The Martin Luther King, Jr. episode for 2020
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Welcome to the white ice podcast, where we discuss issues of race that we've buried it under the carpet on Pretend like It's Connell and culture have got to get back to agitating, to standing up to making a difference, to be fearless and our world. Today I'm your host. Vincent Harris will sit back and enjoy the doctor gives No Dr Rudy, man. We see Mass with confidence is chilling out. But you know why. Nice has been out for a little while and we're back on a second season. And I just wanted to catch Rudy and ask him a few questions about how he's feeling today about about the life of the church and especially our folk, and how race has been impacted our lives in our community. So, Rudy, just let me know how you're feeling today, man, about this whole race issue and husband and packing the United Methodist Church
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were Vincent, First of all, thank you for for hanging out with me today over here through good coffee commercial 27 Street in the coffee's always hot. It's a good cough. Good coffee? Yeah, but you know, man, I, uh you know, and your audience Probably doesn't know. But I just finished basically a 300 page dissertation. Oh, um, black millennials and the church. Lt's my research. Um, So what I did was I took really, uh, a Not an exhaustive look, but a cursory look at at the development of black religion from the slave ship to what we consider the church today. In that on that timeline. Worse. Um, some interesting developments that really points while we're in this place we're in right now. Ah, a lot has been said about white millennials, but very little has been said about black millennials. And there, there little causal response to the church's request for them for their participation. Um, they have in many cases, not responded. They haven't rejected that call, but they just haven't responded to that call in any any demonstrative way. They have basically been chilling land back in. The church has not been able to factor even calculate their participation in any measurable terms. This is what I found. So let's take the take the first ship 400 years ago to the to the brush arm way Take, go, go to the brush arbor. Then we realize there is a That was a movement, Uh, that, uh, that one scholar, Cornel West. One scholar basically said in that moment the slave decided to make Jesus statue us. Okay. It was a conscious decision for both economic and survive for reasons, economic reasons and reasons of survival. Um, we literally have been making that same decision for the last probably 100 years. Economics and survival. And you can normally put those two together. But But here's where the unique shift actually had. First of all, I have, uh, you know, in my Emma research, I interviewed 200 across an economic spectrum across an education and in the fan dings were were amazingly similar. Ghost aware that that millennial ended up social, economic, just even in education. They all ended up in the same place. And And that really points to the fact that the that most of the group that we're missing now, their departure was determined many years in advance in most cases before they were born. Okay. Yeah. In essence, their parents and guardians made the first step out of the black church. We're only seeing what now is the completion of Exodus? Yeah, on Exodus that really began. According to mine thoughts 1968. Okay, on the on the
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that was that was merger, though That was when the blacks came into the Methodist church from the 39 uniting conference after they central jurisdiction. So you're saying that 68 WAAS accidents and not uniting
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68 was the beginning of the exodus? Because you had to look at the demographic that united, uh, they were perceived openly mobile blacks who had the aspirations of their Children having a better life than they did. All right. They came, if economic and social reasons, right, you know, just like everybody else made. Jesus made the choice. I made the decision to make Jesus their choice. In this case, they made the decision to make United. Methodism did their choice. Here's the Here's the real fans 68. Uh, the attack sewn on the black community were some in some cases over, but in most cases, subtle. It was the subtle attacks on the black community that really began the demands of the black church as we know it. Right? So think about this. We had we had overt, really overt attacks on black community, you know, which were responses to civil unrest, you know, But but imagine. Imagine the dog whistle. I liked it. I liked a man folk that there are dog whistles that the populace can't hear. But but a certain sector of society here is very clearly you need dog lovers out there. No, that that only your with. Only Odo can hear that whistle. Right. But imagine this. Imagine, uh, identifying the fact that leadership, civil leadership, the primary incubator for civil leadership, was the black church while the primary incubated. If you look at the civil rights movement, you'll see one lead afternoon after another that came out out of the black cherry fracture. Right? And even the Pinnacle leader here not came himself. Yes. Was a Baptist preacher. That's right. So imagine this if you or in charge of over, let's see justice in a mirror. You want to identify the sources of civil unrest? Uh, you would have to isolate the electric pretty quickly. All right, So imagine. Imagine if a not you can't make an overt attack. One of my church. So what you do is you numb it. You, uh you give it a tranquil ass. Wow. All right, One of the trickle tranquilizers. Waas. We shall come back. Come, come by. Yeah, Come over here with us. We'll take care of you. We'll make sure even that you are in charge of something. All right. First steps in dismantling the power of the black church. But a second step was even more subtle, but with more catastrophic. So even every one of these black churches was located was literally in the locus of every black community. It was at the center of every black community. And it was a well respected institution in every black community boys talked about. Yeah. How do you How do you begin to nullify the effects of the locus? You first declare war drugs. Then you, Sandra Hooks, to make sure the war is justifiable. And then you end up with an addicted community that is literally sack Aled by a new economy. And then you start incarcerate the future of the church. So what?
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You know, I'm I'm kind of in the background in my mind and in my ears. I'm gonna call it the Bush saw interview because this is a bus off the bus off, and I we're gonna clear that we have the backing. But how this has emerged, Yemen and what the meaning is for us today. And so what do we do as a response? How do we know? What was your research kind of dealing with? What are some of the factors that we need to consider as we move forward?
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So my eyes were open with one fact, Um, even candy stamp from the beginning. It's a book. I recommend every black person. He's a young historian under 40 in a professor at a Think American University. Wasn't 40 in it, um, Kindy in his book, Help me to see the really the Plan. As it has unfolded, I used to think ignorance and hatred worthy, worthy genesis of, uh, of policies, discriminatory policies. I think ignorance and hatred. We're at the at the core of racial discrimination idea, like it is easy to think, but this is what can't be helped me to understand. Is he the only way, um, racial discrimination in its global context could could survive throughout this last 600 plus years. All right, Is it not ignorance and hatred being the genesis of racial discrimination, discrimination, discriminatory practices. But imagine this policy discriminatory policies have always been at the genesis of ignorance and hatred. So here we want a date 600 years later, still wondering why we can't do anything about this this global racist. And it's because it is undergirded globally by policies that creates ignorance and hatred. That's the bus. That's that's a
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problem. And I know that a lot of heaven had the experiences you have and been able to discern some of this, Um, as we continue to kind of walk through leadership for the future as well. If you If you're a college student today, you're somebody who's tryingto gonna move forward and understand what the world is about. Knowing policy drives this racist behavior. What else would you get? Someone who's really trying to do the right thing for the right
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here? My findings, I would say. First of all, no, that small is the newbie, um, intimacy eyes the new currency. In a world driven by social media, intimacy is of extreme value. Two people disconnected, only connected via a. So let's take four four things that we need to begin the bullets. Don't think about in a in a very strategic wait one is, ah, accountability. When I talk to young people, um, the one thing they're looking for ISS accountable relationships with institutions with interest. Only the institutions that are accountable have have married. All right, um uh, sex. Second of all, um Oh, transparency, Um, young people, you know, you know, the silent generation waas extremely, extremely cloistered, not having much transparency. Uh, imagine now that the only way you you cross over by revealing your scar in the same way first early centuries identified those and covenant with each other. They showed this car's transparency, authenticity, integrity wth e church itself has lost integrity. It has an integrity issue. It has a credibility issue. Uh, the only way we can restore that is by by moving the moving back to a place where we could be counted on and lastly, creating relationships through smaller settings. The big boxes is a great place for a celebration. It is great place for a celebration. And but but not not a place where transformative relationships are or nurtured.
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Wow. Yeah, it's been good. I have opinion about life, things that I can't give it today. You know, I'm just I'm just glad you're six time. I'm in the bus on Dr Rudy Bus. Rasmus has been sharing with the white eyes podcast. And we in Georgia time. We're gonna get back together with you another time. Thank you. Thanks for coming out, man. And invited me over.
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You just remember policy matters.
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Policy matters.
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I am way church lost four million
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potential members Policy. Thanks. Thank you for tuning in to see you next week.