TRANSCRIPT 🔗
John: All right, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen and ladies, I have today with me Monique. Well, maybe I should say Chantal Monique.
Kevin Briggins: Ha
Monique Duson | CFBU: That's my government name. Only my only the government
Kevin Briggins: ha ha
Monique Duson | CFBU: and my mama call me Chantal.
John: Yeah, okay. I have questions. I have questions. And Kevin, Kevin Briggins who has been here before. And
Kevin Briggins: Yep, yep.
John: today, today we're going to talk about all things, Kevin and Monique go off-chord, but I just want to know why. That's
Kevin Briggins: Mm.
John: the gist of this particular interview. I've been waiting for a long time. I've changed over and over. What am I going to talk to them about? They keep putting
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha
John: content out. I'm like, OK, I'm going to talk to them about that. But I've boiled it down to we're going to talk about, in the words of Arceus Prowl, what is wrong with you people?
Kevin Briggins: I like it. Hopefully we get
John: Okay. Okay.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yes.
Kevin Briggins: to the bottom of it. Hopefully, hopefully we figure it out.
John: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All right, so let's start with Monique. Can you just say a little bit about yourself? I'm interested to know, know, your bio said that you grew up in Los Angeles, but Monique Dussaint, Monique Dussaint just doesn't sound Los Angeles. So. I have questions. yeah, tell whatever you want to say about yourself and then we'll let Kevin take another run at it.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah, so I am Monique Dusan. I am co-founder and president of the Center for Biblical Unity. Yes, I was born and raised in Los Angeles. And yeah, was there all the way up until I moved to South Africa in 2014? my name does not reflect many of the names you hear today. I'm not like a Bone Quisha or an Imani or anything like that. Nothing wrong with those names. My father is from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. And so huge French influence there. And so that's where I get the French in my name and why most people are like, you're a you're a what? Is it Chantal? No, it's not Chantal, it's Chantal.
John: Yes.
Monique Duson | CFBU: and so yeah, my name is is very, very French because my father spoke French in addition to English and Spanish. And so that is that's the the confusion around my name and why I may not look like a Chantal. But I am definitely a Monique.
John: Okay. Now, so are you a foundation? Let me stop. Let me stop. Let's go to
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha ha.
John: Kevin first. We're going to revisit the foundational black thing afterwards.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Uh-huh.
John: Kevin,
Kevin Briggins: but yeah, so I'm the managing director for the Center for Biblical Unity and yeah, I'm from the deep south, from Birmingham, Alabama, from the hood as you just said. And yeah, my name is not French. it is as white as you can get, I guess, Kevin.
Monique Duson | CFBU: What do you think Chantal is?
John: Chantel is a lot more French. You don't get more French
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than Chantel.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah, like this when people look at my name on a job application, I'm like, Mm, is he trying to get by on us? Is he black? Is he white?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Ha ha ha.
Kevin Briggins: We don't know.
John: Well, I think I feel like if when you combine Chantal and Monique, I just know.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. Yeah.
John: You could be from Rwanda though,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
John: or Congo.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: One of those, but you're French, usually our white brothers and sisters, if they're in fact our brothers and sisters, they don't combine, they tend not to combine Monique and Chantal. At least
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yes.
John: not in my experience.
Monique Duson | CFBU: when in the times when I have visited Haiti, Haitian people just tend to know that I belong, that I am Haitian. It's it's the weirdest thing, only there have people walked up to me and been like, speaking to me in in Creole or Patois.
John: in Korea. Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: And, you know, it just I just fit. But yeah,
John: Yeah, I think.
Monique Duson | CFBU: you're right. I don't think, you know, unless it's one of the
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: French speaking areas or countries. On the African continent, most people wouldn't put the Chantal and
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: the Monique together.
John: Well, I think for Haitians, in my experience, it could be, I could be off, but I think for Haitians, it's the Dusan, the last name that might give it away. But I don't even know your history.
Monique Duson | CFBU: No, actually my Dusan. So here's here's a little a little trick. Dusan is actually my mother's last name. So I have a different last name that I will not be airing on air because everybody don't need to know all my business. But yeah, Dusan is
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: my mom's last name. Just French on both sides. You know, a little trivia.
John: that's interesting.
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha ha.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
John: Very interesting. When I hear Monique Chantal Duson, I'm like, that's a Hatian Anyway, I didn't even know the Haiti part, but I just felt it strongly. the next thing, you said you're from Los Angeles. You are from the hood. What's... Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I am. I am. I'm from an area called called South Central LA.
John: What's the hardest hood between Birmingham and South Central? I know they go hard in Los Angeles, but what's...
Kevin Briggins: It just depends on you South Central has the reputation. Because the no yeah.
John: Yeah. So you're giving it out. You, I guess you
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: concede on behalf of Birmingham.
Kevin Briggins: I will gladly concede.
John: Okay.
Kevin Briggins: yeah. I I I've tried to get out of the, you know, reps represent my hood as the hardest hood, because those aren't things that we really should be glorifying, I guess you can
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: say. It should be a sad thing to say my hood was the hardest instead of something to brag about. But yeah, it was it was challenging nonetheless to navigate. and but Both of us made it out. So praise the Lord.
John: see, was your tr- I'm trying to give you your car, anyway. Okay, I guess this is not working okay.
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha ha ha.
John: I'm trying to help, yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I I also think that there's something to be said about the South Central LA and Birmingham in their hood heyday, if that was a thing. you know, because I I don't necessarily hear a lot about South Central right now. You know, it's more of like Chicago and Detroit and you know, Baltimore and things like
Kevin Briggins: Baltimore. Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: that than it is a lot of the South Central, but South Central, when South Central was South Central, in its full glory, like those the the movies and things like that, like Boys in the Hood or Friday, or you know, like some of those movies, it was really based off of the reality of what was happening at that time. And
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I mean, it's not anything to want to glamorize or, you know, really hold up on a pedestal. It's really a sad time. To know how many people were dying because of gang related violence and the amount of drugs that were going back and forth. I can go, I mean, I I I I have not lived in South Central in a number of years, but even going back to South Central now, it's still a very depressed area. still has, you know, its fair share of violence. It's just not what it was.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. And that's a good thing.
John: Was it gentrified? Do you think it was being gentrified?
Monique Duson | CFBU: So some parts of some parts of South Central are being gentrified. I can think of like the West Adams area or I'm specifically thinking around like these main streets like LeBray and Adams where the the there's this huge mall called the Crenshaw Mall and like the Magic Johnson movie theater. I've seen a lot more gentrification over there, especially a couple of years ago. but if I were to go deeper into LA, like down by well, I don't know. I don't know. it's been a couple of years. I would say yes, there are some pockets of LA that are experiencing gentrification, especially like with the new stadium being built, the so fi stadium and things like that. But there are other places if I go just a couple blocks over, it wouldn't be a lot of gentrification. One of the things that I really notice about LA is the amount of black people that have left in in certain pockets of South Central
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: and where that's highly Hispanic now.
Kevin Briggins: Yep, I was gonna bring that up. Yeah.
John: Yeah. Okay.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Is it the same in Birmingham?
John: Yeah. Now, okay, this is, this was not, this question just came to my mind now. I didn't think about it before, but you guys are from the Center for Biblical Unity. You're big on, you know, being biblical
justice and all this, which we'll talk about. What, where does gentrification fit in all this? Should your neighborhoods be gentrified? no, what's where where the what's
Kevin Briggins: Mm.
John: the official or maybe not the official because you can't if you don't have one you can't make
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha ha.
John: one on the on a thing but on like instinctively
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: where do you guys land where would you land?
Kevin Briggins: Well, I can't speak for Mo, but my personal feelings on gentrification are it's just an economic reality and It's crazy. We tend to not care about our neighborhoods until there's a threat of gentrification. Right.
John: Hmm
Monique Duson | CFBU: So the white person moving in.
Kevin Briggins: yeah, exactly.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: It's like it is the worst depressed area. We throw no trash on the ground, houses dilapidated, not just a not caring. And then people come in and start fixing things up. And all of a sudden we start to get we start to care. it's more, it's an economic reality, but it's more of a it's more because of the racial aspects of it that people have a problem with it. Because here's the thing, I always said this. If a bunch of middle class and upper middle class black people move back to the hood and start fixing up houses, the housing prices are gonna go up. The property values are gonna go up, right? and so and that's that's that's black people moving in, but nobody would call that gentrification because the faces look the same, right?
John: Okay, good point.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. And so it's really an issue of race dynamics that we really get upset about. but I don't believe that a neighborhood has the right to always stay a certain demographic. I don't think you have a right to a claim to a neighborhood and no one else can move in. And I I just don't think that's an issue of justice. because someone moved in and fixed up houses. And improve the improve the community. Because they do, because every time it's gentrified, it's not simply that, there's economic growth and economic development, but crime goes down. Right? The kids can play at the park now. Women can walk the streets. It it completely changes the area for the better. and so yeah, that's that's my take on gentrification. But what about you, Mo?
Monique Duson | CFBU: I think that there's a aspect of justice that has to be looked at when we are thinking about gentrification, because a lot of gentrification is not necessarily just white people moving in. It is foreigners coming in and buying up property and changing things. And then, you know, property values go up, but then when property values go up, rent tends to go up, taxes tend to go up, and then that prices people out of their homes. That means that, the the rent that I used to pay of seventeen hundred dollars on my lease renewal now went up to thirty two hundred dollars. Or if they if they
Kevin Briggins: That's so LA because I'm like, ooh, Birmingham, Alabama, seventeen hundred a month to live in the
Monique Duson | CFBU: Well,
Kevin Briggins: hood. Ooh.
Monique Duson | CFBU: seventeen hundred seventeen hundred, two thousand and live in the hood on the low end. But then what what some landlords will do because they can only raise your rent, so much is that they will end your lease term and say, Well, if you want to renew your lease and not go month to month or whatever that is, this we're gonna complete that contract and you know, skyrocket skyrocket this rent. And it's because people are not necessarily coming into to live in the the neighborhood of like and necessarily j truly gentrifying it they're buying it up to be able to sell these properties off and then you know build like the so fi stadium that's not moving crime out of the way that's some conglomerate coming in buying up a neighborhood and then make displacing the people who really live there i think we need to have better conversations about what justice looks like for the poor so that we can not just uproot and displace people because now property taxes and you know rents are skyrocketing. That also doesn't mean though that I'm looking for some socialist out of like, you know, the government needs to come in and rescue. I think we need to have better conversations on who we allow to buy what and how those things happen so that we keep the poor in mind.
John: Right. Well, I can hear Kevin here. if you guys are on off-code, I can hear Kevin shoot back like, well, but that's socialism. If you start deciding who's going to buy, who's going to buy where.
Kevin Briggins: but here's the thing: the it's not it's not that the poor goes from I can't live here, so now I'm on the street. They just move to a different part of town that's cheaper.
Monique Duson | CFBU: No, that's not always true. That's not always true. Especially because I at least not in LA in when I was working in homeless services and seeing people displaced by a lot of the quote unquote gentrification. I feel like it's it's crony gentrification, just like we have crony capitalism. And that needs to be talked about. So yes, there are times when people are displaced, truly. Like I couldn't find a place to live in time. Or For example, when HUD, Housing Arm and Development wanted to, I don't know if they were selling off a place where, you know, in LA we had these projects called, wasn't Nickerson Gardens? I want to say it's Imperial Courts. It was right by the the airport. And they ended up closing these things down and moving all the people out to like Paris, California, something like that. Far, far out. So the people didn't technically lose their housing, but they lost their, you know, all their community and things like that. And it's because they're on these government programs that it's really hard to get off of. So how do we have better conversations on what it looks like to actually help people quote unquote flourish? What does it look like to get off of a government
program, to to be able to rent your own or to buy your own? I just don't think we're having the best conversations around the poor. Again, that doesn't necessarily mean, socialism and who can buy, but we can't participate in crony capitalism or this idea of crony gentrification and say that, well, you know, it's their fault that they're poor or nobody's being displaced because that isn't actually true all the time.
John: Yeah, and I just, I agree with you in the sense that I live in Pennsylvania and I work and we used to live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And Lancaster city only has one poor side. So when you're out of that side, you're priced out of town. Basically, you have to go, go somewhere else. And the ones that were some of the ones that were doing it over here, believe it or not, with the Amish, because they buy with cash and you can't compete with them. But.
Kevin Briggins: I didn't know the Amish was rolling like that.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah Yeah, buddy
John: yeah, when during the housing crisis a few years ago, you were going up against not just BlackRock over here, you're also going up against the Amish. And we
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm. Amish Rock.
John: have we have we're Amish deep over here. Yeah, and they
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
John: have cash that you you you're coming with the bank saying the bank is going to they're like, no, we pay you right now, right here. And,
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: you know, you can't fight with that. So in fact, Yeah,
Monique Duson | CFBU: You save money with them horse and buggies. No.
John: even me and my family, when we were ready to buy a house, we actually were not in Lancaster anymore because we couldn't afford houses in Lancaster County, not just
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: the city. Well,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: you could afford one in the ghetto, but we were not moving to the ghetto. So that's our our own.
Kevin Briggins: Until it started to get gentrified, then all of a sudden you wanna move, I'm just joking.
John: We probably can't afford it once they get gentrified. But that was a good thinking about that. Maybe we'll see a position on the Center for Biblical Unity on gentrification. Do you guys have one? I've never seen one.
Kevin Briggins: I don't think so. that is that is an issue that has been so far down like the totem pole. we
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: we just gave you an answer, but I don't we've never really talked about that
John: Yeah
Kevin Briggins: issue for real. because there's so many other things happening,
John: Yeah, this is,
Monique Duson | CFBU: when we think about gentrification too, and this is why I call it crony gentrification, because it oftentimes I would say it's not, white people just coming in and moving in. I think that that could produce, especially if it was like fam single family homes and you know, people really looking to go in and better a community. I could get on board with that. hey, we need more of that. That's what Kevin is saying. when, then it becomes safe. Women can walk down the street. that's different than having these conglomerates coming in or BlackRock coming in. That's not gentrification. That is something expressly different than gentrification. And that is this displacing people. But yet I think we often collapse the term gentrification the same way we we collapse the term capitalism. and crony capitalism under this one banner. So now the SoFi Stadium is, you know, in LA and you might have a couple of, you know, high-rise buildings that have some white people in it and we want to call it gentrification. But I wouldn't consider that true gentrification.
John: So, so maybe let's stay on here real quick. Families coming from, let's use my area, because we're about three hours away from New York City, two hours, hour and half away from Baltimore, an hour and some change from Philly, two hours from Washington, DC. These families coming from out of these places, coming to Lancaster because an apartment or a house in New York City is way
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: out of control, they can get a house here in a semi-descent neighborhood that is adjacent to where all the killings happen. And they buy those properties, raise them up in value, move in. Is this kind of gentrification This is not to the level that you're saying crony, right? this is not, what do you think about that kind? Because that's gonna price out black folks. These are white folks who are trying to start families in a much cooler Lancaster city. What about them? What would you say about that?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Say that it's an assumption that it's gonna price out black people. Black people are I think out of all blacks, we make up 82. gosh, Kevin, you're gonna have to help me. 82 percent of blacks are in the middle income bracket, middle income are higher or
Kevin Briggins: Ohio. Ohio.
Monique Duson | CFBU: higher. And so there's an assumption that it's going to be white people who price us out all the time. It may be Asians, it may be Pacific Islanders. You know what I mean? Like when we think of The people who are getting home ownership, people who are getting approved for loans and things like that, white people are down on the totem pole too. There are there are actual demographics that are above white. And so I think that part of the conversation makes an assumption that white people are going to outprice black people. I don't know that that's true. But I think that regardless of race, we need to be considering how are people building up America. for the sake and value of America instead of looking at, well, we don't want white people in this neighborhood or we don't want black people in this neighborhood. If we are going to grow to the end of or toward the toward the end of what I think our Constitution says, what our founding fathers would have said, that means that we are looking beyond the scope of race, that we are looking at How are we truly as Americans serving
one another? And I think that this may be a high hope, but as we do that, even the poor will be raised up. Even the poor will have opportunity because that is going to be the for the good of the American people overall. It is not for our good to have a bunch of poor people down here who have no opportunity. It's always for our good. To be able to see others raise up as well. But that also comes with policy reform and boundaries around borders. And like it's a whole big conversation that is beyond, I would say, just the scope of gentrification. And I would say that if we are talking about gentrification, we can't go in with the assumption that white people are just gonna take over.
Kevin Briggins: This this is why the gentrification argument is always framed as a race thing, because the areas we're typically talking about are areas that are close to downtown, that are predominantly black, and that are desirable because they are close to downtown. Right. And so these and and people have a certain outlook on it because even though the majority of black people in America Are above the poverty line. They're in the middle class and and above. Where black people congregate in community, it's low-income blacks. The rest of us are spread out amongst all these other communities. But where we collectively are, are in old historic hoods that the black people who could leave left. And so what's left are the poor blacks, right? And so those neighborhoods get turned over and it becomes a race issue. And this is why I say it's a race issue when we talk about gentrification. Because no one bats an eye when trailer parks get run out and torn down so they can build a new suburb. No one says, no one calls that gentrification. No one says anything. No one cares. They only care if the people who are getting gentrified are black and the people who are moving in aren't. Right. and so that's why it's always framed that way. But that's why I used the example earlier. It's an economic reality because it would be the same thing if middle class blacks moved into these neighborhoods too. It's gonna have the same economic effect of raising value and prices and pushing
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: others out. Because most of the people in those communities don't own their home, their renters. Right.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: and so if I'm a homeowner, if I'm an investor, I own a home, I'll rent it out. And all of a sudden it doubles in value, Do I sell it? Or now that the rent is, you know, should be three times higher than it currently is, do I keep renting it out at the current price because my tenants have been there for so long? Is it really comes down to the individual person decision they to choose to make with their asset, essentially, is what it comes down to.
John: Yeah, and I agree with Monique that a conversation needs to happen. But I do think that part of the conversation, as from my own personal perspective, is, you know, Black people, get, when
they are ready to, you know, become homeowners and they don't, they tend not to. Let me not paint with a broad brush.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: They tend not to, and I've seen this, a lot of people complain about this. I know I'm not alone. They tend not to invest right here. They're out. They go over there, you know, to the east side. And then, and then you, you made a good point in, in, in here in, Lancaster. Lancaster is up and coming. They have a lot of investments and a lot of like tech and art.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: industry coming to Lancaster. So this has attracted, as I said, these people from these major big cities to want to come. When they come, they don't want to go where they have to drive into town. They want to go where they can walk and come back. So it's downtown, it's closer to downtown. And these are the... areas that are generally not as desirable to us because we want to go over to the east side. And so they make it look good. Well, the problem is once they start increasing the property value here down the road, and so on. So is no longer going to afford that house. They've lived in for 30 years. This is an actual story that happened recently
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: in Lancaster. And so now she has to be moved out to some other place because she can no longer afford that apartment that she's been able to afford on a fixed income for a long time. So I think it is a broad, broad, broad conversation. And I'm, you know, I'm glad we talked about it because I don't think, but yeah.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. John, an another another aspect that people really don't talk about on the political end, the political spectrum, the people who are moving into those urban communities and gentrifying them typically are liberals. They're typically progressives. I know in Birmingham, the LGBTQ community was
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
John: Absolutely.
Kevin Briggins: big on moving in and fixing up like they were the main drivers of gentrification. It's typically not the people they would point the finger at and call racists and all this type of stuff. is typically the blue progressives that are moving into these
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: urban areas, these cities and gentrifying.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Moving the black people out. Displacement.
John: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kevin Briggins: Yep. But but at the same time showing her to the BLM rally.
John: Yeah, absolutely. You know, except I think
Monique Duson | CFBU: Right.
John: that the white adjacent ones that Monique was talking about, the Asians and
Kevin Briggins: Yes.
John: the, you know, from India, you know, these,
Kevin Briggins: Yes, yeah.
John: but yeah, the white folks tend to be liberal. mean, Lancaster City is ultra-liberal. mean, they're all the way out there.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: In the middle of red, it's like a,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: That's every city. That's every city.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
John: blue yeah
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: so okay yeah go ahead
Monique Duson | CFBU: But you know what else I want to say though too is that, with as much money as we have in the black now, we we don't have as much money as we possibly could have in the black community. But you know, if Auntie has been in that apartment, you know, for 50 years, 40 years, whatever that is, what has gone wrong that she hasn't been able to By to move up to do something else, like where she herself is in a position to say, no, I'm not gonna move, or I'm going to make this road. You know, a lot of time, it's that they are on, yeah, they're on a fixed income, but then it's like, well, what? Like, where's the family? Where's the support? I just think that conversations of justice really have to extend beyond, I think where we are with it's not right to move Granny or it's not right to move Auntie. In reality, we are a capitalistic society and it might be right to move Auntie. they didn't, the the blue-haired liberal coming in didn't do nothing wrong. They saw an opportunity and they grabbed it. Before we can fuss, really, I would say we need to be having conversations within our community to say, hey, look, this is what we're doing to shore up our community to make sure our elderly are taken care of. And I I mean, cause people are going to move. We are human and we are also opportunistic. And so if I see an opportunity,
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. Yeah. It but I was
Monique Duson | CFBU: there's that. Go ahead.
Kevin Briggins: yeah, I was saying even outside of, Auntie and the old people, the reason because a lot of black people, even people who aren't of the highest income level, at some point could have bought a house in the hood. The hood
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: the houses aren't expensive. And this is what I used to talk about. It's just a lack of knowledge. Income tax
Monique Duson | CFBU: In LA they are.
Kevin Briggins: income tax time. They would all get a chunk of money, sometimes six to ten thousand dollars in a refund. And they could in a a FHA loan is three and a half percent down. They
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yep.
Kevin Briggins: could have bought a house at some point, but they just don't think that way. They just don't
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: think that way. They would blow that money on consumerism and just keep paying their rent. And so it's really a lack of knowledge and a just a different mindset. They weren't thinking about home ownership. They weren't thinking about I need to own my home. It was this is just what you do. You just pay rent,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: so
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yep.
John: Yeah, very interesting. So you guys, we have all used the terms. We keep talking about justice. But you guys are from the Center for Biblical Unity, where you wrote a statement on justice. So real quick, we have to define this before we can continue. Can you define
We'll start with Madame President Monique. Can you tell us, know, biblical justice versus social justice? What's your 30,000 foot flyby, kind of elevator pitch? How do you go about it?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Just the definitions? Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: So I would say biblical justice is the fair and right treatment based on scripture of how we treat one another. And so when we are thinking about justice, we have to think about God's eternal moral character, the way that he encourages or instructs his creation to treat one another. And so it is with equal weights and measures. we can look at the if we go into the old testament, we can look at the Ten Commandments. You know, the first wanna say three, four are about how we treat God and and like our relationship with God. And then the remainder are, you know, how we treat one another. We can go into Levitical law, we can really look through the Old Testament and see. the ways that God has instructed his creation to treat one another. Humans, how do you treat one another? And then we see those things reflected again in the New Testament. When we look at social justice, social justice is basically how society encourages us to treat one another, which is largely by equity or unequal, and I'm not saying that equity is unequal weights and measures, but the way that culture is playing their version of equity It is unequal weights and measures. If white people have more of this, then we need to play by an unequal weight and measure so that black people can have more of this. It is participating in this idea of we will hold back or we will be racist or we will play by rules of partiality so that some people Can get farther down the line instead of playing by the ideals of biblical equity that says that we are going to allow for a firm, flat foundation, and whoever goes will go. And we will allow for there to be discrepancies. We will allow for there to be disparity because people are different, people have choice, and this is truly the model that we see put forward in scripture. So that would be my definition. just off the cuff of the difference between biblical justice and social justice, biblical justice set forward by scripture, God's eternal moral character, God's law. Social justice is justice set forward and defined by society.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: Kevin, I've heard reasonable Christians use the word social justice. And these are people that I think maybe should know better, but they have collapsed biblical justice and social justice basically into each other.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: What, what? What would you say? because Monique just told us these are two separate two separate things. And of course, you already knew that. But what's what's the problem with this? How like when you hear someone that is a Christian say social justice, let's fight for social justice and all this, what's your guidance if if you ever have a chance?
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. they need to define their terms. a lot of times what happens is people get caught up in language that sounds biblical, but the precepts behind the concept aren't biblical, right? and and so yeah, that's where people really get caught up. And it's they're they they're well meaning. They just
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: don't understand that they've bought into an ideology that is counter to scripture. the way Mo just laid it out. for instance, you know, anti-racism, you know, a lot of people, even Christians, will say, Yeah, that's a good thing. We should be anti-racist. But what is anti-racism? You know, as Kendi put it, in its basic form, it is past discrimination, requires present discrimination, and present discrimination will require future discrimination. It's this this this is equaling out of outcomes, the equity that Mo was talking about. And since, you know, black people were discriminated against in the past, well, now we need to discriminate against white people that we call that D E I. to make to to to even it out, right? Social justice. And but then at some point, because we've been discriminating against this group, now in the future we gotta like discriminate against another. This is constant discrimination to continue to ensure things come out in an even manner. And that's just not biblical. that is actually, you know, against God's law. We should not show partiality to the rich nor to the poor, right? So it's well meaning people that might have a conversation today with someone about taxes and stuff, and they are well meaning and they want to do good, but they don't understand how their attempt to do good can actually be tyranny and can actually be sinful,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: right? because you're violating biblical principles. you know, in in scripture, you know, Jesus tells the parable about the talents, you know, one has 10 and one has five and one has you know three or whatever. And a social justice person will look at that and say, That's not fair. That's not just.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: And they would work, well, how do we get more from the one who has 10 and redistribute it to the others? Right? That's social justice. That's
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: not biblical though, you know. it's it's why you have so many people complain about billionaires today, as if the billionaire did something unjust to become successful and wealthy. It's like, no, they didn't do anything unjust. They just started a successful business and built rockets. But I don't like the fact that they have so much money, right? And so the just thing to do, and and I don't. So I want
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: the government to take from them and be Robin Hood and give to us. That's
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: just envy. That's that's not that's not justice. That's unjust. now we are to care for the poor, right? We are to look make sure they're not
oppressed, right? Make sure they aren't being taken advantage of. Because this is the thing.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: Because they are vulnerable, because they they have the potential to be oppressed. Just because someone is poor doesn't mean they're oppressed.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yes.
Kevin Briggins: They have the potential to be oppressed. Right. And so we have to make sure that they're not being oppressed. They're not being held down. They're not being taken advantage of. Right.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: is not simply the fact that you're at a below a certain income level, therefore you're oppressed. No, that's not because a lot of times you could be there by your own doing and your own choices. Right. and so, yeah, to me, that's what I would tell people. We you have to look at is there something actually unjust taking place? versus simply the outcomes look uneven, therefore we should do something to make them more even. That's not that's not biblical justice.
John: Yeah. Okay. Okay, Monique. This country has done a grave injustice to Black and Brown people by BIPAC. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: BIPOC.
John: Yeah. This country.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Black indigenous people of colour.
John: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This country has done a grave injustice to these people and Isn't it just, why wouldn't God want this country to make it right by giving, trying to equalize because of course the other group got ahead because of on the backs of the other group. by subjugating and enslaving and abusing the other groups. So wouldn't it be biblical justice or if you want to call it social justice or biblical justice, isn't it right and just for whites by the force of the government to try and make this right?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Look, if you want or anybody else want to pay reparations to a black woman, you can go ahead and give at center for biblicalunity.com. I am not above nobody's reparation if the Lord so stir your spirit. But I
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha.
Monique Duson | CFBU: think I'm just playing. That's the narrative, though, that you know, so many people run with. Well, America was built on the backs of you know, America has been unjust to every group of people that America has served. Because America is founded on and run by sinners. And so we one, we need to definitely look at a definition of justice. I think at times we want to say, well, they were unjust to these people here. They were unjust to these people there. Well, okay, okay, that that may be true. Slavery was an unjust situation. How was slavery rectified? What have we done since then? you know, what other groups or have there been any other groups of people that America was unjust to? Or do we only focus on those people with more melanin in their skin tone? And when you say that America was unjust to to black and brown people, so shouldn't white people then pay back, you know, reparations or, you know, have some kind of equity conversations?
Well, heck, Hispanic people were considered white up until like what, the end of the 60s or something like that, when the census changed. So again, we use these, we can use these, these words and demographics to our benefit. But at the end of the day, two wrongs don't make a right. There is never gonna be a time in scripture when we should be able to use partiality to be able to unjustly lift up another group. Like Scripture's always gonna hold for justice. Scripture's always gonna say that we play by biblical equity. And so, yes, sometimes people experience things that are hard, or people experience injustice. That is not because God did not want this group to, do well, or God just wanted this other group to do well. People are sinners, but I can't correct somebody else's sin. With more sin.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. I'll say this too. I mean, when it comes to slavery, we can all say, yeah, some type of reparation or retribution should have been given. The yeah, the question is hundreds of years later, should does it is it still owed to people who weren't slaves by people who weren't slave owners? That's what the question is. in terms of what people say, well, what about Jim Crow and all this type of stuff? I'm like what do you think affirmative action was? Affirmative action was reparations. It was we're going to give you preferential treatment in all of these areas simply because you're black. Whether we took advantage of it or not is on us. But for 60 years, we had affirmative action. We had affirmative action in into higher education. we had Affirmative action into into all types of government roles. You had private companies that would give no preferential hiring practices to because this is the thing, because of the Civil Rights Act, companies had to report to the government their demographics. And if they weren't hiring enough black people, they they could get in trouble with the federal government. So guess who was getting hired, even if you weren't even really qualified because they need to make their numbers.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: Right. And so this country has done things to try to no mitigate you know those past injustices. It's just a matter of did you take advantage of it? Right. And then here's the thing, because this is where it gets political. Politicians, and by politicians, I'm talking about the black leadership and the Democrat Party. They use Black people's inability or unwillingness to take advantage of it to their advantage, right? Because they won't say, Look, we're pouring money into the school system. You need to do better, you need to send your kids to school. They won't say, Hey, you get into school with lesser grades. Why aren't you in university? Right? we didn't take if somebody didn't take advantage of those things. They didn't look at the person and say, hey, do better. They didn't look at the community and say, hey, we got to do better. They went to politics and said, look, we're still oppressed.
Look at the outcomes. We can't get ahead. Right. They loved the black struggle. They love the fact that the more black people got into debauchery, the more we had kids out of wedlock, the more we didn't perform in school, the better it was for them. Right? Because they could sell the narrative and benefit off the narrative. They had no interest in solutions. They had
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: no interest in black people doing better. Because if we did better, they lose their argument. They lose their grip. And that's the game being played. And black people still they hadn't figured out that's the game being played. They still run tomorrow's election day. They're gonna run to the polls because Reverend so and so said we gotta go and and Bishop so and so said we gotta go vote for the Democrats 'cause the it's the same game. They
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: ain't caught on yet. But that that's what I'll I'll I'll I'll say, you know, to that, yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: The question I would like to ask is can somebody name a white group in America that an unjust thing has happened to? Because we do have them. But we
Kevin Briggins: Absolutely.
Monique Duson | CFBU: we are so trained to see black and brown people, your Bipop communities, as being the only oppressed people in America when there have been horrible atrocities that have happened in America to white people as well.
Kevin Briggins: 80%, 80% of people in red line zip codes were white.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yep.
John: No way.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Or yeah. Yep.
Kevin Briggins: Redlining is just a narrative of the black struggle, as if this was something that a white America just did to black people. No, it was about
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yep. Mm-mm.
Kevin Briggins: high risk areas to lend in, which included
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: a lot of white areas.
John: Hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Or, you live in Pennsylvania, so you're in the Rust Belt. Think
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: about in the Rust Belt in the early 1900s, that was a ton of white people, a ton of mining communities and industrial areas. And those people weren't paid. They weren't paid to work in cash. They were given like scripts. And here, you can use this at at a at a store, but we're not gonna give you cash. Those people lived in deplorable conditions. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: They built the little houses for the little what we call shotgun houses in the south. But every time around these plants you find these little bitty houses, they all look the same. That's where the workers lived.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. Or think about
John: Yeah
Monique Duson | CFBU: the Irish Catholics. Irish need not apply. That's the same as having a Jew. Yeah,
Kevin Briggins: Yep. Jews. Jews need not apply.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Jews need not apply. America has been horrible to every group. Why? Not because we we just are select. We're sinners. But the the narrative in the black community gets spun and we they America just systemically racists and want to do black people dirty. Or you know, it doesn't really count because they white. That's some mess. And then then the question comes: well, shouldn't shouldn't we have reparations? Well, I'm sure the the white people in the Rust Belt feel like they didn't pay my aunt. They didn't pay grandpa. And we had to really start from the bottom, too. Shouldn't we get reparations?
Kevin Briggins: Know a lot. I know some white people who really get angry at this conversation because they came from dirt nothing.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yes.
Kevin Briggins: Right. And they and but because their skin is white, they get talked about they have all this privilege. those people lose their minds. you have no idea what I went through growing up with no shoes and stuff like like, yeah, like yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or with their grandparents or anything. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-mm.
John: Yeah, but, the system, the system was created for them. It's created to privilege them. If, if you and a white person show up, they're going to privilege.
Kevin Briggins: Since the nineteen sixties, I had the advantage. Me and Mo had the advantage since since
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Kevin Briggins: the nineteen sixties. Affirmative action gave us the advantage over some poor white person. It just did.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah,
John: Yeah,
Monique Duson | CFBU: the system
John: but.
Monique Duson | CFBU: is built for the person who's gonna work hard. The system is built for the person who's gonna work the system. And this is why
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: you get a Jamar Tisbe, an Ilhan Omar, whoever, all these woke black people who are six, seven figures because they're working the system. Meanwhile, Their work is to tell you, the ignant Negro, that you are still oppressed and you can't never make it. Ain't nobody asking why these people are bringing in all this money. How are you bringing in all this money in a system that is rigged against you? It don't make no you can't make that make sense. Because if the system,
Kevin Briggins: That's the grift.
Monique Duson | CFBU: you can't you can't make it make sense.
Kevin Briggins: No.
John: have an answer to that. Elon Musk. None of them have got Elon Musk money, so.
Kevin Briggins: That is always the comparison. It's like
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: we don't have as much as the richest person. So therefore, yeah. Yeah. Or or or or
John: Yeah. But, as, yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: they they're successful because they slip through the cracks. I heard that a lot.
Monique Duson | CFBU: They slipped it. The crack must be as big as the Grand Canyon. It's an e like you can't make this up. They are selling you your oppression. Raphael Warnock, Jamal Bryant, like all these people who are are convincing you that you know you're oppressed as a black person. They sell you, they make a dollar every time
you click in on a YouTube channel, you go into their conference, you buy in a thing, this, then, the third. That you they get enrich off of your insane belief that you are oppressed in the greatest country on the planet.
John: as I hear you guys talk, I just can't help but conclude that you guys are just too far gone. There's no saving you guys. It's like you have been programmed to say these things over and over. It's become natural. so let me show you guys a video. And I'm interested to hear your reaction. I have maybe like two video I want to show up. But I have a video that I'm very, very interested to hear what you guys think, seeing that you guys are on this, on this vein of just supporting and apologizing for white people. This is, this is crazy. I don't know what I got into. All right. Let's start off. Okay. So you guys said, let's see Monique, your reaction.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Well, I think that Mr. Steele is correct. Johnson was a Democrat, but I also think that he was socialist. I think that he was probably a forerunner for the Democrat Socialist Party.
John: Mm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: and so, you know, he wasn't just coming in, I feel like under the historic kind of, you know, this is what the Democrat. party has always been, he was also coming in with some socialist agenda. And so this idea of you know, we need more so like social aid, we need more of, you know, all of these welfare programs and things like that really did attach the black community and the government. And now what we see is the the union, this is what is birthed out of that union. And so there's a lot that's happening there. The the idea, it's not Eli Shelby steel, you know, is talking about, you know, now we're still going to be able to tell you what to do. And we're still that's a lot of what happens when you're attached to the government. But he also highlights a very good point that at the time of the New Deal, we were as a people. Yes, we were coming out of slavery and we were still, experiencing a lot of the the racist South and all of that. But and we have the great migration, but we were still married. We were still keeping our kids. We were still, you know, going to church. We were worshiping. We were there were there was a lot that might have been going on within the broader culture, but within our community. We were doing a lot. We were like black doctors. There were black lawyers. There's, black institutions. So it's not that the New Deal needed to come in and rescue us, but it did give us a different understanding of what our relationship could be with the government.
John: Mm. Kevin?
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. I'm reminded of that famous Lyndon B. Johnson quote of I'll have those Negroes vote Democrat for the next 200 years. And so far he's been right for 60. Because we shall not depart from thou which have saveth us. That is the way it is viewed. yeah, and it it it married the What Dr. King and the civil rights movement with Lyndon B. Johnson did was marry the black community to the government based on this narrative. that we were we were bootless, that we were, you know, helpless and we needed them. And it's been white guilt and we were their responsibility. I wrote a Substack article, I don't know, might have been a year now, and I might have ruffled some feathers because
John: You probably did.
Kevin Briggins: I asked the question, matter of fact, it wasn't the years when the the voting rights act changed where we couldn't have our special black districts anymore. And my question was basically, how long will we be the special needs children? Or when can we be treated like everybody else? Will we forever be the special needs children that will always need special needs, always need special care, always need special attention, always because we just can't, right? Or wh at what point do we get to be treated like adults like everybody else? Right. and yeah, I'm pretty sure that ruffles some feathers. But my point is you're begging that you need special needs. you can't be treated equally as everyone else. And that's just very demeaning to black people and just the black psyche, because that's what we've been arguing. I've I've said it before, the civil rights movement taught us that our political power came through our grievance. And we have spent the last 60 years ensuring we didn't lose our grievance. We should have been trying to make sure we lost it by saying we're not going to be less than anyone else. But instead, we tried to make sure we held on to the narrative that we needed special attention. We needed special needs because that's where our political power came from. And as long as we can hold it over white people. then our leaders per se benefited with political power. And that's run out. The white guilt has run out for the most part. They they kind of drained that well after twenty twenty.
John: Yeah. Monique. So as I listen to that, I've listened to that video several times, that whole message. thought about the concept of interest convergence.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: Mm.
John: So can you explain what that is to us? Because I don't really know that much about it. But also, how would that apply to what that the steel might be saying, maybe without realizing his saying? And also, with what Kevin just said in reverse, I think Blacks took advantage of this same setup, this kind of silent contract between the two parties. So can you real quick help us out?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah, so interest convergence is an idea that was brought about by Derek Bell, who is the grandfather of critical race theory. He coined critical legal studies. And interest convergence simply says that racism will end when white people realize it is to their benefit to end it, when the interests of white people and black people converge. Then racism will end. So black people are already at the table. We already understand that it is to our benefit to end racism. Now we're waiting for white
people to have to realize it would be to their interest as well. Interest when the interests converge, interest convergence. and that's a very, I will say that's a very kind of turnkey, just kind of off the cuff kind of way of Of saying it, I would recommend for anyone watching who wants to know more about interest convergence and Derek Bell's thoughts on it. Read Faces at the Bottom of the Well. now, when now in talking about Eli, not Eli, Shelby Still's position on interest convergence. I'm not, I I probably missed it. I would need to to listen to it again, or maybe you can explain more of what your meaning it as far as what Mr. Steele is saying that that would rely or point us back to interest convergence. I'm so sorry.
John: Yeah, well, so I think maybe I misunderstood interest convergence because I thought the idea of interest convergence was when white people kind of give something out of their own interest. It's not necessarily in good faith that all our interests are converging, at least not always, is that white people are responding to a need from black people. insofar as it benefits them back. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: It can be to some degree that it that there is a benefit for them. For others, it doesn't necessarily need to be a benefit. I wouldn't say that the the interest of the white person is completely altruistic, but there is a an understanding that racism, there's a benefit or an I have an interest, a general interest in ending racism. Now again, whether
John: Mm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: that interest is truly altruistic, or whether on the back end I'm getting some kind of kickback, or there's some benefit to me, there will be a true understanding of the interest that I receive. So maybe it is that, when we end racism, then my stocks are gonna go up 80%. Or when we end racism, my kid will be able to go to this really good school that I really want them to go to get into, or you know, whatever that is, they see some. interest and so their interest is now converging with that of black people as well to end racism.
John: Yeah. Yep. I understand. Yeah. I think I read something along the lines of how I understood it from the one book, Critical Race Theory 101 or something like that from those, the fan sick and the other guy.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Jane Stefanchich and Richard Del Richard Delgado and Jane Stefanchich. They're a husband and wife couple out of I want to say the
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: University of Alabama.
Kevin Briggins: That is true.
John: Yeah, they wrote that book, primer on critical risk.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. Critical race theory and introduction. Uh-huh.
John: Yeah. I think that's where I got that understanding, or maybe I misunderstood them on what they meant. But whatever the case may be, when I listen, what Dr. Steele is saying has resonated with me specifically. Because it seems to me, even as I talk to white liberals and just people who are under this cloud, and not just white liberals, to be honest, I think generally, now it's going away, like Kevin said, but generally speaking, a lot of the behavior seems to be kind of guilt generated. Hey, we're trying to make up make up for our past evil and so it's a way to cleanse themselves. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: Cleanse themselves. Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
John: let's let's let's shift gears because I do have some things that I really want to touch on before before we close here. I want to I want to move on because you guys have the podcast of called and you talk about black people and things like that. Let's let's let's
Kevin Briggins: We just talk about black people.
John: yeah, let's talk about black people. Okay. You guys are black, but you're not practicing black. Right? Yes? Okay. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: Correct. Depending on how you define
Monique Duson | CFBU: no, I I I I don't
Kevin Briggins: it.
Monique Duson | CFBU: yeah, it it does. that would that's I feel like that's like being like you you guys are human, but you're not practicing human. You know what I mean? Like it I I think that I I think that the the comment is very interesting because many people would say, they're not black or they're skin folk, but not Kin folk. So they're we're black in
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: info. Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: in skin only. but that alone means that black people must act a certain way, think a certain way, be a certain way. But then those same people will be like black people aren't a monolith. But as soon as you show up to the table with a different thought or different conversation, then you get kicked out of the table. So either black people are a monolith. And you cannot come with thoughts and ideas that venture outside of what is technically seen as being black, or like, like, what's the other option? I I'm I'm, you know, I'm quite confused. So yeah, I'm black and I just I I wear my blackness quite proudly. But I'm first a Christian. And so my black identity and who I am as a human is always going to be. structured, influenced by my identity in Christ. And sadly for others, they may say, well, she she's not black. I feel sad for them because that means that they are so small minded that and weak in their way of thinking that they must they see me as, or they see Kevin as needing to show up to a conversation in a way that is very small. In a way that says, I have to do this, I have to do that. That's no better than the Democrat Party playing that. what was that song during the last big elections? No voting, no vucking. Remember that? And
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: how that was supposed to appeal to us because we're black. Or Joe Biden
Kevin Briggins: And and vax that thing up.
Monique Duson | CFBU: vax that thing up. Joe Biden, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. there is in our country this idea of how black people show up. And sadly that way of thinking is in the popular culture, but it's also in the
church.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: And so when you don't show up like that, then you aren't black. That's their small mindedness, not mine.
John: Okay, so blackness is a political identity, a very real political identity. As you said, some of us are black faces, but not necessarily black voices. And it's like a religion with some strict doctrines and boundaries that to stay pure you have to affirm these essentials. But you're saying that, I guess you're kind of transcending that, but it is a very real identity among certain precincts. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. To to be to be black means to be politically black, right? like you say, it is a political ideology, typically meaning you are aligned with the Democrat Party, you are aligned with whatever the social justice narrative is, you are doing the work, you are down with the struggle, and you basically have a Marxist framework for looking at the world. Right. most black people, whether they know it or not, are Marxist. or they have a Marxist lens of viewing the world of an oppressor oppressed lens because they've been indoctrinated into this concept called blackness. And to be truly black, you gotta be, you have to think a certain way. And what they don't realize the way that they're trained to think is through a Marxist lens. But they don't know that's what it is. They would never say
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: they were Marxist, not even from an economic standpoint, but it's from a cultural standpoint. Right, a political standpoint. I think they did a poll. I forgot what poll it was from. It was a very credible poll, like Wall Street Journal or something like that. But 65% of black people prefer preferred socialism over capitalism. Right.
John: Okay, but hold on a second. Monique, I already spoke to Kevin. He said he was never woke. He was never on the other side. But maybe I got this wrong. It's my understanding that you used to be on the other side. So can you, what happened? Like, how did you get saved?
Kevin Briggins: sane.
John: yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: God's grace, my gosh. I be growing up, growing up in South Central, a lot of this conversation, I didn't need to learn critical race theory. Now I did learn learn it in school and in college, but I didn't need to because it's just the word on the street. Like
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm. Yep.
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: all white people are racist. Racism is everywhere. It's that's common sense. Girl, white people ain't gonna never let racism in. Racism will only end when they understand that, you know, it's to some benefit to them. When they get a little
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: something from racism ending, then racism will end. Interest convergence. there, there's a lot of the tenets of critical race theory that just kind of fly under the radar as common everyday language. So the book that you mentioned by Gene Stefancic and Richard Delgado has six tenets in it of critical race theory.
That is more old school, traditional critical race theory from Kimberly Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, from that old school gang. But when you go over to Ciara Bridges and look more at more modern day critical race theorists, you have way more tenants under that critical race theory umbrella. And so when we but when we talk about critical race theory, it's word on the street. This is just My grandmama taught me this. What I didn't need to go to school to learn about no Kimberly Crenshaw. She just making it sound academic.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: My posture, going back to what you were saying about, you know, us pretending to be black or just wearing the black skin, what I would actually posit is that I am the true black person. Kevin is the true black person. The black community has been conservative. We've always been conservative. We've always Valued our families and our children. We valued our identity in God. And so, no, I would say that the the woke black liberal is really the one who's cosplaying. They are really just espousing whiteness and white ideology. They are the Frankfurt school, they are the Herbert Marcuses, they are the Horkheimers, they are the ones in black face with white minds. But yet to discredit Those who have a historical black narrative, they then have to flip the script and say, Well, you're the coon or you're the this or you're the that. But no, I don't have no white voice. I am as black as they come. I am historically black.
Kevin Briggins: Thanks.
John: Okay. However, however, you, you guys, both of you are... How should I put it? You have, someone can say, you have internalized racism. Yeah. And this is
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Internalized racism. Yes.
John: just, you guys are defensive about it. You kind of have built your platform and your situation around it. But all this is really is internalized. Racism. And you say?
Kevin Briggins: I'll say you can say dumb stuff like that when you make up definitions about like what racism is, right?
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: also no, my views came from growing up in the deep south, in the black neighborhood, in the black community, going to black schools, being in the black church, right? being raised in a black family. My views, my conservative Christian biblical views came out of that. I became an adult, and I started to evaluate things politically. And I realized the way that I had automatically been programmed to vote did not align with my values. And so
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm, mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: I immediately said, Well, I'm just going to start voting align my values, right? Instead of this narrative that Democrats are for black people and Republicans are bad. That was just a narrative. No one had ever like questioned it. That was just what you were taught from a political standpoint. Democrats are the good guys, Republicans are the bad guys, Democrats are for black people, Republicans are racist, right? And no one ever evaluated the policies. No one ever evaluated where each party stood on things. And once I did, I realized my conservative biblical Christian values were not with the Democrats. You know? And so yeah, I Start voting according to my black biblical Christian values, right?
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: that which aligns with the historical black position, not this modern day liberal LGBTQ, pro-abortion, feminism, all of this new stuff that the I would call it the, this is what people don't realize about the 60s, whether it was the civil rights movement. Or whether it was women's liberation movements, feminism, sexual revolution, it was a generation that rebelled against its elders. And so days like we know better. And so what black culture became politically and just in terms of just the culture itself is the result of that rebellion, right? Monique and I are more in line with the historical black position than someone like a Raphael Warnock or Al Sharpton. No, they will go wherever the money of the Democrat Party leads them. They will go and wrap wrap themselves in a rainbow flag, right? Knowing that our ancestors would never be for that. You know.
John: I have a question, question about, about that. this is also unplanned. so when I, when I came to the United States, was, I was lost. was out too far gone. and I, you know, I was in the hood, I was doing all the hood, hood stuff. and I always say that if, if I, if I could vote at the time, I would have voted for Barack Obama. I was here before he was president. But I wouldn't have voted for him necessarily because I knew the policies. I think I would have voted for him simply because he was black.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: And that's just the thing that you did. You want a black president in the White House. This is big. It doesn't really matter what he believes. If he's going to sell all of us out, it doesn't matter. But being from the hood, of course, I hang out with drug dealers and gangsters. And a lot of them knew they were committing crimes. They knew there were taking advantage. mean, they made excuses that they had to do what they had to do, blah, blah, blah, blah. But deep down, they knew they were wrong, like when it came down to it. Do you think guys like Al Sharpton and Ben Crump, do you think they actually believe? Because I've never really understood. Now, of course, you're going to speculate because you can't know for sure in someone's heart. When you sit down and wonder, you see something like with the young kid down there in Mississippi and the many
Kevin Briggins: Olin Wells.
John: other things that they've been a part of, Ben Crump, but also especially Al Sharpton. Can you help me out? What do you think? It's a hustle mean, we all know it's a hustle These are hustlers, but do they know they're hustling or do you think they actually are sold out to the cause?
Monique Duson | CFBU: I'll say going back to your first thing about people voting for Barack no
matter what, even though they knew it was wrong. I don't think that everybody knew it was wrong. I voted for Barack. I did not think that it was wrong. I thought it's time for us to have a black guy in the White House. And I think that's the way many people thought. Like it is time for us to have a black person in the White House. And a lot of us didn't research the policies or what was he actually saying. But then again, he was saying some things that, you know, quickly changed after he got in the office. So I I don't know that people were just like, you know, we know it's wrong, but we're gonna do it anyway. I think with Ben Crump and people like Al Sharpton or even the late Jesse Jackson. I've I've wondered the same thing. I can't, I can't know their hearts. I also wonder, have have their hearts just been seared,
John: Mm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: where it's just like whether it's right or wrong, like this is this is the the path that I'm on. I also wonder, is it just a thing like you, hey, this is how you gonna give my you know money? So this is what I'm gonna say. I think about Jesse Jackson in this conversation because before he ran for president, he was very anti a lot of things. And after that, you know, he became more pro these certain things over here. And you know it that made me wonder like, I wonder if it's about the the votes. Is it about the money? Is it about keeping people on your side, being in the right graces and being able to have the right conversations. yeah I also think with some pastors who are like a a a Raphael Warnock or Jamal Bryant or things like that. If you follow after liberation theology, if you follow after you know, ways of reading scripture that are just twisted and unbiblical, you that's what you're gonna get. That's what you're gonna produce. That's what they believe. I I I honestly think that there may just be a a piece that believes in like they believe errantly. And they they actually think that liberation theology or some form of woke liberal theology is really biblical. But I don't know, Kevin.
Kevin Briggins: I I I it's very clear to me. They're grifters. It's a hustle. They know exactly what they're doing. And the reason I say that is because I see how easily they lie. I see
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: how Ben Crump tweets out things he know aren't really true.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: but yet he's pinned things out to stir a narrative. That's not somebody who simply believes in a cause. That's somebody who knows he's lying. He's grifting, but he's stirring
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: the emotions, he's building the public case, you know, because The truth is not what's important. What's important is can I spend the narrative because
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: I'm trying to get this money. can is this
John: Well, hold on
Kevin Briggins: go ahead.
John: real quick. And I'll let you say and then see what Monique will say to that. Do you is it
possible that it's it's a kind of a pragmatic that yeah.
Kevin Briggins: The end justify the means? I thought about that. I just don't see how you just lie that hard. Especially for something you know play this. Why do you only go out to cases that have a certain racial element that you can exploit? And then why did you blatantly lie about the things to drive the public narrative? Like I don't know what the end goal to that is other than your wallet. You know, the settlement you're trying to get. I don't I don't and look at I look at these
John: Revolution. Let's say the end goal is revolution since the Marxist revolution. Go.
Kevin Briggins: Mm, I don't know if it'll be I don't I don't see revolution coming out of it. I see constant I can see it's agitation. It's constant stirring up things between, you know, blacks and whites. But I don't think you get revolution out of that. I think you just get a game that they're playing. And unfortunately, and I hate to say this because these are my my kin folks, people are stupid. And what I mean by that is they they just simply keep falling for it. No matter how much they lie, no matter how many the whole Carmelo Anthony thing, black people will will believe any narrative that is sold to them that fits the narrative. the no and no matter how much truth comes out, no matter when the facts come out, no matter how many eyewitnesses accounts come out. They will never leave the narrative they chose to believe in the first place. And I see it every day online. And it blows my mind how no matter how much truth is provided to these people, they never will say, I was wrong on that. now I see. Now that the truth has come out, now that's some more effect, I got some more information. Okay, I see where that. No, Carmelo Anthony is still free Carmelo, you know, it's still. Justice for Nolan Wales. it's
John: Hands up, don't shoot.
Kevin Briggins: yeah, hands up, don't shoot. They still believe hands up don't shoot happen. Like this, and so I'm convinced people like Crump and Sharpton and all these guys, they know this. If they just keep selling the narrative, the people will continue to buy it. And so they continue selling it. And the people vote for them, or you know, they raise money. And like they just keep exploiting it. And I keep trying to we keep trying to get people to wake up and then we get to be the bad guys. We're the coons and the sellouts. no, I'm trying to stop you from getting played. These people are manipulating you, manipulating your emotions, and you keep falling for it. And the more someone tries to warn you about it and present you actual facts like hands up, don't shoot. Here's what the actual eyewitnesses said. This is what happens. This is what the forensics show. This is what h nope. Nope. Hands up, don't shoot. Mike Brown. Kill racism.
John: All right, Monique, do you think there's some relativistic view of truth that allows for you to lie or maybe don't see it as a lie if you look through it through the lenses of Oppressed versus oppressor and we're going after the system is by any means necessary The system has to be taken down That's the end goal. Basically. The thing is never the thing I've heard a saying go that the thing is always the revolution. What's what's your take?
Monique Duson | CFBU: I don't think people like Ben Crump or Raphael Warnock or a lot of these people
John: tomorrow.
Monique Duson | CFBU: are are true Marxists.
John: OK.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I think that they are Marxists. I think but they're Marxists in thought. They're Marxists because it it's it's the ideology really that sells. and so, you know, does the ends justify the means? I think their their end is their own good. Their end isn't revolution. because if a revolution happens, what's gonna happen to their money? Because at at when the revolution comes, it's gonna be every man for themselves. Like it's it's it's not, we are not this united front kind of people. So the revolution, yeah. That thing, that's where I was going next. Yeah,
Kevin Briggins: They're they're not they're not DSA people. They're not the hardliners. They're the grifters playing the game. Yes.
Monique Duson | CFBU: that's where I was going next. And so When we think about true Marxists, these people aren't, Highlander school trained, let's organize, let's really, you know, create this revolution. Let's think we're they're not socialist, they're not communist. Even though they espouse all of that that rhetoric, they it a a totalitarian end would do them no good. it the it just doesn't make sense. So yes, they espouse these things, but the but the end i is only their own good. And so when we talk about the end justifies the means, the means is always going to be to prop up a Nolan Wells or a Carmelo Anthony because it gets the people angered enough that that it keeps them in their grievance and offense with white people so that they can continue to raise money to pad their own pockets. That's all it is.
Kevin Briggins: That's the game.
John: Okay, would you say the same thing with those ladies from Black Lives Matter?
Monique Duson | CFBU: That one I think is a little different. I because they have stated, and I haven't I haven't totally gone into I did a bit more on Patrice Colors. but when you think of them being trained Marxists, especially like if you want to look in the lines of like an Angela Davis and and things like that, I think they're a bit more serious. They're a bit more intentional in what their stated goal is. Their stated goal is the decline of the nuclear family. they have some some things going for them. Not going for them, but at least that seem a bit more thought out. Yes. And I I
Kevin Briggins: They're they're definitely Marxists. But before go now, I'm saying before they changed their website, it was very clearly
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: a Marxist.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yes. With intended goals that I just
Kevin Briggins: Yes.
Monique Duson
| CFBU: don't see a Ben Crump putting forward. He doesn't he doesn't have his end. And and if he does, his end is him. Where their end would be revolution. Their end would be the the decline of the quote unquote system or a system that is more socialistic in nature or you know what I mean?
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. and we know who trained Patrice Collars. It was a guy named Eric Mann. He's a Marxist,
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: Jewish Marxist guy out in California. And he trained her from the time she's a teenager. she's a she's a Marxist. but man, when that money hits your your your account, that ninety million come in, you get real capitalistic. You start buying houses and
Monique Duson | CFBU: And that's the thing. That's the thing. Is she really a Marxist?
John: Well,
Monique Duson | CFBU: You gotta ask.
John: think, I think I don't think to that degree, I don't think anyone is truly a Marxist. Most people, if you hit them with a $90 million in their account, you're now, you know, the Marxism has to step to the side because you achieve the thing that you really needed. You want to dip down. which is greatness, which is power, which is the ability to buy basically whatever your heart might desire. That's innate. It's greed. It's all greed generated. So I think it'd be hard to find a genuine Marxist. There gotta be something that's gotta be wrong in their minds. If you give them 90 million and they're like, nah, let's break it down and... and pay everyone. no, no, no, no. That's, that's an anti-human.
Kevin Briggins: It is. And we see this every communist revolution, right? The people at the top are never the ones poor and starving.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. But I when you when you read Communist Manifesto, the whole the whole thing is the liberation of the people. You know what I mean? we need to liberate women and wives and we need to to bring the liberation. Well, it seemed like 90 million could liberate some people,
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: but it never trickles down. You know,
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. Or they could have evenly distributed it out. They didn't do that.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I was missing mine. I'm black. Maybe my life didn't matter. I'm not really sure. But it it it never works out the way that they say because truly in their heart they're capitalists.
John: They're human. Capitalism is more towards.
Kevin Briggins: Yes. Yes.
John: So, OK, I have a video. I have to get you guys as reaction.
Kevin Briggins: Alright.
John: I because we're at that place where if I don't play it, I'm not going to feel accomplished. OK.
Monique Duson | CFBU: That's funny.
John: All right. I would like to hear what you guys think because I felt bad for Miss Davis there. And I'm sure you guys have seen that video. I saw Kevin's reaction. What do you think happened in Miss Angela Davis in that particular moment? Yeah, it's a longer conversation. She's found out a number of things up until that point. I didn't want to play the
whole video because I thought it was too long. But what do you think is happening in her mind with her history and all that she's represented? What do you think is happening? Monique.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I'm sure she's shocked because it when you are so anti something, you know, or so pro something, you can convince yourself that you aren't the thing or aren't in any way associated with the thing that that you disdain. And so now it's this cognitive dissonance, this shake in her brain of wait, where do I even put this? How do I how do I think about this? You know what I mean?
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: And and when Mr. Gates, I think his name is Henry Lewis Gates, when he comes like so much of his stuff is just based on historical fact. You know, it what you gonna say? We humans are just such a an a a mixed group of people.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Everybody done slept with everybody. So everybody got a little bit of something. You know what I mean?
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: And so for her to like, did she think that she was truly just African? Like
Kevin Briggins: She should have looked in the mirror and saw
Monique Duson | CFBU: cause honey, really? Like, really? Yeah, what what does she think? Does she think that her ancestors only came from, you know, Nigeria and that was it? And and that her bloodline has stayed pure the whole time?
John: But can I say something? I've seen videos of her back then. with the big fro,
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: she's, this is Angela Davis we're talking about. She, to me, when I listen to her old video, I can understand what's happening there because her whole thing is basically, I just came from Africa. Like I, I'm, I, I came as a slave. I, I'm the slave. Like, She it's almost like and and the reason I thought it'd be good something to talk about with you guys Is because a lot of the things that you guys talk about I guess one of the lines i've been able to kind of trace through And why i'm always interested in listening to you guys is it has to do with identity in a kind of identity crisis
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: And I haven't found anything on the internet that except people that think they're a different gender when they're not. But I haven't found anything with regards to blackness, this black identity that just reveals such a confusion and a sad reality of, I guess, I don't know if it's such a thing called false identification to this degree. But Kevin, you're about to say something.
Kevin Briggins: No, I was just gonna say, Angela Davis and I were from the same hometown. and sh like Patrice Colors, she went out to LA and got indoctrinated by a white Marxist named Herbert Marcusa, who
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: discipled her and put these thoughts in her head, right? sh as blackish, black as she claims to be, she is the product of whiteness.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: that is the irony of all of this. And this is why I try to explain to black people. What you call blackness is the ideology that came from Germany. It is not
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: black at all. It is, it is German. and yeah, I guarantee you that news probably shook a little bit of what she thought about herself, you know, because like you said, she. She views herself as the slave. She views herself as, someone who was on the slave show. That's she identifies. And yet it's like, no, part of you also came over here in the Mayflower.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: You know? And like I said, just look at her. She's
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: she's she's a very light, fair-skinned woman. Clearly, there's some mix in there.
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: She should have known that. But I get I do want to give Angela a pass. We're from the same hometown, but from two different eras, right? She did she grew up, you know, civil rights movement. She grew up in Jim Crow segregation. she grew up, you know, not too far from 16th Street Baptist Church where the four little girls were killed in the bomb. I like her
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: experience formed some of that, right? And
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: then she goes out to LA and she meets Herbert Marcusa and she gets indoctrinated. but Like I said, in that video though, I I know it I know it hasn't because no, we've she's talked since that video was done,
John: Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: but I wish that video would have changed her perception a little bit to realize that who she is and what she is is more than simply a descendant of a slave.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: Right? it's more than that. And this country is more than that. This country is way more complicated. than the simple
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: narratives we like to tell.
John: Yeah, I imagine she's probably thought up until that point that her light skinness came from some sort of unjust unification between,
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. Relationship. Yeah.
John: yeah, between a black woman or yeah, yeah. Anyway, I thought it wasn't.
Monique Duson | CFBU: But that would still be true. You know what I mean? it's just that it it could be true. I I don't know that it necessarily has to be true, but if it were because of some, you know, relationship with a slave master or something like that, that would just mean that her slave master came over on a Mayflower. You know what I mean? Yeah.
John: on the Mayflower. Yeah.
Kevin Briggins: Was a descendant of someone from the Mayflower, yeah.
John: Yeah, OK.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah.
John: Well, so there's not much there, I guess. That was a little bit of understanding, from Kevin in regards to I never realized the other context of where she came from and that aspect of it.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: just when I saw that clip, the first time I saw that clip, I was like, man, I can't imagine this. disappointment I can't believe which now that you guys talk about it doesn't sound like it makes that much of a
difference.
Kevin Briggins: It does. most black people, we do ancestry, we get our DNA back. There's some European in there. There just is.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: none of us are just a hundred percent West African. No, there's some Nigerian in there, some some some Native American in there sometimes, you know. Get so we get the good hair, you know.
John: Now I've noticed you guys don't have an acknowledgement, land acknowledgement at the Center for Biblical Unity. What's up with that?
Monique Duson | CFBU: we will. We'll work on it. Yeah. We acknowledge that the land we l we live
Kevin Briggins: We working on we're working on it. it's in draft. It's in draft, you know.
John: You don't want to acknowledge, I'm sure though.
Monique Duson | CFBU: on was one fair and square and war.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah, yeah.
John: Okay, between the who and who the whites and The native
Monique Duson | CFBU: It
John: Indians? The Europeans?
Monique Duson | CFBU: it can be Native Americans and Americans, it can be Mexicans and Americans, it can z whoever won it won it. Depending on what
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: time period and what war you're talking about.
John: and you guys live in it.
Kevin Briggins: And and in the future somebody else might come take it again. Like that's human history.
Monique Duson | CFBU: And yep, that's one thing. Nations rise and fall.
John: Okay, all right. So to recap, you guys are pro reparations as long as someone cuts you a check.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah, yeah.
John: You guys are going, are working on on a land acknowledgement as long as it acknowledges the actual truth of what happened. You guys at the Center for Biblical Unity are going to be working on on gentrification, positional gentrification. And you guys are not really don't care about the black card because you've created your own version. you returned the old version of the black card and are therefore not interested in the new the new card that is is is being offered to them.
Kevin Briggins: Used to control you and keep you in line.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah, yeah. My my
John: Okay
Monique Duson | CFBU: my card is original. It it is not part of
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: these new high interest cards. No. No, no, no, no, no. I I I got the original.
John: All right. Last question. I've seen that you guys were talking about people going back to Africa. And Monique has experience with living in Africa. Which country, Monique, we'll start with you, but I think Kevin has some ideas, which country would you recommend for sure? that people go to, I'm not talking about in terms of luxury where they're gonna find another white settlement, where the true blacks, like the true Bantu or Nihilots, what's the country do you recommend? area, village. I don't know which, what's, what's your...
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
John: Let's say we're going to build Wakanda.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Father
John: Where are we going to set up the empire, the black superpower?
Kevin Briggins: When all the white Christian nationalists kick us out of America, where are we going?
John: Yes.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I I don't know. Well, I'm going where everybody else ain't. That's for sure. I ain't trying to be around no foolishness. Huh?
John: Are you going to the European settlements? That's probably why.
Monique Duson | CFBU: I might I might need to go to a European settlement. I might end up in Asia. But what I can do is go where there's a lot of foolishness. Me and Wakanda are not, I don't know. I think if I had to choose an African country to live in, of course South Africa is my is is my jam.
John: Yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: but I also still have friends in Zambia and I I really love Zambia. I I appreciate Zambia. I appreciate some of the villages that I worked in in Zambia. I think that, you know, I haven't I haven't kept up with Zambia since since President Lungu, but I I really I've appreciated I I just appreciate the country, the beauty of the country. I don't appreciate how there've been outside influences to be able to build the infrastructure. But yeah, I would either end up in South Africa or Zambia. Gotta go back to my stomping grounds.
John: Not Zimbabwe.
Monique Duson | CFBU: No, not Zimbabwe and even though Botswana is cool and Uganda's cool, no, Zambia or or South Africa. Yeah.
John: Kevin?
Kevin Briggins: well, without any knowledge of having been there, I would have Zambia how my list just because of their Christian constitution. And I know my
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: our brother Vodi was out there for a while and yeah, it seems like, you know, place that I could settle in. the other place would be Nigeria just because of, you know, I can't even do it. It won't be show. But yeah.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Your ancestry. Absolutely not.
Kevin Briggins: Yep, I did my ancestry. I'm I'm forty seven percent Nigerian. thirty two
John: Wow.
Kevin Briggins: per thirty two percent Igbo. And so I would go to Nigeria and and find my people. That's what I would do.
John: Yeah, you guys
Kevin Briggins: Ha ha.
John: know I grew up in, or at least spent 10 years of my life in Zambia,
Kevin Briggins: Uh-huh.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm. In Lusaka? Okay.
John: in Kigali, I mean, Lusaka. I was born in Kigali, which is Rwanda.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: Yes, I grew up in Lusaka, I grew up in the slums, all black people. And, you know, if we're build Wakanda, I think we should start right there in Chawama.
Kevin Briggins: I I vote Zambi anyway just 'cause they're a Christian constitution. That's the starting point for me.
John: Zambia is a great country. Zambia
Monique Duson | CFBU: Do you
John: is landlocked, so that's kind of a disadvantage. But
Kevin Briggins: We can go take some more land.
John: it's one of the most peaceful places in Africa. Zambian people are good people. They're generally cultural Christians, generally speaking. Now, of
course, you know. that can get complicated.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: But yeah, I definitely love Zambia. I've never had any... We lived in Congo for like one year passing through. But the thing about Zambia that is actually fascinating is... not unique but there's 72 tribes in Zambia
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
John: and then somehow they just get along.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: Now they fight of course, they bicker and they have tribal finger pointing but
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: they somehow have been able to But anyway, OK, so this has been this has been great. I did have a lot more that we can we can keep going for forever. But I think we should end here because we all have other other responsibilities. But I just want to thank you guys for for, you know, indulging me in this in this conversation. One one one thing I'll probably. I hope we should end on. We've talked a lot about, you know, a situation that is pretty sensitive and a lot of people feel differently. You know, you have a spectrum here, you know, extremes. But you guys have done such a great, great job standing on truth. right, standing on the word of God and saying, hey, look, here is a better way. Here is the way. So we'll start with with Monique to first, you know, your whatever you want to close your closing last last words for this episode. And also in that, just just give some encouragement. You know, what why do you do what you do? Why are you so passionate about it? What do you hope? accomplish with the mission there at Center for Biblical Unity and also with the podcast you guys do together.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Yeah, so I think last parting words would or encouragement would be to not be dictated by culture or your skin color, to keep Christ first and your identity in Christ first. You know, our skin color is really just skin deep. And so if we are going to really be true to who we are, being true to who you are really means to to be true to your identity in Christ. And so That would be, first and foremost, that we would we would put Christ first, that we would keep Christ first, that we would understand what the scriptures say about how to treat one another. And then you know, how do we do that with the mission of CFBU? Well, our mission statement is one race, one people, one savior. And that is what we continually proclaim is that truly there is only one human race. that in Christ we are one new people and we serve one savior. And with off code, we are doing, we are accomplishing that mission by really challenging a lot of the narratives that have come into the black community to continually divide us, to say that there is more than one human race, or we are not one united people when we are in Christ, or that there would be some black Jesus and white Jesus. We really are wanting to speak boldly and directly to a lot of those lies that have captured so many in the black community.
Kevin Briggins: Yeah. that was basically perfect. I would say, you know, just we want to free people from the lies that we've been told. and and
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
Kevin Briggins: just give them biblical truth. not necess not necessarily like for political reasons or anything like that, but simply because black people need to understand that we are free and we can do. We have the ability to do, right? and but there's constantly people telling us, you're downtrodden, you're oppressed, they're never gonna let you do this. Like it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? instead of understanding, like, no, we you are free and you have human agency and choice, and you can make decisions that impact your life and your outcomes. and that's what we want to. No, empower, black people to do, first of all, to know and follow Christ. That's first and
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: foremost. But also to kind of expose the lies that we've we're constantly being told, and never questioned. because of what we talked about a lot today is or tonight is the grift, the game that's being played, and those who are benefiting who claim to be our friends. They claim to be speaking for us and fighting for us. They're just playing us for their own benefit. Right. And the minute black people wake up from that, then
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: Lyndon B. Johnson's promise that he was going to have black people vote Democrat for the next 200 years will end. Right? They will break the spell of lies and emotionalism and manipulation and stop being puns for these people and just think for themselves
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Briggins: and vote. And live based on values, biblical values, not based on the values of so-called blackness. So that's it.
John: Yeah, and I think you guys, like I said, you guys do well. I have benefited from your ministry. Greatly continue to. And of course, I look I look I look up to you guys. You guys take a lot of a lot of arrows and and abuse even. I saw one video, Monique Monique. was responding to some names that an article had generated. And you could tell it was really passionate. was like you could feel it as you were kind of basically. shooting back. I was gonna play that video because I some parts of it I just feel like yeah get him get him
Kevin Briggins: Yeah.
John: but but you know the
Monique Duson | CFBU: I don't even know what you're t which w I don't know what you're referring to. That's funny.
John: Yeah, there's a video that you did respond to that basically the commentators called you names. One of them, Bedwench, think was the...
Kevin Briggins: Ooh.
Monique Duson | CFBU: yeah, I think I remember that. I think I do.
John: You remember that video? I'll tell you, it was powerful. You did it by yourself on the YouTube channel. In fact, I was listening
Monique Duson | CFBU: I think
John: to it today. I was going to play it. it was i'll tell you the title it was the new plantation who's really controlling black thought
Kevin Briggins: Mm.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Mm.
John: And and Monique went in, was it was off the hook. mean, I I would pay.
Monique Duson | CFBU: That's funny.
John: Anyway, it was good. You guys, you guys are doing amazing work. You guys really, you know, keep keep up the good work. I just wanted to point that out to say you take so many arrows. But of course, I don't have to be the one to tell you that they are. many more of us on this side cheering you on and watching and learning and inserting ourselves as I am doing right now in the conversation.
Kevin Briggins: Mm-hmm.
John: But so keep up the good work. Please. Thank you so much for joining me again. I hope people find
Monique Duson | CFBU: Thanks.
John: this to be a blessing, this discussion.
Kevin Briggins: Yep, same here.
Monique Duson | CFBU: Thanks for having us.
John: Alright.