Finding Myself: Recovering What White Supremacy Stole

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Good afternoon.
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My name is Napoleon Bradford, and welcome to another edition of Native Drums.
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My top topic today is finding myself, rediscovering what white supremacy stole.
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I want to begin today with the question.
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What if some of the things we spent our lives trying to find were never actually lost?
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What if they were stolen?
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There's a difference between losing something and having something stolen from you.
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If I lose something, maybe I misplaced it.
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Maybe I forgot where I put it.
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Maybe I wasn't paying attention.
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But if something was stolen, the story changes because now there was an act.
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There was an actor.
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There was a taking, there was a loss.
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And somewhere in the conversation, there ought to be a discussion about repair.
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See, I've been reading this amazing book by Duke Kwan and Gregory Thompson called Reparations, a Christian Call for Repentance and Repair.
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Again, that's Reparations, a Christian Call for Repentance and Repair by Duke L.
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Kwan and Gregory Thompson.
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And in their book, in the third chapter, it's entitled Seeing the Effects of White Supremacy.
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They offer a framework that stayed with me.
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They argue that the effects of white supremacy can be understood through the language of theft.
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And they identified three significant things that were stolen: truth, power, and wealth.
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Now I want you to hear me carefully.
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They are not saying racism was only theft.
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They are giving us a framework for seeing what racism actually did.
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It didn't merely hurt feelings, it didn't merely produce prejudice.
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It did not merely cause black people and white people to dislike one another.
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It took things, it stole things, it transferred things, it obstructed things.
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And while sitting with their argument, another question came to me.
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If something was stolen, what would it look like to get it back?
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Not simply financially, not simply politically, but personally, spiritually, communally, institutionally, what would it mean to rediscover what was stolen from us?
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And maybe an even more uncomfortable question: what if we have lived without some of these things for so long that we have forgotten they ever belong to us?
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What if we have lived with some of these things, without some of these things so long we've forgotten they even belong to us?
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Again, welcome to the native drum.
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I'm Napoleon Bradford, and today's conversation is finding myself rediscovering what white supremacy stole.
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The first theft is truth.
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Kwana Thompson be helped begin by something fundamentally important.
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White supremacy stole truth.
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And specifically, it stole truth concerning black identity.
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That's important because white supremacy could not simply enslave black bodies, it needed a story that justified enslaving black bodies.
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It needed an explanation, a theology, an anthropology, an ideology, a narrative.
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So black people, first of all, were animalized.
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Secondly, black people were demonized, and third, black people were infantized.
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Blackness became associated with inferiority, danger, immorality, incompetence, dependency.
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And these ideas were reinforced through culture, religion, science, politics, education, and law.
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Think about what that accomplishes.
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Before you can exploit somebody without troubling your conscience, you have to create a story that makes their exploitation reasonable.
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Before you can steal someone's labor, you tell yourself a story about why you deserve what they produce.
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Before you deny somebody political power, you create a story explaining why they are incapable of exercising it.
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Before you exclude somebody from an institution, you construct a narrative explaining why they don't belong.
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The lie becomes the permission slip for the theft.
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And that makes the theft of truth deeply theological for me.
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Because before America said anything about black people, God had already spoken.
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Before race was constructed, before blackness was racialized, before colonialism, before slavery, before Jim Crow, before somebody created a hierarchy of human value, Genesis had already declared that humanity was created in the image and the likeness of God.
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So the first theological truth about me is not what somebody else decided I was.
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I am an image-bearer, created by God, known by God, loved by God, endowed with dignity that no other human institution has the authority to give me, and therefore no human institution has the authority to take away from me.
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Which means one of white supremacy's most profound theological crimes was identity theft.
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It attempted to replace what God said about black humanity with what a racial hierarchy needed black humanity to be.
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Because here's what troubles me.
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Sometimes oppression can survive even after the oppressor leaves the room.
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Because if nobody tells you something about yourself long enough, because if somebody tells you about something about yourself long enough, eventually they don't have to say it anymore.
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You start saying it to yourself.
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You start questioning your own intelligence, your beauty, your capacity, your leadership, your culture, your history, your voice.
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You start wondering whether you belong in certain rooms or whether ideas are sophisticated.
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Your ideas are sophisticated enough.
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Your accent is professional enough.
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Your hair is acceptable enough.
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Your worship is theological enough.
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Whether your culture is civilized enough, whether your grandmother's wisdom counts as knowledge because she never went to seminary.
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And eventually you can become a stranger to yourself.
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It makes me think about Genesis 3.
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Adam tells God, I was afraid because I was naked.
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And God asked one of the most profound questions in scripture: Who told you you were naked?
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Notice the question.
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God interrogates the source of Adam's new self-understanding.
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Notice the question.
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Who told you?
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And maybe some of us need to ask that question again.
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Who told you there was something inherently wrong with you?
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Who told you your blackness was a liability?
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Who told you your culture was deficient?
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Who told you Africa was waiting for Europe to become civilized?
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Who told you African spirituality is demonic worship?
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Who told you that your intelligence sounds European?
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Who told you your professionalism looks white?
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Who told you your beauty only has one complexion?
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Who told you black history began with slavery?
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Who told you African spirituality again has nothing to teach Christianity?
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Who told you your grandmother wasn't a theologian?
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Who told you?
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Because finding myself requires interrogating the voices that helped construct me.
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And Kwan and Thompson say that theft of truth went even further.
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It included the theft of history.
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They describe two mechanisms of this theft: romanticization and erasure.
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Romanticization changes the story.
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Erasure removes inconvenient people from the story.
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You can celebrate American American economic development while forgetting whose hands produce much of the wealth.
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You can admire universities while forgetting who cleared the land, laid the bricks, cooked their meals, washed their clothes, and tended their gardens.
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You can build monuments to one people's heroes while leaving another people's graves unmarked.
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You can tell a beautiful story about America as long as you decide which parts of America you're willing to forget.
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And that's why memory matters, because whoever controls memory can influence identity.
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And whoever influences identity can shape imagination.
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And if I can convince you that your ancestors produced nothing, built nothing, knew nothing, created nothing, contributed nothing, then eventually you may start believing you inherited nothing.
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But my history did not begin with somebody putting chains on my ancestors.
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We had civilizations, families, economies, political structures, art, music, knowledge, spirituality, names, community, and yes, God, God was in Africa before European missionaries arrived.
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Christianity had ancient African roots long before the modern European colonial project that presented a white Jesus with long white hair, stringy hair, and blue eyes.
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So finding myself requires recovering memories somebody taught me were irrelevant and hear beyond, and hear this beyond race.
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Your story doesn't begin with the worst thing that happened to you.
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Ah, listen, hear this beyond race.
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Listen to me.
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Your story doesn't begin with the worst thing that happened to you.
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Your trauma is part of your story, but trauma does not get to be the author of your identity.
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What happened to you matters, but what happened to you does not get the authority to tell you who you are.
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That is recovering truth.
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But here's the second theft.
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Not only was truth stolen, but power.
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Kwan and Thompson say white supremacy also stole power.
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And they don't begin with Washington, they begin with something closer: personal power, agency, the ability to exercise authority over your body and mind.
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Think about slavery through that lens.
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Someone else determine where you lived, what work you performed, whether your family stayed together, whether your children could be sold, whether you could travel, whether you could learn what happened to your body.
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That's the theft of agency.
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After slavery, the mechanism changed: lynching, convict leasing, segregation, police violence, wrongful convictions, discriminatory zoning, political disenfranchisement, different instruments, but beneath them is a recurring, recurring question.
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Who gets to exercise agency?
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And then we arrive at political power.
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The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying citizens the vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
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Black political participation expanded dramatically during Reconstruction.
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Then came the counterattack.
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Violence, intimidation, fraud, poll taxes, literacy tests, administrative barriers.
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And South Carolina knows this history.
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South Carolina's archives preserve black voter registration records from the Reconstruction period, a time when formally enslaved people moved rapidly into civic and political participation.
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Think about that.
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People who had recently been somebody else's legal property were registering to vote, serving in government, building schools, creating churches, establishing businesses, organizing communities.
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They understood something we cannot afford to forget.
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Freedom without power is fragile.
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Now, we're approaching another midterm election.
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On November 3rd, 2026, make sure my date is right.
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I know this date like the back of my hand, but just for the sake, November 3rd, Americans will again exercise political agency.
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And for those of us connected to South Carolina, I don't want us to treat this casually.
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Because you, when you enter that voting booth, you aren't simply performing an American ritual.
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You are exercising something people worked, organized, suffered, and in some cases died to secure.
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I know by now you've probably heard, if not, that we're doing this family to the polls thing as a part of the children's defense fund um effort for voter showing up, not only education, but also mobilization.
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And we want you to build a legacy of voters.
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So I don't know if you heard this, but we need to make sure that you bring your children to the booth so they can watch you vote.
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And our contemporary legal environment reminds us that voting rights remain an active constitution, constitutional question.
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In April, the Supreme Court decided in Louisiana versus Kyellis.
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The court held that the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create additional majority-minority congressional districts and concluded that the map before it was unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
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The effects extended beyond Louisiana.
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In May, the court vacated and remanded Alabama voting cases for reconsideration.
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Now, people can debate what those decisions mean for voting law and redistricting.
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That's part of the democratic discourse.
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But the historical point I want us to see is larger.
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The relationship between race, representation, and political power is not ancient history.
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We're still negotiating it.
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Let me tell you why this is so important.
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Before I get to my next thing, which means we cannot casually surrender the agency previous generations struggled to secure, let me tell you this.
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This is how you know they don't really want you.
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Because why do you have to vote for something that should be inherently yours?
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We don't vote for white voter rights every year or every four years.
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Why are we still bringing up black voter rights?
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You they don't want you to vote, and when you don't vote, you feed them ammunition to help ensure you never get the chance to vote again.
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Which means, and I'm gonna say it again, we cannot surrender the agency previous generations struggled to secure.
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But there's another dimension of political agency I want us to consider.
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And this may be one that's uncomfortable.
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Who do we believe looks like leadership?
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If white supremacy stole truth about black identity and then stole black political power, we have to ask whether some of the narratives used to accomplish those thefts remain inside our imagination.
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It wasn't until number 44 that the image of what president looks like changed.
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It wasn't until 46 that the image of what vice president looks like changed.
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Remember the stereotypes?
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Black infantilization said black people lack capacity, black demonization portrayed black power as dangerous.
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Can we unconsciously carry those assumptions into the voting booth?
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I'm not telling you to vote for somebody for their because they're black alone.
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Absolutely not.
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Representation is not a substitute for examination.
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Black candidates should be examined.
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Hold on, wait.
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But they should also be considered.
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But I'd say this.
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Also look at their history in the sense that don't disqualify somebody because their path wasn't smooth, because we know our paths are unevenly in proximity to those who may have had straighter paths.
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Right?
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I might have been brought up on a dirt road with an outhouse.
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That doesn't disqualify me just because my competitor had opportunity to go to West Point, had the opportunity to go to good private schools and Ivy Lee schools.
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Listen, here's the reality.
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Look at their relationship to community.
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Because we weren't necessarily meant to come from the same path, but that doesn't disqualify my path because my path is different.
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Ask the hard questions, but ask the same hard question of everybody.
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Because sometimes the issue isn't that we evaluate black leadership, we should.
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The question is whether we sometimes require black leadership to prove its legitimacy while assuming somebody else's legitimacy.
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Do I scrutinize one candidate's resume while accepting another candidate's confidence as competence?
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Do I interpret assertiveness differently depending on who displays it?
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Do I unconsciously associate authority with a particular race, gender, accent, education, neighborhood, or social class?
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Those aren't partisan questions.
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Those are formation questions.
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Who taught us what leadership looks like?
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And when we rediscover ourselves, we don't stop evaluating.
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We learn to evaluate without using somebody else's hierarchy as our measuring stick.
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That's what recovering political agency looks like.
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Not voting black because somebody is black, not voting white because somebody is white, not voting Democrat because your grandmother did, not voting Republican because your neighbor does, not surrendering your conscience to a preacher, a politician, a party, a fraternity, a sorority, a news network, or a social media algorithm.
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Study.
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Question, compare, discern, and then exercise your agency, your power.
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And here's the third theft, and I'm done.
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Wealth.
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Kwan and Thompson identify in their book Reparations wealth as the third theft.
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And they describe two mechanisms: extraction and obstruction.
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Extraction means taking what black people produced.
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Obstruction means preventing black people from acquiring what others are allowed to build.
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Slavery was economic, and slave people were treated as assets, bought, sold, inherited, used as collateral.
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But the greater economic story isn't merely that black sleep, black, that enslaved people were wealth.
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They created wealth.
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They grew crops, built homes, raised livestock, produced food, harvested cotton, constructed infrastructure.
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Their labor generated economic value that accumulated elsewhere.
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That's extraction.
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Then came obstruction.
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After emancipation, black people were legally free while repeatedly being prevented from acquiring land, credit, property, and wealth building resources on equal terms.
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Consider land.
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Consider the Freedmen Savings Bank.
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Consider discriminatory lending.
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Consider read redlining.
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Consider unequal access to New Deal wealth building programs.
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Consider black communities that built thriving ecosystems economically only to encounter exclusion and at times racial violence.
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Tulsa, Wilmington, and other communities.
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And here's the question history forces us to ask.
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Instead of asking why didn't people why didn't black people build wealth?
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Maybe we should first ask what happened to the wealth black people built.
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Different question, different story, different diagnosis.
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But something remarkable happened.
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Obstruction produced resistance.
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When black people couldn't access certain institutions, we built institutions, schools, banks, businesses, churches, colleges, multi-mutual aid societies, newspapers, professional associations, fraternal organizations, sororal organizations, networks of care, networks of cash capital, networks of education, networks of leadership, TV networks, political mobilization networks.
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And that brings me to something happening within portions of black of the black church that I think deserves a much more sophisticated conversation.
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When we denounce what our ancestors built, I know you ain't asked for all that today, but guess what?
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We getting it.
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There are Christians today who have serious theological concerns about membership in black organizations.
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Historically, black organizations.
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They have a problem with Masonic organizations.
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Some Christians have chosen to renounce those affiliations because of their understanding of particular rituals, oaths, symbols, theological language, and organizational practice practices.
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Those theological questions deserve to be heard.
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They deserve serious biblical and theological examination.
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But here's what I don't think we can afford to do: we cannot allow theological critique to become historical amnesia.
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Because before we decide what these organizations mean theologically, we ought to understand what they have meant historically.
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Take black Greek letter organization.
00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:34.559
Let me pause and say that denouncing and renouncing are two different things.
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:38.559
Denouncing is the verbal act publicly of saying you are done.
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:53.200
Renouncing means you go through the steps of going to the organization and writing a letter, formal letter of release, turning back in your paraphernalia, removing your brands and tattoos and saying you were done.
00:25:53.519 --> 00:25:59.759
Whole lot of people can talk about it, but those same people ain't been active, so they ain't got nothing to say to actually renounce.
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:00.559
Okay, never mind.
00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:01.839
They already been off the roll.
00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:02.640
Okay, never mind.
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:16.559
Um, the black, the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture explains that black Greek letter organizations arose during the period of Jim Crow, scientific racism, racial violence, and exclusion of black students from white Greek organizations.
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:24.880
They built networks around personal excellence, racial uplift, kinship, community service, and civic action.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:31.119
Their continued, continuing outreach has included literacy, professional development, and voter registration.
00:26:31.359 --> 00:26:32.400
Sit with that.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.880
Black students were excluded, so they organized.
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:44.559
They needed community, so they created community.
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:47.279
They needed networks, so they built networks.
00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:50.880
They needed leadership development, so they developed leaders.
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:55.440
They needed pathways towards civic power, so they created pathworks.
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:56.799
Pathways.
00:26:56.960 --> 00:26:59.839
They needed pathways, so they created pathways.
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:16.319
The Smithsonian documents Alpha Phi Alpha's early education and voting rights initiatives, five beta sigmas, advocacy against lynching and the work around black economic empowerment and the civic and civil rights work associated with the other divine nine organizations.
00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:18.240
Were their organizations perfect?
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:20.079
Of course not.
00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:22.000
What human institution is?
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:29.039
Churches aren't perfect, denominations aren't perfect, seminaries aren't perfect, governments aren't perfect, families aren't perfect.
00:27:29.200 --> 00:27:41.200
The existence of imperfection doesn't eliminate the necessity of serious discernment, but historical honesty requires us to acknowledge what these institutions did.
00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:45.200
And then there's Prince Hall Masonry.
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:48.960
For South Carolina, this becomes particularly significant.
00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:57.440
The most worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of South Carolina traces this development to the Reconstruction era.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:10.319
Its own history describes 1868 as a moment when African Americans in South Carolina were building churches, schools, buildings, and becoming politically engaged.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:16.559
Prince Hall masonry developed within that ecosystem of black institution building.
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:18.160
Do you see the pattern?
00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:24.400
You won't let us into your institutions, we'll build institutions.
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:27.440
You won't educate our children, we'll build schools.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:30.160
You won't lend us money, we'll build banks.
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:34.160
You won't create professional networks for us, we'll create networks.
00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:37.359
You won't recognize our leaders, we'll develop leaders.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:41.519
You want us isolated, we'll create brotherhood and sisterhood.
00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:47.839
That's not incidental black history, that is black institutional resistance.
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:51.920
And here's the question I believe the church has to wrestle with.
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:59.039
What happens when we denounce an institution without understanding why our ancestors needed to build it?
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:01.279
Again, hold on, listen.
00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:08.000
I think, regardless of what the ritual says, it is to honor God.
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:09.200
Why do I say that?
00:29:09.440 --> 00:29:31.519
Because we built the rituals based on how we professed our allegiance to the God we worship, based on the God who not only was introduced to us through colonialism, but also the God we brought with us back across the waters of the transatlantic trade routes.
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:39.839
In other words, we bring the God of Africa to us, and the the white supremacy Jesus has a problem with the God of Africa.
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:40.640
Right?
00:29:40.799 --> 00:29:41.920
Here's the problem.
00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:46.480
How dare we have a God that's not controlled by their teachings?
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:55.279
How dare we have a God that's not that doesn't have to bow to their uh evangelical thrusts.
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:10.799
Now I'm not saying don't don't engage in theological ritual examination, but what I'm saying is understanding that our allegiance is to God first, the God who created the ability for us to create organizations.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:16.640
It doesn't mean that every oath should be automatically accepted, it doesn't mean tradition gets immunity from critique.
00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:31.920
But if you look at it and if you participate in it, then what you do understand is God is understood and God is boldly stated, and no organization replaces God for us.
00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:36.160
The Prince Hall Masons don't replace God for me.
00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:38.079
Hold on, I'll get even deeper.
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:48.559
Savannah Grove and Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church don't replace God for me, because God is established before I participate in any of the organizations.
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:54.720
So perhaps our question needs to be more sophisticated than just saying, should I denounce this?
00:30:54.960 --> 00:30:59.599
Maybe I should ask, what is the what in the tradition requires critique?
00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:01.920
What requires theological examination?
00:31:02.079 --> 00:31:03.359
What requires reform?
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:05.440
What requires repentance?
00:31:05.599 --> 00:31:07.599
What deserves preservation?
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:10.720
What historical function did this institution perform?
00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:13.920
And what community need was it created to meet?
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:18.880
And if we dismantle it, what are we building to replace the social capital?
00:31:20.079 --> 00:31:27.759
Leadership development, mutual aid, civic engagement, educational support, economic networks, and community infrastructure it provided?
00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:33.440
That's the question that troubles me because denouncing something is easy, but building is hard.
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:37.839
And that's where Kwan and Thompson's framework becomes extraordinarily important.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:32:02.480
If white supremacy operated through obstruction, then black institution building was one response to obstruction, which means we need to be careful in the that in the name of spiritual purification and colonized critique, that we don't become historically careless about institutions created because our ancestors were excluded elsewhere.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.680
And assimilation is not the answer.
00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:08.000
And I'll push the question one step further.
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:14.240
What if one of the most successful forms of theft doesn't require somebody to come take something from us?
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:18.880
What if they can convince us to dismantle it ourselves?
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:28.799
Notice when these denounced these denouncings come, they come always on the cusp of political opportunity.
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:34.240
In other words, right before midterm, right before an election, all of a sudden we're denouncing.
00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:42.640
We denounce because if we denounce, then pastors that are a part of that are supporting or pushing voting can be disqualified.
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:53.839
When we denounce, uh vice presidents who are running for presidents, who are members of these sororities, can be deemed demonized.
00:32:54.319 --> 00:32:54.720
Right?
00:32:54.880 --> 00:33:05.680
Because when we denounce, we then cause people to pay attention and forget history for the sake of the current TikTok or Instagram moment.
00:33:09.839 --> 00:33:39.680
Because if we can convince ourselves that black institutions are unnecessary, that black collective identity is outdated, that black political power is suspicious, that black economic cooperation is divisive, that black organizations are embarrassing, that black history is dangerous, that black candidates somehow require a higher threshold of proof before being regarded as legitimate and black solidarity is something spiritually mature people should transcend.
00:33:39.839 --> 00:33:46.240
If we absorb all of that without examination, the that the thief doesn't have to come back.
00:33:46.480 --> 00:33:50.400
We finish the robbery ourselves.
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:54.640
That's the native drum right there.
00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:59.279
Because finding myself means finding us.
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:03.519
And maybe this is where my thinking about this chapter has shifted.
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:06.480
I started thinking, how do I find myself?
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:10.960
But maybe that's too western of a question, that's too individualistic.
00:34:11.119 --> 00:34:15.440
Maybe I cannot completely find me without rediscovering us.
00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:18.639
Ubuntu says, remember, you know that's my word.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:23.920
Community, Ubuntu says, I am because we are.
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:29.199
My identity is relational, communal, ancestral.
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:30.880
I didn't create myself.
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:33.440
Somebody prayed for me before I arrived.
00:34:33.599 --> 00:34:35.920
Somebody organized before I arrived.
00:34:36.079 --> 00:34:38.159
Somebody voted before I arrived.
00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:41.039
Somebody protested before I arrived.
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:43.760
Somebody built a church before I arrived.
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:47.199
Somebody established a school before I arrived.
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:51.199
Somebody created a scholarship before I arrived.
00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:54.400
Somebody started a business before I arrived.
00:34:54.559 --> 00:34:57.599
Somebody bought property before I arrived.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:01.519
Somebody created an organization before I arrived.
00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:07.199
Somebody opened a door I now walk through without knowing their name.
00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:13.039
So maybe finding myself requires finding us again.
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:31.280
Our history, our institutions, our political agency, our economic imagination, our theological voice, our communal practices, our organizations, our elders, our ancestors, and then doing something mature with what we recover.
00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:50.239
Not worshiping it, not romanticizing it, not pretending everything our ancestors did was perfect simply because our ancestors did it, but neither should we destroy it simply because somebody taught us to be suspicious of anything explicitly black.
00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:51.920
Recover it.
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:53.360
Examine it.
00:35:53.679 --> 00:36:02.480
Repair what needs repairing, preserve what needs preserving, and build what our grandchildren are going to need.
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:08.639
There's one more thing we need to recover.
00:36:10.159 --> 00:36:10.480
God.
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:18.719
Not because God was stolen, nobody can steal God, but our understanding of God can be distorted.
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:24.880
Because white supremacy didn't operate outside of Christianity.
00:36:25.119 --> 00:36:27.519
Sometimes it wore Christianity.
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:36.800
It quoted scriptures, occupied pulpits, founded institutions, produced theology, people worshiped on Sunday while enslaving people during the week.
00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:40.639
People preached salvation while defending segregation.
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:52.400
People proclaimed the image of God while leaving the service and hanging people in the image and denying that image was black and hanging those people in who looked black.
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:58.480
Some of us inherited an image of God filtered through the very systems that wounded our ancestors.
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:05.199
Finding myself may require rediscovering God beyond the image of God handed to me by empire.
00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:19.039
The God of Exodus who hears enslaved people crying, the God of the prophets who condemns exploitation, the Jesus of Luke 4, who announces good news to the poor, liberation to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed.
00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:42.719
The Jesus who identified with the hungry, the prisoner, the stranger, the marginalized, a God who doesn't merely teach oppressed people how to behave under oppression, a God who liberates, a God who restores, a God who remembers, a God who repairs, a God that changes how I see myself, because America may remember us as labor, God remembers us as image.
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:45.119
America may remember us as property.
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:47.599
God remembers us as beloved.
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:55.760
America once counted as enslaved people for political representation while denying them citizenship.
00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:00.159
God sees whole people, not three-fifths people.
00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:03.920
America has often described black communities through pathology.
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:06.159
God sees possibility.
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:10.960
So I don't have to recover myself through somebody else's gaze.
00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:13.920
I can recover myself through God.
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:16.000
So what do we do now?
00:38:16.639 --> 00:38:20.559
Finding ourselves requires practice.
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:25.679
Finding ourselves cannot simply be an inspirational slogan.
00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:28.079
Recovery requires practice.
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:30.320
So I want to give you three questions.
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:34.880
The first, what truth about myself and my people do I need to recover?
00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:37.039
What haven't I learned?
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:38.079
What was erased?
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:40.800
What assumptions have I inherited without examining?
00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:44.000
And what voice, whose voice taught me that what blackness means?
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:46.400
Whose voice taught me what leadership looks like?
00:38:46.559 --> 00:38:48.880
Whose voice taught me what intelligence sounds like?
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:51.519
Whose voice taught me what Christianity looks like?
00:38:51.679 --> 00:38:52.639
Who told me?
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:57.039
Second, what power have I surrendered that I need to exercise again?
00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:05.440
My voice, my vote, my participation, my capacity to organize, my willingness to lead, my responsibility to serve, my ability to build.
00:39:05.519 --> 00:39:10.079
As we approach November election, don't surrender your discernment to anybody.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:15.440
Study your ballot, study your candidates, study their records, study the issues, study the history.
00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:21.760
Don't invalidate somebody because they're black, but don't validate somebody simply because they're black.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.199
Evaluate everybody.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:27.760
Then exercise the agency previous generations struggled to secure.
00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:31.360
And third, what am I building that somebody can inherit after me?
00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:32.400
Not merely money.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:33.119
What knowledge?
00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:48.960
What institution, what business, what ministry, what property, what organization, what archive, what tradition, what scholarship, what network, what story, what will exist 25 years from now because you decided to build it today, because this is where I ultimately land.
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:50.880
Maybe I didn't lose my identity.
00:39:51.039 --> 00:39:53.440
Maybe somebody interrupted my access to it.
00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:55.039
Maybe we didn't lack history.
00:39:55.199 --> 00:39:56.639
Maybe somebody erased it.
00:39:56.719 --> 00:39:58.480
Maybe we didn't lack intelligence.
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:01.599
Maybe somebody delegitimized our way of knowing.
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:04.800
Maybe we didn't lack political system sophistication.
00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:07.920
Maybe our political agency was violently suppressed.
00:40:08.079 --> 00:40:10.639
Maybe we didn't lack economic capacity.
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:14.320
Maybe wealth was extracted and opportunity obstructed.
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:16.239
Maybe we didn't lack institutions.
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:22.400
Maybe we built institutions precisely because other institutions rejected us.
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:24.159
Maybe we didn't lack theology.
00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:29.679
Maybe somebody told us theology only counted when it came through particular voices and institutions.
00:40:29.840 --> 00:40:31.280
Maybe we didn't lack God.
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:38.639
Maybe somebody handed us a picture of God that looks suspicious suspiciously like the people claiming authority over us.
00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:46.400
And if that's true, finding myself isn't about inventing a new me, it's about recovering what was there all along.
00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:49.599
There's a difference between being lost and being hidden.
00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:52.639
There's a difference between being deficient and being deprived.
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:57.039
There's a difference between being having no history and having your history erased.
00:40:57.199 --> 00:41:01.119
There's a difference between having no power and having your power suppressed.
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:05.280
There's a difference between producing no wealth and having your wealth extracted.
00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:13.119
There's a difference between having no institutions and having the institutions you created dismissed, demonized, or forgotten.
00:41:13.360 --> 00:41:20.960
And once I understood the difference, I can stop looking at myself through the eyes of the thief.
00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:24.320
I am not what white supremacy said I was.
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.199
I am not what slavery said I was.
00:41:27.440 --> 00:41:30.719
I am not what Jim Crow said I was.
00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:34.559
I am not what the enemy said I was.
00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:40.960
I am not the stereotype.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:41:49.440
I am not the character.
00:41:49.679 --> 00:41:51.679
I am not the pathology.
00:41:52.719 --> 00:41:56.719
I am not what somebody's theology of inferiority.
00:41:57.280 --> 00:41:58.800
I am not the curse of ham.
00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.239
I am not somebody else's social problem.
00:42:02.719 --> 00:42:05.679
I am created in the image of God.
00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:10.079
I am part of the people who survived what was designed to destroy them.
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:14.880
I am the beneficiary of prayers prayed before I was born.
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:20.880
I stand upon intellectual traditions, somebody tried to erase.
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:24.639
I carry wisdom accumulated across generations.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:40.239
Spiritual traditions, somebody tried to domesticate, economic creativity, somebody tried to obstruct political courage, somebody tried to suppress institutions, somebody built because institutions already present would not welcome us.
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:46.239
And perhaps finding myself means recognizing I was never nothing.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:50.559
Somebody simply benefited from convincing me that I was.
00:42:51.760 --> 00:43:02.960
So find yourself, find your story, find your people, find your history, find your voice, find your agency, find your institutions, find your inheritance.
00:43:03.119 --> 00:43:10.239
And when November comes, find your ballot, read it, research it, understand it, and make your informed decision.
00:43:10.400 --> 00:43:16.800
But show up at the ballot, show up at the polls because your vote is not somebody else's property.
00:43:16.960 --> 00:43:20.480
Your mind is not somebody else's property.
00:43:20.719 --> 00:43:23.360
Your conscience is not somebody else's property.
00:43:23.519 --> 00:43:27.119
Your identity and history are not somebody else's property.
00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:33.199
Your future is too important to surrender your agency voluntarily.
00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:45.840
The official South Carolina voters votes voter portal provides registration information, sample ballots, polling place, and other official election resources.
00:43:46.079 --> 00:43:50.320
Kwan and Thompson gave me three words truth, power, and wealth.
00:43:50.480 --> 00:43:57.119
And I think Native Drum adds another memory, because memory helps me recover truth.
00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:59.679
Memory reminds me that I have power.
00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:02.400
Memory shows me what our people built.
00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:06.159
Memory introduces me to institutions somebody wanted me to forget.
00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:15.760
Memory teaches that before there was a problem called back blackness, there were simply black people living, loving, knowing, building, worshiping, creating, and being human.
00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:18.320
And maybe that's why the drum matters.
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:22.559
Because the drum remembers when documents forget.
00:44:22.800 --> 00:44:25.760
The drum remembers when institutions erase.
00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:28.639
The drum remembers when history gets rewritten.
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:32.320
The drum remembers when somebody tells you that you came from nothing.
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:47.920
The drum remembers, and beneath all the noise, beneath all the stereotypes, beneath all the politics, beneath all the theological arguments, beneath all the names somebody else gave us, the drum is still beating.
00:44:48.079 --> 00:44:51.440
And it keeps saying, You're still here.
00:44:51.760 --> 00:44:53.039
We're still here.
00:44:53.280 --> 00:44:55.039
Our story's still here.
00:44:55.280 --> 00:44:57.440
Our powers still here.
00:44:57.840 --> 00:44:59.599
God's still here.
00:44:59.840 --> 00:45:03.119
And perhaps that's where the repair begins.
00:45:03.360 --> 00:45:14.320
Not simply with somebody finally acknowledges what they took, but when we rediscover that they never had the power to completely destroy.
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:20.320
I'm Napoleon Abram Bradford, and this has been the native drum.
00:45:20.480 --> 00:45:31.599
Until next time, keep listening to the rhythm, keep finding yourself, because sometimes finding yourself means finding us.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:42.800
Again, the book is Reparations, a Christian call for repentance and repair by Duke L.
00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:45.360
Kwan and Gregory Thompson.
00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:47.360
I'm Napoleon Bradford.
00:45:47.599 --> 00:45:48.159
I love you.
00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:56.320
Have an amazing day and keep finding yourself so that you can find us.