00:00:00
Speaker 1: Still broadcasting from the Civic Cypher Studios, welcome back to the QR Code, where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes. The man you are about to hear from is a man known for being kind, one of a kind, and kind of a big deal. He is the Q in the QR Code. He goes by the name of Q-War.
00:00:20
Speaker 2: And the man that you just heard finds some different way every day to try to make it seem like I'm the one. In this one and two. When it's really him. The Himalayan Doku. He is the R in the QR code. He goes by the name Ramfus Jha.
00:00:40
Speaker 1: Today's episode includes a conversation about Chris Rock's refusal to help innocent friends. An innocent friend that still plagues him. What's the worst date you've ever been on? And Charles Barkley saying Trump has made racism socially acceptable. As always, for anything you might miss or may have missed, download the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:57
Speaker 3: All right.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: If you're just locking in with us, this is the QR code. I'm Ramses Jha. And it is time for QWords Clapback. Today's clapback pro bono. Q, the floor is yours.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: So a lot of times when we speak, it's in reference to questions that we get asked. So you'll hear me say there's a question that I keep getting asked because even though I try not to delve into the comments that it's hard to not pay attention to what our listeners are thinking and feeling and want to know what we think about. And something that we've been asked multiple times in different words, and I've even asked this myself, the honest version of it, how can you know what he meant? And this is from listeners or those that oppose our point of view with regards to their president.
00:01:48
Speaker 3: Fair.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: So let me not say that I do. Let me let him say it And I'll just take my opinion out of it altogether. April 2005. He is on Howard Stern's show. And Stern asked him about the beauty pageant he owns. And his own voice on tape for laughs. He says he goes backstage before the show while the contestants are getting dressed, he says. And this is him, not me, not Stern. that he is allowed to go in because he is the owner of the pageant and therefore he is inspecting it. He says they are standing there with no clothes. He thought that was funny. He offered that up on the radio. Nobody forced him to. He also owned Miss Teen USA. Four women from 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant later said he walked into their dressing room while they were changing. One of them, Mariah Bilotto, who had been Miss Vermont Teen USA. She remembered him saying something like, don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before. I'll leave those two things sitting next to each other and I won't say another word about either of them. October 22nd, he is under oath in a deposition in the case E. Jean Carroll brought against him. His lawyer reads his own words, or I'm sorry, her lawyer reads his own words from the Access Hollywood tape. The grab them by the whatever tape. The one that ended with him saying, you can do anything. And she asked him to explain it. Now, this is the moment. This is where a man says, I was ugly talk or I was showing off or I regret that I said that. Like, it's a kind of a softball question with an exit ramp and it's right there for you to take it. It's wide open. And his lawyers are in the room. Here is what he actually said. Well, historically, that's true with stars.
00:04:00
Speaker 3: She pushes.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: Is it actually true that stars can do that? And he says, and I quote, if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately. Then she asked him if he considers himself a star. His response, I think I can say that, yeah. Listen to that again. Under oath, on video, with counsel present, asked to explain the worst thing anybody ever caught him saying. Not only did he not deny it, he didn't apologize for it and did not try to explain it away. He confirmed it was true, said it had been true for a million years, and then put himself in the category. 11 days after that video played, a jury found him liable for sexual abuse. So here's where I've landed. And my goodness, it took me a long time to get here. At no point in any of this did he ask anybody to believe he didn't mean what he said.
00:05:16
Speaker 3: Never.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: Not once. He explained himself repeatedly under oath and on the radio and into every microphone anybody handed him. And every single time the explanation is worse than the accusation. So who's been telling you he didn't mean it? Because it wasn't him. Ah, unfortunately, it was us. The people whose whose job was supposed to be telling you what happened. For 10 years, every time he said the quiet part out loud, somebody got on radio or print or television and within hours explained that he was being hypothetical or that it was taken out of context, that you just have to understand that's how he talks. That is not reporting. That is crisis management. And a crisis manager has one job, which is to make the client look better than the facts make him look. That's the real job. People get paid very well to do it. Nobody was hired. Nobody sent an invoice. We've been doing his public relations for a decade for free and calling it fairness. I am not his fixer. Neither are you. When a man tells you repeatedly who he is out loud on tape under oath with a lawyer sitting next to him, the respectful thing, the honest thing, The only thing is to write it down exactly as he said it. He has never once asked us to soften it for him. I just ask all of us to stop volunteering.
00:07:03
Speaker 3: Ramses.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: Um, that is such an arrogant man. Uh, And this idea that stars can do whatever, that just jumped out at me. For the last million years. First off, Homo sapiens sapiens have only walked the earth for about 300,000 years. So that's like silly on its face. I think that, you know, in terms of like stars, radio... probably the earliest stars of only about 130 years old so again i don't know where you get this number from but again we're dealing with an ignoramus and we know that every day so what are you gonna do right all right uh let's see what are we doing here um yeah we're just locking into the qr code rams the job that's the name i go by q word is uh that's my friend on the other mic what's the worst date you've ever been on uh q you got a story for me.
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing that I feel worst about is that I didn't have to ponder for one second. As soon as I read the question, it was so pronounced. I don't know if it's a good one, right? Because the question in and of itself, the worst date you've ever been on. And I've only probably told this story three or four times ever, meaning three or four people have heard it, not to any groups of people. But I went on a date with this striking, stunning young lady. There's a shopping center in Arizona, a very, very popular place called Tempe Marketplace. Tempe Marketplace for a 20-something or early 30s, best date potential of all time. There's like 40 restaurants, a massive movie theater, shopping, like everything. ice cream, frozen yogurt, Dave and Buster's, like you can do everything there. Park your car once and spend the entire evening or afternoon just figuring out different things to do. There's areas where you can walk, talk, sit, there's fountains, there's lounge chairs, everything you could want to do. And there's a date I was excited about until it started or until she started to speak.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: Oof.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Now, this is important to say because I will not mimic the way that she talked, but I will say the things that she said. This young lady was blonde hair, blue eye, white.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: And.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: At some point, I don't know how we got there, but she felt the need to explain to me how these N-words be acting. And worse than these N-words be.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: Dot, dot, dot.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: Because there was a bunch of these in words B. Worse than what she was saying is how. Again, I will not mimic how she was speaking. But a comedian that I know named D. Ray Davis once told me he was fluent in hood rat.
00:10:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: And he would have understood everything that she stated plainly that night. Because she seemed to be fluent in that vernacular as well. And it was so uncomfortable. Because I was all at once offended, tickled, and wondering, what about me made her think that I'd be the audience for this? I remember the way that the date ended. Because I had already bought movie tickets. And I remember being excited about going to, I don't even remember what the movie was because that wasn't the point. I just knew that if a movie started, she would stop talking because she didn't continue on inward, inward, inward the whole day.
00:11:26
Speaker 3: Right.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: But just listening to her speak at all was, I could not wait for this movie to start. And the movie started and she stopped talking and, oh my goodness, that was fantastic. And at the end of the date, I knew and expressed to her that I would never see her again. Like that we would never hang out, that we would never talk. And I was, I was straightforward and honest with her at the end of it.
00:11:53
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, just, I.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: Won't waste your time.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Sure.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: You don't have to worry about the text or a phone call.
00:12:03
Speaker 3: Like, you know what I mean?
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Like, thank you for, thank you for your time.
00:12:06
Speaker 3: This is, you know, I won't even say this was cool. Cause it wasn't.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: Um, And yeah, and somehow that young lady was like, she didn't understand. Because I didn't say, hey, we're never going to hang out again because you said X, Y, and Z. But a mutual person, I won't even say a mutual friend, but a person that knew both of us ran into me one time and was like, yo, I know this really, really attractive woman that you went out with. And that's not the way he said it. Ramses could probably imagine the way he said it. I know this. Such and such and such that you went out with. Really attractive woman is a translation. And she spent a long time confused why you never called her again. And I remember in that moment being like, she was confused. Like, was she not on the same date? But it was just, it was awful, man.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: Like I was....
00:13:04
Speaker 2: As excited as I was going into it, I was far more disappointed at the end of it. And the only thing that I would have done different is skip the movie and just go home the next time.
00:13:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Because like I said, I don't even remember the movie. So I didn't even enjoy the movie. It was just, it was dark and it was quiet and she was no longer talking. Amen.
00:13:21
Speaker 1: Man, you're going to have to tell me who that was. I feel like maybe this might be somebody I might have heard about at minimum. But let me think.
00:13:31
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:13:32
Speaker 1: Mine is a little.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Worst date I've been on. Dates are usually fun. But one time I went on a date with a lady who's a doctor. And at the time she was in medical school. She was going to be like a neurosurgeon or something crazy like that. Anyway, we went on this date to get tacos, as you do. And the whole date, this is my impression. She might have had a different impression. She's still friendly with me, too, mind you.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I love her to death.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: She's great. But we went through a phase where I wasn't really rocking with her. Anyway, during this date, she was like super duper awkward. And it was like endearing because I like made her nervous, right? And I thought that was kind of precious, you know? And I remember her saying like, oh my God, I said this wrong or I'm too silly or I keep laughing and now you're not going to want to go on a second date with me. And I was like, oh, my God, don't worry.
00:14:34
Speaker 2: It's all good.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: Right.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: And, you know, she did like a bunch of awkward stuff like, you know, I don't know, like clumsy, not just with her words, but with her like body, like just tripping over like all the everything, everything bad that a woman would not want to have happen in front of a man that I guess she likes. For me, I'll never understand the nature of attractions. from something as beautiful as a woman to something as plain as a man. I don't get it, but you know, women find you attractive. I mean, that's just kind of the nature of women.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Maybe. I don't know.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: I always kind of felt like women didn't really like men. They just were attracted to us like biologically, but you know, sometimes a woman might get a little giddy. There seemed to be a moment like that at the end of it. Um, I was walking her to, she was getting an Uber. So I was walking her to the Uber and this was where it kind of.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: Got weird for me.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: She stood at the car, like opened the door for her. She stood at the car and she was saying goodbye to me. I had to go work, I had to go DJ. So I reached over, gave her a hug and I'm like, all right, well, just let me know when you get home safe, blah, blah, blah, I'm getting ready to leave. And she stays there frozen looking at me And I'm like, the car door's open, why are you, you know? And this is what I'm thinking, I didn't say it out loud, but she's looking right into my eyes and then she looks down at my lips and then looks back up at my eyes, right? And so I'm thinking, oh my God, she's waiting for me to kiss her. It was a long, awkward silence because it takes me a long time to pick up on cues like this, right? So I'm like, oh shoot. And then knowing what had preceded it, I'm like, She's going to be devastated if I don't, you know, kiss her because she seems to like really whatever. So maybe this is how she was. This is her metric of whether or not the date went well and whether or not I'm really going to.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: Want to see her again.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: So I said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. You wanted me to kiss you. I didn't know. And then so I kind of started moving toward her to kiss her. And then she took a step back. I was like, oh, oh. And she's like, uh-uh, you should always ask. And I was like, okay, okay, that's fair.
00:17:06
Speaker 3: That's fair.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry. And then I stepped away immediately because I felt like I violated, right? And after that, you know, my process, like delete the number, never call again, that sort of thing. That's kind of my whole thing. Because it's really embarrassing when, like she was very, like she would admit, she was very much like, I want you to kiss me. but I want you to ask first, right? So there was this critical process that I needed to know about and go through. So, and to be fair, I've been on other dates where I would ask and then the woman would like start laughing and be like, no, you're just supposed to do it. You didn't feel the moment in the air. Why are you making it awkward by asking? You know what I mean? So you never really know what's right. And when in doubt, you should err on the side of caution, of course. But that date made me feel so awkward because she clearly wanted me to do it, but she wanted me to follow a critical process that I didn't know existed in her brain. And that was that. All right. If you're just locking in with us here at the QR code, uh, keyboard, that is the, uh, audible chocolate that you're hearing on the other microphone over there. Uh, I'm Ramses Ja. And, uh, we're going to talk about Charles Barkley. He says, Trump has made racism socially acceptable. Uh, no real surprise there from us, but I'll get into it. All right. This from the griot. Charles Barkley has never required a prompt to say what he thinks. And his latest target was the president. According to, To the Chris Cuomo project, the 63-year-old Hall of Famer argued that Donald Trump's influence has reshaped what Americans feel permitted to say out loud. That was a quote, by the way. He says, quote, I think that's one of the worst things about Trump. He's made it popular to be racist. There's no consequences for being racist now. It's like a lot of people are wearing it with a badge of courage, unquote. Charles Barkley goes on to say Trump never denounces it, adding that he should and that the absence of any rebuke has made racism more acceptable. In Barkley's framing, the bigotry was always present, but social costs once kept it private. Quote, you used to have to be quiet when you were racist. You don't have to be quiet anymore. Unquote, he said, describing people who now feel confident and comfortable where they previously concealed their views. When Cuomo pressed On how a president avoids accountability in an office built around it, Barkley pointed to Trump's treatment of the press, citing the moment last year when the president told a female reporter to be quiet after she asked about the Epstein files. Notably, Barkley, I think that's the quiet piggy thing that Barkley's referring to here, by the way. All right, I'll continue. Notably, Barkley did not confine his criticism to Republicans during the same conversation. He dismissed progressive rhetoric around policing and incarceration in blunt terms, questioning What the country would do without police or prison. and noting that most of the politicians advancing those positions have been Democrats. He also has declined to apologize for shifting his own political affiliation over the years. He had a separate message for black voters supporting Trump, telling Cuomo that anyone black wearing a Trump mugshot is, in his words, a fool. Barkley has occupied this space for decades, willing to irritate every side of a conversation and largely indifferent to the fallout. That independence has given his political commentary unusual reach, particularly among audiences who tune him out when he sounds partisan and listen when he doesn't. He noted that he earned Trump's first, sorry, he entered Trump's first term prepared to give him a chance. Whether the remarks reached Trump directly remains open. The president has historically responded to high-profile critics, and Barkley has given him ample material. I want to go back here just a bit when Charles Barkley was being critical of Democrats, and he suggested that, you know, what would we do without police or prisons, noting that most politicians advancing these positions have been Democrats. One of the things that Q says this a lot better than I do, and feel free to fill out the conversation if I don't quite stick the landing here. There are some ideas worth exploring that come from progressives that address the root causes of much of what ails society. It requires progressive, creative, novel thinking. in order to address problems that we haven't yet to engineer out of our society. By definition, it requires novel thinking, progressive thinking, by definition. With Democrats or progressives or activists or whatever, progressive activists, I should be very clear about that, the messaging has not always been.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: Idiot-proof.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: And it has not been conservative proof because conservatives, by definition, want to conserve the way things are. And so where there's the potential to pick holes in a progressive argument, conservatives will take advantage of and exploit those holes. So when you advance an idea like defund the police, when you name it that, and this is the point that Q makes a lot better than I do, when you name it defund the police, it's wide open for people to attack it, regardless of how good the thinking is and how much the actual implementation addresses the root cause of problems. It just sounds like no more police or don't pay police or something like that. And a similar thing can be said about prisons, you know what I mean? When the truth is police reform and prison reform, a lot of it could take place by simply reallocating the funds that are set aside to sustain huge militarized police departments and prison industrial complexes, or the prison industrial complex, I should say. And so if we really don't want crime, rather than investing in police and prisons, which cost taxpayers more money, we can invest in things that actually work in preventing the necessity of these things. The thing is, the messaging isn't always there for progressives. And so Charles Barkley's point, I think, misses the mark a little bit when it comes to that. But as far as the Donald Trump stuff, Q and I have said this many times. We talk about the Trump effect on the population. And Q, I'll turn it over to you because I know that you have plenty to say here. So your thoughts.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: We've said it all before. There used to be a social cost. Now, that's what I needed because I've been trying to figure out the best way to articulate that.
00:24:16
Speaker 3: There used to be a social cost. For racism. Shame.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: Unemployment, becoming a bit of a social pariah in every space. Even your racist co-conspirators would denounce you in public because they didn't like the way it made them.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Look in public.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: What Trump did is remove that shame and remove that social cost. We didn't get a bunch of new racists. We just got a bunch of racist people who are now comfortable being so loudly, proudly and out in front of everyone. They do, however, still resent being called racist. They want to treat you like a racist would treat you. But they want you to like them at the same time is a really, really interesting phenomenon to witness. How dare you keep calling out that I'm a racist? Why do you keep pointing to all the ways that myself and the systems that my people have helped build continue to oppress and marginalize almost all people? Why do you keep pointing it out? Why do you keep complaining about it? Why do you keep playing victim as they continue to not just benefit from systemic racism, but hold it up, create new policy, even use civil rights legislation to call reverse racism.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: When marginalized communities are being helped. It's going to be interesting.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: As midterms approach, because I already see Democratic candidates soft-shoeing toward the center.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: And it's really, really like now.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: You want to you want to do this, let's all get along thing now of all times in history.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: I forget her name.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: By the time you hear our voices on air again, I would have found it. Democratic legislator saying she wants to make sure that we don't move to impeach anyone. Like, what are we what are we doing?
00:26:53
Speaker 3: Who is it that you're talking to?
00:26:55
Speaker 2: Because your base doesn't need you to say that. So it has to be the Republican colleagues that you have and their base that you're trying to appease. And, you know, people will say that both sides are bad things.
00:27:15
Speaker 3: And they're not wrong.
00:27:17
Speaker 2: But there's so much harm in that statement because both sides are bad. often sounds like both sides are the same. And both sides are not the same. And we will talk about the different levels of harm that we have to negotiate in our heads as we're making these decisions on how we vote in another episode.
00:27:36
Speaker 3: But, man.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: I think that you're referring to U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, who urged her Democratic colleagues to avoid pursuing impeachment against President Donald Trump. advocating instead for a focus on legislative work and policy compromises. That's what I got over here. I'm so sorry.
00:27:58
Speaker 3: Their desire to compromise.
00:28:01
Speaker 1: You have been listening to The QR Code. Today's show was produced by Chris Thompson and Dan Pavlich. Have some thoughts you'd like to share? Visit CivicCypher.com to ask a question, share some encouragement, or buy us a cup of coffee. While you're there, be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes. Today's episode includes a conversation about Chris Rock's refusal to help an innocent friend that still plagues him. Reports that keep surfacing about Benjamin Netanyahu being warned about October 7th and much more. As always, for anything you might miss or may have missed, download the full episode at CivicCypher.com or BINews.com or wherever you get your podcasts. For our editorial content covering hip-hop culture, visit HipHopWeeklyMagazine.com. Also, be sure to check us out on all social media at CivicCypher. You can find me on all platforms at RamsesJawQ at IMQWard. And be sure to keep it right here because we'll be back to share our news with our voice from our perspective right here on the QR code. Until then, peace.
Speaker 1: Still broadcasting from the Civic Cypher Studios, welcome back to the QR Code, where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes. The man you are about to hear from is a man known for being kind, one of a kind, and kind of a big deal. He is the Q in the QR Code. He goes by the name of Q-War.
00:00:20
Speaker 2: And the man that you just heard finds some different way every day to try to make it seem like I'm the one. In this one and two. When it's really him. The Himalayan Doku. He is the R in the QR code. He goes by the name Ramfus Jha.
00:00:40
Speaker 1: Today's episode includes a conversation about Chris Rock's refusal to help innocent friends. An innocent friend that still plagues him. What's the worst date you've ever been on? And Charles Barkley saying Trump has made racism socially acceptable. As always, for anything you might miss or may have missed, download the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:57
Speaker 3: All right.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: If you're just locking in with us, this is the QR code. I'm Ramses Jha. And it is time for QWords Clapback. Today's clapback pro bono. Q, the floor is yours.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: So a lot of times when we speak, it's in reference to questions that we get asked. So you'll hear me say there's a question that I keep getting asked because even though I try not to delve into the comments that it's hard to not pay attention to what our listeners are thinking and feeling and want to know what we think about. And something that we've been asked multiple times in different words, and I've even asked this myself, the honest version of it, how can you know what he meant? And this is from listeners or those that oppose our point of view with regards to their president.
00:01:48
Speaker 3: Fair.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: So let me not say that I do. Let me let him say it And I'll just take my opinion out of it altogether. April 2005. He is on Howard Stern's show. And Stern asked him about the beauty pageant he owns. And his own voice on tape for laughs. He says he goes backstage before the show while the contestants are getting dressed, he says. And this is him, not me, not Stern. that he is allowed to go in because he is the owner of the pageant and therefore he is inspecting it. He says they are standing there with no clothes. He thought that was funny. He offered that up on the radio. Nobody forced him to. He also owned Miss Teen USA. Four women from 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant later said he walked into their dressing room while they were changing. One of them, Mariah Bilotto, who had been Miss Vermont Teen USA. She remembered him saying something like, don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before. I'll leave those two things sitting next to each other and I won't say another word about either of them. October 22nd, he is under oath in a deposition in the case E. Jean Carroll brought against him. His lawyer reads his own words, or I'm sorry, her lawyer reads his own words from the Access Hollywood tape. The grab them by the whatever tape. The one that ended with him saying, you can do anything. And she asked him to explain it. Now, this is the moment. This is where a man says, I was ugly talk or I was showing off or I regret that I said that. Like, it's a kind of a softball question with an exit ramp and it's right there for you to take it. It's wide open. And his lawyers are in the room. Here is what he actually said. Well, historically, that's true with stars.
00:04:00
Speaker 3: She pushes.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: Is it actually true that stars can do that? And he says, and I quote, if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately. Then she asked him if he considers himself a star. His response, I think I can say that, yeah. Listen to that again. Under oath, on video, with counsel present, asked to explain the worst thing anybody ever caught him saying. Not only did he not deny it, he didn't apologize for it and did not try to explain it away. He confirmed it was true, said it had been true for a million years, and then put himself in the category. 11 days after that video played, a jury found him liable for sexual abuse. So here's where I've landed. And my goodness, it took me a long time to get here. At no point in any of this did he ask anybody to believe he didn't mean what he said.
00:05:16
Speaker 3: Never.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: Not once. He explained himself repeatedly under oath and on the radio and into every microphone anybody handed him. And every single time the explanation is worse than the accusation. So who's been telling you he didn't mean it? Because it wasn't him. Ah, unfortunately, it was us. The people whose whose job was supposed to be telling you what happened. For 10 years, every time he said the quiet part out loud, somebody got on radio or print or television and within hours explained that he was being hypothetical or that it was taken out of context, that you just have to understand that's how he talks. That is not reporting. That is crisis management. And a crisis manager has one job, which is to make the client look better than the facts make him look. That's the real job. People get paid very well to do it. Nobody was hired. Nobody sent an invoice. We've been doing his public relations for a decade for free and calling it fairness. I am not his fixer. Neither are you. When a man tells you repeatedly who he is out loud on tape under oath with a lawyer sitting next to him, the respectful thing, the honest thing, The only thing is to write it down exactly as he said it. He has never once asked us to soften it for him. I just ask all of us to stop volunteering.
00:07:03
Speaker 3: Ramses.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: Um, that is such an arrogant man. Uh, And this idea that stars can do whatever, that just jumped out at me. For the last million years. First off, Homo sapiens sapiens have only walked the earth for about 300,000 years. So that's like silly on its face. I think that, you know, in terms of like stars, radio... probably the earliest stars of only about 130 years old so again i don't know where you get this number from but again we're dealing with an ignoramus and we know that every day so what are you gonna do right all right uh let's see what are we doing here um yeah we're just locking into the qr code rams the job that's the name i go by q word is uh that's my friend on the other mic what's the worst date you've ever been on uh q you got a story for me.
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing that I feel worst about is that I didn't have to ponder for one second. As soon as I read the question, it was so pronounced. I don't know if it's a good one, right? Because the question in and of itself, the worst date you've ever been on. And I've only probably told this story three or four times ever, meaning three or four people have heard it, not to any groups of people. But I went on a date with this striking, stunning young lady. There's a shopping center in Arizona, a very, very popular place called Tempe Marketplace. Tempe Marketplace for a 20-something or early 30s, best date potential of all time. There's like 40 restaurants, a massive movie theater, shopping, like everything. ice cream, frozen yogurt, Dave and Buster's, like you can do everything there. Park your car once and spend the entire evening or afternoon just figuring out different things to do. There's areas where you can walk, talk, sit, there's fountains, there's lounge chairs, everything you could want to do. And there's a date I was excited about until it started or until she started to speak.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: Oof.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Now, this is important to say because I will not mimic the way that she talked, but I will say the things that she said. This young lady was blonde hair, blue eye, white.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: And.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: At some point, I don't know how we got there, but she felt the need to explain to me how these N-words be acting. And worse than these N-words be.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: Dot, dot, dot.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: Because there was a bunch of these in words B. Worse than what she was saying is how. Again, I will not mimic how she was speaking. But a comedian that I know named D. Ray Davis once told me he was fluent in hood rat.
00:10:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: And he would have understood everything that she stated plainly that night. Because she seemed to be fluent in that vernacular as well. And it was so uncomfortable. Because I was all at once offended, tickled, and wondering, what about me made her think that I'd be the audience for this? I remember the way that the date ended. Because I had already bought movie tickets. And I remember being excited about going to, I don't even remember what the movie was because that wasn't the point. I just knew that if a movie started, she would stop talking because she didn't continue on inward, inward, inward the whole day.
00:11:26
Speaker 3: Right.
00:11:26
Speaker 2: But just listening to her speak at all was, I could not wait for this movie to start. And the movie started and she stopped talking and, oh my goodness, that was fantastic. And at the end of the date, I knew and expressed to her that I would never see her again. Like that we would never hang out, that we would never talk. And I was, I was straightforward and honest with her at the end of it.
00:11:53
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, just, I.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: Won't waste your time.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Sure.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: You don't have to worry about the text or a phone call.
00:12:03
Speaker 3: Like, you know what I mean?
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Like, thank you for, thank you for your time.
00:12:06
Speaker 3: This is, you know, I won't even say this was cool. Cause it wasn't.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: Um, And yeah, and somehow that young lady was like, she didn't understand. Because I didn't say, hey, we're never going to hang out again because you said X, Y, and Z. But a mutual person, I won't even say a mutual friend, but a person that knew both of us ran into me one time and was like, yo, I know this really, really attractive woman that you went out with. And that's not the way he said it. Ramses could probably imagine the way he said it. I know this. Such and such and such that you went out with. Really attractive woman is a translation. And she spent a long time confused why you never called her again. And I remember in that moment being like, she was confused. Like, was she not on the same date? But it was just, it was awful, man.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: Like I was....
00:13:04
Speaker 2: As excited as I was going into it, I was far more disappointed at the end of it. And the only thing that I would have done different is skip the movie and just go home the next time.
00:13:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Because like I said, I don't even remember the movie. So I didn't even enjoy the movie. It was just, it was dark and it was quiet and she was no longer talking. Amen.
00:13:21
Speaker 1: Man, you're going to have to tell me who that was. I feel like maybe this might be somebody I might have heard about at minimum. But let me think.
00:13:31
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:13:32
Speaker 1: Mine is a little.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: I don't know.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Worst date I've been on. Dates are usually fun. But one time I went on a date with a lady who's a doctor. And at the time she was in medical school. She was going to be like a neurosurgeon or something crazy like that. Anyway, we went on this date to get tacos, as you do. And the whole date, this is my impression. She might have had a different impression. She's still friendly with me, too, mind you.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I love her to death.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: She's great. But we went through a phase where I wasn't really rocking with her. Anyway, during this date, she was like super duper awkward. And it was like endearing because I like made her nervous, right? And I thought that was kind of precious, you know? And I remember her saying like, oh my God, I said this wrong or I'm too silly or I keep laughing and now you're not going to want to go on a second date with me. And I was like, oh, my God, don't worry.
00:14:34
Speaker 2: It's all good.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: Right.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: And, you know, she did like a bunch of awkward stuff like, you know, I don't know, like clumsy, not just with her words, but with her like body, like just tripping over like all the everything, everything bad that a woman would not want to have happen in front of a man that I guess she likes. For me, I'll never understand the nature of attractions. from something as beautiful as a woman to something as plain as a man. I don't get it, but you know, women find you attractive. I mean, that's just kind of the nature of women.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Maybe. I don't know.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: I always kind of felt like women didn't really like men. They just were attracted to us like biologically, but you know, sometimes a woman might get a little giddy. There seemed to be a moment like that at the end of it. Um, I was walking her to, she was getting an Uber. So I was walking her to the Uber and this was where it kind of.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: Got weird for me.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: She stood at the car, like opened the door for her. She stood at the car and she was saying goodbye to me. I had to go work, I had to go DJ. So I reached over, gave her a hug and I'm like, all right, well, just let me know when you get home safe, blah, blah, blah, I'm getting ready to leave. And she stays there frozen looking at me And I'm like, the car door's open, why are you, you know? And this is what I'm thinking, I didn't say it out loud, but she's looking right into my eyes and then she looks down at my lips and then looks back up at my eyes, right? And so I'm thinking, oh my God, she's waiting for me to kiss her. It was a long, awkward silence because it takes me a long time to pick up on cues like this, right? So I'm like, oh shoot. And then knowing what had preceded it, I'm like, She's going to be devastated if I don't, you know, kiss her because she seems to like really whatever. So maybe this is how she was. This is her metric of whether or not the date went well and whether or not I'm really going to.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: Want to see her again.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: So I said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. You wanted me to kiss you. I didn't know. And then so I kind of started moving toward her to kiss her. And then she took a step back. I was like, oh, oh. And she's like, uh-uh, you should always ask. And I was like, okay, okay, that's fair.
00:17:06
Speaker 3: That's fair.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry. And then I stepped away immediately because I felt like I violated, right? And after that, you know, my process, like delete the number, never call again, that sort of thing. That's kind of my whole thing. Because it's really embarrassing when, like she was very, like she would admit, she was very much like, I want you to kiss me. but I want you to ask first, right? So there was this critical process that I needed to know about and go through. So, and to be fair, I've been on other dates where I would ask and then the woman would like start laughing and be like, no, you're just supposed to do it. You didn't feel the moment in the air. Why are you making it awkward by asking? You know what I mean? So you never really know what's right. And when in doubt, you should err on the side of caution, of course. But that date made me feel so awkward because she clearly wanted me to do it, but she wanted me to follow a critical process that I didn't know existed in her brain. And that was that. All right. If you're just locking in with us here at the QR code, uh, keyboard, that is the, uh, audible chocolate that you're hearing on the other microphone over there. Uh, I'm Ramses Ja. And, uh, we're going to talk about Charles Barkley. He says, Trump has made racism socially acceptable. Uh, no real surprise there from us, but I'll get into it. All right. This from the griot. Charles Barkley has never required a prompt to say what he thinks. And his latest target was the president. According to, To the Chris Cuomo project, the 63-year-old Hall of Famer argued that Donald Trump's influence has reshaped what Americans feel permitted to say out loud. That was a quote, by the way. He says, quote, I think that's one of the worst things about Trump. He's made it popular to be racist. There's no consequences for being racist now. It's like a lot of people are wearing it with a badge of courage, unquote. Charles Barkley goes on to say Trump never denounces it, adding that he should and that the absence of any rebuke has made racism more acceptable. In Barkley's framing, the bigotry was always present, but social costs once kept it private. Quote, you used to have to be quiet when you were racist. You don't have to be quiet anymore. Unquote, he said, describing people who now feel confident and comfortable where they previously concealed their views. When Cuomo pressed On how a president avoids accountability in an office built around it, Barkley pointed to Trump's treatment of the press, citing the moment last year when the president told a female reporter to be quiet after she asked about the Epstein files. Notably, Barkley, I think that's the quiet piggy thing that Barkley's referring to here, by the way. All right, I'll continue. Notably, Barkley did not confine his criticism to Republicans during the same conversation. He dismissed progressive rhetoric around policing and incarceration in blunt terms, questioning What the country would do without police or prison. and noting that most of the politicians advancing those positions have been Democrats. He also has declined to apologize for shifting his own political affiliation over the years. He had a separate message for black voters supporting Trump, telling Cuomo that anyone black wearing a Trump mugshot is, in his words, a fool. Barkley has occupied this space for decades, willing to irritate every side of a conversation and largely indifferent to the fallout. That independence has given his political commentary unusual reach, particularly among audiences who tune him out when he sounds partisan and listen when he doesn't. He noted that he earned Trump's first, sorry, he entered Trump's first term prepared to give him a chance. Whether the remarks reached Trump directly remains open. The president has historically responded to high-profile critics, and Barkley has given him ample material. I want to go back here just a bit when Charles Barkley was being critical of Democrats, and he suggested that, you know, what would we do without police or prisons, noting that most politicians advancing these positions have been Democrats. One of the things that Q says this a lot better than I do, and feel free to fill out the conversation if I don't quite stick the landing here. There are some ideas worth exploring that come from progressives that address the root causes of much of what ails society. It requires progressive, creative, novel thinking. in order to address problems that we haven't yet to engineer out of our society. By definition, it requires novel thinking, progressive thinking, by definition. With Democrats or progressives or activists or whatever, progressive activists, I should be very clear about that, the messaging has not always been.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: Idiot-proof.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: And it has not been conservative proof because conservatives, by definition, want to conserve the way things are. And so where there's the potential to pick holes in a progressive argument, conservatives will take advantage of and exploit those holes. So when you advance an idea like defund the police, when you name it that, and this is the point that Q makes a lot better than I do, when you name it defund the police, it's wide open for people to attack it, regardless of how good the thinking is and how much the actual implementation addresses the root cause of problems. It just sounds like no more police or don't pay police or something like that. And a similar thing can be said about prisons, you know what I mean? When the truth is police reform and prison reform, a lot of it could take place by simply reallocating the funds that are set aside to sustain huge militarized police departments and prison industrial complexes, or the prison industrial complex, I should say. And so if we really don't want crime, rather than investing in police and prisons, which cost taxpayers more money, we can invest in things that actually work in preventing the necessity of these things. The thing is, the messaging isn't always there for progressives. And so Charles Barkley's point, I think, misses the mark a little bit when it comes to that. But as far as the Donald Trump stuff, Q and I have said this many times. We talk about the Trump effect on the population. And Q, I'll turn it over to you because I know that you have plenty to say here. So your thoughts.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: We've said it all before. There used to be a social cost. Now, that's what I needed because I've been trying to figure out the best way to articulate that.
00:24:16
Speaker 3: There used to be a social cost. For racism. Shame.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: Unemployment, becoming a bit of a social pariah in every space. Even your racist co-conspirators would denounce you in public because they didn't like the way it made them.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Look in public.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: What Trump did is remove that shame and remove that social cost. We didn't get a bunch of new racists. We just got a bunch of racist people who are now comfortable being so loudly, proudly and out in front of everyone. They do, however, still resent being called racist. They want to treat you like a racist would treat you. But they want you to like them at the same time is a really, really interesting phenomenon to witness. How dare you keep calling out that I'm a racist? Why do you keep pointing to all the ways that myself and the systems that my people have helped build continue to oppress and marginalize almost all people? Why do you keep pointing it out? Why do you keep complaining about it? Why do you keep playing victim as they continue to not just benefit from systemic racism, but hold it up, create new policy, even use civil rights legislation to call reverse racism.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: When marginalized communities are being helped. It's going to be interesting.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: As midterms approach, because I already see Democratic candidates soft-shoeing toward the center.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: And it's really, really like now.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: You want to you want to do this, let's all get along thing now of all times in history.
00:26:33
Speaker 3: I forget her name.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: By the time you hear our voices on air again, I would have found it. Democratic legislator saying she wants to make sure that we don't move to impeach anyone. Like, what are we what are we doing?
00:26:53
Speaker 3: Who is it that you're talking to?
00:26:55
Speaker 2: Because your base doesn't need you to say that. So it has to be the Republican colleagues that you have and their base that you're trying to appease. And, you know, people will say that both sides are bad things.
00:27:15
Speaker 3: And they're not wrong.
00:27:17
Speaker 2: But there's so much harm in that statement because both sides are bad. often sounds like both sides are the same. And both sides are not the same. And we will talk about the different levels of harm that we have to negotiate in our heads as we're making these decisions on how we vote in another episode.
00:27:36
Speaker 3: But, man.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: I think that you're referring to U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, who urged her Democratic colleagues to avoid pursuing impeachment against President Donald Trump. advocating instead for a focus on legislative work and policy compromises. That's what I got over here. I'm so sorry.
00:27:58
Speaker 3: Their desire to compromise.
00:28:01
Speaker 1: You have been listening to The QR Code. Today's show was produced by Chris Thompson and Dan Pavlich. Have some thoughts you'd like to share? Visit CivicCypher.com to ask a question, share some encouragement, or buy us a cup of coffee. While you're there, be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes. Today's episode includes a conversation about Chris Rock's refusal to help an innocent friend that still plagues him. Reports that keep surfacing about Benjamin Netanyahu being warned about October 7th and much more. As always, for anything you might miss or may have missed, download the full episode at CivicCypher.com or BINews.com or wherever you get your podcasts. For our editorial content covering hip-hop culture, visit HipHopWeeklyMagazine.com. Also, be sure to check us out on all social media at CivicCypher. You can find me on all platforms at RamsesJawQ at IMQWard. And be sure to keep it right here because we'll be back to share our news with our voice from our perspective right here on the QR code. Until then, peace.
