Dr. Daniel Black | Why the Black Church Needs to Reclaim Its African Roots

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That's why Jesus was queer, I think.
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I do. I'm going to break the damn thing. Dr.
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Daniel Black has spent more than three decades shaping minds
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as a professor of African-American studies at Clark Atlanta University.
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He is the author of celebrated novels, including Perfect Peace,
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The Coming, They Tell Me of a Home, and Don't
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Cry for Me.
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Dr.
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Black has never been interested in easy answers. He is
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interested in the truth. And today we're going there.
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Here they come, y'all. Here they come.
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What sense does it make for the gazelles? to go
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to the Lion Academy to learn about God. Because what
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is the Lion's Academy teaching? But by the time I
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come out of this Lion's Academy as a gazelle, if
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I'm not careful, I'm trying to roar, but it won't work.
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If a bird doesn't believe in God, you still get wings.
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I think we can't see God because God is ashamed.
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I think we're so unlike our real selves that God
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is too embarrassed to face us.
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Welcome to Vaught & Powers Talks, where we don't just
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scratch the surface, we dive deep into the lives of
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some of the world's most influential changemakers.
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I'm your host, Brandi Harvey.
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Now, y'all, the African-American studies major in me.
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Is very excited today.
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My guest today is a scholar, novelist, cultural critic, and
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truth teller whose work has challenged the way we think
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about faith, identity, and freedom in the Black experience.
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Dr.
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Daniel Black has spent more than three decades shaping minds
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as a professor of African-American studies at Clark Atlanta University,
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while simultaneously becoming one of the most respected literary voices
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examining the interior life of Black America. He is the
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author of celebrated novels, including Perfect Peace, The Coming, They
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Tell Me of a Home, and Don't Cry for Me,
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stories that courageously explore the complexities of family, masculinity, spirituality,
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and the lingering psychological inheritance of slavery.
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But Dr. Black's work goes far beyond literature.
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In essays, lectures, and public conversations, he has challenged us
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to reconsider who gets to speak for God. and what
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it truly means to center Blackness, and whether the spiritual
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frameworks we've inherited ever designed for our freedom in the
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first place. These are not essay questions. They are not
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easy questions.
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But Dr.
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Black has never been interested in easy answers. He is
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interested in the truth. And today we're going there. Here
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they come, y'all. Here they come. Bottom Powers Talks. Welcome
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the great griot, teacher, and culture keeper, Dr. Daniel Black
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to the show.
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Thank you. Glad to have you. Glad to be here.
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I'm so excited.
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I'm so excited to talk to you because, I mean—
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I got so many things to share, Dr.
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Black. I don't even know what to say.
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This is so awesome. I appreciate it.
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But here's the thing, y'all. This is how I told Dr.
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Black I was going to wait and tell the story.
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He said, just wait and tell it so it's fresh
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on the show.
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Okay.
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So this book, Perfect Peace. I'm an avid reader. And
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one day, I hang out at Barnes & Noble's from
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time to time. And one night, many years ago, around 2014, 2015,
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I'm in Barnes & Noble's in Buckhead. And I see
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all these black people. There's a lot of black people
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in the Barnes & Noble's in Buckhead. And there wasn't
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a lot, you know, wasn't that many black people in
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the Barnes & Noble's. And in the back, they having
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a book talk. And I go, I said, where are
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all these black people? What are they back there doing?
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Let me see what's going on. Right, right. And there
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was a man in the back discussing his new book,
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Perfect Peace. And I said, well, if he's black in
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Barnes and Nobles today, I got to buy his book.
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I didn't know what the book was about. I just said,
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I see this black man up in here talking about
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this book. I'm going to buy this book. This book
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right here, baby.
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I mean, wow. But this was my first encounter with.
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with you, Dr. Black.
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Wow, I'm very honored.
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Was at a Barnes & Noble's and you did not
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know me, I did not know you. And then when
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you did that viral commencement address for CAU in 2024,
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I said, why don't I know this man? How have
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I never met this man in Atlanta?
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Right, right, right.
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And I go down to Google.
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I said, not just the same.
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The same man.
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Just the same man. And so here we are.
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Here we are.
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Full circle moment from that Barnes and Nobles many years
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ago when you didn't know me, I didn't know you.
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That's right.
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But somehow in the spirit, we knew each other.
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The spirit will always align it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So thank you for having me. That's what I wanted.
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I really just want to say I'm so humbled to
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be here and so humbled that you find value in me,
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in my work, and would do the kind of thing
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necessary to bring me here. So I'm extremely happy about that.
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The second thing I'm happy about is that Talking about
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black people excites you because it excites me.
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Because this is who I am. It's who we are.
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It's how I be. It's how I move.
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And my real aim in life is to get black
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young people so excited about being black that they sidestep
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the fight.
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With white supremacy.
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That they sidestep it. How do they do that?
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Well, by first loving themselves.
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And we first love ourselves by knowing ourselves. Yes.
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Right?
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We have to know ourselves. We have to know our history.
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And to really get clear about the price somebody paid
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for this blackness.
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See, it was not free in this country.
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No. It was highly, highly, highly expensive. And people paid
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dearly for this blackness. And that's what I really want
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to help. And not just black kids, white kids, our
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kids in America get clear about that to exist as
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black and in America, you're an expensive, expensive product. Yeah.
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And we cannot take that lightly because somebody paid for
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a hope.
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And our job is to bring that hope to reality.
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I mean, you are a graduate of CAU.
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I am.
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You were the youngest person to get your PhD at
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the time, 25 years old.
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I was very young, yes.
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And you've been a professor for over 30 years at
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Clark Atlanta.
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That's correct.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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And if I could go back, I'd do it again.
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That's one thing in life I would do all over again.
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Because the excitement, the joy, the anticipation, the eagerness I
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meet when I go into classrooms at this wonderful place
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called Clark Atlanta University— It's worth every frustration.
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It's just worth it.
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Because black kids come to HBCUs not simply to go
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to college. They come there also to have a college
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experience unlike the public school experience most of them come from.
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And one of the things that I think black kids love,
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though it shocks them at first, is the assumption of
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their brilliance. What does it mean to be in a
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school where the teacher assumes you brilliant before you ever
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open your mouth? And that's what happens at Clark Atlanta,
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certainly in my classes. For me, every student is an
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honor student.
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That's where I start.
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Even when students tell me, you know, I was never
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really that good in school, in high school.
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No problem. Rise up. Get good now.
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I mean, CAU, home of the Holy Ghost.
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Home of the Holy Ghost. And what was so wonderful
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is how the students were with me.
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Yeah.
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You know, they were like, yes.
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Yes.
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You know, and... That speech changed my life.
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One of the best commencement speeches I have ever heard
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because you understand the passion.
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Oh, yes.
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You understand that the connection, the.
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Deep love that you have for that place because it
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produced you.
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Yes, absolutely.
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And that's an important thing because what does it make
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for a person to degrade your own home?
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I'm not going to do that. If it's that bad,
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I'd leave it.
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No.
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A school must be excellent if I'm in it.
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Absolutely.
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If I'm a teacher there, it's an excellent school. If not,
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I should go elsewhere. I believe that. The other thing
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that I believe is that day when I delivered that speech,
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I was really talking to the students. I wanted to
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make sure that they knew I see you. I celebrate you.
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I honor you. I praise you. I magnify you. I
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lift you up. I wanted every student to feel that.
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And I said, the first thing I'm going to do
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is I'm going to call the roll. I'm going to
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name every major sitting here.
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Yeah.
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You know, and it worked.
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I mean, epidemiologist, paleontologist, blackologist.
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That's right.
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I mean, I told you before we started, I said,
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you have excited me to write again.
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You know, I used to be a teacher. I taught
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high school.
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And one of the things I said when I was
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in college, I said, you know, I grew up watching
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Teen Summit, right? And you remember Teen Summit? You know,
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they used to have an intro, kicking the truth to
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the young black youth Teen Summit.
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Yes. Right?
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And I always said, you know, I wanted to be
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a black history teacher.
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Yes.
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To kick the truth to the young black youth.
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Yeah.
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And then I got in the classroom and I said, oh, child.
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Okay.
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Lord, there's a different calling. I know you have.
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I know that's right. I know that's right.
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Because high school, I was like, oh, in Los Angeles,
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this is a different calling that you have on my life.
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But now what I look at, you know, when I
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left teaching and I moved to Atlanta in 07, my
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mother told me something that has always stuck with me.
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It's in, you know, my book, in the dedication of
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my book. My mom said, the world will become your classroom.
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Yes. And even when.
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I have people like you, who come and sit and
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great people like your colleague, Dr. Dennis Kimbrough, who come
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and sit across from me, the world is my classroom. Yes.
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And this is the stage and the opportunity for us
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to kick the truth.
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That's right.
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To the young black youth.
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That's right.
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You know, this is the opportunity for that. That's right.
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That's right.
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But, I mean, let's talk about your work over these
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last 30-plus years that you have been dedicated to centering
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Blackness at the heart of all of your literary work.
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And you talk a lot about the Black church in
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that work because it is really your foundation of which
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you stand on.
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Sure. And, you know, I grew up in the Black church, yes.
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And I was the musician.
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I started taking piano lessons at three. By the time
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I'm six or seven, I'm the church pianist.
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Crazy.
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Right. Sitting on telephone books. I was a very small kid.
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Right.
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I couldn't even reach the, you know, the pedal on
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the piano, but I could play well.
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Yeah. And so I started playing and I've been doing
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it ever since, including now.
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I'm still a musician at church.
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And the church has been very foundational for me in
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terms of who I am, my ideology, things I know, things.
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I believe about God. Absolutely. Absolutely.
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And I would fight for us to keep the church.
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I would just fight for us to overhaul it. Because, see,
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God is bigger than the church. And at one point,
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I was committed to the church. Now I'm committed to God.
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And that can include the church, no problem. But it's
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not only the church, you know. I can see God
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in a written word. That's no problem. But I can
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also see God when I'm standing before the ocean's tide.
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I can also see God at the mountaintop, you know.
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I can see God when the wind blows. I can
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hear God when the birds sing. And that voice of
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God is not in that text. The other thing that's
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troublesome for me is the ways in which too many,
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not every, but too many black churches do not understand
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the role of knowledge in terms.
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Of accessing spirit.
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See, we have to really understand, you know, there's even
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a scripture that says my people perish for lack of knowledge.
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Knowledge introduces the possibility to a person that what you
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think is not the totality of what is. And that's
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always important because if a person is not careful, he
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or she will believe that whatever they think is the
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fullness of what's possible.
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That's never true.
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What you think is not the totality of what is.
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Of what is. It's never true. It's never true.
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Everybody thinks their mother is the best cook in the
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world until you leave home.
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Yeah, I don't. Marsha, you know, cooked down.
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And that's because that's just the food you've eaten.
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Absolutely.
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See, when you get invited out into the universe, you'll
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eat some other food and you say, wait a minute.
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This tastes a little different. Wow.
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But you have to leave home to do it. And
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so once, you know, I was always very academic. Once
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I left home at 18 and went to college, I
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got introduced to knowledge and information, especially about African people.
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And this is very important because we believed something before
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we met white folks. We knew something about God before
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we knew white folks. We understood who God was. We
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had a name for God. We had scriptures. We have
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text and context about God before we met Christianity.
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Right.
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And I think that's very important because Christianity absolutely is
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part of our legacy, but it's not the entirety of it.
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But for me, God is big enough to hold all
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of it. God is big enough to hold all of
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it and to hold many, many different ideas. So my
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critique about the church today is that we are too
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mired in only the kind of Christianity that was given
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to us in this place called America through this thing
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called enslavement. But there are many, many, many, many, many,
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many great, great, great, great, great scholars who have helped
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us to understand that God is bigger than Christianity. But
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this is why I love the church also, though. So
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I'm saying different things here. When we sing, we're singing
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a different theology than when the preacher preaches.
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Right?
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And most people don't even pay attention to it, but
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it happens all the time.
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Black people's theology in the music is more liberating than
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our theology in the pulpit.
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Ooh.
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Absolutely.
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Which is why black people have to have the choir.
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Black people have to have it. We have to have it.
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We might trade out the preacher, you know, but we
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got to have the music. But most people don't realize
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that part of the reason is because the music is
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setting us free when the pulpit is handing us a bondage.
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The music is setting us free when the pulpit is
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handing us a bondage.
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Absolutely.
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Because in the music, in the choir stand, you can
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be whoever you are.
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Absolutely.
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It don't have no... That's right. It don't have no, oh, gay, straight, woman, man.
333
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That's right.
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Gender specific.
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That's right. That's right.
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You need a gay man to come to the choir.
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You better have one. You better have one.
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But see, what's powerful about this is, what it shows is,
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heaven needs them too.
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Yeah.
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See, gay people.
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are not just folks who were violated as children. Gay
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people come to the world that way because God sends
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queer people that way. Because queer people have a particular
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spiritual manifestation, a particular spiritual mission to fulfill.
346
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And it's funny that you mention this even in the church.
347
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And the question becomes, why in the world are queer
348
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people so visible in the church, especially in the music?
349
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Because it's going to be very difficult to get that
350
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kind of creativity out of heteronormativity.
351
00:16:03.409 --> 00:16:05.029
Okay. Now, you know, Dr.
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00:16:05.210 --> 00:16:09.070
Black, they in the comments right now.
353
00:16:09.129 --> 00:16:09.909
I know they in there.
354
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They not going to wait till it's over.
355
00:16:11.509 --> 00:16:12.649
That's right. Stay right in there.
356
00:16:12.669 --> 00:16:13.909
They going to be in them comments.
357
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It's going to be very difficult because heteronormativity seeks conformity.
358
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Queerness seeks conformity. Seeks creativity. It seeks change. It seeks liberation.
359
00:16:28.179 --> 00:16:30.789
Which means when you start creating, and music is a place,
360
00:16:30.830 --> 00:16:33.330
an area of creation, when you start to do creation,
361
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you've got to first be free if you're going to create.
362
00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:41.919
And queer folks have fought the battle, right, to be free.
363
00:16:42.620 --> 00:16:44.799
So, In terms of the words, you know, it makes
364
00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:49.159
me think of Walter Hawkins and Clara Ward, right? It
365
00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:53.070
makes me think of folks like Whitney Houston, right? It
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00:16:53.090 --> 00:16:56.610
makes me think of folks like Aretha Franklin. You cannot
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get the tradition of black music without getting queerness with it.
368
00:17:00.029 --> 00:17:02.950
It's coming with it. And if you don't want the queerness,
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your music is going to be raggedy. Your music is,
370
00:17:06.509 --> 00:17:08.329
I said it, I said it, I said it, I
371
00:17:08.369 --> 00:17:12.210
said it. It's going to be low level. The Holy
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Ghost ain't coming.
373
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The Holy Ghost ain't coming. Why?
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Because the Holy Ghost wants the freest and the most
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authentic expression of the self through which to move.
376
00:17:23.099 --> 00:17:25.400
You talk about this so much in so many of
377
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.619
your lectures. You talk about this through your own work.
378
00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.799
We talk about the Holy Ghost versus the Holy Spirit. Yes.
379
00:17:32.519 --> 00:17:33.839
I want you to talk about it. Yes.
380
00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.579
I think the Holy Spirit is a Christian idea. I
381
00:17:36.619 --> 00:17:40.240
think the Holy Spirit is an idea that comes through
382
00:17:40.809 --> 00:17:42.809
the Western European church, right?
383
00:17:43.789 --> 00:17:46.690
This invisible aspect of God, if you will.
384
00:17:48.549 --> 00:17:52.109
And the Holy Spirit is very much controlled by this
385
00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:55.109
thing called the Bible, right? In terms of its behavior,
386
00:17:55.150 --> 00:17:58.400
et cetera. The Holy Ghost is different. The Holy Ghost
387
00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:01.839
is really another word, right? It's really just an English
388
00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:04.599
word for what black people mean by conjuring.
389
00:18:05.509 --> 00:18:06.250
In other words, the.
390
00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:09.589
Holy Ghost, we brought the Holy Ghost with us. We
391
00:18:09.690 --> 00:18:13.420
met the Holy Spirit when we met. Oh, I'm going
392
00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:18.039
to have to leave here. This is about to get raves. Girl,
393
00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:21.859
you're going to make me do it.
394
00:18:23.250 --> 00:18:26.690
Seriously though, the Holy Ghost was on those slave ships.
395
00:18:26.809 --> 00:18:28.960
Absolutely. It had to have been.
396
00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:30.529
It had to have been. That's how we survived.
397
00:18:30.569 --> 00:18:32.349
It's the only way we could have survived it.
398
00:18:32.410 --> 00:18:32.829
Absolutely.
399
00:18:33.049 --> 00:18:36.430
We brought, but the reason that the term ghost works
400
00:18:36.829 --> 00:18:41.210
is because you cannot control a ghost. A ghost comes
401
00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:44.650
and moves at its own will, right? But you can
402
00:18:44.769 --> 00:18:45.319
conjure it.
403
00:18:46.150 --> 00:18:48.190
Okay, I want you to delve into conjure because when
404
00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:50.059
we hear certain words, right?
405
00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:51.380
That's right. I know where we're going.
406
00:18:51.619 --> 00:18:55.180
Yes, conjure is simply another word of saying, is another
407
00:18:55.220 --> 00:18:57.400
way of saying to beckon someone or to call someone.
408
00:18:57.750 --> 00:19:00.930
But the reason it's conjure is because you're calling someone invisible.
409
00:19:02.369 --> 00:19:04.690
We do conjure all the time. Black folks do conjure
410
00:19:04.890 --> 00:19:07.410
all the time. They just don't use that word. You
411
00:19:07.450 --> 00:19:10.690
conjure when you pray because you're speaking to someone you
412
00:19:10.750 --> 00:19:11.509
cannot see.
413
00:19:11.569 --> 00:19:12.769
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
414
00:19:13.150 --> 00:19:16.549
That's very, very important. When black folks speak in tongues,
415
00:19:16.569 --> 00:19:17.309
we're conjuring.
416
00:19:17.329 --> 00:19:17.750
Right.
417
00:19:17.769 --> 00:19:17.910
Right.
418
00:19:18.660 --> 00:19:22.740
But these terms, conjure, spirit possession, this came with us
419
00:19:22.779 --> 00:19:23.359
from Africa.
420
00:19:23.619 --> 00:19:26.359
This was not new. This was not new when we
421
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:26.839
arrived here.
422
00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:30.140
We just gave it English words because they stripped our
423
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.150
African tongues from our mouths. So we just, we translated
424
00:19:33.250 --> 00:19:37.250
it into English, right? So this notion of conjuring, again, very, very,
425
00:19:37.309 --> 00:19:39.589
very common to black church. I'll give you an example.
426
00:19:40.210 --> 00:19:44.960
Folks might say, so what time does church start? Black folks, K-11.
427
00:19:45.140 --> 00:19:47.660
What time does it end? Now, this is where this
428
00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:51.369
is going to get tricky. It could end at 12.
429
00:19:51.369 --> 00:19:54.630
It could end at 12.30. It could end at 1. Well,
430
00:19:54.650 --> 00:19:55.549
what does it depend upon?
431
00:19:56.230 --> 00:19:59.769
Here's the conjuring. How the Holy Ghost moves.
432
00:19:59.910 --> 00:20:00.509
How the Holy Ghost moves.
433
00:20:00.529 --> 00:20:03.150
What does that mean? What does that mean?
434
00:20:04.190 --> 00:20:07.640
It means something invisible gets invited into space.
435
00:20:08.059 --> 00:20:12.039
And we turn over time. to this invisible entity.
436
00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:14.660
And it is free to do whatever it likes because
437
00:20:15.339 --> 00:20:18.720
in the presence of this invisible power, we are made whole.
438
00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:22.509
So however long that takes, it's fine with us as
439
00:20:22.529 --> 00:20:23.029
black people.
440
00:20:23.210 --> 00:20:24.390
Yeah.
441
00:20:24.450 --> 00:20:26.309
But you can go, there are many, many, many, many
442
00:20:26.329 --> 00:20:27.710
white churches where they can tell you the time the
443
00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:29.089
service is going to start and end.
444
00:20:29.670 --> 00:20:33.589
Listen, I know one that I live right across from, baby.
445
00:20:34.049 --> 00:20:35.430
They start at 11, you out at 11.59.
446
00:20:35.410 --> 00:20:35.750
And they mean 59.
447
00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:35.849
Yeah.
448
00:20:40.710 --> 00:20:44.950
But that's because they control the Holy Spirit. You cannot
449
00:20:44.970 --> 00:20:45.990
control the Holy Ghost.
450
00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:47.920
When we think.
451
00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:53.960
About African spirituality that was brought across on those ships
452
00:20:54.059 --> 00:20:57.500
with us, we think about Yoruba.
453
00:20:57.599 --> 00:20:59.920
Oshun, when we think about Yorishas, when.
454
00:20:59.819 --> 00:21:01.940
We think about all of these.
455
00:21:05.740 --> 00:21:10.059
How have we seen that movement into the rituals that
456
00:21:10.099 --> 00:21:12.180
we have in modern day church?
457
00:21:14.220 --> 00:21:15.980
I'm really out here and I'm going to try my
458
00:21:16.009 --> 00:21:18.509
best to stay in this chair. I'm going to try hard.
459
00:21:19.250 --> 00:21:21.670
I'm fighting it right now. I'm going to tell you
460
00:21:21.690 --> 00:21:22.250
my theory.
461
00:21:23.470 --> 00:21:23.869
Oshun.
462
00:21:25.029 --> 00:21:30.269
Ogun, Shango, Yeminyah, Obatala, et cetera. My theory, this is
463
00:21:30.289 --> 00:21:33.450
just my argument. My argument is that when the Yoruba
464
00:21:33.470 --> 00:21:35.490
got to America, when many black folks got to America
465
00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:39.400
and even Vodun, right? My theory is that when we
466
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:42.059
got to America, we took all of those traits and
467
00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:45.079
all of those characteristics of all those deities and poured
468
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:55.980
them into a character we call Jesus. Here's how you know.
469
00:21:57.180 --> 00:22:01.579
Jesus is the way maker. Jesus is the healer. Jesus
470
00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:04.450
is the great negotiator. We're naming all the traits that
471
00:22:04.569 --> 00:22:05.769
all these Orisha possess.
472
00:22:06.109 --> 00:22:06.349
Yeah.
473
00:22:08.130 --> 00:22:08.930
And we call him Jesus.
474
00:22:10.930 --> 00:22:14.609
Which is why, really, the way black people do ritual
475
00:22:14.650 --> 00:22:18.640
in church and Yoruba, it absolutely coheres.
476
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:21.099
There is absolutely no break.
477
00:22:21.589 --> 00:22:27.759
People's problem is believing that if something is African, it's anti-Christian. Yeah.
478
00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:29.660
But in practice, it's not true.
479
00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:34.309
Second example, especially depending on, especially Kojic churches, the dancing
480
00:22:34.369 --> 00:22:37.349
that happens in churches, the spirit possession that happens in
481
00:22:37.390 --> 00:22:41.799
churches is 10,000 years old in Africa. Yeah. 10,000 years old.
482
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:43.319
And the way you know, too, is you don't go
483
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:45.680
to most white churches and that happened. No. This is
484
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.700
why white people and black people who seemingly are both
485
00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:52.869
praising God, who seemingly are both doing Christianity, who seemingly
486
00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:55.589
are reading the same book, why can't y'all worship together?
487
00:22:55.609 --> 00:22:58.430
Because we're not really doing the same thing.
488
00:22:58.470 --> 00:23:00.289
We're having totally different experiences.
489
00:23:00.430 --> 00:23:02.329
We're not doing the same thing. This ritual that this
490
00:23:02.369 --> 00:23:05.430
black church is doing, that is African spirituality. Most folks
491
00:23:05.630 --> 00:23:08.940
in that church, though, have never been taught traditions of
492
00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:12.039
african spirituality so most of them would reject this the
493
00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:14.559
african spirituality although they're doing.
494
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:21.460
It if you could because one of the things that
495
00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:26.309
you've said before is that in one of the ways
496
00:23:26.369 --> 00:23:31.910
to de-center whiteness in our theology in our christian churches
497
00:23:32.690 --> 00:23:34.779
is that we have to throw out the bible And.
498
00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:35.869
I don't think we need to throw it out. I
499
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.289
don't think we need to throw it out. You said traitors.
500
00:23:38.450 --> 00:23:38.730
Yes, yes.
501
00:23:38.970 --> 00:23:41.849
And even if you keep it, my thing is I
502
00:23:41.910 --> 00:23:46.130
think it's problematic to believe that the only thing God
503
00:23:46.410 --> 00:23:49.279
ever said in the history of existence is in this
504
00:23:49.430 --> 00:23:49.799
one book.
505
00:23:50.859 --> 00:23:52.940
You know, Doc, I say that all the time when
506
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:53.900
I'm having conversations with people.
507
00:23:53.940 --> 00:23:56.440
I think that's so unintelligent. I think that's so unintelligent.
508
00:23:56.740 --> 00:23:59.460
He only spoke to these people and then certain books
509
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:00.319
got removed.
510
00:24:00.420 --> 00:24:02.930
We know that. They're not even in the original.
511
00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:03.779
It's so problematic.
512
00:24:03.980 --> 00:24:08.089
If you understand history, you understand in the 1500s, 1600s,
513
00:24:08.420 --> 00:24:12.299
when the slave trade was starting to become into.
514
00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:15.839
Existence, how the text was changed to justify.
515
00:24:16.839 --> 00:24:18.509
And God ain't said nothing new.
516
00:24:19.049 --> 00:24:20.990
He ain't said nothing in all these years.
517
00:24:21.230 --> 00:24:21.869
That's ridiculous.
518
00:24:21.890 --> 00:24:23.509
He ain't gave nobody else another word.
519
00:24:23.549 --> 00:24:25.849
Yes. And what I think is that God has, I
520
00:24:25.890 --> 00:24:28.470
think people have been scared to write it because we
521
00:24:28.950 --> 00:24:31.890
give an authority. Unto the Bible as we know it,
522
00:24:31.930 --> 00:24:34.609
the King James Bible, we give an authority unto that
523
00:24:34.690 --> 00:24:38.619
text that we believe no other human being could ever possess.
524
00:24:39.019 --> 00:24:41.759
That is the number one sign of white supremacy I've
525
00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:44.539
ever seen, that only these people can ever be the
526
00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:48.539
ones who legitimately speak for God. I think that is
527
00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:51.789
the most insane idea. But most people and most black
528
00:24:51.809 --> 00:24:52.470
people believe it.
529
00:24:53.670 --> 00:24:56.210
So with you writing your new Bible. Yes.
530
00:24:56.869 --> 00:24:58.950
And it's not my Bible. I'm writing what God tells me.
531
00:24:59.210 --> 00:24:59.769
Absolutely.
532
00:24:59.789 --> 00:24:59.930
Mm-hmm.
533
00:25:00.789 --> 00:25:03.450
What does the framework of that Bible look like?
534
00:25:05.710 --> 00:25:08.490
It's what God is saying to me now.
535
00:25:09.630 --> 00:25:12.650
As a black man in America, as an African-descended person
536
00:25:13.539 --> 00:25:16.420
to say to the world. I am certainly writing it
537
00:25:16.799 --> 00:25:19.480
from an African-American point of view because that's where I stand.
538
00:25:19.700 --> 00:25:20.980
But I'm talking to the whole world. It's not a
539
00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:21.859
black Bible.
540
00:25:22.220 --> 00:25:23.799
It's a black Bible in the sense that my name
541
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:24.500
is Daniel Black.
542
00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:24.900
Right.
543
00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:26.769
But it's not about it's a Bible for the world,
544
00:25:26.789 --> 00:25:28.890
just like just like the first Bible.
545
00:25:28.970 --> 00:25:35.089
Yeah. And the Bible that most people know, that Bible
546
00:25:35.130 --> 00:25:38.569
is very culturally centered. It comes from a particular place
547
00:25:38.769 --> 00:25:43.410
and a particular people. And the good book that I
548
00:25:43.589 --> 00:25:45.450
am now translating. Because it's the good book.
549
00:25:45.849 --> 00:25:46.170
Yes.
550
00:25:46.190 --> 00:25:46.690
The good book.
551
00:25:46.769 --> 00:25:49.329
Yes, yes. And the good book, that's the name of
552
00:25:49.369 --> 00:25:52.109
this new scripture that I'm now writing. God is actually
553
00:25:52.150 --> 00:25:54.950
giving this to me for a world, but it certainly
554
00:25:54.990 --> 00:25:57.150
comes through me in a particular time of people.
555
00:25:57.579 --> 00:25:58.920
I am using the framework.
556
00:25:59.529 --> 00:26:03.289
Of the first scripture, meaning it's told in book, chapter, verse.
557
00:26:03.930 --> 00:26:08.410
But I'm not replicating that text by any means. This
558
00:26:09.569 --> 00:26:14.009
scripture I'm writing contains books like the Book of Love,
559
00:26:16.730 --> 00:26:21.240
the Book of Healing, the Book of Tyrone, the Song
560
00:26:21.259 --> 00:26:31.970
of Shaniqua, the Book of Prophets, African Proverbs, God's resume,
561
00:26:33.549 --> 00:26:36.470
the 30 commandments, etc.
562
00:26:37.130 --> 00:26:41.039
Okay, so give me a little taste. What is in
563
00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:44.380
the book of love versus the book of Tyrone?
564
00:26:45.380 --> 00:26:48.140
The book of love is helping people to understand the
565
00:26:48.180 --> 00:26:52.079
dimensions of love, why love is important, what we need
566
00:26:52.099 --> 00:26:56.200
to do about love, but also pushing us to understand.
567
00:26:57.920 --> 00:26:59.420
New ways that love is conceived.
568
00:26:59.869 --> 00:27:01.630
Like one of the verses in the book of love
569
00:27:01.670 --> 00:27:05.390
that I like says, it is not true that you
570
00:27:05.450 --> 00:27:08.140
must love yourself in order to love someone else.
571
00:27:08.619 --> 00:27:09.980
Which people tell us all the time. How can you
572
00:27:10.019 --> 00:27:11.619
love somebody else if you don't love yourself, right?
573
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:13.779
It is not true that you must love yourself in
574
00:27:13.819 --> 00:27:17.059
order to love someone else, but it is true that
575
00:27:17.099 --> 00:27:24.390
you must love yourself to love someone else well, right? Also,
576
00:27:24.609 --> 00:27:30.269
it's speaking about the ways in which love sometimes, is denial.
577
00:27:31.589 --> 00:27:31.750
Right?
578
00:27:31.950 --> 00:27:33.230
The same way God loves us.
579
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:36.960
The thing that's interesting that takes a person some maturity
580
00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:39.680
to get to is if you live long enough, you'll
581
00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:43.059
realize that the greatest act of love for you is
582
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:45.619
sometimes that you didn't get what you were running after.
583
00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:48.049
Oof. Ain't it? Yeah.
584
00:27:48.829 --> 00:27:50.269
But we was running hard for it.
585
00:27:50.289 --> 00:27:50.509
Yeah.
586
00:27:50.690 --> 00:27:51.569
Wanted it bad.
587
00:27:52.250 --> 00:27:54.109
Panting. Did you hear me? Panting.
588
00:27:54.230 --> 00:27:54.789
Absolutely.
589
00:27:55.049 --> 00:27:55.970
Heaving.
590
00:27:56.130 --> 00:27:58.609
Absolutely. But the fact that you didn't get it saved you.
591
00:27:58.809 --> 00:27:59.029
Yeah.
592
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:02.180
So what that's saying also is sometimes to tell someone
593
00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:05.140
else no is your greatest act of love for them.
594
00:28:06.869 --> 00:28:08.289
I feel like I'm going through that right now.
595
00:28:09.309 --> 00:28:11.650
I literally just had to have a tough conversation with
596
00:28:11.710 --> 00:28:18.390
a friend yesterday. And it was like a friendship breakup.
597
00:28:18.450 --> 00:28:18.710
Yeah.
598
00:28:19.019 --> 00:28:19.420
You know?
599
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:20.759
I've been there.
600
00:28:20.779 --> 00:28:26.119
And in my mind of, you know, her reaction, of course,
601
00:28:26.200 --> 00:28:28.119
was not, you know, wasn't pleasant.
602
00:28:29.150 --> 00:28:32.190
But that was my greatest act of love in that moment.
603
00:28:32.230 --> 00:28:32.450
Yes.
604
00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:36.890
Because I will not babysit. I will not enable. Absolutely. Absolutely.
605
00:28:36.910 --> 00:28:38.710
That's not how friendship looks to me.
606
00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:39.069
That's right.
607
00:28:39.089 --> 00:28:39.829
It's not what it looks like.
608
00:28:39.970 --> 00:28:45.359
And if a person is intentional about growth and transformation.
609
00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:51.019
99% of people are not intentional. Most people are alive
610
00:28:51.099 --> 00:28:51.799
but not living.
611
00:28:52.019 --> 00:28:52.299
Yeah.
612
00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:52.660
Right?
613
00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:55.799
If you ever get intentional about growth and transformation, as
614
00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:00.680
you move intentionally... in one's growing process, it will become
615
00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:04.240
very clear to you where people level out and they
616
00:29:04.279 --> 00:29:06.700
can't go with you any further. And that's not a
617
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:10.180
bad thing. It's not a bad thing. But you'll sabotage
618
00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:13.990
yourself if you keep them. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
619
00:29:14.089 --> 00:29:16.769
And so some people, you know, this is the place
620
00:29:16.809 --> 00:29:19.130
where this has to end right here.
621
00:29:19.250 --> 00:29:21.410
Yeah. And it's not that I love you less.
622
00:29:21.490 --> 00:29:22.309
No, no.
623
00:29:22.470 --> 00:29:22.990
It's not that I.
624
00:29:22.990 --> 00:29:25.049
Love you less. But I don't love myself less either.
625
00:29:25.109 --> 00:29:28.559
And that's it. I don't love myself less.
626
00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:33.369
And when you've learned how to love yourself well, you
627
00:29:33.430 --> 00:29:35.349
are able to make those clear cuts.
628
00:29:35.109 --> 00:29:36.109
When they need to be made.
629
00:29:36.210 --> 00:29:40.160
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely, absolutely. And the book of Tyrone...
630
00:29:40.460 --> 00:29:41.559
is a story.
631
00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:45.200
It's a book about a black boy who grows up
632
00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:49.829
in the hood, very, very poor, comes from very uneducated people,
633
00:29:50.109 --> 00:29:54.410
folks that run a house smoking weed and chilling and
634
00:29:54.430 --> 00:29:58.049
they don't pay much attention to him. But he has
635
00:29:58.109 --> 00:30:04.049
this gift He has this incredible, incredible, incredible gift. He
636
00:30:04.089 --> 00:30:07.410
can draw almost anything he sees, he can replicate it
637
00:30:07.750 --> 00:30:10.869
on canvas. But nobody knows this. Nobody's thinking about him
638
00:30:10.930 --> 00:30:14.119
as an artist. He's poor and he's black. But the
639
00:30:14.180 --> 00:30:17.559
story is about how he bumps into this old man
640
00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:20.180
on the streets, this wino kind of man on the streets,
641
00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:25.359
who actually asks him, like, what do you want to do?
642
00:30:25.420 --> 00:30:27.799
Like, do you understand that you have a gift? And
643
00:30:27.819 --> 00:30:29.500
the boy's like, man, you drunk.
644
00:30:29.539 --> 00:30:33.380
What the hell are you even talking about? But as
645
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:38.579
the story evolves, this wino man helps Tyrone to discover
646
00:30:38.700 --> 00:30:41.480
that he can actually draw. And once Tyrone discovers that
647
00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:46.769
he can draw, folks begin to pour into Tyrone and
648
00:30:46.789 --> 00:30:50.730
begin to send him to art school and all this,
649
00:30:50.769 --> 00:30:53.970
et cetera. And it's about the ways in which Tyrone
650
00:30:53.990 --> 00:31:01.880
discovers That his artistic gift was never hindered by his circumstances.
651
00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:02.299
Yeah.
652
00:31:03.019 --> 00:31:07.140
That he never dreamed his own excellence, but he came
653
00:31:07.259 --> 00:31:07.609
with it.
654
00:31:09.740 --> 00:31:12.109
He never dreamed his own excellence, but he came with it.
655
00:31:12.109 --> 00:31:12.849
But he came with it.
656
00:31:13.509 --> 00:31:15.210
And I think that that's a story for so many
657
00:31:15.250 --> 00:31:15.380
of us.
658
00:31:15.390 --> 00:31:16.190
So many people.
659
00:31:17.170 --> 00:31:22.029
And we think our circumstances actually mitigate our possibilities.
660
00:31:23.170 --> 00:31:24.130
And they do not.
661
00:31:24.549 --> 00:31:24.750
Yeah.
662
00:31:25.140 --> 00:31:26.000
They do not at all.
663
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:29.640
I mean, as poor and broke as Harriet Tubman was, baby,
664
00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:30.619
that's a track star.
665
00:31:30.849 --> 00:31:31.130
Yeah.
666
00:31:31.549 --> 00:31:34.029
Because you said in your commencement speech, you said, if
667
00:31:34.069 --> 00:31:36.309
Harriet Tubman can run to freedom, you can run to
668
00:31:36.329 --> 00:31:36.630
your destiny.
669
00:31:36.710 --> 00:31:37.329
Absolutely.
670
00:31:37.470 --> 00:31:37.670
Yeah.
671
00:31:37.710 --> 00:31:40.789
But see, folks got to first get clear that your
672
00:31:40.970 --> 00:31:46.059
circumstances do not announce to you the parameters of your possibilities.
673
00:31:46.339 --> 00:31:46.490
Yeah.
674
00:31:46.650 --> 00:31:49.640
But we believe they do. Yeah. Oh, my God, I
675
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:50.619
grew up poor. So?
676
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:52.019
Yeah. So?
677
00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:54.279
And in fact, God is so miraculous.
678
00:31:54.299 --> 00:31:54.369
Yes.
679
00:31:54.920 --> 00:31:59.269
They got to use those circumstances in order to introduce.
680
00:31:58.750 --> 00:31:59.930
To you your excellence.
681
00:31:59.970 --> 00:32:00.210
Yeah.
682
00:32:00.950 --> 00:32:04.750
Right. And so this story about Tyrone is about this
683
00:32:04.789 --> 00:32:07.089
very thing, how he comes into his own, how he
684
00:32:07.150 --> 00:32:11.920
discovers his gift and discovers that gift comes without repentance
685
00:32:12.039 --> 00:32:17.380
and how he realizes that nothing that ever happened to
686
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:22.910
him hinders the majesty of his authenticity. Yeah.
687
00:32:22.930 --> 00:32:23.009
Yeah.
688
00:32:23.690 --> 00:32:25.490
What are one of the 30 commandments?
689
00:32:26.089 --> 00:32:27.170
I'm going to get in trouble again, but I'm going
690
00:32:27.190 --> 00:32:28.250
to say it because at some point I'm about to
691
00:32:28.289 --> 00:32:28.650
release this.
692
00:32:28.670 --> 00:32:29.220
You are.
693
00:32:30.390 --> 00:32:38.539
Commandment number one, love thyself unapologetically and unashamedly with everything
694
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:40.059
in you. Yeah.
695
00:32:41.579 --> 00:32:43.319
That's going to be the one that people, that's the
696
00:32:43.359 --> 00:32:45.200
tough pill for people to swallow.
697
00:32:45.259 --> 00:32:46.079
Love thyself.
698
00:32:46.369 --> 00:32:47.140
Yeah. Yes.
699
00:32:47.869 --> 00:32:52.490
Commandment two, speak to other people with the language you
700
00:32:52.650 --> 00:32:53.450
use for God.
701
00:32:54.980 --> 00:32:55.960
God doesn't need it.
702
00:32:55.960 --> 00:33:01.180
I'm trapped.
703
00:33:01.619 --> 00:33:06.630
I'm really trapped. So when I see you in the morning,
704
00:33:06.690 --> 00:33:09.869
I should say, I lift your name on high.
705
00:33:10.210 --> 00:33:10.329
Ooh.
706
00:33:10.950 --> 00:33:11.990
I magnify you.
707
00:33:12.150 --> 00:33:12.509
Yeah.
708
00:33:12.829 --> 00:33:17.450
Sister, I glorify you. Everything in you brings me joy.
709
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:17.880
Yeah.
710
00:33:18.500 --> 00:33:20.700
I bless you. That's what I should be saying to you.
711
00:33:21.819 --> 00:33:23.180
Does God need me to say that?
712
00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:24.740
Because he already know.
713
00:33:25.599 --> 00:33:32.230
God's self-esteem is not poor. He don't have no self-esteem.
714
00:33:32.329 --> 00:33:34.809
Exactly. It's the rest of you Negroes out here who
715
00:33:34.829 --> 00:33:35.769
need a little help.
716
00:33:35.829 --> 00:33:36.130
Yes.
717
00:33:36.190 --> 00:33:36.829
Okay?
718
00:33:36.950 --> 00:33:39.369
Yes, we never tired of hearing it. We always need it.
719
00:33:39.450 --> 00:33:44.180
Why are we pouring this into God? That's already marvelous.
720
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:48.019
You know, one of the most life-changing, I've told this
721
00:33:48.039 --> 00:33:50.359
story a few times, but one of the most life-changing
722
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:52.519
moments when I went to a silent meditation retreat and
723
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:55.799
on the last day, When the meditation instructor, you know,
724
00:33:55.839 --> 00:33:59.789
was guiding us through, guiding us through this meditation. And
725
00:34:00.130 --> 00:34:04.009
she said, you are looking at the divine. If God
726
00:34:04.089 --> 00:34:05.769
showed up in this form, could.
727
00:34:05.650 --> 00:34:08.130
You accept God? Right. Could you accept yourself?
728
00:34:08.210 --> 00:34:08.449
Yeah.
729
00:34:08.769 --> 00:34:10.710
No matter the race, no matter the color, no matter
730
00:34:10.730 --> 00:34:12.380
the ethnicity, no matter the gender.
731
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:12.639
Right.
732
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:15.579
If God showed up in this form, could you accept God?
733
00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:19.039
Could you accept yourself? You are looking at the divine. Yes.
734
00:34:19.570 --> 00:34:23.949
And I think what I hear in all of the
735
00:34:24.050 --> 00:34:26.969
lectures that you do and all of the writings, you
736
00:34:27.010 --> 00:34:29.269
are just getting black people to understand you are looking
737
00:34:29.389 --> 00:34:30.289
at the divine.
738
00:34:30.329 --> 00:34:30.630
Yes.
739
00:34:30.969 --> 00:34:31.130
Yes.
740
00:34:31.250 --> 00:34:33.309
And in most instances, I have to fight with and
741
00:34:33.409 --> 00:34:35.820
argue for black people to even consider it possible.
742
00:34:36.059 --> 00:34:36.699
That they are.
743
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:37.079
Yes.
744
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:45.699
Because our self-hatred has been so tailor-made for our existence. Right.
745
00:34:46.420 --> 00:34:48.840
Getting rid of it, giving it back is hell to pay.
746
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:50.380
And it's a risk.
747
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:54.920
And it's a risk because if I believe that you're divine,
748
00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:56.800
if I believe that you're God, if I believe you
749
00:34:56.840 --> 00:34:59.039
look like God, I got to rearrange.
750
00:34:59.079 --> 00:35:01.829
I got to contend with some stuff in my mind.
751
00:35:01.849 --> 00:35:02.190
I do.
752
00:35:02.429 --> 00:35:05.050
I do. I do. And them white angels ain't going
753
00:35:05.070 --> 00:35:13.110
to work. It's not going to work.
754
00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:14.980
It's not going to work.
755
00:35:15.019 --> 00:35:16.840
It's not going to work. You know what I'm saying?
756
00:35:16.860 --> 00:35:18.699
It's not going to work. It's not going to work.
757
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:19.710
What's his name?
758
00:35:19.789 --> 00:35:20.010
St.
759
00:35:20.050 --> 00:35:22.170
Peter. What'd they say? At the pearly gates.
760
00:35:22.190 --> 00:35:25.670
Who's supposed to be there? Right, right, right. Guarding the gates. Right, right, right.
761
00:35:26.329 --> 00:35:27.210
It might not look like hell.
762
00:35:27.269 --> 00:35:28.769
It may not even be a gate.
763
00:35:28.829 --> 00:35:29.929
It ain't no gate.
764
00:35:30.030 --> 00:35:31.489
I mean, why would you need a gate in heaven?
765
00:35:31.510 --> 00:35:32.130
What you keeping out?
766
00:35:32.150 --> 00:35:33.110
You know.
767
00:35:36.139 --> 00:35:36.590
Come on.
768
00:35:36.619 --> 00:35:38.239
I mean, you see, all the things conceptually.
769
00:35:38.260 --> 00:35:38.949
Because all the things.
770
00:35:39.010 --> 00:35:40.650
Absolutely. Exactly. Absolutely.
771
00:35:40.789 --> 00:35:41.550
Exactly.
772
00:35:41.869 --> 00:35:47.489
And so this Bible, and there is, there are many
773
00:35:47.550 --> 00:35:51.150
stories about queerness, queer things, right?
774
00:35:51.909 --> 00:35:53.340
And the divinity of queerness, right?
775
00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:56.159
That's going to cause a lot of ruckus, but it's
776
00:35:56.179 --> 00:35:57.820
still going to be in there, you know, what it is.
777
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:01.719
And it's exactly what God told me. Because most people,
778
00:36:03.239 --> 00:36:05.579
In fact, queerness really has nothing to do.
779
00:36:05.460 --> 00:36:06.619
With sexual behavior.
780
00:36:08.010 --> 00:36:09.329
Okay, what does it have to do with?
781
00:36:09.989 --> 00:36:13.269
It has to do with one's willingness to be so
782
00:36:13.489 --> 00:36:19.289
different that you literally disturb the cosmos in order to
783
00:36:19.329 --> 00:36:21.309
ignite a different level of liberty.
784
00:36:22.369 --> 00:36:22.690
Oh, wow.
785
00:36:22.710 --> 00:36:25.800
See, I'm going to say this. For me, everybody gay
786
00:36:25.900 --> 00:36:26.460
is not queer.
787
00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:27.820
Okay.
788
00:36:28.019 --> 00:36:30.760
Some people are just gay. You're just regularly gay. There's
789
00:36:30.820 --> 00:36:31.469
nothing queer about you.
790
00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:36.500
What's regular gay? Meaning you don't do anything transformative. See,
791
00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:40.230
for me, queer means somebody who lives intentionally, somebody who's
792
00:36:40.329 --> 00:36:43.409
intentionally trying to change the way the world moves, the
793
00:36:43.429 --> 00:36:47.250
way the people in the world think, who are literally disrupting,
794
00:36:47.510 --> 00:36:51.030
who are bringing the kind of chaos, right, that would
795
00:36:51.070 --> 00:36:53.809
help to ignite a new world where everybody's free.
796
00:36:54.369 --> 00:36:55.369
Everybody gay is not doing that.
797
00:36:55.389 --> 00:36:57.949
You know who just came to my mind? Because Michael
798
00:36:57.989 --> 00:37:02.610
Harriot's doing a show and his book, Black AF, he
799
00:37:02.659 --> 00:37:04.380
talks about Rosetta Thorpe.
800
00:37:04.480 --> 00:37:06.139
Rosetta Thorpe. Rosetta Thorpe.
801
00:37:06.260 --> 00:37:07.340
Mother of rock and roll.
802
00:37:07.460 --> 00:37:08.079
Absolutely.
803
00:37:08.139 --> 00:37:08.539
Queer woman.
804
00:37:08.599 --> 00:37:10.559
Absolutely. I think Vi Rustin was queer. I don't think
805
00:37:10.579 --> 00:37:11.659
you're just queer because you're gay.
806
00:37:11.960 --> 00:37:12.219
Yeah.
807
00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:13.920
I don't think that. I do not think that.
808
00:37:14.199 --> 00:37:16.699
But what I do think is, but most people don't know,
809
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:19.440
I think that queer people are sent to the planet
810
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.309
because there's a special spiritual function that I think queerness
811
00:37:24.349 --> 00:37:25.630
has in a community.
812
00:37:25.650 --> 00:37:26.309
Right?
813
00:37:26.329 --> 00:37:26.469
Right.
814
00:37:26.969 --> 00:37:27.570
I think.
815
00:37:29.030 --> 00:37:33.170
That creativity rides a queer body and a queer form
816
00:37:33.349 --> 00:37:36.909
differently than heteronormative, which is why, again, most of you
817
00:37:36.929 --> 00:37:40.590
are musicians, you're writers. There's a disproportionate number of folks
818
00:37:40.760 --> 00:37:43.860
who are queer in the arts, but it's because creativity,
819
00:37:44.059 --> 00:37:46.199
which is God's signature.
820
00:37:46.940 --> 00:37:48.980
See, creativity is God's signature.
821
00:37:49.340 --> 00:37:52.019
It's God's manifestation, which is why even if you take
822
00:37:52.059 --> 00:37:54.800
the King James, in the beginning, God created it.
823
00:37:55.409 --> 00:37:55.659
Mm-hmm.
824
00:37:55.929 --> 00:37:58.690
That's the first thing God did. In the beginning, God created.
825
00:37:58.809 --> 00:38:00.389
I could preach that if you stop right there.
826
00:38:00.550 --> 00:38:00.969
Absolutely.
827
00:38:00.989 --> 00:38:05.869
Because creating is what God does. So artists are people
828
00:38:05.909 --> 00:38:09.250
who create. And you've got to be weird. You've got
829
00:38:09.289 --> 00:38:10.389
to be strange to create.
830
00:38:10.510 --> 00:38:10.710
Why?
831
00:38:10.949 --> 00:38:16.050
Because you've got to imagine an existence that has not
832
00:38:16.170 --> 00:38:16.789
yet come.
833
00:38:17.590 --> 00:38:21.030
And you've got to see it clearly before it ever manifests.
834
00:38:21.889 --> 00:38:24.030
So then what do you think our biggest.
835
00:38:24.769 --> 00:38:27.030
What is the biggest hurdle that we have to jump
836
00:38:27.289 --> 00:38:28.309
in the black community?
837
00:38:28.429 --> 00:38:30.789
Because it's still quite.
838
00:38:30.530 --> 00:38:35.030
A contentious conversation to have in many families, in many homes,
839
00:38:35.289 --> 00:38:35.869
in many churches.
840
00:38:35.889 --> 00:38:36.929
Very much so. Very much so.
841
00:38:37.250 --> 00:38:40.219
Again, our biggest battle, I think, is with the Western
842
00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:45.980
notion of who God is, how God functions, what God believes.
843
00:38:46.079 --> 00:38:50.360
I think many, many people think that queerness, homosexuality, all
844
00:38:50.380 --> 00:38:53.989
of that, is some aberration, is some deviation from Right?
845
00:38:54.710 --> 00:38:56.929
It's something somebody chose. Right?
846
00:38:57.909 --> 00:38:59.670
I think believing that a person can choose to be
847
00:38:59.710 --> 00:39:01.670
gay is as silly as believing somebody can choose to
848
00:39:01.710 --> 00:39:02.130
be black.
849
00:39:03.360 --> 00:39:05.610
Really? I do. I do.
850
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:08.340
T.S. Madison's been on the show. T.S.
851
00:39:08.380 --> 00:39:15.139
Madison is a trans woman. And she has been on
852
00:39:15.159 --> 00:39:19.960
the show. And she, to your point, says something very similar.
853
00:39:20.519 --> 00:39:25.940
That She did not choose this. She was born this way.
854
00:39:26.820 --> 00:39:28.650
If you think of how black folks have been treated
855
00:39:28.710 --> 00:39:32.739
in America... right, from slavery and all that, can you
856
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:34.550
think of somebody who would have chosen to be black?
857
00:39:36.369 --> 00:39:37.369
Look, not the black.
858
00:39:37.889 --> 00:39:39.719
Maybe in the next lifetime, I'm going to be a
859
00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:41.920
black woman. In the lifetime after that, I'm going to
860
00:39:41.940 --> 00:39:42.619
be a black woman.
861
00:39:42.659 --> 00:39:44.239
I'm going to be a black man too. Every time.
862
00:39:44.260 --> 00:39:45.590
But it's because I've learned to love it.
863
00:39:45.780 --> 00:39:46.039
Yeah.
864
00:39:46.219 --> 00:39:46.360
Right?
865
00:39:46.539 --> 00:39:47.840
I don't know any white people who would choose to
866
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:48.300
be black.
867
00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:50.980
No, that's the, maybe they jump and shit immediately.
868
00:39:51.179 --> 00:39:53.280
Which means, who would choose to be gay the way
869
00:39:53.320 --> 00:39:56.619
people have castigated and demeaned and degraded and sent gay
870
00:39:56.639 --> 00:39:58.860
folks to hell? Nobody would choose that. Nobody would choose that.
871
00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:03.000
But that's just one level. The greater thing is, there
872
00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:06.099
are certain, if you take somebody like a James Baldwin, Right?
873
00:40:06.260 --> 00:40:06.480
Yeah.
874
00:40:06.900 --> 00:40:10.900
James Baldwin is that brilliant because he's that queer.
875
00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:15.489
He's not brilliant and happens to be queer. You can't
876
00:40:15.590 --> 00:40:17.289
get that brilliance without that queerness.
877
00:40:18.769 --> 00:40:22.070
They are going to fight you down in the comments, baby.
878
00:40:22.090 --> 00:40:25.590
It's coming. It's coming. Absolutely. It's coming. It's coming. You can't.
879
00:40:26.150 --> 00:40:27.690
That's why Jesus was queer, I think.
880
00:40:29.929 --> 00:40:33.000
I do. I'm going to break the damn thing.
881
00:40:33.019 --> 00:40:34.440
But see, I'm not saying Jesus was gay.
882
00:40:35.929 --> 00:40:36.289
Okay.
883
00:40:36.309 --> 00:40:36.380
Yes.
884
00:40:37.070 --> 00:40:37.809
I mean, come on.
885
00:40:40.010 --> 00:40:43.530
Here you are in first century Nazareth. You get to
886
00:40:43.610 --> 00:40:46.340
live and you never marry. And everybody else in this community,
887
00:40:46.449 --> 00:40:48.280
you ain't never had no girlfriend.
888
00:40:48.900 --> 00:40:51.460
Well, that's been argued now. That has been argued.
889
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:52.019
It has been argued.
890
00:40:52.039 --> 00:40:52.760
That has been argued.
891
00:40:52.820 --> 00:40:54.639
And the reason it's argued is because people are trying
892
00:40:54.679 --> 00:40:56.219
to make him heteronormative.
893
00:40:56.739 --> 00:41:01.000
Ooh, it has been argued that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' companion.
894
00:41:01.059 --> 00:41:04.519
And the reason it's been argued is because people need
895
00:41:04.619 --> 00:41:07.300
to believe that Jesus was heterosexual.
896
00:41:07.719 --> 00:41:08.900
And your take is.
897
00:41:09.630 --> 00:41:12.150
I don't need to believe Jesus was heterosexual. It don't
898
00:41:12.170 --> 00:41:13.550
move me if Jesus was heterosexual.
899
00:41:13.849 --> 00:41:14.949
It doesn't move you either way.
900
00:41:14.969 --> 00:41:15.909
Either way.
901
00:41:16.190 --> 00:41:16.409
Yeah.
902
00:41:16.489 --> 00:41:21.039
Because Jesus' transformative nature is in the notion of Jesus' liberty.
903
00:41:21.219 --> 00:41:22.599
It transcends.
904
00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:25.559
It doesn't move me one way or the other. And
905
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:27.400
I think even calling God he is a problem.
906
00:41:27.420 --> 00:41:32.530
It's so interesting because as I'm preparing to go to seminary,
907
00:41:32.739 --> 00:41:35.929
I've been talking to people who, of course, have gone
908
00:41:35.949 --> 00:41:38.599
to seminary, who are pastors, who are who do many
909
00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:46.469
different things with their education. And I was having a
910
00:41:46.530 --> 00:41:51.329
conversation with a young lady who graduated two years ago,
911
00:41:51.389 --> 00:41:55.940
and she said, honestly, Brandy, like seminary just kind of,
912
00:41:56.500 --> 00:41:57.000
I had to go.
913
00:41:56.900 --> 00:41:58.199
Sit down for a while.
914
00:41:58.559 --> 00:42:01.400
Because I had to wrestle with so many things that
915
00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:05.050
I believed that, And anybody who goes to seminary, you're
916
00:42:05.090 --> 00:42:07.570
going to wrestle with your.
917
00:42:07.449 --> 00:42:08.869
Beliefs and what you've been taught.
918
00:42:08.889 --> 00:42:09.269
Absolutely.
919
00:42:09.630 --> 00:42:11.449
And one of the things she said was, you know,
920
00:42:11.550 --> 00:42:14.309
for all the years I have been taught to, you know,
921
00:42:14.349 --> 00:42:19.710
really rebuke ancestral, you know, African ancestral religion. I have
922
00:42:19.750 --> 00:42:22.949
been told, like, people who have altars, all of those things,
923
00:42:23.050 --> 00:42:27.769
ancestral altars, you know, that that's blasphemous, that's witchcraft, that's,
924
00:42:27.909 --> 00:42:31.309
you know, hoodoo, voodoo, all the things. And she said,
925
00:42:31.349 --> 00:42:34.599
you know, Brandi... I can't even call God a man
926
00:42:34.659 --> 00:42:37.480
at this stage in my life. And I was like,
927
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:39.579
why do you say that? Because so many people.
928
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:42.159
Because when you think about the nature of creation.
929
00:42:42.199 --> 00:42:42.480
Yes.
930
00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:44.880
When you think for bringing forth life.
931
00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:45.860
It would make sense.
932
00:42:45.900 --> 00:42:47.219
You can't do it without a woman.
933
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:49.889
It's going to be rough. It's going to be rough.
934
00:42:50.170 --> 00:42:51.929
It's going to be rough. It's going to be rough.
935
00:42:52.289 --> 00:42:54.130
But I also think that there are ways in which
936
00:42:54.250 --> 00:42:56.010
the Bible is misogynistic.
937
00:42:56.269 --> 00:42:56.730
Oh, totally.
938
00:42:57.460 --> 00:42:59.719
I mean, you wrote a whole piece about the black
939
00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:03.210
church and how it still upholds patriarchy. Yes. It still
940
00:43:03.309 --> 00:43:05.789
upholds bondage and slave thinking.
941
00:43:05.889 --> 00:43:07.210
Absolutely. Absolutely.
942
00:43:07.489 --> 00:43:09.590
And so I think every time we say he, I
943
00:43:09.789 --> 00:43:12.929
think we make God into ourselves.
944
00:43:13.670 --> 00:43:15.710
When we hear, what's the book?
945
00:43:15.789 --> 00:43:19.329
I can't even think of the book I read recently
946
00:43:20.250 --> 00:43:23.699
when it says something to the fact that we have
947
00:43:23.739 --> 00:43:27.250
made God people make God to look like the very
948
00:43:27.289 --> 00:43:28.349
version of who they are.
949
00:43:28.449 --> 00:43:28.710
Sure.
950
00:43:29.309 --> 00:43:29.829
You know? Sure.
951
00:43:30.269 --> 00:43:34.030
And so we've humanized. We've given God the humanistic characteristics.
952
00:43:34.070 --> 00:43:34.389
Yes.
953
00:43:34.590 --> 00:43:38.780
Yes. Anthropomorphism, as they call it, when we give God
954
00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:39.579
human characteristics.
955
00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:45.300
And there are ways that we use women's bodies for
956
00:43:45.340 --> 00:43:48.179
the utility of a male God.
957
00:43:49.500 --> 00:43:53.340
Hold on. I'm going to sit up in class for
958
00:43:53.380 --> 00:43:54.300
right now. Hold on.
959
00:43:54.539 --> 00:43:54.719
Yeah.
960
00:43:55.809 --> 00:43:57.750
Use it for the utility of the male God. I
961
00:43:57.769 --> 00:43:59.530
need you to go ahead and dive deep.
962
00:43:59.869 --> 00:44:05.670
You know, like, I thought about, like, when the Bible opens,
963
00:44:05.690 --> 00:44:07.449
there's Adam and Eve, right?
964
00:44:07.809 --> 00:44:11.139
Nobody gave birth. Adam just appears, which is fine.
965
00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:11.559
Okay.
966
00:44:12.599 --> 00:44:13.340
It's fine. It's fine.
967
00:44:13.380 --> 00:44:14.559
I can work with it. I'm going to work with it.
968
00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:16.559
I'm going to work with it. I'm going to work
969
00:44:16.579 --> 00:44:21.739
with it. But when Jesus comes along, a woman wakes
970
00:44:21.860 --> 00:44:23.440
up pregnant one day. Yeah.
971
00:44:23.460 --> 00:44:24.519
Right?
972
00:44:24.539 --> 00:44:29.239
Right. Now, what's so funny is that people are so excited. Oh, Mary, how,
973
00:44:29.500 --> 00:44:31.900
you know, blessed art thou.
974
00:44:32.280 --> 00:44:33.559
Immaculate conception.
975
00:44:33.619 --> 00:44:33.940
Absolutely.
976
00:44:33.960 --> 00:44:36.909
But what I was thinking of is what woman would
977
00:44:37.050 --> 00:44:39.789
wake up pregnant and think she's blessed?
978
00:44:40.849 --> 00:44:44.869
Well, in the text, she has some contending to do
979
00:44:44.909 --> 00:44:46.090
with that, right?
980
00:44:46.389 --> 00:44:49.510
And in fact, part of the issue here is I'm saying,
981
00:44:49.719 --> 00:44:51.940
just like Adam appeared, why couldn't Jesus just appear? Why
982
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:54.230
did we have to use a woman? But then I
983
00:44:54.269 --> 00:44:56.929
figured it out once I really worked. Because you have
984
00:44:56.949 --> 00:44:59.769
to use a woman if you want the patriarchy to work.
985
00:45:01.070 --> 00:45:04.150
Because in the patriarchy, the utility of a woman's body
986
00:45:04.289 --> 00:45:08.409
is necessary for a man's lineage to be passed. And
987
00:45:08.449 --> 00:45:12.840
so using a woman reifies a woman's position, not just
988
00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:14.880
in the house, but even in divinity.
989
00:45:15.340 --> 00:45:15.659
Yeah.
990
00:45:16.219 --> 00:45:18.380
Right. I mean, because when we look at the cross
991
00:45:18.420 --> 00:45:22.400
versus the ankh, right? We look at that. In African
992
00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:26.389
culture and tradition, the woman and the man were there together. Yes.
993
00:45:26.849 --> 00:45:30.309
The Ankh is a woman, a man, family, children, life.
994
00:45:30.329 --> 00:45:31.250
Even the shape of the Ankh.
995
00:45:31.429 --> 00:45:32.349
Yes, the shape.
996
00:45:32.530 --> 00:45:32.909
Literally.
997
00:45:32.989 --> 00:45:36.050
It's together. Yes, yes. It's the man.
998
00:45:36.190 --> 00:45:40.360
Yes, and what Christianity does is squeezes this together and
999
00:45:40.460 --> 00:45:45.280
takes the feminine aspect out of the Trinity, right?
1000
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:47.960
And now what you get is the full phallic in
1001
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:48.780
both directions.
1002
00:45:48.969 --> 00:45:49.969
Yeah, in both directions.
1003
00:45:50.500 --> 00:45:53.139
I mean, one of the things you talked about in
1004
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:55.719
one of your work, which is actually an excerpt from
1005
00:45:55.940 --> 00:45:56.940
one of your books, I.
1006
00:45:56.920 --> 00:45:59.760
Think, The Coming?
1007
00:45:59.820 --> 00:46:00.179
The Coming.
1008
00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:00.659
The Coming.
1009
00:46:01.639 --> 00:46:06.159
And you talk about how women have, all the women
1010
00:46:06.179 --> 00:46:09.380
that you've known have run households, fierce households.
1011
00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:10.380
Absolutely.
1012
00:46:10.699 --> 00:46:14.579
Have run households, have been able to keep their families
1013
00:46:14.719 --> 00:46:15.420
running and going.
1014
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:15.820
Absolutely.
1015
00:46:17.250 --> 00:46:20.369
They run and manage the church, and yet they are
1016
00:46:20.449 --> 00:46:21.769
placed on the outside.
1017
00:46:21.949 --> 00:46:24.780
And many of them choose men as leadership, too.
1018
00:46:25.010 --> 00:46:25.960
Oh, yeah.
1019
00:46:26.099 --> 00:46:28.360
I know many women who won't sit under a woman.
1020
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:29.760
They will not sit under a woman.
1021
00:46:29.780 --> 00:46:30.360
Yes, yes, yes.
1022
00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:31.019
They won't do it.
1023
00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:37.780
Again, that's inherent patriarchy, right? And most people, because the
1024
00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:38.980
Bible is patriarchal.
1025
00:46:39.380 --> 00:46:39.639
Yeah.
1026
00:46:40.099 --> 00:46:42.739
And they think that then patriarchy is divine.
1027
00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:43.239
Yeah.
1028
00:46:43.679 --> 00:46:45.940
Right? And not only is it not divine, I think
1029
00:46:45.980 --> 00:46:49.349
it's absolutely problematic. I think it's misguided, and I don't
1030
00:46:49.389 --> 00:46:51.489
think it has anything to do with God whatsoever.
1031
00:46:51.789 --> 00:46:54.570
But okay. But the good book is going to help
1032
00:46:54.610 --> 00:46:54.849
him out.
1033
00:46:55.789 --> 00:46:56.239
Absolutely.
1034
00:46:56.260 --> 00:47:00.360
I think it is so necessary because why else are
1035
00:47:00.380 --> 00:47:03.139
we not here? Why are we not here on this
1036
00:47:03.199 --> 00:47:08.039
planet to reimagine what life looks like, what love looks like,
1037
00:47:08.159 --> 00:47:12.429
what scripture looks like, what psalm looks like, what wisdom
1038
00:47:12.510 --> 00:47:12.949
looks like?
1039
00:47:12.989 --> 00:47:13.250
Sure.
1040
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:18.579
For centuries and eons, it's meant to have some evolution.
1041
00:47:19.070 --> 00:47:21.630
And something's wrong with a person.
1042
00:47:22.010 --> 00:47:25.889
Something's wrong with a people who always go to some
1043
00:47:26.210 --> 00:47:27.969
other people for what God said.
1044
00:47:28.789 --> 00:47:31.230
You know, that's the biggest thing that I be saying
1045
00:47:31.389 --> 00:47:33.710
when I get up and do these talks, Dr. Black.
1046
00:47:33.829 --> 00:47:37.110
I say, you waiting on somebody. You stay in the
1047
00:47:37.139 --> 00:47:39.059
line for somebody to lay hands on you. You don't
1048
00:47:39.099 --> 00:47:42.239
understand the power in your own hands. To lay hands
1049
00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:45.079
on yourself? I don't need nobody to go lay hands
1050
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:48.239
on me. Baby, I have full authority.
1051
00:47:48.519 --> 00:47:48.960
Absolutely.
1052
00:47:49.159 --> 00:47:49.929
I have full authority.
1053
00:47:49.949 --> 00:47:52.489
You know, the analogy I always use is, what sense
1054
00:47:52.530 --> 00:47:55.409
does it make for the gazelles to go to the
1055
00:47:55.590 --> 00:48:01.409
Lion Academy to learn about God? Now, let's stay right
1056
00:48:01.429 --> 00:48:07.190
here one minute. Because what is the Lion's Academy teaching?
1057
00:48:07.909 --> 00:48:08.130
Baby.
1058
00:48:08.150 --> 00:48:08.269
Baby.
1059
00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:11.400
One of the things the Lions Academy is teaching is
1060
00:48:11.500 --> 00:48:13.059
devouring gazelles.
1061
00:48:13.420 --> 00:48:16.219
I'm going to devour, I'm going to kill you first
1062
00:48:16.239 --> 00:48:16.719
chance I get.
1063
00:48:17.610 --> 00:48:20.949
Which means, as a gazelle, for me to believe that
1064
00:48:20.989 --> 00:48:24.869
this academy, this Lions Academy, is actually going to teach
1065
00:48:24.989 --> 00:48:25.650
my freedom.
1066
00:48:26.510 --> 00:48:26.690
Right?
1067
00:48:26.969 --> 00:48:29.860
Not only have I fooled myself, but the Lions might
1068
00:48:29.920 --> 00:48:31.789
be willing to delude me too.
1069
00:48:31.800 --> 00:48:33.679
Absolutely. Absolutely. They sure will.
1070
00:48:33.699 --> 00:48:34.170
But by the.
1071
00:48:34.119 --> 00:48:36.670
Time I come out of this Lions Academy as a gazelle,
1072
00:48:36.710 --> 00:48:39.849
if I'm not careful, I'm trying to roar, but it
1073
00:48:39.889 --> 00:48:40.389
won't work.
1074
00:48:40.949 --> 00:48:41.090
Right.
1075
00:48:41.250 --> 00:48:46.679
I'm still somehow deficient. I'm still somehow. Yeah, I have
1076
00:48:46.719 --> 00:48:50.619
a degree. But but, you know, and they tell the gazelle,
1077
00:48:50.639 --> 00:48:51.860
stop all that jumping around.
1078
00:48:54.380 --> 00:48:57.449
It's a deep thing. Because lions don't do that.
1079
00:48:57.789 --> 00:49:01.190
Uh huh. Be still. Yeah. That's why I tell you
1080
00:49:01.210 --> 00:49:01.929
to be quiet.
1081
00:49:01.949 --> 00:49:02.670
Exactly.
1082
00:49:02.730 --> 00:49:04.909
And calm down and we don't talk loud.
1083
00:49:06.199 --> 00:49:08.900
For a gazelle to jump is how the gazelle wins.
1084
00:49:08.980 --> 00:49:09.280
Yeah.
1085
00:49:09.500 --> 00:49:12.739
It's how the gazelle, you know, survives. So if you
1086
00:49:12.780 --> 00:49:18.690
give that up, right, you're literally, literally and figuratively dead
1087
00:49:18.730 --> 00:49:19.110
meat here.
1088
00:49:19.829 --> 00:49:19.929
Oof.
1089
00:49:20.739 --> 00:49:21.909
That is so good.
1090
00:49:22.699 --> 00:49:26.119
Because I think we have we it's it's the reason
1091
00:49:26.239 --> 00:49:28.119
why you've been teaching at HBC.
1092
00:49:28.179 --> 00:49:30.719
It is. It is over 30 years. That's exactly why.
1093
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:34.360
Because I refuse to, all the work I did to
1094
00:49:34.380 --> 00:49:36.519
acquire all this knowledge, I refuse to hand this back
1095
00:49:36.739 --> 00:49:39.980
to people who then I might have to prove myself
1096
00:49:40.079 --> 00:49:41.960
to at a PWI.
1097
00:49:42.699 --> 00:49:47.280
Hell no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Yeah.
1098
00:49:47.800 --> 00:49:49.699
And I've not made as much money at Clark as
1099
00:49:49.780 --> 00:49:51.820
I might have made at a white school. That's probably true.
1100
00:49:52.300 --> 00:49:53.809
But I've made three times the influence.
1101
00:49:54.269 --> 00:49:54.849
Absolutely.
1102
00:49:55.130 --> 00:49:56.110
And I'll take the influence.
1103
00:49:56.369 --> 00:49:56.570
Yeah.
1104
00:49:56.590 --> 00:49:56.670
Yeah.
1105
00:49:57.389 --> 00:49:58.530
Oh my goodness. Okay.
1106
00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:03.119
If the black church were founded today with no colonial influence,
1107
00:50:03.320 --> 00:50:06.400
no European theology, what would our spirituality look like?
1108
00:50:07.239 --> 00:50:09.500
I'd take the book out. I'd have us do gathering
1109
00:50:09.559 --> 00:50:10.119
and rituals.
1110
00:50:10.460 --> 00:50:11.639
What are gatherings and rituals?
1111
00:50:11.739 --> 00:50:13.260
I'd have us do healing rituals.
1112
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:17.619
I would have us to do lessons around the removal
1113
00:50:17.639 --> 00:50:21.219
of trauma. I think everybody black in America has experienced
1114
00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:23.420
trauma to one degree or another, right?
1115
00:50:23.719 --> 00:50:26.610
I would do music. I do music constantly.
1116
00:50:27.329 --> 00:50:30.869
In other words, and the other thing I would do,
1117
00:50:31.110 --> 00:50:32.969
the other thing I would do is have us as
1118
00:50:33.030 --> 00:50:35.699
black people to study nature to find God. Yeah.
1119
00:50:36.429 --> 00:50:38.239
This is why I'm going to seminary on the farm.
1120
00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:38.579
Exactly.
1121
00:50:38.639 --> 00:50:39.760
I'll tell you, that's why it makes sense.
1122
00:50:39.800 --> 00:50:41.039
It's the only reason why.
1123
00:50:41.599 --> 00:50:45.860
Because how can you not, it's like what Alice Walker
1124
00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:48.079
wrote in the book Colorful.
1125
00:50:48.219 --> 00:50:51.130
How can you walk past a field of lavender?
1126
00:50:51.659 --> 00:50:51.860
Yes.
1127
00:50:52.050 --> 00:50:53.320
And not see the color purple.
1128
00:50:53.340 --> 00:50:54.179
Yes, yes, yes.
1129
00:50:54.300 --> 00:50:55.159
Not see God.
1130
00:50:55.260 --> 00:50:55.840
Absolutely.
1131
00:50:55.880 --> 00:50:56.099
Yeah.
1132
00:50:56.219 --> 00:50:56.719
Absolutely.
1133
00:50:57.500 --> 00:51:01.420
And everything we've been talking about is because there are
1134
00:51:01.579 --> 00:51:05.340
seeds that sprout in two days and there are some
1135
00:51:05.360 --> 00:51:06.260
that take 20 days.
1136
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:07.420
Yeah.
1137
00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:09.719
The ones that take 20 days offer you a different
1138
00:51:09.780 --> 00:51:12.780
nutrient than the ones that take... See, nature's constantly teaching.
1139
00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:14.360
But queerness is in nature, too.
1140
00:51:15.449 --> 00:51:16.610
Okay.
1141
00:51:16.760 --> 00:51:18.880
See, listen, that's why God.
1142
00:51:20.929 --> 00:51:24.550
If God made all the world and then humans last,
1143
00:51:24.989 --> 00:51:26.590
it was because what the humans are supposed to do
1144
00:51:26.630 --> 00:51:28.989
is study this. Yeah, yeah.
1145
00:51:29.170 --> 00:51:31.050
And then you'll know how to love and honor each other.
1146
00:51:31.269 --> 00:51:34.210
It's so real. You know, I'm one of those people
1147
00:51:34.230 --> 00:51:35.989
who goes on walks. I got to go sit.
1148
00:51:36.389 --> 00:51:38.630
Like, even when I put on my little YouTube chat
1149
00:51:38.670 --> 00:51:42.210
on my TV, have my little nature scape on YouTube
1150
00:51:42.469 --> 00:51:45.550
while I'm doing my quiet time. And.
1151
00:51:46.389 --> 00:51:48.710
It's something so powerful. The research is there.
1152
00:51:48.710 --> 00:51:53.809
15 Minutes in Nature will totally recalibrate your neurological system.
1153
00:51:53.849 --> 00:51:58.489
It'll totally change everything. My brother posted on his Instagram
1154
00:51:59.070 --> 00:52:01.170
last week. He's with my dad on one of his
1155
00:52:01.250 --> 00:52:05.679
fishing excursions. And he says on his Instagram post, like,
1156
00:52:06.340 --> 00:52:09.409
I finally got my creativity back. you know, this is
1157
00:52:09.469 --> 00:52:11.550
what being in nature for a few days will do
1158
00:52:11.610 --> 00:52:11.889
for you.
1159
00:52:12.050 --> 00:52:14.130
Oh, yes. Go touch some grass. You know, basically like
1160
00:52:14.150 --> 00:52:15.050
go touch some grass.
1161
00:52:15.650 --> 00:52:17.909
And I think that so many of us, because we
1162
00:52:17.949 --> 00:52:21.409
are living in these cities, we've run away from the country.
1163
00:52:21.949 --> 00:52:25.400
We've run away, you know, and due to the great
1164
00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:28.840
migration that happened, you know, that took us away. And
1165
00:52:28.900 --> 00:52:30.940
now many of us are trying to find our way.
1166
00:52:30.900 --> 00:52:32.579
Back to nature.
1167
00:52:32.659 --> 00:52:33.340
Sure, absolutely.
1168
00:52:33.739 --> 00:52:39.170
And the lesson of nature really is Don't argue your beauty.
1169
00:52:41.809 --> 00:52:44.909
Like when you see a rose, when you see a violet,
1170
00:52:44.989 --> 00:52:47.010
a chrysanthemum, when you see a four o'clock, when you
1171
00:52:47.050 --> 00:52:49.269
see a petunia, right?
1172
00:52:50.989 --> 00:52:53.440
If you think it's beautiful or not, it's not relevant.
1173
00:52:53.820 --> 00:52:54.099
Yeah.
1174
00:52:54.599 --> 00:52:55.780
It blooms because it can.
1175
00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:57.139
Yeah, yeah.
1176
00:52:57.179 --> 00:52:59.699
And it will not argue with you about its beauty.
1177
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:01.159
Right?
1178
00:53:01.360 --> 00:53:04.349
It will simply bloom. And you can enjoy it or not.
1179
00:53:04.489 --> 00:53:05.230
Yeah, yeah.
1180
00:53:05.349 --> 00:53:07.389
But what you cannot do is take away its bloom.
1181
00:53:09.199 --> 00:53:10.539
And that's what I want to do.
1182
00:53:10.940 --> 00:53:13.320
I want to get to a place where if somebody
1183
00:53:13.380 --> 00:53:16.480
believes I'm ugly, what I know now is that you
1184
00:53:16.500 --> 00:53:17.260
don't see well.
1185
00:53:20.090 --> 00:53:20.610
Come on.
1186
00:53:21.369 --> 00:53:25.590
Instead of me questioning myself because you think that. Right?
1187
00:53:26.630 --> 00:53:29.050
I don't know any flower that wilts when we decide
1188
00:53:29.070 --> 00:53:29.840
we don't like it.
1189
00:53:30.809 --> 00:53:32.409
So I want to stop wilting too. You know what
1190
00:53:32.429 --> 00:53:32.550
I mean?
1191
00:53:36.539 --> 00:53:36.980
That's so good.
1192
00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:37.780
Yeah.
1193
00:53:38.619 --> 00:53:40.440
I needed that to hear. I needed to hear that
1194
00:53:40.460 --> 00:53:41.099
for myself.
1195
00:53:41.199 --> 00:53:41.679
Yes, ma'am.
1196
00:53:41.820 --> 00:53:44.489
Because, you know, we live in a world where everybody
1197
00:53:44.510 --> 00:53:47.769
has an opinion. Everybody has a comment about what you
1198
00:53:47.789 --> 00:53:50.610
look like, who you look like, what you don't look like.
1199
00:53:50.769 --> 00:53:53.590
And sometimes like you're constantly.
1200
00:53:53.949 --> 00:53:56.989
I mean, I come on this here internet every week
1201
00:53:57.090 --> 00:53:59.510
and I see myself multiple times a day, all day,
1202
00:53:59.690 --> 00:54:02.190
every day. I can open up that and see myself, right?
1203
00:54:03.010 --> 00:54:06.019
And then what people say about you, right? Yes.
1204
00:54:06.639 --> 00:54:08.579
And now I have to take, well, you don't see
1205
00:54:08.619 --> 00:54:09.079
too well.
1206
00:54:09.719 --> 00:54:09.920
Right.
1207
00:54:10.119 --> 00:54:13.880
Yeah. Yes. Because I'm not going to stop blooming.
1208
00:54:14.099 --> 00:54:14.340
Right.
1209
00:54:14.460 --> 00:54:15.500
I'm not going to stop being.
1210
00:54:15.659 --> 00:54:15.960
Right.
1211
00:54:16.280 --> 00:54:16.679
Yeah.
1212
00:54:16.739 --> 00:54:17.550
Yes, yes, yes.
1213
00:54:17.860 --> 00:54:21.369
And for years I withheld my bloom in fear that
1214
00:54:21.449 --> 00:54:22.809
people might not appreciate it.
1215
00:54:22.889 --> 00:54:23.429
Absolutely.
1216
00:54:23.630 --> 00:54:23.789
Right.
1217
00:54:24.030 --> 00:54:26.110
But I didn't know I was insulting God by doing that.
1218
00:54:27.690 --> 00:54:28.050
I didn't.
1219
00:54:28.630 --> 00:54:31.500
That became so clear to me, Doc, at 40 years old.
1220
00:54:32.099 --> 00:54:33.900
At 40 years old it was like, it's almost like
1221
00:54:33.940 --> 00:54:35.780
the training wheels came off in my life.
1222
00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:38.719
Because it was like, okay, run, girl. Ride, girl. Do
1223
00:54:38.739 --> 00:54:42.719
the thing, girl. Like, what is stopping you? Because it is.
1224
00:54:42.820 --> 00:54:47.570
It is such, it just, it hurts God's feelings to
1225
00:54:47.630 --> 00:54:50.829
know that you are not using all of your majestic power.
1226
00:54:50.909 --> 00:54:51.449
Absolutely.
1227
00:54:51.510 --> 00:54:51.690
Yeah.
1228
00:54:51.750 --> 00:54:52.230
Absolutely.
1229
00:54:52.530 --> 00:54:54.789
It's very much like a seed. I always tell students,
1230
00:54:54.809 --> 00:54:57.550
it's very much like a seed. You don't know what
1231
00:54:57.570 --> 00:54:59.840
the seed has been through. You don't know if the
1232
00:54:59.860 --> 00:55:03.119
seed was packaged beautifully or someone threw it on the ground.
1233
00:55:03.579 --> 00:55:07.800
You don't know how it's transportation on a truck, right?
1234
00:55:08.280 --> 00:55:10.480
Somebody might have been stomping all over it. But if
1235
00:55:10.500 --> 00:55:13.730
you put that seed in the ground, it still blooms.
1236
00:55:14.429 --> 00:55:16.730
But it doesn't only bloom because the blooming is in
1237
00:55:16.750 --> 00:55:20.469
the seed. It doesn't only bloom because the blooming is
1238
00:55:20.510 --> 00:55:24.360
in the seed. It blooms because the earth agrees to
1239
00:55:24.409 --> 00:55:29.320
its bloom. And the rain agrees. And the sun agrees.
1240
00:55:29.659 --> 00:55:34.300
So with all of these allies, if you will, even
1241
00:55:34.340 --> 00:55:36.059
a damaged seed will still bloom.
1242
00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:41.639
I don't know. I don't know about you. But baby,
1243
00:55:41.659 --> 00:55:43.860
the doors of the church are now open. The doors
1244
00:55:43.880 --> 00:55:46.199
of the church are now open. Will there be one?
1245
00:55:46.260 --> 00:55:46.940
Won't you come?
1246
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:49.559
That's a deep thing you think about. We never think
1247
00:55:49.599 --> 00:55:51.239
of the condition of the seed.
1248
00:55:51.300 --> 00:55:51.699
Come on.
1249
00:55:52.900 --> 00:55:55.659
And it's really irrelevant. And it's true with our lives too.
1250
00:55:55.699 --> 00:56:00.300
My mama wasn't there. So, the blood that you needed
1251
00:56:00.360 --> 00:56:00.960
is still in you.
1252
00:56:01.159 --> 00:56:01.400
Yeah.
1253
00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:02.159
Yeah.
1254
00:56:02.239 --> 00:56:03.079
The blood still works.
1255
00:56:03.420 --> 00:56:03.619
Yeah.
1256
00:56:04.010 --> 00:56:08.670
You know, I never knew my daddy. Paint it. Paint
1257
00:56:08.690 --> 00:56:08.989
the hurt.
1258
00:56:10.110 --> 00:56:12.889
See, in any way, it's supposed to work for your
1259
00:56:13.510 --> 00:56:15.510
for your good, for your discipline.
1260
00:56:15.610 --> 00:56:17.670
Right. It's supposed to work for your destiny.
1261
00:56:17.710 --> 00:56:18.010
Yeah.
1262
00:56:18.269 --> 00:56:20.809
And it will if we'll stop getting locked. It's like
1263
00:56:20.829 --> 00:56:24.329
the seed. The seed is in the earth. Mad that like,
1264
00:56:25.110 --> 00:56:26.159
where's the rain?
1265
00:56:27.570 --> 00:56:29.420
See, be cool. Be cool.
1266
00:56:29.519 --> 00:56:29.880
Be cool.
1267
00:56:30.510 --> 00:56:31.469
The rain is coming.
1268
00:56:31.730 --> 00:56:31.969
Yeah.
1269
00:56:32.050 --> 00:56:34.789
Because God agrees with your blooming. Yeah.
1270
00:56:35.829 --> 00:56:36.050
Yeah.
1271
00:56:36.190 --> 00:56:37.889
If God agrees with your blooming, you don't have to
1272
00:56:37.909 --> 00:56:38.510
beg the rain.
1273
00:56:38.860 --> 00:56:39.090
Yeah.
1274
00:56:39.260 --> 00:56:40.619
You do not have to beg the rain.
1275
00:56:40.659 --> 00:56:40.920
Yeah.
1276
00:56:41.260 --> 00:56:43.380
If God agrees with your destiny, you ain't got to
1277
00:56:43.420 --> 00:56:44.500
beg people for no job.
1278
00:56:45.559 --> 00:56:45.860
Sir.
1279
00:56:46.380 --> 00:56:47.960
God's going to open the doors while you sleep.
1280
00:56:48.579 --> 00:56:49.340
He sure is.
1281
00:56:50.179 --> 00:56:52.929
Listen, Howard Hewitt just left up out of here, and
1282
00:56:52.969 --> 00:56:55.409
he said, you know, he gave a worry. He said
1283
00:56:55.449 --> 00:56:58.210
in his 20s. He says a worry. He said, I
1284
00:56:58.250 --> 00:57:02.219
don't worry. Because it makes no sense. Because I believe
1285
00:57:02.340 --> 00:57:02.820
too much.
1286
00:57:03.019 --> 00:57:03.260
Yes.
1287
00:57:03.679 --> 00:57:04.280
In the power.
1288
00:57:04.619 --> 00:57:05.840
And worry destroys faith.
1289
00:57:06.280 --> 00:57:06.539
Yeah.
1290
00:57:06.960 --> 00:57:09.179
Yeah.
1291
00:57:09.480 --> 00:57:12.039
Child, I had other questions.
1292
00:57:12.900 --> 00:57:14.340
I don't know what time it is. I feel like
1293
00:57:14.360 --> 00:57:16.230
we just in a zone somewhere.
1294
00:57:16.349 --> 00:57:18.929
We are. And we still tracking.
1295
00:57:20.869 --> 00:57:21.250
Okay.
1296
00:57:22.530 --> 00:57:26.010
If you had to say it plainly, what is the
1297
00:57:26.070 --> 00:57:28.269
single biggest lie black people were taught about God?
1298
00:57:29.110 --> 00:57:32.389
That the nature of God can be contained in a book.
1299
00:57:34.570 --> 00:57:36.300
That the nature of God can be contained in a book.
1300
00:57:36.320 --> 00:57:37.280
I think that's the biggest lie.
1301
00:57:38.039 --> 00:57:40.739
It is ever-present, omnipresent, omnipotent.
1302
00:57:41.400 --> 00:57:48.139
No words, no words can ever fully express the full
1303
00:57:48.239 --> 00:57:53.989
expanse of a cosmic, divine creator.
1304
00:57:54.449 --> 00:57:54.570
Yeah.
1305
00:57:54.590 --> 00:57:54.670
Yeah.
1306
00:57:56.949 --> 00:57:59.730
And any word we use for God, any name we
1307
00:57:59.809 --> 00:58:03.909
use for God is wrong. Why do you say that?
1308
00:58:03.949 --> 00:58:06.969
None of those is God's names. Because you can't name
1309
00:58:07.050 --> 00:58:13.639
the thing that created you. No, only it can name you. Yeah.
1310
00:58:13.719 --> 00:58:16.079
Like if you have a child, you can name your child.
1311
00:58:16.119 --> 00:58:17.219
Your child can't name you.
1312
00:58:17.420 --> 00:58:18.400
Yeah, yeah.
1313
00:58:18.699 --> 00:58:21.400
So when we try to name God, we out of order.
1314
00:58:21.420 --> 00:58:21.619
Mm-hmm.
1315
00:58:23.070 --> 00:58:26.949
He don't need your name. He don't need your praise.
1316
00:58:26.989 --> 00:58:29.639
He don't need your blessing.
1317
00:58:29.659 --> 00:58:30.019
None of that.
1318
00:58:30.420 --> 00:58:33.920
In fact, you can deny that God exists with God's breath.
1319
00:58:34.380 --> 00:58:37.099
It's so funny because I was taking a class at
1320
00:58:37.139 --> 00:58:40.659
the High Museum. And I'm in the class. And, you know,
1321
00:58:40.719 --> 00:58:41.900
it's a mix.
1322
00:58:41.960 --> 00:58:44.139
It's a diverse class. You know, it's Atlanta.
1323
00:58:45.420 --> 00:58:48.920
And I'm sitting at a table with some white women.
1324
00:58:50.219 --> 00:58:55.659
And they got in a conversation and they both said, well,
1325
00:58:55.980 --> 00:58:58.719
I mean, I don't believe in God. So it's two
1326
00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:00.820
white women sitting on there and it's me and another
1327
00:59:00.860 --> 00:59:03.090
black lady sitting there. Now we doing our little project.
1328
00:59:03.949 --> 00:59:07.110
So I look up, I said, well, what happened? Like,
1329
00:59:07.170 --> 00:59:09.929
was there something that happened that made you not believe?
1330
00:59:10.320 --> 00:59:14.159
In God? Or was there, you know? No, the more
1331
00:59:14.300 --> 00:59:17.780
educated I got, I understood that there was no God.
1332
00:59:19.989 --> 00:59:23.469
And me and that black lady kept mending our little,
1333
00:59:23.489 --> 00:59:27.010
sewing our little things. And I started thinking, I'm like,
1334
00:59:29.210 --> 00:59:33.110
Have people become so educated that you don't.
1335
00:59:32.989 --> 00:59:34.869
See God anymore? I don't think it's that.
1336
00:59:35.550 --> 00:59:37.630
I think it's that those of us who say we
1337
00:59:37.690 --> 00:59:40.449
do believe in God, our character doesn't show it.
1338
00:59:41.250 --> 00:59:42.829
Meaning you're not a demonstrator of God.
1339
00:59:42.869 --> 00:59:45.610
Which means when someone says, I don't believe in God,
1340
00:59:45.829 --> 00:59:48.190
I never tell them. I never ask them why they don't.
1341
00:59:48.489 --> 00:59:51.969
I never ask them, I never ask that. When they
1342
00:59:52.010 --> 00:59:55.389
say it, I close my eyes and pray that the
1343
00:59:55.449 --> 00:59:58.619
character of God in me is so explosive. and so
1344
00:59:58.920 --> 01:00:02.889
obvious that they will wonder about the possibility of God
1345
01:00:03.030 --> 01:00:03.989
simply because they met me.
1346
01:00:04.989 --> 01:00:07.190
If that ain't true, then I'm not representing God well.
1347
01:00:07.570 --> 01:00:10.030
Yeah. Let it be so explosive.
1348
01:00:11.289 --> 01:00:16.000
That person says, okay, what is some about you?
1349
01:00:16.539 --> 01:00:20.820
Now, see, if you argue God, right, then we're not
1350
01:00:20.860 --> 01:00:21.500
walking with God.
1351
01:00:22.260 --> 01:00:25.050
Yeah. And I think that that's what so many people do.
1352
01:00:25.090 --> 01:00:27.150
They feel like they have to argue it.
1353
01:00:27.210 --> 01:00:29.449
I think we're living in a culture and a society
1354
01:00:29.489 --> 01:00:31.780
right now that everybody's rage baiting.
1355
01:00:32.039 --> 01:00:33.500
Everybody's, you know.
1356
01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:35.619
And quite frankly, for somebody to say, I don't believe
1357
01:00:35.639 --> 01:00:36.780
in God, that does not trouble me.
1358
01:00:37.239 --> 01:00:37.739
It doesn't.
1359
01:00:37.980 --> 01:00:40.059
Because the people who slaved my people believed in God.
1360
01:00:40.079 --> 01:00:41.300
They sure did.
1361
01:00:41.360 --> 01:00:43.559
They sure did. They had a book. They had churches
1362
01:00:43.619 --> 01:00:44.559
on every plantation.
1363
01:00:44.820 --> 01:00:45.800
And they bought a book.
1364
01:00:45.820 --> 01:00:46.659
And all of them had Bibles.
1365
01:00:46.699 --> 01:00:47.420
And they had a book.
1366
01:00:47.900 --> 01:00:51.099
So believing in God, I don't know if that's really
1367
01:00:51.119 --> 01:00:52.539
the thing I really even want anyway.
1368
01:00:52.559 --> 01:00:57.019
I don't really need you to believe in God. I
1369
01:00:57.039 --> 01:00:57.800
don't need you to believe.
1370
01:00:57.880 --> 01:01:00.139
Because, see, to believe in a thing in any way
1371
01:01:00.380 --> 01:01:03.130
is to consider it possible. Yeah.
1372
01:01:03.449 --> 01:01:03.989
I don't need that.
1373
01:01:04.429 --> 01:01:07.690
Ashley Curtis sat in this chair and said, I'm not
1374
01:01:07.730 --> 01:01:09.849
a believer. I don't believe in God. I know God.
1375
01:01:09.869 --> 01:01:11.389
That's what she said.
1376
01:01:12.250 --> 01:01:15.570
Do birds believe in God? Does grass believe in God?
1377
01:01:15.989 --> 01:01:18.599
I don't think they even consider that.
1378
01:01:19.199 --> 01:01:21.800
They just exist in the beauty of God.
1379
01:01:21.920 --> 01:01:22.119
Yes.
1380
01:01:22.139 --> 01:01:23.179
In the beauty of God. Yes.
1381
01:01:24.090 --> 01:01:27.289
If a bird doesn't believe in God, you still get wings.
1382
01:01:32.309 --> 01:01:33.670
You still get wings.
1383
01:01:35.070 --> 01:01:39.099
Dr. Daniel Black, one word you are committed to in
1384
01:01:39.119 --> 01:01:40.039
the season of your life?
1385
01:01:40.960 --> 01:01:44.119
Authenticity. Why?
1386
01:01:45.079 --> 01:01:50.369
Because I want to, I'm trying to be, I'm trying
1387
01:01:50.889 --> 01:01:54.119
to be so authentic That God does not have to
1388
01:01:54.239 --> 01:02:01.159
hide from me. I think we can't see God because
1389
01:02:01.219 --> 01:02:07.539
God is ashamed. I think we're so fake. I think
1390
01:02:07.559 --> 01:02:11.119
we're so unlike our real selves that God is too
1391
01:02:11.199 --> 01:02:13.099
embarrassed to face us.
1392
01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:20.239
God is too embarrassed because you're embarrassed of yourself.
1393
01:02:20.300 --> 01:02:21.300
You want to face yourself.
1394
01:02:22.019 --> 01:02:28.320
And we so amended what God sent. That, yeah, I
1395
01:02:28.360 --> 01:02:30.219
don't think, I think God would be too embarrassed.
1396
01:02:30.380 --> 01:02:32.519
We amended what God sent.
1397
01:02:32.599 --> 01:02:35.449
Yeah. And I'm talking about myself.
1398
01:02:35.469 --> 01:02:37.989
There are things that I know is authentically me, but
1399
01:02:38.030 --> 01:02:40.309
I know other people didn't like it. And so I've
1400
01:02:40.349 --> 01:02:42.289
tried my best to reshape it and to reform it
1401
01:02:42.309 --> 01:02:44.989
and to get rid of it. And, you know, and
1402
01:02:45.030 --> 01:02:47.219
as a boy, there were things that, that boys weren't
1403
01:02:47.260 --> 01:02:48.980
supposed to do. And so I tried to figure out
1404
01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:51.239
how not to do it. But it was in me
1405
01:02:51.260 --> 01:02:54.219
to do it. You know what I mean? And so
1406
01:02:54.280 --> 01:02:55.980
this self now, if I have to give this self
1407
01:02:56.059 --> 01:02:58.519
back to God, I don't think God wants.
1408
01:03:00.400 --> 01:03:01.570
It.
1409
01:03:01.590 --> 01:03:02.510
No.
1410
01:03:02.530 --> 01:03:08.070
But I really want to give God the self God imagined.
1411
01:03:08.989 --> 01:03:09.289
In me.
1412
01:03:09.449 --> 01:03:10.929
What he conjured up.
1413
01:03:11.010 --> 01:03:12.150
Absolutely. Absolutely.
1414
01:03:12.369 --> 01:03:13.849
And the reason I think it's an imagining is because
1415
01:03:13.869 --> 01:03:16.079
there are no two humans who are ever alike. I
1416
01:03:16.119 --> 01:03:19.500
think God is just that brilliant and that artistic. But
1417
01:03:19.579 --> 01:03:21.880
what I really think human beings are, I think every
1418
01:03:21.920 --> 01:03:24.639
human being is God reimagining God's self.
1419
01:03:24.949 --> 01:03:25.619
Absolutely.
1420
01:03:25.949 --> 01:03:27.150
So it's like, let me see what I look like
1421
01:03:27.210 --> 01:03:27.789
like that.
1422
01:03:28.210 --> 01:03:28.510
Yeah.
1423
01:03:28.789 --> 01:03:28.969
Right.
1424
01:03:29.449 --> 01:03:31.829
But then we erase most of our divinity.
1425
01:03:32.929 --> 01:03:34.150
Yes, we do.
1426
01:03:34.489 --> 01:03:38.050
Trying to get your applause, trying to get his sanction,
1427
01:03:38.309 --> 01:03:43.150
trying to get somebody else's okay, trying not to disturb
1428
01:03:43.230 --> 01:03:43.809
some other.
1429
01:03:43.690 --> 01:03:47.269
Person's... It's a waste of time. It's a waste of time.
1430
01:03:47.329 --> 01:03:48.130
It's a waste of time.
1431
01:03:48.409 --> 01:03:52.809
But it does create chaos because what most people want
1432
01:03:53.489 --> 01:03:55.630
is mirrors of themselves in other people.
1433
01:03:56.090 --> 01:03:57.829
Absolutely. Yeah.
1434
01:03:57.889 --> 01:03:59.349
So authenticity is what I said.
1435
01:03:59.489 --> 01:04:01.869
Ooh, that is so good. That's a bar. You said
1436
01:04:01.909 --> 01:04:05.070
we've amended. Made too many amendments.
1437
01:04:05.090 --> 01:04:07.000
Yes. To what God sent.
1438
01:04:07.039 --> 01:04:09.940
To what God sent. Wow.
1439
01:04:11.699 --> 01:04:11.920
Dr.
1440
01:04:11.960 --> 01:04:12.519
Daniel Black.
1441
01:04:14.280 --> 01:04:14.539
Ooh.
1442
01:04:14.840 --> 01:04:15.119
I'm here.
1443
01:04:16.190 --> 01:04:17.090
Thank you for having me.
1444
01:04:17.110 --> 01:04:20.110
When the praises go up, the blessings come down.
1445
01:04:20.130 --> 01:04:20.730
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
1446
01:04:20.809 --> 01:04:23.190
I mean, what an amazing conversation.
1447
01:04:23.210 --> 01:04:23.409
Incredible.
1448
01:04:23.630 --> 01:04:25.969
It has been an honor to sit.
1449
01:04:25.789 --> 01:04:27.260
In your presence. The honor is mine. Oh, my God.
1450
01:04:27.280 --> 01:04:28.570
At your feet. Thank you.
1451
01:04:28.639 --> 01:04:29.900
Listen, one of the greats.
1452
01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:32.760
I'm so, so, so, so, so happy that you came
1453
01:04:32.840 --> 01:04:34.119
to sit across from me today.
1454
01:04:34.519 --> 01:04:36.300
Bottom Powers Talks, another good one for the books.
1455
01:04:36.340 --> 01:04:38.960
Be sure to share this with somebody who needs to
1456
01:04:39.019 --> 01:04:42.280
step up their authenticity in this season, who needs to
1457
01:04:42.340 --> 01:04:44.880
see God in themselves so they can see it in
1458
01:04:44.920 --> 01:04:47.750
other people. Until next time, I'm your girl Brandi Harvey.
1459
01:04:47.849 --> 01:04:48.250
Eat well.
1460
01:04:48.610 --> 01:04:51.139
Give a damn. Move your body every single day. Peace!