April 18, 2025 • 32 mins
BIN News anchors Alexandria Ikomoni and Rey Harris join Hosts Ramses Ja and Q Ward on today's episode to recap this week's major stories.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's been another busy news week and we like to
review the major stories of the week here on the
Black Information Network. Today, we are joined by Black Information
Network news anchors Alexandria Ikimoni and Ray Harris to discuss
this week's major stories. This is the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast. I'm your host ramses.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Jah and I'm your host Qward.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
All right, Alexandria, Icamoni and Ray Harris, Welcome back to
the show. Alexandria, talk to me, tell me something. What's
the latest?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hi, happy to be back as always, nothing crazy going
on of course the news right now, there's a lot
going on there, so lots to talk about, lots to discuss,
but I'm grateful just to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All right, we'll get to it soon. And Ray, anything
new and exciting in your world?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
He just trying to keep up with his planet. A
good react to you, guys, Hope, Paul as well. All right,
Well let's get to it then.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
First off, we're gonna kick this week's show off with
an update on how the immigration policies of the Trump
administration are unfairly impacting the lives of innocent people in
our communities. Alexandria We're gonna start with you share with
our listeners the latest on the deportation case of kill
Maar Brigo Garcia, and then Ray and Q will get
your thoughts next.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Absolutely so, Maryland Senator Chris van Holland isn't giving up
his fight to bring home the Maryland man mistakenly deported.
He says that he's considering another trip to El Salvador
well where kill Maar Garcia is being held in a
very high security prison.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Van Holland he actually flew out to the country recently,
but was stonewall with meet after meeting excuse me, with
the Salvador El Salvador's vice president, he actually was denied
a chance to see Garcia. He did speak to him
on the phone, though, But there is so much happening
with this case and updates are constantly coming in. So
(01:49):
I really just encourage listeners to stay up to date
with the Black Information Network as we continue to follow
this quick case closely, because it just continues to move
and move quickly.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Right your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
According to the Trump administration, this is the first phase
of their deportation efforts, so it's going to get more aggressive.
What we see or hear about more cases like this,
probably so because they're moving so fast, and you know,
in this country, we're quick to go to court regarding
(02:27):
incidents of any type or anything with as legal ties
to it. So I would suggest that there's a high
probability that this will not be the last case that
we see as the Trump administration so quote.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You know, they say they're going.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
To speed up their efforts, and this is just the
first phase. So it remains to be seen how that
plays out and how people's lives are affected. And I'm
sure it will probably end up in court.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
You know, one of our most shared and viewed conversations
was about this very thing, and this was during the
election cycle, before this person was our president. Again, and
you know, ignoring the instruction of the Supreme Court and
(03:26):
just aggressively finding groups of people that they have a
problem with and displacing and oppressing them is a really
interesting thing to watch happen. I think more people should
be far more alarmed and upset, but I think people
are finding a way to compartmentalize this into it happening
to other people. Even when he says, you know, the homegrowns,
(03:50):
you know, talking specifically about American citizens. Some American citizens
hear that, and they don't hear themselves. They hear the
bad guys or the illegals or the you know whatever.
They convinced themselves. It's true, ignoring the fact that simply
disagreeing with this administration could put you in their crosshairs.
Simply criticizing this administration could put you in their crosshairs.
(04:13):
The young man that is in now Salvador is all
of us, a US citizen improperly detained, sent away to
a foreign country to be put into an essence of
concentration camp. And with the Supreme Court saying, hey, that's
not okay, that's not right, that's illegal, and the administration saying, well,
too bad, we did it already and there's nothing we
(04:34):
can do. It should be a very loud and blaring
alarm bell for everyone that's watching this happen. It's a
very very dangerous precedent, and God bless us all up. Next,
some sad news to report out of New York City
involving a horrible incident caught on camera that many feel
(04:55):
was racially motivated and warrants a hate crime charge. Little
bit more about this story Alexandria and Ramses will come
to you after.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Okay, cute, Yes, this is an unfortunate incident. Mister Troy McLeod,
a resident in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York,
was out walking his dogs. But to the twist to
this story is mister McLeod is wheelchair bound and he
(05:28):
went by a home and the homeowner came out and
claimed that mister McLeod's dogs were intimidating the homeowner's children
and he asked him to move across the street. Mister
McLeod did try to avoid confrontation in his wheelchair and
(05:50):
moved across the street with his dogs, but he was
addressed again by the same individual who has been identified
as Lee Levi Kabakoff, and mister Kabokov allegedly assaulted mister
McLeod in the wheelchair. He has since been arrested, faces
(06:14):
several charges in the case, has bonded out of jail,
but the incident was caught on video from another person
who was very very disturbed by the entire suasi. Unfortunately,
assaults are up around the nation due to the increased
(06:38):
intention that everybody's experiencing but also we're hearing more about
these things as a result of everybody having a camera
or you know, recording device. So these incidents are you know,
being reported and followed up by authorities more prevalently now.
(07:02):
But it is a situation that's unfortunate because you have
a handicapped individual. It's being a you know, being assaulted
by someone who really wanted to take out their aggression.
But it's unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Alexandria, Yeah, watching the video was just very sad to see.
You even heard the woman recording in the video that
I saw, I was like, that is a man in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And those are my same sentiments, what are you doing?
Especially since you know, like how Ray said, he separated himself.
And I also want to point out that dogs also
had muzzles on. That's what it was being reported, So
why what was the reason? Why are you taking it
to that level? It was just very sad and heartbreaking
(07:55):
to watch.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
You got some thoughts on this one, Yeah, yeah, I
the one thing that so for folks that haven't seen
the video, the gentleman who is assaulting the wheelchair bound
man is visibly Jewish rights based on his dress, and
so forth. And obviously the man in the wheelchair is
(08:23):
visibly disabled and visibly black, and so this is why
there are calls for you know, this to be the
charge to be a hate crime charge. It seems like
the gentleman in the wheelchair, uh, is not as angry
(08:45):
as I would have been, perhaps, and that probably speaks
to his character, or maybe he's just you know, maybe
he's a gentle soul, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But one thing that I.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Will say is that this is really a bad look
across the board because at a time when there needs
to be more in the way of solidarity, I could
conceive of a reality like this coming together based on
(09:19):
Kanye tweets, based on the conflict in Palestine, things like this,
and then then manifesting in you know, our day to
day lives like this. And I obviously there's there's one
person in the in the video that's the aggressor and
(09:41):
one person who is the victim. The victim is a
black man, And for people to ask for that to
be considered a hate crime, I don't think that's stretches
the imagination at all. But I think it's important to
say that throughout our history in this country, black people
and Jewish people have worked in together to established civil rights.
(10:03):
I know the NAACP was founded by black people with
the support of Jewish people. And I never like to
see conflict like this at all. It's a bad look
right now, especially when Jewish people are kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Dealing with a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Perhaps they disagree with Israel, perhaps they agree with Israel,
but you know that response in Palestine is of course
something that is given the world pause. And you know,
not enough can be said about Like I said, you know,
(10:47):
the media ourselves included platforming. You know a lot of
the anti Semitism that comes from Kanye West, just because
he's such a visible figure. You know, who's to say
what contributes to a moment like this, But you know
it's to me it's heartbreaking because you know, obviously you
(11:08):
know Q and I we work in the allyship space,
and so you know those allyship you know, those relationships
get strained when you're dealing with forces like the ones
we're discussing in this conversation, and that strain manifest itself
in videos like this, and it's just something you don't
like to see.
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Black Information Network news anchors Alexandria Acimoni and Ray Harris
are here with us discussing this week's major stories. All right,
we head to Georgia now, where the pastor of an
Atlanta church is catching criticism for his Sunday sermon on
blacks and law enforcement. Alexandria, you covered the Atlanta market
for the Black Information Network, So let's go back to
you tell us more about this story, and then Ray
(12:47):
and of course.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Q, we're gonna get your thoughts as well.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So he is a black pastor here in Atlanta at
a church called twenty nineteen. It's a very popular church here,
especially with social media and TikTok. A lot of people
found this church. But pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell told the
congregation and this is a quote to be submittal to
government authority end quote. He actually doubled down on the comment,
(13:11):
adding quote, stop blaming white cops for the killing of
black kids.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
That was what he said.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And then he said instead, quote, teach your black children
to be obedient to authority.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I want to put those direct quotes out there to
let you guys know I'm not paraphrasing that is exactly
what he said, so people on social media did not
let that slide at all. People were saying the sermon
sounds like what you would hear at a Trump rally.
Someone called him a maga pastor, and I said he
was black at the beginning on purpose, and now someone's
calling him a maga pastor. There were other posts including
(13:47):
that people it's people like him who kept you know,
a lot of people enslave for so long. So a
lot has been going on in regards to response from
people in the community about what he has said. And
I'm very curious to know how this affects a church because,
like I mentioned before, it's a very big popular church
for black you really young adults, even not even you know,
(14:09):
young adults don't go to church as much as you
know the next the older generation, but it's a very
popular church that has a big population of young adults.
I'm very curious to know how this will affect, you know,
the church and what they have going on, because people
are not going to accept certain things, and this is
one of them.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Ray.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
This is one of several stories trending involving black pastors
as over the last few weeks and I think that
a lot of this comes down to, as Alexandria mentioned
that this particular church is very big on social media,
(14:53):
So when you're on social media, you're subjected to scrutiny
of any kind, and I think that's, you know, one
of the situations where pastors are in the pull bit.
They have to make the decision of what they're going
to talk about and how they're going to present themselves,
and a lot of times, you know, there are people
(15:17):
out there that will second guess or you know, uh,
take it the wrong way or misinterpret the message. In
this particular case, it's out there on social media, and
the pastor let his opinion be known. And you know,
there's two sides to every coin, so in this particular case,
(15:41):
there's a lot of people that disagree with his actions,
but it's a part of being out there in social media.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Thank you before you Q before you say anything.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Because I work with you, I kind of have an
idea of where you're going to go with this. But
I'm so excited to hear your response here because this
has troubled me and we haven't been able to talk
about it. This has troubled me ever since I read
it So I'm listening to you like intently because your
(16:21):
insight is going to help me make heads or tails
of this too.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So the floor is yours. So, as a black father.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Raising black children, I go back to a film that
I watched called American Skin, where this father is raising
his young man to be strong, to be self reliant,
to have dignity, to have self respect, to respect others,
but to demand the same of others for himself, to
(16:54):
be a good citizen, to be a good human, to
stand up for others that are weaker than him. But
when faced with law enforcement, he's torn between telling his
son to forget everything he ever taught him so that
he can survive. If you ever encounter law enforcement, son,
(17:18):
even though you know your rights, don't fight for them,
don't stand up for yourself. Even if what's happening to
you is unlawful or illegal or disrespectful, allow it to
happen so that you can make it home to me alive.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Imagine the message that we have to send to our children,
and imagine the congregation of a black pastor telling them,
and it's not the CoP's fault that they're killing us.
We need to behave better. We need to comply. We
need to fall in line. We need to listen. Victim
(18:01):
blaming on steroids and a denying of oneselves, self worth,
self respect, dignity when faced with unlawful, harmful, aggressive, violent
treatment by those who are sworn to protect you. In
(18:25):
the event that things don't work out the right way,
it's your fault. It's your children's fault, it's your son's fault.
Straighten up and fly right, fall in line, comply. The
messaging should sound again very very dangerous and very very frightening,
(18:47):
coming from someone who's a trusted leader. You you know,
as the son of a pastor in rams as you
can relate the way that we view the pastor in
the black church is a very very.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Is in very very high regard. Are the deference, the
respect the.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Assumed leader of entire communities telling those communities. And the
event that you are mistreated by law enforcement, you need
to take a look at yourself. Stop blaming police officers
for killing us. Do a better job at compliance and
(19:31):
obeying their orders. It's a I can't imagine, well, actually
I can't imagine how all of us felt reading that.
And for those who are able to see or hear audio.
Oh man, I'll move on because I'll get too emotional
(19:53):
thinking about it. My greatest fear is my children ever
having to face that, because I've had to face it myself.
I've had to face it with Ramses having to in
real time make a decision on whether or not today
is the day where it's worth standing up from our
rights or do I just want to make it out
of this situation alive. And I'd wager that only black
(20:16):
citizens in this country have to reconcile that decision for
a traffic stop. We close out this week's show with
yet another moment of how did this happen on Live TV? Ray,
Let's hear more about this TV snafu from you, and
then Alexandria and Ramses will close out with.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You H four our non listeners and television viewers that
are not in California. KTLA is a strong, very strong
station on Los Angeles. They recently, I think back in
the mid nineties they flipped over from independent to a
(21:01):
CW affiliate. But KTLA has always had a huge following
in Los Angeles and because they are community driven, so
a lot of people watch the station. That's just to
give our listeners who are not in California better perspective
of what the station is all about.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
But recently some body tweeted the N word and it
popped up.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
And as we all know, once you send something, once
it's out there, it's out there, and it only takes
a matter of seconds before someone can keep it. Even
though you could take the tweet back, you know it
can be recorded or snapshot and saved. But someone tweeted
(21:59):
the word from kt LA. Now the station's position on
this queue is they're not sure if it's an inside
job someone at the station actually got into the account
in the center tweet, or if it's an outside job.
They have not said that their account has been hacked,
(22:22):
so internal investigation is underway. People are responding and asking
for KTLA to take charge of the situation and make
sure it doesn't happen again. But to the defense of
the station and looking at the other side of it,
where all of the media outlets are driven by technology
(22:48):
and it can be hacked, including the bi in and
we have to be very wary of that because there
are bad people out there who try to get their
messages out. So whether this is inside job or someone
hacked their account, which again Katla has not responded to.
(23:11):
You have to be very very careful of that and
watch these media platforms because people are listening, people are watching,
and once it's out there, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Alexandria, Yeah, I was doing some research just really recently
about it as well, so I was seeing that more
information of what they were saying, and they actually did
put out a tweet saying that it was a technical
error when adding language filters to their social media accounts
(23:46):
result resulting in what happened. So how I took it
as was they were trying to filter that word and
have tweets not pop up with that word, and instead
somehow it got posts did publicly.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
So they did put out a statement in regards to that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
But if that's the case, then you were really trying
to filter that word to not have tweets on your
timeline with that information or with that word included. It raises,
you know, a question in me, because why are you
trying to block out that word from tweets coming in
(24:25):
in a stands in a sense of being on the
news side of things, right, So I'm looking at it
in a way of there are news stories where we
see people using the N word and racist. You know
comments are being made and hate crimes are happening.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
So if you're filtering out a word.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
That is used in order to understand what's going on
to accurately report, you're missing out on important stories that
need to be told. So that's the mindset I was
looking at it when I was seeing this story as to,
you know, understand what was going on. My first question
is why are you filtering that out? No one should
be using it. That's not what I'm saying. You should
(25:03):
not be using it, but you need to understand what
people are saying to accurately report on certain.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
Situations, especially in the ex climate that we're in politically.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Ramses. You think it was a filter, I do.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Okay, there's going to be people that are going to
disagree with me here, and I'll make my case and
fight my battle in the comments per usual. Okay, First off,
my position is that we have enough to get to
get upset about. We absolutely have enough to get upset about.
(25:44):
We have real things in the real world that are
affecting real outcomes that we can get upset about. We
have to be mindful of that dynamic. We have to
be focused on where we you know, put our energy,
and we have to try to create the changes that
(26:07):
will make the world a better place for us. Right. So,
I know that social media kind of leads all of
us to you know, these like base limbic feelings and responses,
but I don't think that this is really worth our attention.
Here's why. First off, I blame Twitter. I think that
(26:31):
anybody who's still on Twitter really needs to come to
terms with the fact that they are on a platform
owned by a Nazi that supports a Nazi full stop.
I recognize people have Twitter followers and they feel like
they can get their voice out, but the exchange there
(26:51):
is that you are supporting a Nazi Ktla included. Okay,
so no one's blameless here but Twitter, because it's owned
by a Nazi. His first move was to remove that
filter in the first place, like the inWORD can now
fly free because he's a free speech absolutist except when
(27:14):
it comes to criticizing him or his friends or the president.
So not only is he a Nazi, he's a hypocrite
and to remove that inward makes that place immediately unsafe
for black people. The argument has been made that using
the inWORD is in of itself an act of violence,
(27:36):
and so for him to allow that violence that is
specifically targeted at our people to fly free, I think
that anybody black certainly needs to ask themselves a series
of questions about their presence on that platform.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Okay, I'll move on. KTLA moving to.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
List that word as one of their filters is plausible.
I can't say for certain that it happened that way,
but it's plausible. Okay, I'm gonna circle back to that
in a second. That explanation makes sense because who would
just tweet that word to delete it? Imagine how difficult
it is to get to that level where you're working
(28:21):
for KTLA. This isn't you know Wichita News. This is
big business. This is Los Angeles, right, That is a
big station for folks that don't know, and you don't
get to that point and make a mistake or jeopardize
your career or whatever like that, just.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
To do it right now.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It's not impossible that that wouldn't happen, but it's very unlikely.
So again we're kind of leaning into plausibility here. Finally,
KTLA has a history of working with black people, hiring
(29:02):
black talent that I that I know of, right, you know,
and I'm not going to act like I know they're
every move inside and out. But you know, I often
see Big Boy on KTLA, and Big Boy of course
his family here. He's personally family, you know, with me
and Q when I say family, we're not technically related,
(29:22):
but you know that's fam, right, And you know he's
always on that channel, right, And so that station in
and of itself doesn't feel racist. Now you could argue
that it was alone actor, sure, but I'd argue that
they were probably doing what I established as the more
(29:43):
plausible explanation, which is themselves inserting a filter so that
they don't have tweets on their timeline criticizing them for
putting black people on the air, criticizing them for covering
black stories, criticizing them, you know, by the most racist
elements in this country. We've covered hate crimes in California
against black people since Donald Trump's been elected. And so
(30:06):
to me, that suggests that there might be a hateful
base there that might be sending tweets to this account
calling us a word that is a kin to violence,
And for them to make that move seems plausible enough. Now,
even if I'm wrong about all of these things, the
degree to which people got upset about this, like, we
(30:29):
could focus that energy on things that really matter, systems
that are really oppressive.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, And so there's my take.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I get that, you know, everything counts, but in a
moment like this, focusing our energy on what counts the most,
I think that's worth all the attention that people through
at the comments. I think if all those people called
their senators and you know, and put their energy into
something a little bit more productive, I think that we'd
be on a track to actually make the changes that
(30:58):
we need to see. I don't think that this is
what the comments section has made it out to be.
With that said, I open myself up to the response
per usual. I'm sure the red microphone talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app will be as active as ever. With
that in mind, I'd like to thank the both of
you very much for your time in your inside once again,
(31:19):
Today's guest or Black Information Network News anchors Alexandria Ikimoni
and Ray Harris. This has been a production of the
Black Information Network. Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share, use the red
microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. While you're there,
be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes.
(31:41):
I'm your Host, Ramse's Job on all.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Social media, I am Qward on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And we'll be hosting another episode of Civic Cipher this
weekend on a station near you. For stations, showtimes, and
podcast info, jack Civiccipher dot com and join us Monday
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the Black Information Network Daily podcast
It's been another busy news week and we like to
review the major stories of the week here on the
Black Information Network. Today, we are joined by Black Information
Network news anchors Alexandria Ikimoni and Ray Harris to discuss
this week's major stories. This is the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast. I'm your host ramses.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Jah and I'm your host Qward.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
All right, Alexandria, Icamoni and Ray Harris, Welcome back to
the show. Alexandria, talk to me, tell me something. What's
the latest?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hi, happy to be back as always, nothing crazy going
on of course the news right now, there's a lot
going on there, so lots to talk about, lots to discuss,
but I'm grateful just to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All right, we'll get to it soon. And Ray, anything
new and exciting in your world?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
He just trying to keep up with his planet. A
good react to you, guys, Hope, Paul as well. All right,
Well let's get to it then.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
First off, we're gonna kick this week's show off with
an update on how the immigration policies of the Trump
administration are unfairly impacting the lives of innocent people in
our communities. Alexandria We're gonna start with you share with
our listeners the latest on the deportation case of kill
Maar Brigo Garcia, and then Ray and Q will get
your thoughts next.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Absolutely so, Maryland Senator Chris van Holland isn't giving up
his fight to bring home the Maryland man mistakenly deported.
He says that he's considering another trip to El Salvador
well where kill Maar Garcia is being held in a
very high security prison.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Van Holland he actually flew out to the country recently,
but was stonewall with meet after meeting excuse me, with
the Salvador El Salvador's vice president, he actually was denied
a chance to see Garcia. He did speak to him
on the phone, though, But there is so much happening
with this case and updates are constantly coming in. So
(01:49):
I really just encourage listeners to stay up to date
with the Black Information Network as we continue to follow
this quick case closely, because it just continues to move
and move quickly.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Right your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
According to the Trump administration, this is the first phase
of their deportation efforts, so it's going to get more aggressive.
What we see or hear about more cases like this,
probably so because they're moving so fast, and you know,
in this country, we're quick to go to court regarding
(02:27):
incidents of any type or anything with as legal ties
to it. So I would suggest that there's a high
probability that this will not be the last case that
we see as the Trump administration so quote.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You know, they say they're going.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
To speed up their efforts, and this is just the
first phase. So it remains to be seen how that
plays out and how people's lives are affected. And I'm
sure it will probably end up in court.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
You know, one of our most shared and viewed conversations
was about this very thing, and this was during the
election cycle, before this person was our president. Again, and
you know, ignoring the instruction of the Supreme Court and
(03:26):
just aggressively finding groups of people that they have a
problem with and displacing and oppressing them is a really
interesting thing to watch happen. I think more people should
be far more alarmed and upset, but I think people
are finding a way to compartmentalize this into it happening
to other people. Even when he says, you know, the homegrowns,
(03:50):
you know, talking specifically about American citizens. Some American citizens
hear that, and they don't hear themselves. They hear the
bad guys or the illegals or the you know whatever.
They convinced themselves. It's true, ignoring the fact that simply
disagreeing with this administration could put you in their crosshairs.
Simply criticizing this administration could put you in their crosshairs.
(04:13):
The young man that is in now Salvador is all
of us, a US citizen improperly detained, sent away to
a foreign country to be put into an essence of
concentration camp. And with the Supreme Court saying, hey, that's
not okay, that's not right, that's illegal, and the administration saying, well,
too bad, we did it already and there's nothing we
(04:34):
can do. It should be a very loud and blaring
alarm bell for everyone that's watching this happen. It's a
very very dangerous precedent, and God bless us all up. Next,
some sad news to report out of New York City
involving a horrible incident caught on camera that many feel
(04:55):
was racially motivated and warrants a hate crime charge. Little
bit more about this story Alexandria and Ramses will come
to you after.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Okay, cute, Yes, this is an unfortunate incident. Mister Troy McLeod,
a resident in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York,
was out walking his dogs. But to the twist to
this story is mister McLeod is wheelchair bound and he
(05:28):
went by a home and the homeowner came out and
claimed that mister McLeod's dogs were intimidating the homeowner's children
and he asked him to move across the street. Mister
McLeod did try to avoid confrontation in his wheelchair and
(05:50):
moved across the street with his dogs, but he was
addressed again by the same individual who has been identified
as Lee Levi Kabakoff, and mister Kabokov allegedly assaulted mister
McLeod in the wheelchair. He has since been arrested, faces
(06:14):
several charges in the case, has bonded out of jail,
but the incident was caught on video from another person
who was very very disturbed by the entire suasi. Unfortunately,
assaults are up around the nation due to the increased
(06:38):
intention that everybody's experiencing but also we're hearing more about
these things as a result of everybody having a camera
or you know, recording device. So these incidents are you know,
being reported and followed up by authorities more prevalently now.
(07:02):
But it is a situation that's unfortunate because you have
a handicapped individual. It's being a you know, being assaulted
by someone who really wanted to take out their aggression.
But it's unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Alexandria, Yeah, watching the video was just very sad to see.
You even heard the woman recording in the video that
I saw, I was like, that is a man in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And those are my same sentiments, what are you doing?
Especially since you know, like how Ray said, he separated himself.
And I also want to point out that dogs also
had muzzles on. That's what it was being reported, So
why what was the reason? Why are you taking it
to that level? It was just very sad and heartbreaking
(07:55):
to watch.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
You got some thoughts on this one, Yeah, yeah, I
the one thing that so for folks that haven't seen
the video, the gentleman who is assaulting the wheelchair bound
man is visibly Jewish rights based on his dress, and
so forth. And obviously the man in the wheelchair is
(08:23):
visibly disabled and visibly black, and so this is why
there are calls for you know, this to be the
charge to be a hate crime charge. It seems like
the gentleman in the wheelchair, uh, is not as angry
(08:45):
as I would have been, perhaps, and that probably speaks
to his character, or maybe he's just you know, maybe
he's a gentle soul, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But one thing that I.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Will say is that this is really a bad look
across the board because at a time when there needs
to be more in the way of solidarity, I could
conceive of a reality like this coming together based on
(09:19):
Kanye tweets, based on the conflict in Palestine, things like this,
and then then manifesting in you know, our day to
day lives like this. And I obviously there's there's one
person in the in the video that's the aggressor and
(09:41):
one person who is the victim. The victim is a
black man, And for people to ask for that to
be considered a hate crime, I don't think that's stretches
the imagination at all. But I think it's important to
say that throughout our history in this country, black people
and Jewish people have worked in together to established civil rights.
(10:03):
I know the NAACP was founded by black people with
the support of Jewish people. And I never like to
see conflict like this at all. It's a bad look
right now, especially when Jewish people are kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Dealing with a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Perhaps they disagree with Israel, perhaps they agree with Israel,
but you know that response in Palestine is of course
something that is given the world pause. And you know,
not enough can be said about Like I said, you know,
(10:47):
the media ourselves included platforming. You know a lot of
the anti Semitism that comes from Kanye West, just because
he's such a visible figure. You know, who's to say
what contributes to a moment like this, But you know
it's to me it's heartbreaking because you know, obviously you
(11:08):
know Q and I we work in the allyship space,
and so you know those allyship you know, those relationships
get strained when you're dealing with forces like the ones
we're discussing in this conversation, and that strain manifest itself
in videos like this, and it's just something you don't
like to see.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Black Black peaks of the planet.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
I go by the name of Charlamagne to God and
I can't wait to see y'all at the third annual
Black Effect Podcast Festival.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's right, Yeah, number three, Baby Black Called Black Rose
More Black.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
CEO be coming back to Pullman Yard Saturday night with
twenty six in Atlanta, coasted by none other than Mandy
B and Weeezy. That's right, Decisions, Decisions. The Black Effect
is bringing some of the biggest and best podcasts in
the world.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
To the stage a one day only.
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Ready, we got the R and B Money Podcast with
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with Carrie Chair, and the Trap Nerds podcast. We're more
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We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black owned businesses,
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(12:11):
you visit us. All right, and for all my firing podcasters,
we got something for you too.
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We got informative panels and you can go to the
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Flash Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Black Information Network news anchors Alexandria Acimoni and Ray Harris
are here with us discussing this week's major stories. All right,
we head to Georgia now, where the pastor of an
Atlanta church is catching criticism for his Sunday sermon on
blacks and law enforcement. Alexandria, you covered the Atlanta market
for the Black Information Network, So let's go back to
you tell us more about this story, and then Ray
(12:47):
and of course.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Q, we're gonna get your thoughts as well.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So he is a black pastor here in Atlanta at
a church called twenty nineteen. It's a very popular church here,
especially with social media and TikTok. A lot of people
found this church. But pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell told the
congregation and this is a quote to be submittal to
government authority end quote. He actually doubled down on the comment,
(13:11):
adding quote, stop blaming white cops for the killing of
black kids.
Speaker 6 (13:16):
That was what he said.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And then he said instead, quote, teach your black children
to be obedient to authority.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I want to put those direct quotes out there to
let you guys know I'm not paraphrasing that is exactly
what he said, so people on social media did not
let that slide at all. People were saying the sermon
sounds like what you would hear at a Trump rally.
Someone called him a maga pastor, and I said he
was black at the beginning on purpose, and now someone's
calling him a maga pastor. There were other posts including
(13:47):
that people it's people like him who kept you know,
a lot of people enslave for so long. So a
lot has been going on in regards to response from
people in the community about what he has said. And
I'm very curious to know how this affects a church because,
like I mentioned before, it's a very big popular church
for black you really young adults, even not even you know,
(14:09):
young adults don't go to church as much as you
know the next the older generation, but it's a very
popular church that has a big population of young adults.
I'm very curious to know how this will affect, you know,
the church and what they have going on, because people
are not going to accept certain things, and this is
one of them.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Ray.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
This is one of several stories trending involving black pastors
as over the last few weeks and I think that
a lot of this comes down to, as Alexandria mentioned
that this particular church is very big on social media,
(14:53):
So when you're on social media, you're subjected to scrutiny
of any kind, and I think that's, you know, one
of the situations where pastors are in the pull bit.
They have to make the decision of what they're going
to talk about and how they're going to present themselves,
and a lot of times, you know, there are people
(15:17):
out there that will second guess or you know, uh,
take it the wrong way or misinterpret the message. In
this particular case, it's out there on social media, and
the pastor let his opinion be known. And you know,
there's two sides to every coin, so in this particular case,
(15:41):
there's a lot of people that disagree with his actions,
but it's a part of being out there in social media.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Thank you before you Q before you say anything.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Because I work with you, I kind of have an
idea of where you're going to go with this. But
I'm so excited to hear your response here because this
has troubled me and we haven't been able to talk
about it. This has troubled me ever since I read
it So I'm listening to you like intently because your
(16:21):
insight is going to help me make heads or tails
of this too.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So the floor is yours. So, as a black father.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
Raising black children, I go back to a film that
I watched called American Skin, where this father is raising
his young man to be strong, to be self reliant,
to have dignity, to have self respect, to respect others,
but to demand the same of others for himself, to
(16:54):
be a good citizen, to be a good human, to
stand up for others that are weaker than him. But
when faced with law enforcement, he's torn between telling his
son to forget everything he ever taught him so that
he can survive. If you ever encounter law enforcement, son,
(17:18):
even though you know your rights, don't fight for them,
don't stand up for yourself. Even if what's happening to
you is unlawful or illegal or disrespectful, allow it to
happen so that you can make it home to me alive.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Imagine the message that we have to send to our children,
and imagine the congregation of a black pastor telling them,
and it's not the CoP's fault that they're killing us.
We need to behave better. We need to comply. We
need to fall in line. We need to listen. Victim
(18:01):
blaming on steroids and a denying of oneselves, self worth,
self respect, dignity when faced with unlawful, harmful, aggressive, violent
treatment by those who are sworn to protect you. In
(18:25):
the event that things don't work out the right way,
it's your fault. It's your children's fault, it's your son's fault.
Straighten up and fly right, fall in line, comply. The
messaging should sound again very very dangerous and very very frightening,
(18:47):
coming from someone who's a trusted leader. You you know,
as the son of a pastor in rams as you
can relate the way that we view the pastor in
the black church is a very very.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Is in very very high regard. Are the deference, the
respect the.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Assumed leader of entire communities telling those communities. And the
event that you are mistreated by law enforcement, you need
to take a look at yourself. Stop blaming police officers
for killing us. Do a better job at compliance and
(19:31):
obeying their orders. It's a I can't imagine, well, actually
I can't imagine how all of us felt reading that.
And for those who are able to see or hear audio.
Oh man, I'll move on because I'll get too emotional
(19:53):
thinking about it. My greatest fear is my children ever
having to face that, because I've had to face it myself.
I've had to face it with Ramses having to in
real time make a decision on whether or not today
is the day where it's worth standing up from our
rights or do I just want to make it out
of this situation alive. And I'd wager that only black
(20:16):
citizens in this country have to reconcile that decision for
a traffic stop. We close out this week's show with
yet another moment of how did this happen on Live TV? Ray,
Let's hear more about this TV snafu from you, and
then Alexandria and Ramses will close out with.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You H four our non listeners and television viewers that
are not in California. KTLA is a strong, very strong
station on Los Angeles. They recently, I think back in
the mid nineties they flipped over from independent to a
(21:01):
CW affiliate. But KTLA has always had a huge following
in Los Angeles and because they are community driven, so
a lot of people watch the station. That's just to
give our listeners who are not in California better perspective
of what the station is all about.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
But recently some body tweeted the N word and it
popped up.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
And as we all know, once you send something, once
it's out there, it's out there, and it only takes
a matter of seconds before someone can keep it. Even
though you could take the tweet back, you know it
can be recorded or snapshot and saved. But someone tweeted
(21:59):
the word from kt LA. Now the station's position on
this queue is they're not sure if it's an inside
job someone at the station actually got into the account
in the center tweet, or if it's an outside job.
They have not said that their account has been hacked,
(22:22):
so internal investigation is underway. People are responding and asking
for KTLA to take charge of the situation and make
sure it doesn't happen again. But to the defense of
the station and looking at the other side of it,
where all of the media outlets are driven by technology
(22:48):
and it can be hacked, including the bi in and
we have to be very wary of that because there
are bad people out there who try to get their
messages out. So whether this is inside job or someone
hacked their account, which again Katla has not responded to.
(23:11):
You have to be very very careful of that and
watch these media platforms because people are listening, people are watching,
and once it's out there, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Alexandria, Yeah, I was doing some research just really recently
about it as well, so I was seeing that more
information of what they were saying, and they actually did
put out a tweet saying that it was a technical
error when adding language filters to their social media accounts
(23:46):
result resulting in what happened. So how I took it
as was they were trying to filter that word and
have tweets not pop up with that word, and instead
somehow it got posts did publicly.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
So they did put out a statement in regards to that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
But if that's the case, then you were really trying
to filter that word to not have tweets on your
timeline with that information or with that word included. It raises,
you know, a question in me, because why are you
trying to block out that word from tweets coming in
(24:25):
in a stands in a sense of being on the
news side of things, right, So I'm looking at it
in a way of there are news stories where we
see people using the N word and racist. You know
comments are being made and hate crimes are happening.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
So if you're filtering out a word.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
That is used in order to understand what's going on
to accurately report, you're missing out on important stories that
need to be told. So that's the mindset I was
looking at it when I was seeing this story as to,
you know, understand what was going on. My first question
is why are you filtering that out? No one should
be using it. That's not what I'm saying. You should
(25:03):
not be using it, but you need to understand what
people are saying to accurately report on certain.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
Situations, especially in the ex climate that we're in politically.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Ramses. You think it was a filter, I do.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Okay, there's going to be people that are going to
disagree with me here, and I'll make my case and
fight my battle in the comments per usual. Okay, First off,
my position is that we have enough to get to
get upset about. We absolutely have enough to get upset about.
(25:44):
We have real things in the real world that are
affecting real outcomes that we can get upset about. We
have to be mindful of that dynamic. We have to
be focused on where we you know, put our energy,
and we have to try to create the changes that
(26:07):
will make the world a better place for us. Right. So,
I know that social media kind of leads all of
us to you know, these like base limbic feelings and responses,
but I don't think that this is really worth our attention.
Here's why. First off, I blame Twitter. I think that
(26:31):
anybody who's still on Twitter really needs to come to
terms with the fact that they are on a platform
owned by a Nazi that supports a Nazi full stop.
I recognize people have Twitter followers and they feel like
they can get their voice out, but the exchange there
(26:51):
is that you are supporting a Nazi Ktla included. Okay,
so no one's blameless here but Twitter, because it's owned
by a Nazi. His first move was to remove that
filter in the first place, like the inWORD can now
fly free because he's a free speech absolutist except when
(27:14):
it comes to criticizing him or his friends or the president.
So not only is he a Nazi, he's a hypocrite
and to remove that inward makes that place immediately unsafe
for black people. The argument has been made that using
the inWORD is in of itself an act of violence,
(27:36):
and so for him to allow that violence that is
specifically targeted at our people to fly free, I think
that anybody black certainly needs to ask themselves a series
of questions about their presence on that platform.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Okay, I'll move on. KTLA moving to.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
List that word as one of their filters is plausible.
I can't say for certain that it happened that way,
but it's plausible. Okay, I'm gonna circle back to that
in a second. That explanation makes sense because who would
just tweet that word to delete it? Imagine how difficult
it is to get to that level where you're working
(28:21):
for KTLA. This isn't you know Wichita News. This is
big business. This is Los Angeles, right, That is a
big station for folks that don't know, and you don't
get to that point and make a mistake or jeopardize
your career or whatever like that, just.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
To do it right now.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It's not impossible that that wouldn't happen, but it's very unlikely.
So again we're kind of leaning into plausibility here. Finally,
KTLA has a history of working with black people, hiring
(29:02):
black talent that I that I know of, right, you know,
and I'm not going to act like I know they're
every move inside and out. But you know, I often
see Big Boy on KTLA, and Big Boy of course
his family here. He's personally family, you know, with me
and Q when I say family, we're not technically related,
(29:22):
but you know that's fam, right, And you know he's
always on that channel, right, And so that station in
and of itself doesn't feel racist. Now you could argue
that it was alone actor, sure, but I'd argue that
they were probably doing what I established as the more
(29:43):
plausible explanation, which is themselves inserting a filter so that
they don't have tweets on their timeline criticizing them for
putting black people on the air, criticizing them for covering
black stories, criticizing them, you know, by the most racist
elements in this country. We've covered hate crimes in California
against black people since Donald Trump's been elected. And so
(30:06):
to me, that suggests that there might be a hateful
base there that might be sending tweets to this account
calling us a word that is a kin to violence,
And for them to make that move seems plausible enough. Now,
even if I'm wrong about all of these things, the
degree to which people got upset about this, like, we
(30:29):
could focus that energy on things that really matter, systems
that are really oppressive.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, And so there's my take.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I get that, you know, everything counts, but in a
moment like this, focusing our energy on what counts the most,
I think that's worth all the attention that people through
at the comments. I think if all those people called
their senators and you know, and put their energy into
something a little bit more productive, I think that we'd
be on a track to actually make the changes that
(30:58):
we need to see. I don't think that this is
what the comments section has made it out to be.
With that said, I open myself up to the response
per usual. I'm sure the red microphone talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app will be as active as ever. With
that in mind, I'd like to thank the both of
you very much for your time in your inside once again,
(31:19):
Today's guest or Black Information Network News anchors Alexandria Ikimoni
and Ray Harris. This has been a production of the
Black Information Network. Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share, use the red
microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. While you're there,
be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes.
(31:41):
I'm your Host, Ramse's Job on all.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Social media, I am Qward on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And we'll be hosting another episode of Civic Cipher this
weekend on a station near you. For stations, showtimes, and
podcast info, jack Civiccipher dot com and join us Monday
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the Black Information Network Daily podcast
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