March 29, 2025 • 22 mins
Our guest is Christopher Towler, PhD. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Sacramento. He is the Director of the Black Voter Project, Co-Founder of Black Insights Research and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
In the second half of the show, we discuss the polling data since the election and what conclusions we can draw from it. We also examine some positive aspects of the data uncovered by Dr. Towler and how the progressive minds in this country can implement it into their strategies moving forward.
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=search
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Keep on riding with it, says, we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip hop
Weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am your host, Rams' job.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
He is Rams' job. I am Q Ward. You are
tuned into Civic Cipher. Indeed, you still are, and we
appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today we are having a wonderful conversation. I'm doing a
little bit more listening, but to be fair, Chris and
I got to talk twice, so Q it's you know,
it's you two have your conversation. But we're having a
fantastic conversation with Christopher Taller, pH d. Make sure I
have that associate professor in the Department of Political Science
(00:37):
at California State University, Sacramento, director of the Black Voter Project,
and the editor in chief of the Journal of Race,
Ethnicity and Politics. And we are talking about the data
of black voters. And I know the election is over,
but there's still a lot that we can learn and
are learning right now from black voters. And of course
doctor Taller is helping us sift through his data. But
(01:00):
before we go any further, it's time to be aba,
become a better ally Baba and today's Baba comes from
the Black Information Network. This ain't Amazon, It's the Black Nile.
A black woman has created an app called the Black Nile,
a black version of Amazon where consumers can shop from
black owned businesses and services on one platform. As major
companies and retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, and more are
(01:23):
rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies and initiatives,
customers are looking for ways to support small and black
owned businesses. I'm going to add this and to boycott
those people that turn their back on us, all right,
let me continue, UI and web designer Dacia Petrie I
(01:44):
believe I'm saying that right used her background in technology
to create the Blacknile to fulfill the need and make
it even easier for shoppers to buy black owned The
app currently features three thousand black owned businesses across over
forty categories, including skincare, hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, luxury where, handbag, weddings,
home and kitchen goods, baby and kids, plus size clothing,
(02:04):
and more.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I saw somebody in the comments saying that they're looking
for a black Amazon sista. I'm a Jo John. When
I say this, This ain't Amazon. Is black Nile unquote,
Petrie said. Petrie integrated Google Maps into the app, allowing
users to easily locate nearby businesses and retrieve directions. Shoppers
can also leave reviews on the app after visiting or
(02:26):
experiencing their selected business or service.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I created this with the intention to make shopping with
black owned businesses as easy as possible, Petri said. He
was on to say, I am a UI designer and
web designer, and I noticed that there are a lot
of black owned directories, but many of them aren't as
user friendly or optimized for our mobile devices. I saw
someone in the comments saying that they were looking for
something that's a little bit more techy and something a
(02:51):
little bit more user friendly. And this is perfect end quote.
So again, check them out. It's black Nile, all right.
So well, you know, the two of you obviously been
talking about drawing some meaningful conclusions from the data, really
(03:12):
and setting the record straight, because that obviously is very important.
As we kind of get our bearings as a people.
As we get our bearings, many of us vote Democrats,
so as we get our bearings relative to that party,
and I feel like we might have stopped you a
little short there, So any last words there you want
to pick up.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, we were talking about sort of building solidarity and
the lack of solidarity between parts of the black community,
and I had noticed in the data that there were
some differences, especially between sort of younger Black Americans and
older generations. And I think it again, it comes back
to this connection to history, connection to generational struggle, especially
(03:55):
the Civil Rights movement, where younger people now, right, people
who have grandparents or maybe great grandparents that lived during
the Civil Rights era might not be previewed to some
of the conversations that we were and our parents were
growing up, where we were hearing direct stories from relatives
who live through it, if not our parents, right, And
(04:17):
so building that connection is a bit different because now
people are hearing these stories second third hand, if at all.
And we already know the push to get rid of
black history, to remove these stories from the textbooks and
from our education altogether, all in the sense of trying
to destroy this solidarity that the black community has had
(04:37):
for generations. Right since really the Civil Rights movement, in
the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting
Rights Act, there's been this sense that the Democrats are
the party for civil rights, the party for the black community,
and that seems to be waning a little bit. That's
not to say that there's a lot more people, as
we talked about, voting for Republicans, but there are fewer
(04:58):
young black people that st only identify with Democrats or
strongly have a liberal ideology, and that can become a
threat to black solidarity in the future if the party
politics do not take this into consideration and find a
way to speak to these young people in ways that
still brings them home and still connects them to their
history and to the rest of their community.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Doctor Tyler, we talked about the turnout and the election.
I want you to use data to tell a more
full story that you may give people some nuance. In
some context, we said that the percentages were about the
same as the prior election, but I thought I heard
you mentioned that the numbers and the turnout may have
(05:43):
been lower even though the percentages of voters was the same.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what
that means or what you think that means.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, so there's some nuance here in this conversation. Right
on the one hand, we're talking about who people voted for,
which I like to call vote choice, and that was
pretty much the same as twenty twenty and so we
didn't see much shift in vote choice as far as
how many black people voted for the Democratic candidate in
this case, Harris or the Republican candidate Trump. Where we
(06:12):
did see change is in the raw number of people
that actually came out to vote, and there were significantly
less Black people voting in twenty twenty four than in
twenty twenty and for the first time in a long time,
we actually had fewer people cast a ballot than the
year before. Right every year since pretty much the Obama years,
the number of Black people voting had gone up and
(06:35):
up and up. This year it fell off. And in
some states such as Georgia, we know that black voters
are the only voter where turnout only group were turnout dropped,
where every other group turnout rose. And what that does
is that creates sort of this situation where the gap
between the amount of black voters and other voters grows
(06:56):
wider in a case like twenty twenty four, making it
less likely that black voters can affect an election. And
in a state like Georgia, where almost thirty percent of
voters are black. It's very, very important that everyone gets
out and vote so that they can have the same
effect on the election in Georgia as they did in
twenty twenty when Georgia went blue for Biden. In twenty
(07:18):
twenty four, with less voters actually turning out to vote,
even though the same are more voted for the Democratic candidate,
the state turned red because you had far more of
other types of voters, predominantly white voters coming out to vote,
shifting the ballots the other direction right, And we see
this taking place across the country. We don't have raw
(07:40):
turnout for every state yet. That typically comes from the
Secretary of State's offices across the country, but in places
like Georgia where we do have those numbers, it's very
clear what's taking place, and that getting people out to
vote was the issue this year, not trying to figure
out who they were going to vote for.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
We spoke about solidarity. We also spoke about post election,
post inauguration hopelessness, frustration and apathy leading up to the election, however,
and this is where this kind of lack of solidarity
rings very loud to me. With what we were obviously
(08:19):
facing as a people, like the threats to our safety,
our health, our access to information, resources, capital education, the
erasure of our history, our access to opportunity once upon
a time, And I think you hit the nail on
the head our ancestors, our parents. I use my mother
(08:42):
as an example because when she turned of age, it
was not yet legal for black women to vote in
this country. So this is not three hundred years ago.
This is not my great great grandmother. This is my
mother with what seemed like a very clear and obvious
threat to us more than everyone else. How are people
(09:04):
so comfortable not participating this time, like this idea that
I'm just not going to vote this time, I'm just
not going to participate. How do you think we got there?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yes, it's a tricky situation, and for me studying not
just black politics, but politics and social of predispositions. Over
the years, the idea of racism has changed quite a bit,
and the racism that our parents and our grandparents face
there was a far more overt segregation that was outlawed
(09:39):
in many ways by the Civil Rights Act. So since then,
racism has become far more covert and harder to just
point out the record, Right, there's absolutely still clear racism
and bigotry out there, but the systems have become far
more secretive in the way that they perpetuate racism, where
(09:59):
now it's a about, Okay, did I get the job
because I was black, or because my name sounded ethnic,
or was it something else that happened in the job interview? Right?
Did my house get evaluated differently when it came to
the appraisal because of the artwork that I had in
that might be African American? Or was it because of
something actually having to do with the house. And these
(10:19):
are the types of questions that we have to ask
today when trying to figure out where racism and discrimination
still lives in society, and so it makes it harder
to point them out, and it takes a lot of
time and a lot of effort, especially for people, as
we said, these younger generations of black people who haven't
grown up either experiencing segregation or a lot of direct
(10:42):
over racism themselves, or haven't talked with elders who experienced this,
and so they are sort of one step removed from
our history of extreme overt segregation and racism, something that
has dictated the way our institutions work in this country today.
But it's much harder to see. You can't just point
(11:03):
it out and say, oh that you can't go in
there because you're black. Right, you can go in there,
but you might get followed around by the security guard.
And if you've never experienced that and you don't know
what you're looking for, it might not be as obvious
until it's too late, right, until you have that experience
where you end up getting arrested, you end up spending
some jail time. Right. And if you don't know the statistics, right,
about one in three black men in their lives ends
(11:25):
up incarcerated at some point, right, the highest rate in
the country. Right. And the United States is already the highest,
has the highest rate of incarceration in all world democracies.
And so these are issues and problems that still persist,
but they're far more difficult to sort of put your
finger on it and say, there it is. That's the
racism that I'm talking about. That's the institutional oppression that
(11:50):
has always been there but still exists. And so when
we see an election like the last one take place,
and we have a lot of different messages being put
out sometimes on social media, where you only get like
a three second clip or a ten second sort of
video saying a message, and then you get sixty of
those videos in ten minutes, it can be that much
(12:11):
more difficult to really decipher what's really going on, what
people really stand for, and where you need to stand
when it comes to choosing a political representative or a
political party to get behind.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There is no justice until there is justice for all.
That echoed in my head throughout the election cycle as
I watched those who oppose us other, all of these
separate groups, all of these separate groups that would be attacked.
(12:49):
And I bring up the other ring because it gave
people an opportunity to say, Okay, that thing that they
plan to do doesn't affect me, so I don't think
it's that big of a deal. And as we see
people the clean version is messing around and finding out,
they are realizing that these policies and these agendas that
(13:12):
seek to oppress anyone can very quickly oppress everyone. Ramses
and I have a video of the show online that's
circulating that's, you know, somewhere close to ten million views,
where we discuss having biracial children Hispanic LATINX biracial children
(13:38):
who could very well be affected by ice raids and
talks of deportation, and how their friends, teachers, you know,
their parents, and classmates look at them at school has
been different since this device of rhetoric has become the
norm when we're talking about DEI or deportations or anti
(14:01):
LGBTQ initiatives. It always startled me that even any Black
people could kind of step back and remove themselves from
fighting to defend other marginalized communities, something that I thought
would have been something that brought us together more than
separated us. From your purview, What has that looked like
(14:28):
post election, as we're seeing people realize, oh, that thing
that I thought would only affect other people is now
knocking on my front door.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, it's somewhat difficult to watch. I think that there's
definitely people, even people within the black community, who are
realizing how real this. Things got so quickly, right, and
it wasn't like Trump's first term where there was some
stumbling around and it took a couple of years for
things to get off the ground. Right. There was this plan,
Project twenty twenty five that was put into action, very
(14:59):
cool quickly. I will say this, though, there are and
always have been a segment of the Black community that
is just conservative. Right. These are people who are Republicans
who are going to vote Republican no matter what, many
of whom write don the MAGA hat with pride. They're
not being affected by these changes, right. They're looking at
(15:19):
what's going on and they're satisfying this is something that
they really wanted to see happen. They understood these consequences.
And so there's always going to be certain Black people
who side with the oppressor, if you will, and who
are willing to give up sort of this solidarity or
this idea of what's best for their community, for these
(15:40):
individual Republican notions of what's going to help them get ahead, right,
and what's going to benefit them in their personal lives
and those beliefs. But there's absolutely this sentiment right that, oh,
things are happening really quickly. My worry though, is that
there's far more Black people who are like, yeah, that's fine,
and you know that we're now in the find out
(16:02):
phase and we're just going to watch everybody find out,
and we're just going to sit back and people are
going to have to deal with this, and to me,
I understand that sentiment, I really do, but it's a
very dangerous sentiment to place ourselves in because we as
black people then lose our political voice. And if voting
becomes more difficult, if there are elections in the future
(16:23):
where our vote could change things and doesn't, it's going
to make it that much harder for us to assert
ourselves and re enter the political sphere in a way
where we can really make a difference and continue to
have the impact on elections that we have had, say
in twenty twenty in local and state elections in twenty
twenty four and going forward. And so that's really the
(16:44):
worry for me, right is that black people are going
to take a step back and everyone's going to be
thinking everyone else is going to pick up the slack,
but it's not going to be enough. And then when
it comes time for elections to be had in people
to decisions to be made, black people are going to suffer,
right because we're going to have to deal with the
(17:04):
consequences of political actions.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Recently, the President signed an executive order that is going
to or that seeks to overhaul elections comprehensively, and of
course unilaterally with I think close to fifty seven percent
of Black people electing to vote in person and I
(17:33):
think thirty one percent on election day. As they seek
to make voting more difficult in general, how is that
going to impact Black voters that want to show up
and that have not turned a blind eye and who
will not sit out. I think they know where they
want to focus to make voting more difficult. What is
(17:55):
that going to look like for us moving forward?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Again? I think this is a difficult question because elections
right now, with the way our country is polarized, are
really wanted the margins, and it can be that fifty
hundred thousand votes that make a difference. Right the state
of Wisconsin was decided by less than thirty thousand votes
this past election cycle, and so it flipped back to
read by such a thin margin, where these questions about okay,
(18:25):
is having some sort of ID valid ID necessary to
vote that prove citizenship going to change things? And what
it's going to do is it's going to affect things
at the margins, and you're going to have active voters,
people who vote and are engaged in politics, figure out
how to get this ID, figure out how to vote right,
they're going to find the resources to do it. But
(18:45):
there's going to be those people on the margins who
maybe don't vote all the time, or young people who
are thinking about voting but maybe are undecided or are
going to be affected by this type of legislation, and
it's going to cause them not to vote. Right there,
that extra step of finding the right ID or figuring
out how to get proof of citizenship or figuring out
(19:06):
where to go to get extra documentation just to register
to vote. Right if this law ends up being upheld,
which we'll see what happens, because states typically have the
final say when it comes to voting, especially since the
gutting of the Voting Rights Act in twenty thirteen. But
if Trump's executive order ends up being upheld anyway in
the courts before twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight,
(19:29):
it's going to affect things at the margins, and it's
going to make it even harder for Democrats or anyone
else trying to mobilize black voters to get those people
at the margins off their couch into the polls. And
that's always been the debate behind voter ID laws, Right, well,
is it going is it really a barrier to certain people?
And yes, it is right. There's always going to be
(19:52):
disproportionate disadvantages in communities such as the black community, where
there are less resources, there's less information, there's less political
knowledge because of the historical alienation and removal from politics
that the community is faced for generations.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
They look to make voting more difficult, and they look
to make voting inconvenient for the direct purpose that you
just stated, to impact our community in difficult ways, doctor Tyler,
to say, we appreciate you, man, it's just not really
saying enough. I want to say thank you. I know
my brother wants to say thank you. Oh yeah, though
(20:34):
he's already spoken to you. But honored to have this
conversation with you, and hoping that we can continue these
conversations because we need it and so do our and
so does our community. Sure.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Sure, And again to be able to sit here, you know,
for those I'll speak for us in this kind of
journalistic space, a conversation with you is like a reset,
you know. And today I actually got to be a
bona fide journalist because they did less hosting and more producing,
you know, and just to listen to that conversation. It
(21:06):
imbues the energy around here with the kind of motivation
that we need, you know, for those of us looking
for a glimmer of hope. You know, it's kind of like, well,
you know, all hope is not lost. The narratives that
had been successfully chronicled by those on the right now
you know, there's a little there on shaky ground, and
some were entirely unfounded. Altogether. There's still work to do,
(21:29):
of course, but again, a conversation like this certainly does
help at least those of us that are in this space,
and we have to continue having these conversations. So with that,
I want to make sure that I thank you on
behalf of all of us here at Civic Cipher before
we let you go do his favorite shout out any
sort of social media websites, anything like that where people
can go get more information value.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. Again. You
could find all of the research and results posted on
Black Voter Project dot com as well as the Black
Insightsresearch dot com websites, and you can find me on
Twitter formerly Twitter x and blue Sky these days at
(22:09):
Black b l K Prof Prof CCT. And again, I
just want to say thank you, And just just to
highlight once more, this election was a punch in the
gut to the black community, you know, seeing the potential
for a first black female president sort of go up
in flames. But this is nothing new, right, Tough times
(22:30):
are nothing new for black people in America. And as
we've learned, history can tell us sometimes the biggest steps
forward come from the darkest times. And so I'm really
hoping that, you know, we see immense change come from
this dark era, change that not only brings hope to
the Black community, but changes the country for good as well.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
With that in mind, we will leave it right there
and until next week, y'all.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Peace,
Keep on riding with it, says, we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip hop
Weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am your host, Rams' job.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
He is Rams' job. I am Q Ward. You are
tuned into Civic Cipher. Indeed, you still are, and we
appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today we are having a wonderful conversation. I'm doing a
little bit more listening, but to be fair, Chris and
I got to talk twice, so Q it's you know,
it's you two have your conversation. But we're having a
fantastic conversation with Christopher Taller, pH d. Make sure I
have that associate professor in the Department of Political Science
(00:37):
at California State University, Sacramento, director of the Black Voter Project,
and the editor in chief of the Journal of Race,
Ethnicity and Politics. And we are talking about the data
of black voters. And I know the election is over,
but there's still a lot that we can learn and
are learning right now from black voters. And of course
doctor Taller is helping us sift through his data. But
(01:00):
before we go any further, it's time to be aba,
become a better ally Baba and today's Baba comes from
the Black Information Network. This ain't Amazon, It's the Black Nile.
A black woman has created an app called the Black Nile,
a black version of Amazon where consumers can shop from
black owned businesses and services on one platform. As major
companies and retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, and more are
(01:23):
rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies and initiatives,
customers are looking for ways to support small and black
owned businesses. I'm going to add this and to boycott
those people that turn their back on us, all right,
let me continue, UI and web designer Dacia Petrie I
(01:44):
believe I'm saying that right used her background in technology
to create the Blacknile to fulfill the need and make
it even easier for shoppers to buy black owned The
app currently features three thousand black owned businesses across over
forty categories, including skincare, hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, luxury where, handbag, weddings,
home and kitchen goods, baby and kids, plus size clothing,
(02:04):
and more.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I saw somebody in the comments saying that they're looking
for a black Amazon sista. I'm a Jo John. When
I say this, This ain't Amazon. Is black Nile unquote,
Petrie said. Petrie integrated Google Maps into the app, allowing
users to easily locate nearby businesses and retrieve directions. Shoppers
can also leave reviews on the app after visiting or
(02:26):
experiencing their selected business or service.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I created this with the intention to make shopping with
black owned businesses as easy as possible, Petri said. He
was on to say, I am a UI designer and
web designer, and I noticed that there are a lot
of black owned directories, but many of them aren't as
user friendly or optimized for our mobile devices. I saw
someone in the comments saying that they were looking for
something that's a little bit more techy and something a
(02:51):
little bit more user friendly. And this is perfect end quote.
So again, check them out. It's black Nile, all right.
So well, you know, the two of you obviously been
talking about drawing some meaningful conclusions from the data, really
(03:12):
and setting the record straight, because that obviously is very important.
As we kind of get our bearings as a people.
As we get our bearings, many of us vote Democrats,
so as we get our bearings relative to that party,
and I feel like we might have stopped you a
little short there, So any last words there you want
to pick up.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, we were talking about sort of building solidarity and
the lack of solidarity between parts of the black community,
and I had noticed in the data that there were
some differences, especially between sort of younger Black Americans and
older generations. And I think it again, it comes back
to this connection to history, connection to generational struggle, especially
(03:55):
the Civil Rights movement, where younger people now, right, people
who have grandparents or maybe great grandparents that lived during
the Civil Rights era might not be previewed to some
of the conversations that we were and our parents were
growing up, where we were hearing direct stories from relatives
who live through it, if not our parents, right, And
(04:17):
so building that connection is a bit different because now
people are hearing these stories second third hand, if at all.
And we already know the push to get rid of
black history, to remove these stories from the textbooks and
from our education altogether, all in the sense of trying
to destroy this solidarity that the black community has had
(04:37):
for generations. Right since really the Civil Rights movement, in
the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting
Rights Act, there's been this sense that the Democrats are
the party for civil rights, the party for the black community,
and that seems to be waning a little bit. That's
not to say that there's a lot more people, as
we talked about, voting for Republicans, but there are fewer
(04:58):
young black people that st only identify with Democrats or
strongly have a liberal ideology, and that can become a
threat to black solidarity in the future if the party
politics do not take this into consideration and find a
way to speak to these young people in ways that
still brings them home and still connects them to their
history and to the rest of their community.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Doctor Tyler, we talked about the turnout and the election.
I want you to use data to tell a more
full story that you may give people some nuance. In
some context, we said that the percentages were about the
same as the prior election, but I thought I heard
you mentioned that the numbers and the turnout may have
(05:43):
been lower even though the percentages of voters was the same.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what
that means or what you think that means.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, so there's some nuance here in this conversation. Right
on the one hand, we're talking about who people voted for,
which I like to call vote choice, and that was
pretty much the same as twenty twenty and so we
didn't see much shift in vote choice as far as
how many black people voted for the Democratic candidate in
this case, Harris or the Republican candidate Trump. Where we
(06:12):
did see change is in the raw number of people
that actually came out to vote, and there were significantly
less Black people voting in twenty twenty four than in
twenty twenty and for the first time in a long time,
we actually had fewer people cast a ballot than the
year before. Right every year since pretty much the Obama years,
the number of Black people voting had gone up and
(06:35):
up and up. This year it fell off. And in
some states such as Georgia, we know that black voters
are the only voter where turnout only group were turnout dropped,
where every other group turnout rose. And what that does
is that creates sort of this situation where the gap
between the amount of black voters and other voters grows
(06:56):
wider in a case like twenty twenty four, making it
less likely that black voters can affect an election. And
in a state like Georgia, where almost thirty percent of
voters are black. It's very, very important that everyone gets
out and vote so that they can have the same
effect on the election in Georgia as they did in
twenty twenty when Georgia went blue for Biden. In twenty
(07:18):
twenty four, with less voters actually turning out to vote,
even though the same are more voted for the Democratic candidate,
the state turned red because you had far more of
other types of voters, predominantly white voters coming out to vote,
shifting the ballots the other direction right, And we see
this taking place across the country. We don't have raw
(07:40):
turnout for every state yet. That typically comes from the
Secretary of State's offices across the country, but in places
like Georgia where we do have those numbers, it's very
clear what's taking place, and that getting people out to
vote was the issue this year, not trying to figure
out who they were going to vote for.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
We spoke about solidarity. We also spoke about post election,
post inauguration hopelessness, frustration and apathy leading up to the election, however,
and this is where this kind of lack of solidarity
rings very loud to me. With what we were obviously
(08:19):
facing as a people, like the threats to our safety,
our health, our access to information, resources, capital education, the
erasure of our history, our access to opportunity once upon
a time, And I think you hit the nail on
the head our ancestors, our parents. I use my mother
(08:42):
as an example because when she turned of age, it
was not yet legal for black women to vote in
this country. So this is not three hundred years ago.
This is not my great great grandmother. This is my
mother with what seemed like a very clear and obvious
threat to us more than everyone else. How are people
(09:04):
so comfortable not participating this time, like this idea that
I'm just not going to vote this time, I'm just
not going to participate. How do you think we got there?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yes, it's a tricky situation, and for me studying not
just black politics, but politics and social of predispositions. Over
the years, the idea of racism has changed quite a bit,
and the racism that our parents and our grandparents face
there was a far more overt segregation that was outlawed
(09:39):
in many ways by the Civil Rights Act. So since then,
racism has become far more covert and harder to just
point out the record, Right, there's absolutely still clear racism
and bigotry out there, but the systems have become far
more secretive in the way that they perpetuate racism, where
(09:59):
now it's a about, Okay, did I get the job
because I was black, or because my name sounded ethnic,
or was it something else that happened in the job interview? Right?
Did my house get evaluated differently when it came to
the appraisal because of the artwork that I had in
that might be African American? Or was it because of
something actually having to do with the house. And these
(10:19):
are the types of questions that we have to ask
today when trying to figure out where racism and discrimination
still lives in society, and so it makes it harder
to point them out, and it takes a lot of
time and a lot of effort, especially for people, as
we said, these younger generations of black people who haven't
grown up either experiencing segregation or a lot of direct
(10:42):
over racism themselves, or haven't talked with elders who experienced this,
and so they are sort of one step removed from
our history of extreme overt segregation and racism, something that
has dictated the way our institutions work in this country today.
But it's much harder to see. You can't just point
(11:03):
it out and say, oh that you can't go in
there because you're black. Right, you can go in there,
but you might get followed around by the security guard.
And if you've never experienced that and you don't know
what you're looking for, it might not be as obvious
until it's too late, right, until you have that experience
where you end up getting arrested, you end up spending
some jail time. Right. And if you don't know the statistics, right,
about one in three black men in their lives ends
(11:25):
up incarcerated at some point, right, the highest rate in
the country. Right. And the United States is already the highest,
has the highest rate of incarceration in all world democracies.
And so these are issues and problems that still persist,
but they're far more difficult to sort of put your
finger on it and say, there it is. That's the
racism that I'm talking about. That's the institutional oppression that
(11:50):
has always been there but still exists. And so when
we see an election like the last one take place,
and we have a lot of different messages being put
out sometimes on social media, where you only get like
a three second clip or a ten second sort of
video saying a message, and then you get sixty of
those videos in ten minutes, it can be that much
(12:11):
more difficult to really decipher what's really going on, what
people really stand for, and where you need to stand
when it comes to choosing a political representative or a
political party to get behind.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There is no justice until there is justice for all.
That echoed in my head throughout the election cycle as
I watched those who oppose us other, all of these
separate groups, all of these separate groups that would be attacked.
(12:49):
And I bring up the other ring because it gave
people an opportunity to say, Okay, that thing that they
plan to do doesn't affect me, so I don't think
it's that big of a deal. And as we see
people the clean version is messing around and finding out,
they are realizing that these policies and these agendas that
(13:12):
seek to oppress anyone can very quickly oppress everyone. Ramses
and I have a video of the show online that's
circulating that's, you know, somewhere close to ten million views,
where we discuss having biracial children Hispanic LATINX biracial children
(13:38):
who could very well be affected by ice raids and
talks of deportation, and how their friends, teachers, you know,
their parents, and classmates look at them at school has
been different since this device of rhetoric has become the
norm when we're talking about DEI or deportations or anti
(14:01):
LGBTQ initiatives. It always startled me that even any Black
people could kind of step back and remove themselves from
fighting to defend other marginalized communities, something that I thought
would have been something that brought us together more than
separated us. From your purview, What has that looked like
(14:28):
post election, as we're seeing people realize, oh, that thing
that I thought would only affect other people is now
knocking on my front door.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, it's somewhat difficult to watch. I think that there's
definitely people, even people within the black community, who are
realizing how real this. Things got so quickly, right, and
it wasn't like Trump's first term where there was some
stumbling around and it took a couple of years for
things to get off the ground. Right. There was this plan,
Project twenty twenty five that was put into action, very
(14:59):
cool quickly. I will say this, though, there are and
always have been a segment of the Black community that
is just conservative. Right. These are people who are Republicans
who are going to vote Republican no matter what, many
of whom write don the MAGA hat with pride. They're
not being affected by these changes, right. They're looking at
(15:19):
what's going on and they're satisfying this is something that
they really wanted to see happen. They understood these consequences.
And so there's always going to be certain Black people
who side with the oppressor, if you will, and who
are willing to give up sort of this solidarity or
this idea of what's best for their community, for these
(15:40):
individual Republican notions of what's going to help them get ahead, right,
and what's going to benefit them in their personal lives
and those beliefs. But there's absolutely this sentiment right that, oh,
things are happening really quickly. My worry though, is that
there's far more Black people who are like, yeah, that's fine,
and you know that we're now in the find out
(16:02):
phase and we're just going to watch everybody find out,
and we're just going to sit back and people are
going to have to deal with this, and to me,
I understand that sentiment, I really do, but it's a
very dangerous sentiment to place ourselves in because we as
black people then lose our political voice. And if voting
becomes more difficult, if there are elections in the future
(16:23):
where our vote could change things and doesn't, it's going
to make it that much harder for us to assert
ourselves and re enter the political sphere in a way
where we can really make a difference and continue to
have the impact on elections that we have had, say
in twenty twenty in local and state elections in twenty
twenty four and going forward. And so that's really the
(16:44):
worry for me, right is that black people are going
to take a step back and everyone's going to be
thinking everyone else is going to pick up the slack,
but it's not going to be enough. And then when
it comes time for elections to be had in people
to decisions to be made, black people are going to suffer,
right because we're going to have to deal with the
(17:04):
consequences of political actions.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Recently, the President signed an executive order that is going
to or that seeks to overhaul elections comprehensively, and of
course unilaterally with I think close to fifty seven percent
of Black people electing to vote in person and I
(17:33):
think thirty one percent on election day. As they seek
to make voting more difficult in general, how is that
going to impact Black voters that want to show up
and that have not turned a blind eye and who
will not sit out. I think they know where they
want to focus to make voting more difficult. What is
(17:55):
that going to look like for us moving forward?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Again? I think this is a difficult question because elections
right now, with the way our country is polarized, are
really wanted the margins, and it can be that fifty
hundred thousand votes that make a difference. Right the state
of Wisconsin was decided by less than thirty thousand votes
this past election cycle, and so it flipped back to
read by such a thin margin, where these questions about okay,
(18:25):
is having some sort of ID valid ID necessary to
vote that prove citizenship going to change things? And what
it's going to do is it's going to affect things
at the margins, and you're going to have active voters,
people who vote and are engaged in politics, figure out
how to get this ID, figure out how to vote right,
they're going to find the resources to do it. But
(18:45):
there's going to be those people on the margins who
maybe don't vote all the time, or young people who
are thinking about voting but maybe are undecided or are
going to be affected by this type of legislation, and
it's going to cause them not to vote. Right there,
that extra step of finding the right ID or figuring
out how to get proof of citizenship or figuring out
(19:06):
where to go to get extra documentation just to register
to vote. Right if this law ends up being upheld,
which we'll see what happens, because states typically have the
final say when it comes to voting, especially since the
gutting of the Voting Rights Act in twenty thirteen. But
if Trump's executive order ends up being upheld anyway in
the courts before twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight,
(19:29):
it's going to affect things at the margins, and it's
going to make it even harder for Democrats or anyone
else trying to mobilize black voters to get those people
at the margins off their couch into the polls. And
that's always been the debate behind voter ID laws, Right, well,
is it going is it really a barrier to certain people?
And yes, it is right. There's always going to be
(19:52):
disproportionate disadvantages in communities such as the black community, where
there are less resources, there's less information, there's less political
knowledge because of the historical alienation and removal from politics
that the community is faced for generations.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
They look to make voting more difficult, and they look
to make voting inconvenient for the direct purpose that you
just stated, to impact our community in difficult ways, doctor Tyler,
to say, we appreciate you, man, it's just not really
saying enough. I want to say thank you. I know
my brother wants to say thank you. Oh yeah, though
(20:34):
he's already spoken to you. But honored to have this
conversation with you, and hoping that we can continue these
conversations because we need it and so do our and
so does our community. Sure.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Sure, And again to be able to sit here, you know,
for those I'll speak for us in this kind of
journalistic space, a conversation with you is like a reset,
you know. And today I actually got to be a
bona fide journalist because they did less hosting and more producing,
you know, and just to listen to that conversation. It
(21:06):
imbues the energy around here with the kind of motivation
that we need, you know, for those of us looking
for a glimmer of hope. You know, it's kind of like, well,
you know, all hope is not lost. The narratives that
had been successfully chronicled by those on the right now
you know, there's a little there on shaky ground, and
some were entirely unfounded. Altogether. There's still work to do,
(21:29):
of course, but again, a conversation like this certainly does
help at least those of us that are in this space,
and we have to continue having these conversations. So with that,
I want to make sure that I thank you on
behalf of all of us here at Civic Cipher before
we let you go do his favorite shout out any
sort of social media websites, anything like that where people
can go get more information value.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. Again. You
could find all of the research and results posted on
Black Voter Project dot com as well as the Black
Insightsresearch dot com websites, and you can find me on
Twitter formerly Twitter x and blue Sky these days at
(22:09):
Black b l K Prof Prof CCT. And again, I
just want to say thank you, And just just to
highlight once more, this election was a punch in the
gut to the black community, you know, seeing the potential
for a first black female president sort of go up
in flames. But this is nothing new, right, Tough times
(22:30):
are nothing new for black people in America. And as
we've learned, history can tell us sometimes the biggest steps
forward come from the darkest times. And so I'm really
hoping that, you know, we see immense change come from
this dark era, change that not only brings hope to
the Black community, but changes the country for good as well.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
With that in mind, we will leave it right there
and until next week, y'all.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Peace,
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