beautiful to see all the
members of all but the members that put on the
event from the API community, you know, take the microphone,
(12:09):
speak with conviction and so forth, and so not only
was it beautiful, it was I think it was healthy,
and it was of course necessary. I want to read something,
and please forgive me. I think it's very important. I
had we call her our teacher, doctor Kimilla Westernberg. She
was on the show when we were first able to
(12:31):
broach the subject of you know, stop Asian hate, and
she shared a passage with me that she wanted me
to read on the radio. And I've been saving it
for this episode, and so I want to share it
with our listeners if if there are no objections. So
this is from a woman named Isabella Wilkerson. It's from
(12:54):
a book called Cast the Origins of Our Discontents, and
it goes as follows. We in the developed world are
like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of
land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil
is unstable, loam and rock heaving and contracting over generations,
cracks patched, but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades centuries.
(13:18):
Even many people may rightly say I had nothing to
do with how this all started. I have nothing to
do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never
attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves, and yes, none of
us was here when this house was built. Our immediate
ancestors may have had nothing to do with it. But
(13:39):
here we are, the current occupants of a property with
stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation.
We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong
with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists,
but they are ours to deal with now, and any
further deterioration is in fact on our hands. Unaddressed, the
(14:01):
ruptures and diagonal cracks will not fix themselves. The toxins
will not go away, but rather will spread, leech, and mutate,
as they already have. When people live in an old house.
They come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers
skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a
wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over
(14:24):
that rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable,
and the unacceptable will becomes merely inconvenient. Live with it
long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. And so I
did want to talk about some of the historic events
(14:45):
that have taken place, and I know that we don't
have time to go into all of them, and so
I implore you, if you're listening to our show today to
check out our social media. Everything is at Civic Cipher
CIVS C C I P H E R. But in
this moment, I'm referring to our Instagram or our Facebook page.
(15:05):
And we posted earlier in the weeks some examples of
some historic examples of discrimination against the AAPI community in
mass by the government. It's not hidden, it's not written
in a funny way. It's it's not you know, disguised.
(15:25):
You know they like to disguise racism and legally and
you know, bills and whatever legislature. No, it was outright
written that way. And you know, I'm not sure how
it feels to grow up with that history. I'm not
(15:46):
sure if a lot of folks know about it. But
we the Black Delegation, have certainly done our best to
hold this country accountable for things like that, and far
be it from us to forget about those things right
now when our brothers and sisters are in a time
of need and we need government action and government protections
and so forth. But I did want to ask you
(16:09):
what was it that went through your head when you
saw and I'm sure you did, that video of the
man attacking the woman out in front of the hotel,
or what went through your head when you learned that
a person went into these this massage parlor and you know,
(16:32):
what is it like to wake up on that morning?
Because a lot of folks don't know what what that
experience is like.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Well, m it feels like an attack on your body.
As a young Chinese American woman who has dealt with
a number of sexualization over the years and having this
(17:11):
is the thing about the Asian American experience is that
so much are shoved under the table, and so most
of the time we don't have spaces to deal with
the trauma, deal with the pain. I'm really grateful I've
had a group of Asian American, mostly women, that I've
(17:33):
been able to hold space for each other because it
had that particular week when I found out about the shootings.
It was really painful. It was it made me walk differently,
(17:53):
It made me carry myself differently. When I when I've
walked into public spaces, it's like suddenly I'm I'm walking
around with armor, and like my whole body is tense
and whereas my natural demeanor is smiling, friendly. I like
to say hi to everybody. But these experiences are forcing
(18:14):
us to really question why I've had to recognize and
take some time with myself and realize like part of
how I carry myself and why I make a point
to speak is because I want people to recognize really quickly,
(18:36):
like hey, I'm from here. I don't have an accent.
But the truth is not everybody can show up that way.
Like my parents, they both have accents. It's it's harder
to hide, you know, And especially right now we've got
masks on, we're walking into spaces like there have been
(19:01):
moments when I've left public places, stores, like walking at
a home deep way. The other day. I actually ended
up calling a friend because I was on the brink
of a panic attack. It's like that feeling where I
I don't know if something's about to happen, and you
(19:22):
walk out of a public space and feel like, oh, wow,
I just I survived. I didn't I survive without any
racial slurs, without any dirty looks. And a lot of
Asian Americans are feeling that way. We're feeling that way
before these shootings because of the former occupant of the
White House saying scapegoating Asians.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, you don't have to say what he said.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, yeah, we know what he did, causing that discomfort.
And so this, this is showing the true colors of
what that kind of languaging does to this like underbelly
of America. Right, I've been like sitting a lot with like,
oh we really, we really exist in two Americas.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Actually that was kind of what I was thinking. It
might feel like. Now this is not the same, And
this is only me trying to empathize, not trying to
write the story. But I would imagine it's like one
day waking up and feeling like a stranger in your
own house. You know, you mentioned your parents, and I
(20:38):
know what it's like to worry about your parents. That
feeling sucks because you can't. You have to. You know,
this is capitalism. We have to get out here and
get busy, so you can't. You know, watch folks every day,
especially people who are vulnerable, people who don't have the
same fight in them, and you recognize that they're in
(20:59):
a vulnerable stage, and so, you know, I think it
really helps to know what that's like so that we
can understand and better empathize. You know, I want to
share something briefly. You know, before Q and I started
the show, we had a conversation with my older brother
(21:25):
whose mother is Korean. His name is raka Iris Science
of the Dilated Peopils for folks who don't know, and
he's the one who made sure that we built into
the show, which we put down of course, but he
wanted to make it a point that it was a
space where we could also allow other folks to come
(21:48):
to the table and share their stories. It was it
was important that we rise in solidarity. And you know,
his mother is one of those people. You know, she's
an Asian woman. I know her. She used to change
my diapers when I was little, you know so, and
she still loves me, she loves my kids, you know everything,
(22:12):
the kindest person and to know how vulnerable she was
and it is now is particularly concerning. But also he
made sure to mention some some resources that folks can,
you know, check out if they want to be more supportive.
So I want to read some of the things that
he mentioned, and of course I want you to offer
(22:34):
some resources for folks who can, who are willing to
offer even just showing up and holding a candle, they
want to donate money, any anything like that. But before
we get there, you know, I checked out some resources
on social media and if you're on Instagram, these will
(22:56):
really work for you. One is Asians with Attitudes on Instagram.
If you look those guys up there right on top
of this, they have a lot of things that really
shine a light into the AAPI community and experience that
you otherwise would not know about. And we follow them
from the Civic Sipher page and we've been able to
(23:17):
have establish a dialogue and let them know that we're
willing to support whenever we can. Another one is at
Next Shark, which is another group that does the same thing.
And then there's another one Asians never die. I like
that word or I like that name. But that's another one,
you know that he mentioned. And then of course we
(23:40):
went on to have a conversation about the history between
black people and Asian people in this country and how
you know, in a lot of ways we've been able
to support each other, but in a lot of ways
there's still a lot of growth that we need in
that relationship so that we can really be there for
each other in the ways that are really important. So
you know, more to come on that, But before we
go to break, I want you to mention any resources
(24:04):
that you may know that books can take advantage of.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, something I think is great is these bystander intervention
workshops that have been coming out. I was on the
Asian Americans Advancing Justice website. They're out of Chicago and
they do online workshops and so a lot of them
are flow right now, but stay on and like you know,
(24:28):
check them out and make sure that you can see
what they're doing. And then also in Arizona there's a
z A A NHPI for Equity and they do a
lot of great work to provide resources.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
More time, what was that.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
A Z A NHPI for equity. Okay, they've got a
lot of great resources.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Awesome, Okay, very good. So a lot to work with there.
And if you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm your host, Rams,
It's Josh. They call me q Ward Special guests in
the building. Shella, you was a member of the A
A p I Democratic Caucus who is just a wonderful
human being and helping share an experience with all of
(25:13):
us that we may not know about. And of course
resources to help support our Asian American and Pacific Islander
brothers and sisters. And uh, we also need to talk
about the goings on of this week. Q I want
you to do this because this week has been really
(25:36):
tough for me. I know it's been super tough for you,
but I want to share a story before I pass
the mic off. You know, as as I mentioned when
we started the show, we have to watch all of
these videos. It's not like you know that if you
(25:57):
if you know, you know that at a point you
just don't need to see it. You know, the way
the story goes, you don't need to see a human
being get executed, or you don't need to see someone
get hurt. It doesn't it's not cool to watch it.
It's so taxing and draining emotionally on your spirit. And
then once everything is drained from your spirit, you find
(26:19):
that all that's left in that space is tears. And
you know, you try to be as tough guy as
you want to be. You know, I don't really try
to be a tough guy, but you know, I'm old
enough to feel what I feel and not makeing excuses
for it. And I really do feel it. But this
week I was. I picked up my son from school.
(26:45):
You know, he's in kindergarten. You got out at ten
thirty or whatever. And then we went to grandma's house,
and I know she's listening, So I love you, Gotti.
We went there and you my son got to hang
out with his grandma, and then he went upstairs to
play with his cousins and that was that. And so
(27:06):
she and I are downstairs and we're talking. And if
you know Gotty, she's a New Yorker Black, the most
amazing person, just the light in so many people's lives.
And I need you to know that because I need
you to understand what happened. We got to talking, and
(27:33):
I says, hey, Gotty, I got to step outside for
a second because Q texted me a video that I
need to watch because he said he can't watch any
more videos. And got He asks me, well, what happened,
and I says, well, the police pulled over a young
(27:54):
man and the officer says she mistook her hazer for
a gun. They shot the boy. The young man he's twenty.
I'm thirty eight. I was an adult before he was born.
I think I can have that, but you can't call
him a boy. That's bad for your health. But they
(28:16):
shot him and he died in his car. He tried
to get away from the police, and we got to
talk him, and you know, everybody asks what happened, but
God he knows better, because God he knows that. You know,
it's common for any creature endowed with consciousness to seek
(28:38):
their customary freedom first and foremost, and anybody that challenges
that narrative, I immediately don't have any more space for
a conversation with you. But if I allowed for you
to get that off in my space, the next thing
(29:02):
would be, you know, why why is he running? You
know all these questions right now, I don't know how
true any of this stuff is, but I had to
do some research, and what I found is that he
had had he was too young to be carrying a
gun once upon a time, which is the same crime
(29:22):
that the guy in where was he when he shot
those people? The protesters rittenhouse, I think is his name,
and Kenosha there you go, same crime that he had.
You know, he had he was too young to carry
a gun, and you know I know that. Immediately folks
minds go to, oh, and then he ran from the
(29:43):
police before, perhaps for carrying a gun, And folks minds
go to, Okay, well, you know, why was he carrying
a gun in the first place? And I think right
there the hypocrisy begins because at that point, what we've
done is we've reframed this young man as criminal with
(30:05):
criminal intent, which may or may not be the case.
But I think to judge that is extremely unfair because
as a citizen of the United States, the only person
that could should judge him is an actual judge. Certainly
shouldn't be judged, tried, and executed on the street. But
(30:28):
I think that also that narrative fails to account for
so many other things, not the least of which is
that this whole country is gun crazy. The guns are
the cause and the solution quote unquote to all of
our problems. Guns and money. And you'll find if you
get old enough, then money won't save you. And you'll
(30:48):
find that if somebody pulls a gun out quicker than you,
that a gun won't save you. Guns are not for protection.
Guns are for murdering. Protection is a bulletproof best think
about it. But you know, these are just my thoughts.
The main thing that I think that folks have failed
to come to terms with is the history of why
(31:10):
a twenty year old child on his journey feel so
afraid of the world that he needs to carry a gun.
And my belief and what I've seen more often than not,
even when I listen to music that glorifies these sorts
of things, and when I watch movies, the types of
movies that are about you know, the places where Q
(31:33):
and I come from, Compton, Detroit, you know, cities like that,
is that the idea there is I'd rather be caught
with it than caught without it. And so you come
from an environment where having access to a weapon like
that may serve as preventative protection. You know, and I'll
(31:56):
allow for that. Again, I'm not a gun person at all.
You know that because we argue about it all the time,
but you know, I've had to allow for that space.
I walk my path and everyone else walks theirs. But
that environment was not created by black people to be
(32:21):
what it is. It's artificially constructed. We know in the
history of this country that when black people have gotten
together and hold their resources, our resources, and we've really
sought independence, economic and otherwise from you know, the larger community,
(32:44):
that it's often been snuffed out, literally burned to the
ground time and again. And ghettos are the direct result
of redlining, which we talk about on the show from
time to time, and if you're not familiar with it,
it is the illegal practice now of basically artificially inflating
(33:07):
property values and providing loans for white people to move
into white neighborhoods and denying anyone else, not just black people,
but anyone else from doing the same. And what you
see during the time where redlining was prevalent in the
early nineteen hundreds in this country is a massive shift
(33:28):
of wealth away from and there wasn't a lot to
begin with, away from black folks to white folks, which
a lot of white families still enjoy to this day.
And then you have impoverished communities, you have ghettos, and
in ghettos an impoverished community where there's lots of scarcity,
you get behaviors that are or often borderline criminal. And
(33:53):
again it necessitates some degree of protection from the environment
that you're born into. And so this child carrying a gun,
whether or not that's even true from an older traffic stop,
you know, that's why he had a warrant from having
a gun before and then running from the police before,
(34:17):
in no way warrants his execution. In no way that
we didn't have a gun at the time. I was
trying to run away from the police, understandably so, because
the police are very trigger happy in this country, and
he lost his life. You know, we've seen that if
you stay and cooperate, the police don't treat you good.
We've seen if you run away, the police don't treat
you good. There's really a no win situation. And so
(34:38):
I wanted to make sure that I said that because
as I was discussing this with Gotti, she looked at
me with this horrified look on her face. And when
I saw that look, I knew what was coming next
because I saw the picture of the the boy, Dante White,
(35:03):
and I knew that he bears a resemblance to her grandchildren,
nearly all of them. And I says, whatever you do,
please do not look at his picture, and she just
started balling. And when you see an older black woman
(35:26):
with the grays in her hair and the skin that
has been aged by time, and you see that face,
that beautiful face light up when she sees her posterity
run in the house and kiss her and run upstairs
to play their games, and she laughs and giggles in
(35:47):
the kitchen and has a good good time. When you
see that turned to fear and pain and you see
the tears squeeze from her face, it's the most heartbreaking
thing that you can imagine. And I wept with her
in that moment, composed myself. I went outside and I
watched the video. I made sure to stay outside long
(36:07):
enough for the winds in the house to change. And
I wanted to share that before I check in with you, Q,
because that's how my.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Week went, before I get into how my week went,
Because the last couple of weeks have been really rough.
I lost my father's first grandchild and my first nephew,
(36:41):
first niece or nephew, and my father's children's line to COVID.
This Thursday will be two weeks ago, and he just
learned he was going to be a father. Typically, that
(37:03):
be enough, except because of what we chose to do,
because of this space that we chose to occupy, there
is a level of trauma that we have to volunteer for.
(37:24):
It's the only way we can responsibly do this show.
So we see, hear about and read more of these
type of things than most people. I got dressed coming
here today, and when Grayson sees me get dressed, he
(37:48):
knows that I'm about to leave him. So as soon
as he sees me put on a shirt, he starts crying, like, Okay,
I know what this means. Dad, I'm three, but you're
getting dressed. You're about to leave me? And he cries,
And in the moment, it always seems silly, baby Daddy
has to go to work. I'll be back. Except for
(38:16):
a week. I couldn't celebrate my son out loud because
my oldest brother is preparing to bury his son. So
there was an inherent guilt, like I can't be out
here joyfully lifting my son up. My brother will see this,
and without trying, he's gonna think about the fact that,
(38:39):
in the way that you're not supposed to, he's preparing
to bury his first child. And then I just shared
a picture with my colleagues here in the studio of
Dante Wright and his son, and that guilt kicked in
(39:05):
even more. His one year old doesn't even get to
experience his dad. He won't have any memories of him.
So when I'm walking out of the door today and
my son starts crying, I can't even in good faith
(39:29):
reassure him that I'll be back. Because what we're starting
to learn is that there is nothing that we can
do to avoid this wrath that's just out here looking
for us. Dressing properly, pulling up our pants, speaking with
(39:55):
a good dialect, using the King English, staying in between
the lines on the highway, driving the speed limits, stopping
at the red light, using your blinker, saying no to drugs,
not drinking, not driving, complying yes sir, no sir, It
(40:15):
does not matter. It will seek us out, and with
everyone sitting at this table today, it will seek us
out because of how we look, because of the way
(40:36):
we entered the world, not because of any choices that
we made or didn't make, not because we did or
didn't listen to our parents, not because we do or
don't obey the laws. Because the person carrying around this
hate and resentment has made up their mind that their
(40:58):
world is better with out us in it, and we
just have to hope we're not the one they run
into that day. And in this space, even the thing
that says to serve and protect is scary, even more
(41:19):
so because they have a gun.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Now in the open carry state of Arizona, everyone might
have one. They definitely, but the officer that got behind
me when I turned off my street and route to
the studio right now definitely does. And now I'm driving
here terrified, and I've done absolutely nothing that happened right now.
(41:46):
I didn't get pulled over. I just saw a police
car behind me. And there's anxiety and fear and stress.
And that's with a cop car behind me. Now imagine
(42:08):
that cop isn't in his car anymore. He's standing next
to yours. And it's dark. I don't have to imagine,
and there's no one around totally. Don't have to imagine nothing,
and you can do nothing to protect yourself. The safest
thing you can do is rid yourself of your self pride,
(42:34):
rid yourself of your dignity, and bow to this person,
and then pray that that's enough. Be reverent, comply, be respectful,
yes sir, no sir.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Do whatever they.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Say, even if you fully understand that your human and
civil rights are being violated. Because the object is to
not die today.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
We're not trying to avoid jail.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
We're not trying to avoid this ticket that in a
lot of cases we don't even deserve because we had
an air freshener hanging from our rear view mirror. Let's
hope that this seasoned professional with a murder tool pointed
(43:28):
at you is in a better headspace than you are
as you sit there terrified. You're not comfortable, you're not rational,
you're scared. But let's hope the person that does this
for a living isn't more afraid than you, or that
(43:53):
they just don't hate you because you're you and feel
like killing you today with impunity, that's the part that hurts.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
There's no consequence, and your family and your friends almost know.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
That there's no consequence, and the event that they're charged,
the charge will be lesser, and the event that they're convicted,
the sentencing will be lighter. And in a lot of cases,
neither of those things even happen. You have cities, states, municipalities,
(44:36):
district attorneys that find no reason to even bring charges
even when it's recorded on video.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And that's something I want to talk about too. I
think it was in Virginia. The lieutenant, he's driving, he
bought a new vehicle. Right, he's driving, and it's when
he's turn on their lights, right, it's on camera. He
(45:05):
drives until he pulls into a well lit gas station.
This is what he says. But because the police were
behind him for a little bit, they treated it as
a hostile traffic stop, I guess is what they did.
And I want to talk more about this. But as
far as this goes, the reason that they turned the
(45:28):
lights on is because he didn't have a standard license plate,
and they said they couldn't see his paper tag from
the new vehicle in the wind in the back window.
But as soon as they got into the to the
gas station that was well lit, you could see it
in the video. You could see the paper. It's a
white square in the window.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
But do you know what also happens when you get
into a well lit area, you can see that the
motorist is black. The crime is the skin. It's not
the accent. The crime is your face. You can't take
it off. You can't speak well enough to change that.
(46:09):
We all look how we look. That's the crime, right,
even if there was no tag, no paper tag, no
heart plate, no nothing. Dude is literally riding dirty. Right,
he didn't just murder a building full of people with
an assault rifle. Because when they do that, and they
(46:33):
meaning white men in the United States, forgive, forgive the
change in my tone here when they do that, Let's
make sure they're okay. As a matter of fact, let's
make sure the public knows that they're not. Let's feel
sorry for them. Let's empathize because they must have been
(46:53):
through so much. They had a bad day. Thank you,
thank you, that right hurt. They had a bad day.
So you talk about the idea of that new pain,
and I think what you were describing as a callous.
(47:14):
It's happened to us so many times that the wound
has scabbed over, it still hurts, but it hurts different.
But there is a feeling of wanting to protect our
Asian American brothers and sisters for going through something that
we've gone through so much that we're like, yo.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Let me show you how to do this.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Stand behind me, let me take this, and I'm gonna
look at you and say that stand behind me. I
got you. We got you. If you can hear us,
we got you. If you're watching this on YouTube and
you can see us, we got you. Because silence cannot happen,
apathy cannot happen if one of us is going through this.
(47:59):
All of us are going through this period because the
fact that I can't confidently tell Grayson Anthony villaflor Ward
that I will be home to him tonight is a problem.
Because his father is an upstanding, college educated man with
(48:22):
no criminal record, who is never consumed to drink, never
tried or sold a drug. I should not have to
worry for my life when I see a police officer
who lied when he took the oath to serve and
protect me.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
So I think that it's really important to share a story.
And if you're just tuning in to Civic Cipher once again,
host Rams's job. They called me q Ward and we
have special guests with us. Shallow you again, a member
(49:08):
of the AAPI Democratic Caucus, artist, activist, and all around
awesome person. You know. I want to tell a story that,
of course had a different outcome from the UH, the
one that took place in Virginia, but similar in terms
(49:30):
of the experience. And this is for me, another person
who's never done a drug, another person who has never
drank alcohol. I don't even say bad words. I call
them bad words. And I'm thirty eight, you know, so
definitely say bad words. But you know what I'm saying,
Like I you know, definitely does not know me. You
won't catch me doing that. It's just not in me
(49:52):
like that. But anyway, you know, I think I have
my head on my shoulders, you know again, college educated
and you know, all the all the above, got a
lot to live for, never been in any nonsense. But
even if I was, you know, and let mean, somebody
has the right to please before you start your story.
Even if I was a criminal, a bailed out felon
(50:19):
with a T shirt that said gang member on it.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
I do not deserve to be murdered in the street.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Hard stop. So sorry. No, you're good. You're good. I
think that needs to be said. So yeah, A quick
story before we get out of here. Once upon a time,
I was driving in my brother's car, who he had
(50:56):
quote unquote inherited from my sister's boyfriend now fiance. Right,
my sister's boyfriend had moved out of town and left
the car and my little brother started driving it, and
so it became his car. I have a small interest
(51:16):
in a used car dealership, and so sometimes I switch
cars and sell cars, and people want to buy the
car i'm driving, and so that's what happened. So I'm
driving this hear me on this. It's a two thousand
and six and when this happened, it might have been
two thousand and seventeen eighteen somewhere in there. Two thousand
(51:40):
and six Dodge Magnum black tent, black interior with twenty
two inch rims on it. It is the most gang
bangorist drug deal in this car. You look like you're
just serving the block in this car. I cannot stand
driving that car because I know how it looks. You know,
(52:01):
I'm from California, right. I love lowriders. I think they're
the coolest things in the world. I have a low
rider bike downstairs in my house, and you know, I
recognize it. To a lot of police it looks like criminal.
You know, it's not cultural. It's criminal, but of course
over here it's cultural anyway. Driving the car, and of
(52:24):
course it's not a terrible looking car, it just looks like,
you know, I'm moving that weight as it were. So
I had just driven it to I think somewhere in Chandler,
I want to say, wild Horse Pass and I picked
up ten thousand dollars cash.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
That's really appen, Oh wow, and it's getting good.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah. So again, fortunately nothing happens. So I don't want to, like,
you know, scare anyone. But yeah, so I got ten
thousand dollars and I was wearing some they're like boot
boots with zippers, right, I've seen those. Yeah, I got
like kind of a cool style, I think. So immediately
I take the ten thousand dollars because it's a brick.
You know, when you get that money from the bank,
it has the band around it and says how much
(53:13):
it is. So I put it in my boot because
why what else am I going to put it? It's going
to fall out of my pocket and I know my
boots have zippers, so boom, and then it just looks
terrible to someone who's looking for something to you know, suspicious, right,
But I had to pick up this money because I
was completing a transaction and the person that I was
(53:33):
meeting pays the cash. You know, there's no problem there.
And usually having large sums of money is not the
weirdest thing in the world when you work in the
industry in which you know have interests. So I'm driving
on the freeway in a car that's not mine, in
a car that's not my brothers, and what happens is
(53:57):
I'm right by the airport driving and the police get
behind me and they turn the lights on. Right, so
a medium uh oh, because you know, my sister's boyfriend
is Jamaican, and Jamaican people, at least the ones that
I know, they are take in some things which are
(54:20):
now perfectly legal, you know, but he hasn't driven this
car for years. So but you know, your mind goes
to all the places because immediately literally you're like, Okay,
what is going to happen to me? Not even what
did I do, but what is going to what could
happen to me exactly. And so the mistake that I
(54:41):
made was, you know, being on the freeway the freeway
splits where I live by the airport, there's a split
in the freeway and I'm supposed to be on the
split on the right side, but on the left side
it goes to a whole different freeway, a whole different direction,
and I'm not. I don't go that way, So I'm
lost if I go over there. But the police are
behind me trying to pull me over. So just like
(55:02):
the story in Virginia, I slow down, I turn on
my hazards or blinker or something like that, so the
police know I'm not trying to run away evading evading, correct,
But I didn't pull right over because I would have
been lost and it would have been dangerous if you
(55:23):
would have seen it. So I'm waiting for the kind
of the fork to arrive at the fork and then
I can pull over in that area and they can
get out and do their business. But then they start
like honking the horn and flashing the lights at me,
and so now I'm like really afraid because of that
(55:44):
same thing, Like if they're upset, it's going to be
very bad for me. So I pull all the way
over right, and they, of course because I didn't pull over,
immediately treated it like it was a hostile and traffic stuff.
So it's like guns blazing this whole thing. So they
get out. They got guns on me, and I know
the drill because I don't know if I mentioned it
(56:05):
on the show before, but I'm from Compton. So even
before I was getting pulled out of the car, I've
seen other people get pulled out of the car, and
I know the easiest way to survive is you roll
the window down and you put both of your hands
outside of the window, facing away from the officer, just
like that so they can see your hands. Yeah, leave
them there until they approach the vehicle. Then you have
your conversation. So that's what happened. They walked up. By
(56:27):
the time they got to me, I could see that
they put their guns away and the guy started talking
to me. Of course, he asked me to step out
of the vehicle. And I'm not the one to play
that game because I want to live and I know
how this goes, so like, okay, step out of vehicle.
Of course, I called my sister and let her know
what was going on. This was a few years before
Facebook Live and all that sort of stuff, so that
(56:48):
was what I did get out of the car, and
of course they asked me all the standard questions, Have
you been drinking any drugs? These sorts of things, And
I tell them the answer, no, sir, I've never drank
alcohol in my life. No, sir, I've never done any
drug in my life. I don't even like taking medicine
just in case I have to talk to you one day.
(57:12):
I didn't say that last part isn't when I upset him,
but you know what I'm saying, like, that's really the reason.
So you know, he later tells me, he's like, Yo,
that sounds like exactly like something a method would say.
So that's why we pressed you on this. And I
was like, oh, well, now I know not to say
that I've never drank alcohol in my life and never
done a drug in money, but you know, he could
(57:32):
tell that I was not inebriated, because again I've never
been inebriated. And then they started asking me where I
was going and where I was coming from, which for
some reason is important because that's what happened on the
videos we saw this week. Some of the videos. So
you know, I told him I'm leaving the casino. I
(57:53):
had to, you know, conduct a business transaction. I'm praying
that he doesn't check my shoe because and it's all
over and they find that tenjis and pulling my boot,
which they didn't find. But the whole time, I'm sweating
because of that, I'm super nervous. And the thing that
bailed me out, and this has been a get out
of jail free card for me a couple of times
over the years, is that I work on radio and
(58:16):
when they called for backup, one of his partners recognized
me as being a DJ, and then ultimately the first
guy ended up apologizing and everything went well. But anyway,
I'm saying that to say that I relate to the trauma,
to the stress, and to everything that goes along with
these stories. Unfortunately, we're out of time for this week,
and so please do us a favor of visit the
(58:36):
website civicsipher dot com download this in any previous episodes.
I want to thank our guest Shelley you for coming
to hang out with us.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Thank you so much, thanking.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
And be sure to check us out next week. Both myself,
Ramsa's jaw and q ward And until then, y'all peace, peace,
Welcome to another episode of Civic Sipher. I'my host, rams
is Jah.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
They called me q Ward and that just so happens
to be my actual name.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yes, indeed, another one for you today, a big one
for you. Crazy week. You say that every week, but
unfortunate saying that every week. Unfortunately, Yeah, a lot to
talk about, and the sad reality is that, unfortunately this
is an hour long show, and so I already know
that we won't be able to cover everything that's happened
(00:30):
in this past week, but we will cover some important things,
some things that are a long time coming, and of
course we'll try to discuss some of the police interactions
that have taken place on the streets this week. If
we have enough time, we're going to talk about what
(00:51):
happened in Virginia with you know, the police pepper spring,
the Army lieutenant pulling him out of his vehicle, and
of course we have to talk about what happened in
Minnesota with the police officer mistaking her taser for a
gun and how that resulted in another lost life for
(01:16):
all of us human beings. And so please stay tuned
because there's those and like fifteen more that we've discussed
during this week, you and I and we just know
that it's very sad. You have to understand that when
we do this show, we have to watch all of
(01:37):
these videos, we have to like live that trauma, and
we do it with the intent of sharing it. And
again it's not always possible to share everything, but we
will do our best. But before we get there, we
have something that is equally important. As I stated, long overdue.
(02:04):
You know, we we have discussed, you know, things that
have happened with our Asian American Pacific Islander brothers and sisters,
and how the climate in the country has kind of
shifted in such a way to where they are under
attack more than they have been in recent years. But
(02:26):
according to the history of this country, it's nothing new
because they, just like us, are very easy target when
things become convenient for the majority. But because of you know,
we had to discuss voter suppression, we had to discuss
you know, all these things that were happening, and you know,
the way the schedule of the show works, we didn't
get to have this conversation until now, but again just
(02:46):
as important and so on today's episode we have Shela U.
So thank you very much for joining us, of course,
of course, and she is a member of the AAPI
Democratic Caucus as well as an activist and an artist.
And I've seen some of your art as well, and
(03:08):
so wonderful to have you on the show today to discuss,
you know, the goings on with respect to your community. Now,
because this is a radio show, not everyone can see
what you look like, and so I'd like for you
to give them a background of you know, your ethnicity,
(03:30):
and then also, you know, talk about yourself a little bit.
You know, your your place in the city and how
you came to hold these positions and so forth.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, I come from Chinese Chinese parents. I'm Chinese American.
I identify as Chinese American. My parents immigrated here from
Taiwan with the intention to raise my brother and I
here in Arizona, to give us better lives. I thought
that the education system was better here. So here we are,
(03:59):
and how I came to where I'm at right now,
that's a long conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Some people they have a story that's like propelled them
into like becoming an activist.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or whatever, and so yeah, okay, I think if I
go back. I was thinking about it on the way here. Actually,
I always root for the underdog because I get really
frustrated when I see any kind of injustice happening. I
think fundamentally, I have a sense of empathy and clear
(04:39):
conscience around humanity and just moral direction, you know, just
just on the just like flatline, Let's be good people
to each other, no matter what the background is, you know,
we all deserve a chance to live good lives. And
I was a massage therapist for ten years and have
always had art and music as a part of my life,
(05:00):
but didn't really feel like I necessarily had the confidence
to go out strongly. And this last year, twenty twenty
Crazy year, I had the chance to be at home
for two months with nothing to do but my art
and music, and so I took that time to really
(05:23):
explore and to have that space almost like remember like
back in the day when you were a kid, like
summertime and time didn't really exist and you're just out
there doing your thing. Like I got reacquainted with that
part of me, and having that spaciousness to sit and
create and just be with myself and not feel obligated
to anything else gave me confidence and then wrapped up
(05:49):
into that, which I think is really key is the
social unrest. Obviously, the Black Lives Matter movement was a
really big component of just the whole year twenty twenty.
I think was really key. Taking the time to listen
to our current civil rights leaders Tana Sea Coats, I
(06:16):
was reading even Kendy, you know, just trying to understand
where I fit into this picture and then wrapped up
into that was the pandemic and being then targeted as
a scapegoat and recognizing like I'm just going to jump
into it. Are okay, Okay. What I think is important
(06:39):
for Asian Americans, if we are not already feeling this,
I think we need to recognize that we now know
what it feels like to have targets on our backs
in the modern world, and understanding that this is not
new for our black and brown brothers and sisters, and
to recognize that we have to do a lot of
(07:01):
soul searching to know that our struggles, though may appear different,
are actually very similar. And it is racism, it's perceptions
of power, it's power over its oppression. So that is
big component of what I'm trying to reckon with within myself,
(07:21):
and so I really want to say thank you for
giving me the opportunity to come set of the table.
I've been having these conversations with my Asian American friends
about how this is new for us. Asian Americans have
been silent, and there's a big history of why that is.
We can go into that, I can talk about that,
but it has prevented us from feeling safe or comfortable
(07:44):
to speak out on matters, and right now is a
reckoning and we have to take the time to speak up.
So here I am hello.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So and we appreciate it, of course, and you're always welcome.
That's what this space is for. I do want to
say that you know, this show is not designed to
look in the past, and we're not looking backwards in
terms of you know, who did what to who that
sort of a thing. We're really looking forward generally speaking. Obviously,
(08:14):
we have to account for the past and we have
to really deal with it, but that's the space that
we try to maintain here. So you know, there's really
no worries. We're all about community and moving forward. So again,
we appreciate you coming up. This table is your table
as much as it is anyone else who is a
part of the human race. It is a decidedly black space,
(08:37):
but you know, my understanding is that all people are
born from out of black people, and so this is
a space for all of our children, if you will,
So we're going to get there together. I do want
to share a quick story, and that's that I met
Shella at.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
A stop Asian hate rally slash candlelight vigil for the
victims of the shooting in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And that was heavy, and I think that I don't
know why I'm saying this, but I feel like I
need to say it. It felt kind of news that
might be a mouthful, that might be very sad, but
(09:33):
it's almost like when we hear about black people losing
their lives at the hands of white supremacy directly, indirectly,
whatever the kid, the police brutality and justice, you know,
and so forth, it's almost like a normal kind of pain.
(09:53):
And because we deal with it so frequently, maybe it's
that we know how to cry in a way that
is I don't know, is that I don't want to
deny anyone's feelings who's lost someone or who has felt
their feelings. But what I'm trying to say is that
(10:14):
this event, the Stop Asian Hate Slash Candlelight Vigil. The
pain felt different, and I was there and I mourned
with a people that were coming to terms with you know,
as you mentioned, a new reality, and for black folks,
(10:37):
it's not a new reality. It still hurts. And you know,
I understand that all of us human beings, no matter
what side you're on, we all love our dearly departed.
But to mourn with folks who had not, really it's
like kind of like we're just born to cry, you know,
(11:02):
and then when you see people who are not, it's like,
oh no, in your heart goes out in a different way,
I suppose. But it was very meaningful to meet you
there and some of the other folks that you work with.
Of course, it was a beautiful event. I was glad
that I was able to participate and listen to the leadership.
I participated just by you know, holding a candle. I
(11:24):
did not speak. It was not my place to do that.
I was just there to participate, and it was beautiful
and it was a time for me to learn, and
I think that that's something that I learned by watching
so many of the other folks that came out in
twenty twenty to the blm rallies, or to the Wee
Rising events, or to the other events that took place
on the streets where there were black spaces and black leadership.
(11:47):
It shared black ideas with black folks and everyone else
who came to support. And in this space where I
met you, it was just beautiful to see all the
members of all but the members that put on the
event from the API community, you know, take the microphone,
(12:09):
speak with conviction and so forth, and so not only
was it beautiful, it was I think it was healthy,
and it was of course necessary. I want to read something,
and please forgive me. I think it's very important. I
had we call her our teacher, doctor Kimilla Westernberg. She
was on the show when we were first able to
(12:31):
broach the subject of you know, stop Asian hate, and
she shared a passage with me that she wanted me
to read on the radio. And I've been saving it
for this episode, and so I want to share it
with our listeners if if there are no objections. So
this is from a woman named Isabella Wilkerson. It's from
(12:54):
a book called Cast the Origins of Our Discontents, and
it goes as follows. We in the developed world are
like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of
land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil
is unstable, loam and rock heaving and contracting over generations,
cracks patched, but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades centuries.
(13:18):
Even many people may rightly say I had nothing to
do with how this all started. I have nothing to
do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never
attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves, and yes, none of
us was here when this house was built. Our immediate
ancestors may have had nothing to do with it. But
(13:39):
here we are, the current occupants of a property with
stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation.
We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong
with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists,
but they are ours to deal with now, and any
further deterioration is in fact on our hands. Unaddressed, the
(14:01):
ruptures and diagonal cracks will not fix themselves. The toxins
will not go away, but rather will spread, leech, and mutate,
as they already have. When people live in an old house.
They come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers
skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a
wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over
(14:24):
that rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable,
and the unacceptable will becomes merely inconvenient. Live with it
long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. And so I
did want to talk about some of the historic events
(14:45):
that have taken place, and I know that we don't
have time to go into all of them, and so
I implore you, if you're listening to our show today to
check out our social media. Everything is at Civic Cipher
CIVS C C I P H E R. But in
this moment, I'm referring to our Instagram or our Facebook page.
(15:05):
And we posted earlier in the weeks some examples of
some historic examples of discrimination against the AAPI community in
mass by the government. It's not hidden, it's not written
in a funny way. It's it's not you know, disguised.
(15:25):
You know they like to disguise racism and legally and
you know, bills and whatever legislature. No, it was outright
written that way. And you know, I'm not sure how
it feels to grow up with that history. I'm not
(15:46):
sure if a lot of folks know about it. But
we the Black Delegation, have certainly done our best to
hold this country accountable for things like that, and far
be it from us to forget about those things right
now when our brothers and sisters are in a time
of need and we need government action and government protections
and so forth. But I did want to ask you
(16:09):
what was it that went through your head when you
saw and I'm sure you did, that video of the
man attacking the woman out in front of the hotel,
or what went through your head when you learned that
a person went into these this massage parlor and you know,
(16:32):
what is it like to wake up on that morning?
Because a lot of folks don't know what what that
experience is like.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Well, m it feels like an attack on your body.
As a young Chinese American woman who has dealt with
a number of sexualization over the years and having this
(17:11):
is the thing about the Asian American experience is that
so much are shoved under the table, and so most
of the time we don't have spaces to deal with
the trauma, deal with the pain. I'm really grateful I've
had a group of Asian American, mostly women, that I've
(17:33):
been able to hold space for each other because it
had that particular week when I found out about the shootings.
It was really painful. It was it made me walk differently,
(17:53):
It made me carry myself differently. When I when I've
walked into public spaces, it's like suddenly I'm I'm walking
around with armor, and like my whole body is tense
and whereas my natural demeanor is smiling, friendly. I like
to say hi to everybody. But these experiences are forcing
(18:14):
us to really question why I've had to recognize and
take some time with myself and realize like part of
how I carry myself and why I make a point
to speak is because I want people to recognize really quickly,
(18:36):
like hey, I'm from here. I don't have an accent.
But the truth is not everybody can show up that way.
Like my parents, they both have accents. It's it's harder
to hide, you know, And especially right now we've got
masks on, we're walking into spaces like there have been
(19:01):
moments when I've left public places, stores, like walking at
a home deep way. The other day. I actually ended
up calling a friend because I was on the brink
of a panic attack. It's like that feeling where I
I don't know if something's about to happen, and you
(19:22):
walk out of a public space and feel like, oh, wow,
I just I survived. I didn't I survive without any
racial slurs, without any dirty looks. And a lot of
Asian Americans are feeling that way. We're feeling that way
before these shootings because of the former occupant of the
White House saying scapegoating Asians.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, you don't have to say what he said.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, yeah, we know what he did, causing that discomfort.
And so this, this is showing the true colors of
what that kind of languaging does to this like underbelly
of America. Right, I've been like sitting a lot with like,
oh we really, we really exist in two Americas.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Actually that was kind of what I was thinking. It
might feel like. Now this is not the same, And
this is only me trying to empathize, not trying to
write the story. But I would imagine it's like one
day waking up and feeling like a stranger in your
own house. You know, you mentioned your parents, and I
(20:38):
know what it's like to worry about your parents. That
feeling sucks because you can't. You have to. You know,
this is capitalism. We have to get out here and
get busy, so you can't. You know, watch folks every day,
especially people who are vulnerable, people who don't have the
same fight in them, and you recognize that they're in
(20:59):
a vulnerable stage, and so, you know, I think it
really helps to know what that's like so that we
can understand and better empathize. You know, I want to
share something briefly. You know, before Q and I started
the show, we had a conversation with my older brother
(21:25):
whose mother is Korean. His name is raka Iris Science
of the Dilated Peopils for folks who don't know, and
he's the one who made sure that we built into
the show, which we put down of course, but he
wanted to make it a point that it was a
space where we could also allow other folks to come
(21:48):
to the table and share their stories. It was it
was important that we rise in solidarity. And you know,
his mother is one of those people. You know, she's
an Asian woman. I know her. She used to change
my diapers when I was little, you know so, and
she still loves me, she loves my kids, you know everything,
(22:12):
the kindest person and to know how vulnerable she was
and it is now is particularly concerning. But also he
made sure to mention some some resources that folks can,
you know, check out if they want to be more supportive.
So I want to read some of the things that
he mentioned, and of course I want you to offer
(22:34):
some resources for folks who can, who are willing to
offer even just showing up and holding a candle, they
want to donate money, any anything like that. But before
we get there, you know, I checked out some resources
on social media and if you're on Instagram, these will
(22:56):
really work for you. One is Asians with Attitudes on Instagram.
If you look those guys up there right on top
of this, they have a lot of things that really
shine a light into the AAPI community and experience that
you otherwise would not know about. And we follow them
from the Civic Sipher page and we've been able to
(23:17):
have establish a dialogue and let them know that we're
willing to support whenever we can. Another one is at
Next Shark, which is another group that does the same thing.
And then there's another one Asians never die. I like
that word or I like that name. But that's another one,
you know that he mentioned. And then of course we
(23:40):
went on to have a conversation about the history between
black people and Asian people in this country and how
you know, in a lot of ways we've been able
to support each other, but in a lot of ways
there's still a lot of growth that we need in
that relationship so that we can really be there for
each other in the ways that are really important. So
you know, more to come on that, But before we
go to break, I want you to mention any resources
(24:04):
that you may know that books can take advantage of.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, something I think is great is these bystander intervention
workshops that have been coming out. I was on the
Asian Americans Advancing Justice website. They're out of Chicago and
they do online workshops and so a lot of them
are flow right now, but stay on and like you know,
(24:28):
check them out and make sure that you can see
what they're doing. And then also in Arizona there's a
z A A NHPI for Equity and they do a
lot of great work to provide resources.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
More time, what was that.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
A Z A NHPI for equity. Okay, they've got a
lot of great resources.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Awesome, Okay, very good. So a lot to work with there.
And if you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm your host, Rams,
It's Josh. They call me q Ward Special guests in
the building. Shella, you was a member of the A
A p I Democratic Caucus who is just a wonderful
human being and helping share an experience with all of
(25:13):
us that we may not know about. And of course
resources to help support our Asian American and Pacific Islander
brothers and sisters. And uh, we also need to talk
about the goings on of this week. Q I want
you to do this because this week has been really
(25:36):
tough for me. I know it's been super tough for you,
but I want to share a story before I pass
the mic off. You know, as as I mentioned when
we started the show, we have to watch all of
these videos. It's not like you know that if you
(25:57):
if you know, you know that at a point you
just don't need to see it. You know, the way
the story goes, you don't need to see a human
being get executed, or you don't need to see someone
get hurt. It doesn't it's not cool to watch it.
It's so taxing and draining emotionally on your spirit. And
then once everything is drained from your spirit, you find
(26:19):
that all that's left in that space is tears. And
you know, you try to be as tough guy as
you want to be. You know, I don't really try
to be a tough guy, but you know, I'm old
enough to feel what I feel and not makeing excuses
for it. And I really do feel it. But this
week I was. I picked up my son from school.
(26:45):
You know, he's in kindergarten. You got out at ten
thirty or whatever. And then we went to grandma's house,
and I know she's listening, So I love you, Gotti.
We went there and you my son got to hang
out with his grandma, and then he went upstairs to
play with his cousins and that was that. And so
(27:06):
she and I are downstairs and we're talking. And if
you know Gotty, she's a New Yorker Black, the most
amazing person, just the light in so many people's lives.
And I need you to know that because I need
you to understand what happened. We got to talking, and
(27:33):
I says, hey, Gotty, I got to step outside for
a second because Q texted me a video that I
need to watch because he said he can't watch any
more videos. And got He asks me, well, what happened,
and I says, well, the police pulled over a young
(27:54):
man and the officer says she mistook her hazer for
a gun. They shot the boy. The young man he's twenty.
I'm thirty eight. I was an adult before he was born.
I think I can have that, but you can't call
him a boy. That's bad for your health. But they
(28:16):
shot him and he died in his car. He tried
to get away from the police, and we got to
talk him, and you know, everybody asks what happened, but
God he knows better, because God he knows that. You know,
it's common for any creature endowed with consciousness to seek
(28:38):
their customary freedom first and foremost, and anybody that challenges
that narrative, I immediately don't have any more space for
a conversation with you. But if I allowed for you
to get that off in my space, the next thing
(29:02):
would be, you know, why why is he running? You
know all these questions right now, I don't know how
true any of this stuff is, but I had to
do some research, and what I found is that he
had had he was too young to be carrying a
gun once upon a time, which is the same crime
(29:22):
that the guy in where was he when he shot
those people? The protesters rittenhouse, I think is his name,
and Kenosha there you go, same crime that he had.
You know, he had he was too young to carry
a gun, and you know I know that. Immediately folks
minds go to, oh, and then he ran from the
(29:43):
police before, perhaps for carrying a gun, And folks minds
go to, Okay, well, you know, why was he carrying
a gun in the first place? And I think right
there the hypocrisy begins because at that point, what we've
done is we've reframed this young man as criminal with
(30:05):
criminal intent, which may or may not be the case.
But I think to judge that is extremely unfair because
as a citizen of the United States, the only person
that could should judge him is an actual judge. Certainly
shouldn't be judged, tried, and executed on the street. But
(30:28):
I think that also that narrative fails to account for
so many other things, not the least of which is
that this whole country is gun crazy. The guns are
the cause and the solution quote unquote to all of
our problems. Guns and money. And you'll find if you
get old enough, then money won't save you. And you'll
(30:48):
find that if somebody pulls a gun out quicker than you,
that a gun won't save you. Guns are not for protection.
Guns are for murdering. Protection is a bulletproof best think
about it. But you know, these are just my thoughts.
The main thing that I think that folks have failed
to come to terms with is the history of why
(31:10):
a twenty year old child on his journey feel so
afraid of the world that he needs to carry a gun.
And my belief and what I've seen more often than not,
even when I listen to music that glorifies these sorts
of things, and when I watch movies, the types of
movies that are about you know, the places where Q
(31:33):
and I come from, Compton, Detroit, you know, cities like that,
is that the idea there is I'd rather be caught
with it than caught without it. And so you come
from an environment where having access to a weapon like
that may serve as preventative protection. You know, and I'll
(31:56):
allow for that. Again, I'm not a gun person at all.
You know that because we argue about it all the time,
but you know, I've had to allow for that space.
I walk my path and everyone else walks theirs. But
that environment was not created by black people to be
(32:21):
what it is. It's artificially constructed. We know in the
history of this country that when black people have gotten
together and hold their resources, our resources, and we've really
sought independence, economic and otherwise from you know, the larger community,
(32:44):
that it's often been snuffed out, literally burned to the
ground time and again. And ghettos are the direct result
of redlining, which we talk about on the show from
time to time, and if you're not familiar with it,
it is the illegal practice now of basically artificially inflating
(33:07):
property values and providing loans for white people to move
into white neighborhoods and denying anyone else, not just black people,
but anyone else from doing the same. And what you
see during the time where redlining was prevalent in the
early nineteen hundreds in this country is a massive shift
(33:28):
of wealth away from and there wasn't a lot to
begin with, away from black folks to white folks, which
a lot of white families still enjoy to this day.
And then you have impoverished communities, you have ghettos, and
in ghettos an impoverished community where there's lots of scarcity,
you get behaviors that are or often borderline criminal. And
(33:53):
again it necessitates some degree of protection from the environment
that you're born into. And so this child carrying a gun,
whether or not that's even true from an older traffic stop,
you know, that's why he had a warrant from having
a gun before and then running from the police before,
(34:17):
in no way warrants his execution. In no way that
we didn't have a gun at the time. I was
trying to run away from the police, understandably so, because
the police are very trigger happy in this country, and
he lost his life. You know, we've seen that if
you stay and cooperate, the police don't treat you good.
We've seen if you run away, the police don't treat
you good. There's really a no win situation. And so
(34:38):
I wanted to make sure that I said that because
as I was discussing this with Gotti, she looked at
me with this horrified look on her face. And when
I saw that look, I knew what was coming next
because I saw the picture of the the boy, Dante White,
(35:03):
and I knew that he bears a resemblance to her grandchildren,
nearly all of them. And I says, whatever you do,
please do not look at his picture, and she just
started balling. And when you see an older black woman
(35:26):
with the grays in her hair and the skin that
has been aged by time, and you see that face,
that beautiful face light up when she sees her posterity
run in the house and kiss her and run upstairs
to play their games, and she laughs and giggles in
(35:47):
the kitchen and has a good good time. When you
see that turned to fear and pain and you see
the tears squeeze from her face, it's the most heartbreaking
thing that you can imagine. And I wept with her
in that moment, composed myself. I went outside and I
watched the video. I made sure to stay outside long
(36:07):
enough for the winds in the house to change. And
I wanted to share that before I check in with you, Q,
because that's how my.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Week went, before I get into how my week went,
Because the last couple of weeks have been really rough.
I lost my father's first grandchild and my first nephew,
(36:41):
first niece or nephew, and my father's children's line to COVID.
This Thursday will be two weeks ago, and he just
learned he was going to be a father. Typically, that
(37:03):
be enough, except because of what we chose to do,
because of this space that we chose to occupy, there
is a level of trauma that we have to volunteer for.
(37:24):
It's the only way we can responsibly do this show.
So we see, hear about and read more of these
type of things than most people. I got dressed coming
here today, and when Grayson sees me get dressed, he
(37:48):
knows that I'm about to leave him. So as soon
as he sees me put on a shirt, he starts crying, like, Okay,
I know what this means. Dad, I'm three, but you're
getting dressed. You're about to leave me? And he cries,
And in the moment, it always seems silly, baby Daddy
has to go to work. I'll be back. Except for
(38:16):
a week. I couldn't celebrate my son out loud because
my oldest brother is preparing to bury his son. So
there was an inherent guilt, like I can't be out
here joyfully lifting my son up. My brother will see this,
and without trying, he's gonna think about the fact that,
(38:39):
in the way that you're not supposed to, he's preparing
to bury his first child. And then I just shared
a picture with my colleagues here in the studio of
Dante Wright and his son, and that guilt kicked in
(39:05):
even more. His one year old doesn't even get to
experience his dad. He won't have any memories of him.
So when I'm walking out of the door today and
my son starts crying, I can't even in good faith
(39:29):
reassure him that I'll be back. Because what we're starting
to learn is that there is nothing that we can
do to avoid this wrath that's just out here looking
for us. Dressing properly, pulling up our pants, speaking with
(39:55):
a good dialect, using the King English, staying in between
the lines on the highway, driving the speed limits, stopping
at the red light, using your blinker, saying no to drugs,
not drinking, not driving, complying yes sir, no sir, It
(40:15):
does not matter. It will seek us out, and with
everyone sitting at this table today, it will seek us
out because of how we look, because of the way
(40:36):
we entered the world, not because of any choices that
we made or didn't make, not because we did or
didn't listen to our parents, not because we do or
don't obey the laws. Because the person carrying around this
hate and resentment has made up their mind that their
(40:58):
world is better with out us in it, and we
just have to hope we're not the one they run
into that day. And in this space, even the thing
that says to serve and protect is scary, even more
(41:19):
so because they have a gun.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Now in the open carry state of Arizona, everyone might
have one. They definitely, but the officer that got behind
me when I turned off my street and route to
the studio right now definitely does. And now I'm driving
here terrified, and I've done absolutely nothing that happened right now.
(41:46):
I didn't get pulled over. I just saw a police
car behind me. And there's anxiety and fear and stress.
And that's with a cop car behind me. Now imagine
(42:08):
that cop isn't in his car anymore. He's standing next
to yours. And it's dark. I don't have to imagine,
and there's no one around totally. Don't have to imagine nothing,
and you can do nothing to protect yourself. The safest
thing you can do is rid yourself of your self pride,
(42:34):
rid yourself of your dignity, and bow to this person,
and then pray that that's enough. Be reverent, comply, be respectful,
yes sir, no sir.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Do whatever they.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Say, even if you fully understand that your human and
civil rights are being violated. Because the object is to
not die today.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
We're not trying to avoid jail.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
We're not trying to avoid this ticket that in a
lot of cases we don't even deserve because we had
an air freshener hanging from our rear view mirror. Let's
hope that this seasoned professional with a murder tool pointed
(43:28):
at you is in a better headspace than you are
as you sit there terrified. You're not comfortable, you're not rational,
you're scared. But let's hope the person that does this
for a living isn't more afraid than you, or that
(43:53):
they just don't hate you because you're you and feel
like killing you today with impunity, that's the part that hurts.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
There's no consequence, and your family and your friends almost know.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
That there's no consequence, and the event that they're charged,
the charge will be lesser, and the event that they're convicted,
the sentencing will be lighter. And in a lot of cases,
neither of those things even happen. You have cities, states, municipalities,
(44:36):
district attorneys that find no reason to even bring charges
even when it's recorded on video.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And that's something I want to talk about too. I
think it was in Virginia. The lieutenant, he's driving, he
bought a new vehicle. Right, he's driving, and it's when
he's turn on their lights, right, it's on camera. He
(45:05):
drives until he pulls into a well lit gas station.
This is what he says. But because the police were
behind him for a little bit, they treated it as
a hostile traffic stop, I guess is what they did.
And I want to talk more about this. But as
far as this goes, the reason that they turned the
(45:28):
lights on is because he didn't have a standard license plate,
and they said they couldn't see his paper tag from
the new vehicle in the wind in the back window.
But as soon as they got into the to the
gas station that was well lit, you could see it
in the video. You could see the paper. It's a
white square in the window.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
But do you know what also happens when you get
into a well lit area, you can see that the
motorist is black. The crime is the skin. It's not
the accent. The crime is your face. You can't take
it off. You can't speak well enough to change that.
(46:09):
We all look how we look. That's the crime, right,
even if there was no tag, no paper tag, no
heart plate, no nothing. Dude is literally riding dirty. Right,
he didn't just murder a building full of people with
an assault rifle. Because when they do that, and they
(46:33):
meaning white men in the United States, forgive, forgive the
change in my tone here when they do that, Let's
make sure they're okay. As a matter of fact, let's
make sure the public knows that they're not. Let's feel
sorry for them. Let's empathize because they must have been
(46:53):
through so much. They had a bad day. Thank you,
thank you, that right hurt. They had a bad day.
So you talk about the idea of that new pain,
and I think what you were describing as a callous.
(47:14):
It's happened to us so many times that the wound
has scabbed over, it still hurts, but it hurts different.
But there is a feeling of wanting to protect our
Asian American brothers and sisters for going through something that
we've gone through so much that we're like, yo.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Let me show you how to do this.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Stand behind me, let me take this, and I'm gonna
look at you and say that stand behind me. I
got you. We got you. If you can hear us,
we got you. If you're watching this on YouTube and
you can see us, we got you. Because silence cannot happen,
apathy cannot happen if one of us is going through this.
(47:59):
All of us are going through this period because the
fact that I can't confidently tell Grayson Anthony villaflor Ward
that I will be home to him tonight is a problem.
Because his father is an upstanding, college educated man with
(48:22):
no criminal record, who is never consumed to drink, never
tried or sold a drug. I should not have to
worry for my life when I see a police officer
who lied when he took the oath to serve and
protect me.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
So I think that it's really important to share a story.
And if you're just tuning in to Civic Cipher once again,
host Rams's job. They called me q Ward and we
have special guests with us. Shallow you again, a member
(49:08):
of the AAPI Democratic Caucus, artist, activist, and all around
awesome person. You know. I want to tell a story that,
of course had a different outcome from the UH, the
one that took place in Virginia, but similar in terms
(49:30):
of the experience. And this is for me, another person
who's never done a drug, another person who has never
drank alcohol. I don't even say bad words. I call
them bad words. And I'm thirty eight, you know, so
definitely say bad words. But you know what I'm saying,
Like I you know, definitely does not know me. You
won't catch me doing that. It's just not in me
(49:52):
like that. But anyway, you know, I think I have
my head on my shoulders, you know again, college educated
and you know, all the all the above, got a
lot to live for, never been in any nonsense. But
even if I was, you know, and let mean, somebody
has the right to please before you start your story.
Even if I was a criminal, a bailed out felon
(50:19):
with a T shirt that said gang member on it.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
I do not deserve to be murdered in the street.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Hard stop. So sorry. No, you're good. You're good. I
think that needs to be said. So yeah, A quick
story before we get out of here. Once upon a time,
I was driving in my brother's car, who he had
(50:56):
quote unquote inherited from my sister's boyfriend now fiance. Right,
my sister's boyfriend had moved out of town and left
the car and my little brother started driving it, and
so it became his car. I have a small interest
(51:16):
in a used car dealership, and so sometimes I switch
cars and sell cars, and people want to buy the
car i'm driving, and so that's what happened. So I'm
driving this hear me on this. It's a two thousand
and six and when this happened, it might have been
two thousand and seventeen eighteen somewhere in there. Two thousand
(51:40):
and six Dodge Magnum black tent, black interior with twenty
two inch rims on it. It is the most gang
bangorist drug deal in this car. You look like you're
just serving the block in this car. I cannot stand
driving that car because I know how it looks. You know,
(52:01):
I'm from California, right. I love lowriders. I think they're
the coolest things in the world. I have a low
rider bike downstairs in my house, and you know, I
recognize it. To a lot of police it looks like criminal.
You know, it's not cultural. It's criminal, but of course
over here it's cultural anyway. Driving the car, and of
(52:24):
course it's not a terrible looking car, it just looks like,
you know, I'm moving that weight as it were. So
I had just driven it to I think somewhere in Chandler,
I want to say, wild Horse Pass and I picked
up ten thousand dollars cash.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
That's really appen, Oh wow, and it's getting good.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah. So again, fortunately nothing happens. So I don't want to, like,
you know, scare anyone. But yeah, so I got ten
thousand dollars and I was wearing some they're like boot
boots with zippers, right, I've seen those. Yeah, I got
like kind of a cool style, I think. So immediately
I take the ten thousand dollars because it's a brick.
You know, when you get that money from the bank,
it has the band around it and says how much
(53:13):
it is. So I put it in my boot because
why what else am I going to put it? It's going
to fall out of my pocket and I know my
boots have zippers, so boom, and then it just looks
terrible to someone who's looking for something to you know, suspicious, right,
But I had to pick up this money because I
was completing a transaction and the person that I was
(53:33):
meeting pays the cash. You know, there's no problem there.
And usually having large sums of money is not the
weirdest thing in the world when you work in the
industry in which you know have interests. So I'm driving
on the freeway in a car that's not mine, in
a car that's not my brothers, and what happens is
(53:57):
I'm right by the airport driving and the police get
behind me and they turn the lights on. Right, so
a medium uh oh, because you know, my sister's boyfriend
is Jamaican, and Jamaican people, at least the ones that
I know, they are take in some things which are
(54:20):
now perfectly legal, you know, but he hasn't driven this
car for years. So but you know, your mind goes
to all the places because immediately literally you're like, Okay,
what is going to happen to me? Not even what
did I do, but what is going to what could
happen to me exactly. And so the mistake that I
(54:41):
made was, you know, being on the freeway the freeway
splits where I live by the airport, there's a split
in the freeway and I'm supposed to be on the
split on the right side, but on the left side
it goes to a whole different freeway, a whole different direction,
and I'm not. I don't go that way, So I'm
lost if I go over there. But the police are
behind me trying to pull me over. So just like
(55:02):
the story in Virginia, I slow down, I turn on
my hazards or blinker or something like that, so the
police know I'm not trying to run away evading evading, correct,
But I didn't pull right over because I would have
been lost and it would have been dangerous if you
(55:23):
would have seen it. So I'm waiting for the kind
of the fork to arrive at the fork and then
I can pull over in that area and they can
get out and do their business. But then they start
like honking the horn and flashing the lights at me,
and so now I'm like really afraid because of that
(55:44):
same thing, Like if they're upset, it's going to be
very bad for me. So I pull all the way
over right, and they, of course because I didn't pull over,
immediately treated it like it was a hostile and traffic stuff.
So it's like guns blazing this whole thing. So they
get out. They got guns on me, and I know
the drill because I don't know if I mentioned it
(56:05):
on the show before, but I'm from Compton. So even
before I was getting pulled out of the car, I've
seen other people get pulled out of the car, and
I know the easiest way to survive is you roll
the window down and you put both of your hands
outside of the window, facing away from the officer, just
like that so they can see your hands. Yeah, leave
them there until they approach the vehicle. Then you have
your conversation. So that's what happened. They walked up. By
(56:27):
the time they got to me, I could see that
they put their guns away and the guy started talking
to me. Of course, he asked me to step out
of the vehicle. And I'm not the one to play
that game because I want to live and I know
how this goes, so like, okay, step out of vehicle.
Of course, I called my sister and let her know
what was going on. This was a few years before
Facebook Live and all that sort of stuff, so that
(56:48):
was what I did get out of the car, and
of course they asked me all the standard questions, Have
you been drinking any drugs? These sorts of things, And
I tell them the answer, no, sir, I've never drank
alcohol in my life. No, sir, I've never done any
drug in my life. I don't even like taking medicine
just in case I have to talk to you one day.
(57:12):
I didn't say that last part isn't when I upset him,
but you know what I'm saying, like, that's really the reason.
So you know, he later tells me, he's like, Yo,
that sounds like exactly like something a method would say.
So that's why we pressed you on this. And I
was like, oh, well, now I know not to say
that I've never drank alcohol in my life and never
done a drug in money, but you know, he could
(57:32):
tell that I was not inebriated, because again I've never
been inebriated. And then they started asking me where I
was going and where I was coming from, which for
some reason is important because that's what happened on the
videos we saw this week. Some of the videos. So
you know, I told him I'm leaving the casino. I
(57:53):
had to, you know, conduct a business transaction. I'm praying
that he doesn't check my shoe because and it's all
over and they find that tenjis and pulling my boot,
which they didn't find. But the whole time, I'm sweating
because of that, I'm super nervous. And the thing that
bailed me out, and this has been a get out
of jail free card for me a couple of times
over the years, is that I work on radio and
(58:16):
when they called for backup, one of his partners recognized
me as being a DJ, and then ultimately the first
guy ended up apologizing and everything went well. But anyway,
I'm saying that to say that I relate to the trauma,
to the stress, and to everything that goes along with
these stories. Unfortunately, we're out of time for this week,
and so please do us a favor of visit the
(58:36):
website civicsipher dot com download this in any previous episodes.
I want to thank our guest Shelley you for coming
to hang out with us.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Thank you so much, thanking.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
And be sure to check us out next week. Both myself,
Ramsa's jaw and q ward And until then, y'all peace, peace,
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