A Tapestry Woven from Black Struggle, Literature, and Leadership

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[00:00:45] Y'all ready? Alright, let's do it. I won't blame the point we've heard the intro but what

[00:00:51] I do want to do is make space to bring up someone who's very important to this community,

[00:00:56] someone who's very important to Rahel and to probably many of you but his name is Reverend

[00:01:01] Tony Lee. Yes, right? And he's going to say just get us started with some few words

[00:01:08] or prayer perhaps even. This is a moment of a celebration, this is a sacred space, this

[00:01:13] is a sacred conversation that's about to take place and we want to approach it as such.

[00:01:18] Again, we are grateful to have each of you here this evening. I won't blame it. Let's

[00:01:22] get this party started. Please help me welcome up the Hope dealer, Reverend Tony Lee.

[00:01:27] How's everybody doing today? Well all right, well all right. Look, I am so excited,

[00:01:40] I'm so excited, I'm not going to be long but I am super excited because this is my

[00:01:45] sister and she's money a y'all sister. And I'm so excited because she has a tremendous

[00:01:51] gift to this world. It blows my mind when I think about this moment, I think about 12 years

[00:01:57] ago when I was given remarks at Urban Cust one year anniversary. And I realize that the

[00:02:06] Rahel of Urban Cust is different than the Rahel today. I realize it's a different Rahel

[00:02:14] that is sharing a different work from a different space. When I thought about this moment,

[00:02:19] I thought about there was a speech I heard Minister Farrakhan give one time. It was at Ebenezer

[00:02:23] and he church it was on the anniversary of the million man march and he was hurting. He came

[00:02:29] in and rolled him in and a wheelchair. His back was just tremendously in pain. We were in the

[00:02:34] back with him and he was just in so much pain you could see it all over his face that they rolled

[00:02:38] him out from the back and when he went up to the pulpit to speak, he leaned up against the pulpit

[00:02:44] visibly in pain, stood his back up and said pain brought us here. And then he spoke for about

[00:02:52] an hour and a half about how pain as a people brought us to this moment. And I would argue with

[00:02:58] you that pain brought us here. This book is very different than anything Rahel could have written

[00:03:04] ten years ago. But pain brought us here, the pain of grief, the pain of childbirth, the pain

[00:03:11] of mental and emotional spain, the pain of disappointment that pain brought us here. But I'm

[00:03:16] so glad that pain did not paralyze her. But I'm so glad that Rahel was able to take her pain

[00:03:22] and turn it into purpose and turn it into power. I'm so glad that she gives this offering to the world

[00:03:28] that came out of pain. I'm so glad that in this moment she realized that she's not the only

[00:03:34] one who's experienced pain but we're all experiencing some level of pain, that if you are living

[00:03:39] in this nation and this world right now, you've got some kind of pain, you're grappling with,

[00:03:43] you're struggling with. And now is not the time for you to get anesthesiologist to dumb the pain.

[00:03:50] But now is the time we do the ecclesiologist to tell us what the church needs to do. And so I'm

[00:03:56] so glad that she is called us here to imagine freedom, to embark on a faith exercise, to believe in

[00:04:04] the midst of what looks impossible, that freedom can still be imaginable. That freedom is still

[00:04:10] a possibility and with God on our side in the midst of our pain. I'm not talking about, I'm not talking

[00:04:17] about because we don't have pain. I'm not talking about the things will be better by and by. I'm talking

[00:04:21] in the midst of our pain. We can imagine freedom and the midst of a nation is half crazy, we can

[00:04:26] imagine freedom and the midst of a world and genocide and faith that we can, that we can dare have the

[00:04:33] faith to imagine freedom. And so I just asked you to join me in a word of prayer as we bring her

[00:04:39] up as we bring rolling out and we allow us to have this conversation which is one that is spirit

[00:04:44] filled which is one that we are believing that we are transforming pain into political and spiritual

[00:04:52] power. God, we are so grateful. We thank you God for this day. We thank you God for this

[00:04:56] year daughter. We thank you God that it's only fitting that this would come during her birthday

[00:05:01] season because God we believe God that not just as is her birthday season. And my goodness, what a

[00:05:08] birthday season now that she's a mother who's given birth but God we believe when we're grateful for

[00:05:13] this book. God is experiencing its own birthday in this moment and we are grateful that what is

[00:05:18] being birthed into this world will make a difference for generations to come and so we're grateful

[00:05:24] for this year daughter. Bless our moment together but God help us to move in faith and imagine that

[00:05:32] which is unimaginable help us in this moment to imagine freedom. Amen.

[00:05:51] Hey folks how you all doing? All right so I was chilling at the crib.

[00:05:56] I couldn't play golf. I was like I can sit in just and I posted on Instagram. I'm going to read

[00:06:04] two chapters of 10 books today, three o'clock my phone ring. Michael A. Dyson says, um

[00:06:13] bruh so you know when black people start that way you know something is coming and he's like I'm

[00:06:20] in Charlotte there's rain delays. That's the book thing I'm doing with Rahel and I'm like all right okay

[00:06:28] cool it's in 90 minutes. I'm like bye God I'm at the kitchen table in the role reading the book but

[00:06:36] I got you I said I'll be there so through some stuff on race through the rain from North of

[00:06:42] Virginia and God here and so glad to see all of y'all here looking for the great conversation.

[00:06:47] Let's not waste any time she is the author of Imagine Freedom transforming pain into political

[00:06:55] and spiritual power Rahel Tesarbarium. Come on up let's get it!

[00:07:16] Yeah!

[00:07:33] Chas it out. Guys got worked you do all.

[00:07:37] I'm going to go on.

[00:07:38] I've been waiting for this day.

[00:07:41] All is open and all that stuff.

[00:07:43] So let's get your microphone here.

[00:07:48] There we go.

[00:07:50] It's silence our phones.

[00:07:52] There we go.

[00:07:54] You good?

[00:07:56] I'm a big good.

[00:08:02] So this is your first book?

[00:08:03] Yes, it's my first book, but not my first baby.

[00:08:06] So let me explain something to you all.

[00:08:11] Was it eight, 10 years ago?

[00:08:15] Longer than that, right?

[00:08:16] It was longer than that.

[00:08:17] We're talking about 12 years.

[00:08:18] I'm driving somewhere.

[00:08:22] I was going to Baltimore for something.

[00:08:25] And we're on the phone.

[00:08:27] And so she's, oh, I don't forget nothing.

[00:08:29] I forget nothing.

[00:08:31] And she's asking me all these questions about publishing

[00:08:35] and well, should I self-publish?

[00:08:37] And should I?

[00:08:38] You know, she's going back and forth.

[00:08:40] And I've self-published five books.

[00:08:43] I believe in totally owning everything.

[00:08:45] And so I'm sitting here.

[00:08:47] And the main thing that my deal was, look, you just have to do it.

[00:08:51] You just have to do it.

[00:08:53] What took so long?

[00:08:54] What took so long?

[00:08:57] Sorry, I'm being distracted.

[00:08:58] My husband just walked in.

[00:09:01] Sorry.

[00:09:02] He needs you to focus right now.

[00:09:06] OK, I'm focused.

[00:09:07] He needs you to focus right now.

[00:09:08] No, it's my favorite suit.

[00:09:09] I told him he had to wear that suit.

[00:09:10] But OK, all right.

[00:09:11] We are a month's family, which is why I can act up.

[00:09:14] I mean, I'm literally seeing the people that I love,

[00:09:18] like literally seeing people who have been doing life with me

[00:09:21] and praying for me and loving me and supporting me.

[00:09:25] So I'm feeling good because the love is so deep in this room.

[00:09:30] Thank you.

[00:09:31] We are literally came from all over this country, California, Florida, Detroit, North

[00:09:38] Carolina, New Jersey, New York.

[00:09:42] Hey, anybody from Newsy?

[00:09:43] Anybody, right, right.

[00:09:46] Mr. Hill.

[00:09:48] So Baltimore, Baltimore.

[00:09:52] So OK, so because I could be here all day and it's rolling in between the two of us,

[00:09:57] we could be here all night.

[00:09:58] So why did it take so long?

[00:10:01] Right.

[00:10:02] What took so long?

[00:10:03] You know, if it was up to me this book would have been written maybe 2010.

[00:10:09] And OK, let's start with the fact that I discovered in second grade that I have a

[00:10:15] superpower with words.

[00:10:18] And it wasn't a discovery I made alone.

[00:10:20] My teachers at Thompson Elementary School right here in DC helped me discover that.

[00:10:25] And they literally put me in oratorical contest.

[00:10:28] And I was reciting Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King's speeches in third grade, which

[00:10:33] is amazing because I came to the United States not speaking English from Eritrea.

[00:10:41] If you don't know, you better ask somebody.

[00:10:45] Had to rep for the culture.

[00:10:48] And if you want to learn about my culture it's all over this book.

[00:10:51] Imagine freedom.

[00:10:52] But let's start there.

[00:10:55] I was born in Eritrea and East Africa, a missed war.

[00:11:00] War with?

[00:11:01] Eritrea and Ethiopia were at war with each other.

[00:11:03] And that's a whole another story.

[00:11:05] Which I talk about that when I was young.

[00:11:07] They'd recently ended.

[00:11:08] It recently ended but you know everybody thought it was a war between these two African

[00:11:12] countries.

[00:11:13] And it took me becoming an adult to learn that we were really in many ways puppets to the

[00:11:18] West.

[00:11:19] You know, I didn't know that until I became an adult until I actually moved to the continent

[00:11:24] that I realized it was the United States.

[00:11:26] It was Britain.

[00:11:27] It was Italy.

[00:11:28] It was all of these colonizers essentially that put two brothers and sisters at war with

[00:11:32] each other.

[00:11:34] And as a result generations of our people suffered.

[00:11:37] Which all goes back to the Berlin conference.

[00:11:39] All goes back to the scramble for Africa which is all over this book.

[00:11:43] How they divided Africa and put borders amongst us and decided you're going to be Zambian.

[00:11:48] They're going to be South African.

[00:11:50] That matter if we look like each other.

[00:11:51] That matter if we spoke the same language.

[00:11:54] What mattered is what resources they wanted, what land they wanted.

[00:11:58] And literally the United States decided that it was in their interest for us not to be

[00:12:04] liberated.

[00:12:05] So stop.

[00:12:06] So so whole point right there.

[00:12:08] Because I think a lot of people don't understand when they're watching news.

[00:12:13] And so when people are asking why aren't we hearing about what's happening in the Congo?

[00:12:18] Why aren't we hearing about what's happening with the kidnapping in Nigeria?

[00:12:23] It all goes back to you have to hit that phrase.

[00:12:26] American interest.

[00:12:28] And typically American interest, American national interests are economic interests.

[00:12:34] And I mean I'm not just talking history.

[00:12:36] I'm talking Palestine right.

[00:12:39] And so until we can connect what is happening in Gaza, in the Congo, in all these countries

[00:12:47] in Cuba, you could just go down the list.

[00:12:49] But even the uprising hasn't been speaking Haiti.

[00:12:51] There's not an uprising in the world where you can't point to the interests of the United

[00:12:55] States, the interests of Britain, the interests of these European superpowers and how they literally

[00:13:01] divide and conquer decide what resources they want and have no care or concern for the

[00:13:05] generational implications.

[00:13:07] So for myself I arrive in this country on a six month visa for my sister's wedding and

[00:13:12] I become undocumented.

[00:13:13] My mother goes back and my brother is here to tell you the story of how I refuse to return

[00:13:17] to my country and return 19 years later.

[00:13:21] I was undocumented for 10 years.

[00:13:23] I tell that story and imagine freedom.

[00:13:26] And I knew my pathway out of that story of suffering and pain was education.

[00:13:31] That's all I had, right?

[00:13:33] All I had was my mind.

[00:13:35] And that was going to be the pathway out of DC when it was during the crack up epidemic.

[00:13:42] You know, that was going to be my pathway out of everything I was seeing and everything

[00:13:45] I was experiencing in the pain that I was living through.

[00:13:47] So I went on to all these great schools and I moved to the continent post-Fergus in

[00:13:53] a Palestine and had to unlearn everything I learned in those schools.

[00:13:59] And what you have in this book is the journey of my unlearning, everything that I learned

[00:14:06] in some ways as Stanford and Yale because you can absorb years and years of institutional

[00:14:11] learning and it does nothing for the liberation of your people, right?

[00:14:15] They didn't train me to be a revolutionary.

[00:14:18] They trained me to be a conformist.

[00:14:20] They trained me to be a reformer.

[00:14:21] They trained me to be safe.

[00:14:23] But it's also based upon how they are framing history.

[00:14:28] I mean, the reason, I mean, long before the 1619 project, Laurent Bennett and others were

[00:14:33] doing this sort of stuff in the Liberty magazine in jet long before.

[00:14:37] So what you now find is we are literally what the plantation owners never desired.

[00:14:45] That is the ability to read.

[00:14:48] And so what's happening now is now the reason they're so mad is because we are now redefining

[00:14:53] what that history has been.

[00:14:55] March 1st just the other day was a Texas Independence Day and all these people were sitting here

[00:14:59] posting, hey, happy Texas Independence Day.

[00:15:01] I was like, not for black people because the Alamo was about slavery.

[00:15:05] Because Mexico wanted to abolish slavery and the white settlers in Texas is like, no,

[00:15:09] we need to keep slavery.

[00:15:10] And so, and I was posting that on social media and folks are like, man, why are you doing

[00:15:15] this?

[00:15:16] I said because this is not a day we celebrate.

[00:15:18] And so when we, so when you understand history and not his story, it completely changes

[00:15:25] your worldview.

[00:15:26] Well, my good friend Mark Lamont Hill did an interview where he says one person's terrorist

[00:15:34] is another person's freedom fighter.

[00:15:37] And that's facts.

[00:15:38] There was a time in which Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.

[00:15:42] There was a time in which the people we celebrate today were American terrorists.

[00:15:46] I mean, there's still people on that FBI list.

[00:15:49] I got my own FBI file.

[00:15:51] So there are ways in which one person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.

[00:15:57] Our brother is here.

[00:16:00] My brother fought in a liberation front for our country.

[00:16:04] So I talk about in the book, you know, it's in my DNA.

[00:16:07] I believe when you are an era tree and when you are African, it's not just survival but

[00:16:13] it's also resistance.

[00:16:15] You are resisting the very presence of enemy occupation.

[00:16:19] And it's understanding if you are African and then when you come here and then you have

[00:16:28] this collision with African Americans, what African Americans need to understand and

[00:16:33] what African needs to understand is both of us have been provided a perspective or one

[00:16:39] another that's been the due to the prism of white folks.

[00:16:42] And I talk about this which creates a schism even today.

[00:16:47] So part of the reason I wrote Imagine Freedom is to help black Americans and Africans fall

[00:16:52] in love with one another.

[00:16:55] Because I think that we have this voyeuristic relationship with one another where we look

[00:17:01] upon each other from a distance culturally, right?

[00:17:03] I talk about how now you got a generation of black millennials embracing Afrobeat, right?

[00:17:10] And you have a generation of Africans embracing hip hop.

[00:17:13] So our exchange is cultural.

[00:17:15] I mean, it's hair, it's clothes and it's consumerism.

[00:17:20] But you also have though, you also have among the same generation of folks who are operating

[00:17:27] from foundational black Americans to hell with these folks who are African from other countries.

[00:17:32] This battle over immigration and there's this thing for a lot of these folks and I'm dealing

[00:17:38] with them all the time.

[00:17:39] Then calling me, oh you're a tether baby.

[00:17:41] I'm like, first of all, I'm from Houston, my mom and dad are from Houston, born and raised.

[00:17:45] My grandparents, born and raised Louisiana.

[00:17:46] Oh, but y'all talking about my great, great grandparents who came from Haiti.

[00:17:50] And I'm like, I got three other grandparents what y'all talking about.

[00:17:53] But there's this, there literally is this hatred now if you came from other countries and

[00:18:01] I'm trying to explain these people 10% of African American population right now are black

[00:18:06] immigrants.

[00:18:07] I'm like the fastest growing population are black immigrants.

[00:18:13] And so we have a lot of our people who are seeing the same language as whites when it comes

[00:18:17] to immigration.

[00:18:18] Well, I think how we can all speak of one language, I would say we stop understanding ourselves

[00:18:24] as immigrants, we understand ourselves as exiles, exiles, exiles.

[00:18:29] So the book, Imagine Freedom takes you on a freedom journey that the children of Israel

[00:18:34] went through where they went from Egypt, which was slavery, a site of trauma.

[00:18:39] They went to the wilderness, which I call a site of resistance and ultimately you want

[00:18:44] to end up at the Promised Land.

[00:18:45] And when you look at African Americans, this 400 years of subjugation sounds very similar

[00:18:51] to 400 years of the children of Israel journeying through Egypt and trauma, right?

[00:18:57] And they speak of being in Babylon singing the Lord's song in a foreign land.

[00:19:04] How will we understand the Lord's song in this strange foreign land?

[00:19:10] Is that not America?

[00:19:12] Is that not America?

[00:19:13] Millions, millions of black people who don't know where they come from, don't know where

[00:19:16] they originate from and are sitting here trying to understand how do we hear the voice

[00:19:21] of God in this strange land?

[00:19:24] Because this is not our native language, this is not our native values.

[00:19:27] This is not indigenous to us, it is not ancestral to us.

[00:19:31] And a matter of fact the people it is indigenous to, they wipe them off the face of the earth.

[00:19:37] Literally exterminated indigenous people on this land the same way that they're trying

[00:19:41] to exterminate Palestinians from Gaza Strip, right?

[00:19:47] So we live on a settler colonial land.

[00:19:49] We live under an apartheid regime.

[00:19:52] But yet we are so comfortable being American these days.

[00:19:55] How do you become comfortable with the land designed for your destruction?

[00:19:59] I don't understand that.

[00:20:02] I want to go back to what you said falling in love.

[00:20:05] 2019, I'm in Ghana for 10 days of the year of return.

[00:20:09] And I'm posting a lot of different stuff and it was stunning to see the post of different

[00:20:18] people on Instagram and Twitter who were amazed at what they had in the country.

[00:20:26] And so for African Americans who believe that it's all huts, and again, the reality is

[00:20:37] you talk about this in terms of the role that media plays.

[00:20:42] I think a lot of us really don't understand, first of all it's called mass media for

[00:20:46] reason that again, how media has defined Africans flies around the kids in a hungry and broke African

[00:20:57] Americans see that think that but the same thing American media is exported across the world.

[00:21:05] So if you're African, oh, all I see are thugs, drug dealers, prostitutes, and broke folk

[00:21:12] and both of us have to understand that we're being fed the exact same thing just in different

[00:21:19] parts of the world.

[00:21:21] There's an entire chapter about media as an arm of white supremacy.

[00:21:27] And I am a product of media, I am here because of media.

[00:21:33] My mentor is a media are here, Denise Rolark Barnes who made me editor in chief of the

[00:21:39] Washington informer when I was 23 years old and Roland who I used to call Roland and say,

[00:21:45] hey, I want to write a book.

[00:21:47] You know, what are and he literally schooled me?

[00:21:48] And I mean this was 10, 12 years ago, schooled me on everything.

[00:21:52] This is what you need to do.

[00:21:53] I recommend you self publish because they're going to take all your money.

[00:21:56] And so why are you going to give them all your money?

[00:21:58] I mean, you know, I still believe that.

[00:22:01] I didn't listen to that.

[00:22:03] When I said when I said a book in the back, I wanted to go right into my account.

[00:22:08] I mean, split nothing.

[00:22:11] When you have a million followers like Roland does, you can do that, right?

[00:22:15] So let's let's you know, let's just be a little honest.

[00:22:18] I got four million.

[00:22:20] Am I bad?

[00:22:21] I'm just saying.

[00:22:22] No, he said he is.

[00:22:23] No, in media you have the correct thing.

[00:22:26] So we're coming like that.

[00:22:30] Okay.

[00:22:31] Okay.

[00:22:32] But I will say this.

[00:22:34] I think it's important to say that when I was living my life, I didn't understand the

[00:22:42] different parts of my life.

[00:22:43] I didn't understand these parts of me that felt very divided.

[00:22:47] The part of me that was doing youth advocacy and organizing shot out to Reverend Motley,

[00:22:52] you know, one of my first organizing mentors in Washington, DC.

[00:22:56] I read an article about him when I was at Stanford.

[00:23:00] The article was about how he was in the Alley's of DC getting drug dealers out of the Alley's

[00:23:06] and helping them flush drugs down the toilet.

[00:23:10] I read that at Stanford and I said when I go home, I'm going to find that man.

[00:23:15] And he became my first organizing mentor.

[00:23:17] And at that time, I didn't know that he was also one of my first mentors in ministry.

[00:23:21] But again, power of media.

[00:23:23] You don't know about him unless you see the story.

[00:23:26] It was the watch of the post which I ended up being a columnist for.

[00:23:29] So full circle moment, I guess what I'm saying is that there were all these things about

[00:23:34] me that felt divided which is why I created Urban Cuts because I loved me some Jay-Z.

[00:23:39] I did.

[00:23:40] I still do.

[00:23:41] Okay.

[00:23:42] I love to.

[00:23:43] I will critique Jay-Z one breath and be banging his music in the second, right?

[00:23:46] And so I had to find a place in the world that reflected the tensions I hold in my body.

[00:23:53] Right?

[00:23:54] The tensions of loving Jesus and Tupac, right?

[00:23:56] The tensions of loving, of hip hop and still being a product of liberation theology.

[00:24:01] Right?

[00:24:02] Being pan-African but still being hood.

[00:24:04] Whatever you want to call it, I house all those tensions and media was a way to reflect

[00:24:11] that in the world.

[00:24:12] What I will say that y'all may not know how I truly came into media and launched Urban Cuts

[00:24:18] was because I was an organizer in DC and my job was to keep young black people in this

[00:24:24] city alive.

[00:24:25] To keep them from killing each other and to keep them from going to jail.

[00:24:30] And every day we were failing.

[00:24:32] It was, you know, Eric is here who was my co-organizer and laborer.

[00:24:37] Our lives were the wire.

[00:24:38] And so it got to a point where I said, you know what?

[00:24:41] We can't witness why because culture is what's controlling them.

[00:24:45] Culture.

[00:24:46] They were so enslaved to culture.

[00:24:49] One time they killed each other over these costume bracelets.

[00:24:54] You know, because there are notions of masculinity that were driving them because they grow up

[00:24:58] on scar face.

[00:24:59] They grow up on these rappers who act like they're still in the hood but are on yachts and

[00:25:05] mansions, right?

[00:25:06] So culture I realize is the only way to transform the thinking of a generation which is what led

[00:25:11] me to Urban Cuts.

[00:25:13] So and I'm going to come back to the concept of I love when people talk about doing it for

[00:25:18] the culture but I always keep saying but who owns the culture.

[00:25:21] But I'm going to come back to that.

[00:25:23] But I want to stay on media because I don't want anybody to miss it.

[00:25:26] So you said, I wrote for the Washington Post but I created Urban Cuts.

[00:25:33] Now check this out.

[00:25:34] I created Urban Cuts first.

[00:25:37] Washington Post wanted me because of Urban Cuts.

[00:25:40] Right.

[00:25:41] So that's an important point.

[00:25:42] Right.

[00:25:43] And so because I go back to Freedom's Journal of the First Black newspaper and the third

[00:25:46] paragraph they wrote, we wish to plead our own cause to long of us spoken for us.

[00:25:51] And so what we have to understand is if you're not owning it, now you can't direct it.

[00:25:59] You can't control the narrative.

[00:26:01] But what happens is a lot of us, we are so we live by white validation.

[00:26:07] So we believe that over I was writing in the post and that's more important than not realizing

[00:26:15] you're asking permission over there when you own it.

[00:26:19] You don't have to ask anybody permission.

[00:26:21] I mean, it's a powerful point.

[00:26:23] I have the privilege of being raised by people who knew how to survive without having

[00:26:30] anything.

[00:26:31] So there is that survival instinct that we have that translates to things like media, right?

[00:26:35] Literally people who just learn how to make a way out of no way.

[00:26:38] So in the book I talk about and this is relevant.

[00:26:42] Imagination in our present day conception is in the hands of billionaires.

[00:26:46] We think that Mark Zuckerberg owns imagination.

[00:26:49] We think that Elon Musk, these white men have colonized imagination.

[00:26:55] But where does real ingenuity come from?

[00:26:58] Where does real genius and creativity, first of all it does, I mean there are things

[00:27:02] that come out of Africa you won't find anywhere else in the world.

[00:27:05] And you go to the Middle East, you go to the Caribbean, you find any inch of soul and

[00:27:10] you find imagination.

[00:27:11] But we live in America where they tell us that the greatest minds that have ever lived

[00:27:16] have been white men and we worship their products and what they created by eye.

[00:27:20] But we would not while we're praising Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and what they own, but then

[00:27:27] when it Isaac Hayes the third creates fan base, then we go yeah but it has this problem

[00:27:33] of that problem of that problem of that problem of that problem and I'm like yeah but so did

[00:27:36] Facebook and Twitter but they had hundreds of millions of dollars to hire engineers to

[00:27:40] fix all those problems.

[00:27:42] So what we'll do is we will demand so much more from a black people, our own people and

[00:27:49] we'll accept and they built it for far less but then over here we will gladly make

[00:27:57] them billionaires.

[00:27:59] Clubhouse went from creation to a $4 billion valuation in nine months based on black people.

[00:28:09] But the same black people who were on clubhouse were crappin' on Isaac Hayes the third when

[00:28:14] he created fan base and he said I got audio rooms too.

[00:28:18] But so that's a part of what you write about that's here that we literally are still being

[00:28:23] imprisoned by white validation and believing that whatever we have is less than in second

[00:28:29] then.

[00:28:30] I mean we're taking our cues from white folks, let's just be real right?

[00:28:33] And what I mean by that is when we speak of even black excellence, I've been trying to

[00:28:39] lead this generational shift towards reimagining what black excellence means and I have to say

[00:28:44] that it's actually it went viral and I had to sit with the fact why did this post goal

[00:28:48] viral and goal viral over and when I say viral, the video that Amanda Seals did and I responded

[00:28:54] to between the two of us had 1.3 million views right?

[00:28:58] So why do 1.3 million people find resonance in this point about black excellence because

[00:29:05] black excellence today is defined by luxury not liberation.

[00:29:11] It's defined by opulence and when I wrote the post, I wrote it and I'm gonna keep it

[00:29:17] all the way real, it was rock nation and you had all these black celebrities, black men

[00:29:24] toasting to black excellence.

[00:29:25] At the annual Grammys luncheon.

[00:29:28] Annual Grammys luncheon and I remember seeing that and literally wrote can I get something

[00:29:33] off my chest right?

[00:29:35] When did this become black excellence?

[00:29:37] First of all it's rooted in exclusion.

[00:29:40] You need an invitation right?

[00:29:43] What has anything for our people been based on exclusion and invitation?

[00:29:48] We have a open seat, we have a table that everyone is welcome to and so when I say we take

[00:29:53] our cues from white folks, we've learned exclusion from them.

[00:29:57] We've learned isolation alienation from them.

[00:30:01] We literally divide ourselves and figure out who can come to the party and who cannot

[00:30:05] right?

[00:30:06] Now somebody who's sitting out here, so there is an actual living example of that that's

[00:30:13] actually in Africa.

[00:30:16] When the freed and formerly enslaved people African descent were sent to Liberia.

[00:30:25] When the group that sent them was very interesting, there's two groups.

[00:30:28] The folks who wanted us to leave and it was abolitionists, they actually were in the same

[00:30:32] group.

[00:30:33] But here's what was interesting.

[00:30:35] When they are sent to Liberia, they literally instituted the exact same practices of white

[00:30:47] racist when they got to Liberia because one, that's all they knew.

[00:30:53] They didn't re-emathe, they didn't say, oh wait a minute, we're free and now the indigenous

[00:30:57] folks are here.

[00:30:58] No, they instituted the exact same system clothing and everything.

[00:31:05] And that is really what led to the Civil War in Liberia in 1980, the last 15 years.

[00:31:11] I got to take us to church.

[00:31:12] So past Mike Warren, first Corinthian Baptist church in Harlem gave this amazing speech

[00:31:18] at Morehouse where he said that it took 40 years to get the children of Israel out of

[00:31:30] the wilderness because that's how long it took to get their mindset, their captivity,

[00:31:40] their ways of being, their latching onto Pharaoh essentially is what we're talking about.

[00:31:47] And God was literally dropping mana from the heavens, giving them daily bread, feeding

[00:31:51] them, caring for them, saying don't hoard.

[00:31:54] I got you.

[00:31:55] And they were still complaining.

[00:31:56] And they were looking back to Pharaoh but Pharaoh had the big house.

[00:32:02] But Pharaoh had the wonderful meat.

[00:32:04] I mean, they were longing for oppression because it was familiar and luxurious.

[00:32:12] I would rather freedom and poverty than luxury and oppression.

[00:32:17] Right?

[00:32:18] So one thing I will say is that the continent in some ways caused a death of the immigrant

[00:32:25] I was because many of you know the former Rahel.

[00:32:29] And there is before and after.

[00:32:31] And part of that former Rahel was I was so driven by the American dream.

[00:32:34] I didn't call it the American dream.

[00:32:36] I called it achievement, education success, whatever name you give it we call it black

[00:32:40] excellence.

[00:32:42] But what it is is I want to weigh out and our obsession and pursuit of the way out so much

[00:32:48] show that we don't realize we're chasing America.

[00:32:50] Right.

[00:32:51] We're chasing America and everything that America has.

[00:32:53] So I go to the continent and literally I am reborn.

[00:32:58] And if I could show you the videos and the experiences of being with freedom fighters, when

[00:33:03] I say freedom fighters, I'm talking about being in a prison of a mentor who when he landed

[00:33:08] in his country, the state was waiting for him.

[00:33:11] Literally stepped foot into airport and they took him off.

[00:33:15] And the next time we saw him it was visiting him in prison.

[00:33:18] Those kind of freedom fighters right where there are very existence on that soil is a threat

[00:33:22] to the state.

[00:33:23] That's a very different type of freedom fighting right than the ones that we have where

[00:33:28] it's luxurious and glamorous.

[00:33:29] Right.

[00:33:30] So my point is this had to evolve from being a reformer and explore what it meant to be

[00:33:36] a revolutionary.

[00:33:38] And on the continent of Africa revolutionaries all died right and so you know we have this

[00:33:44] glamorized idea of activism and there are ways in which my life has been rolling those

[00:33:50] you know you show up you're in these nice big cars people are feeding you and loving

[00:33:55] you and it's glamorous and you get seduced and you want to be a celebrity and you want

[00:33:59] to make the money and you want to get the bigger speaking engagement and I go to the continent

[00:34:03] and I realize that girl has to die because she's no good to her people.

[00:34:09] She's no good to her people.

[00:34:10] Right.

[00:34:11] Was it as you were talking because really what you lay out here John Hope, Brian Operation

[00:34:17] Hope he often says black America needs a reboot.

[00:34:22] I've always said black America needs to be completely reprogrammed so when you were talking

[00:34:27] about those 40 years that's really what this requires a complete reprogramming.

[00:34:33] I remember on the night of the election 2008 I'm standing there and by this time I'm

[00:34:44] at the top of the food chain at CNN so they're like don't know we need you.

[00:34:48] We black everybody in black people know you sitting on the set.

[00:34:52] So I tell I tell the bureau chief I said hey three times tonight I need to step away because

[00:34:59] I got to go do TV one he goes excuse me.

[00:35:01] I said yeah I can't anchor TV ones coverage tonight because I'm here but I need to step

[00:35:07] away three different times to go do TV one.

[00:35:10] He goes I'm sorry we are on in 200 countries tonight.

[00:35:17] I said oh I know but they paid me before you did.

[00:35:27] I'm going to do TV one three times tonight so y'all figure out the three times I'm doing

[00:35:33] it now with a lot of black people black people will stop me around the country they'll

[00:35:38] be like oh I love you on CNN but I always remind them but they didn't paid me first for

[00:35:42] my voice and when they signed me they literally asked me 2009 John Klein and I had lunch

[00:35:51] and he asked me he said when you gonna be done with all this TV one and Tom Jonah and

[00:35:56] I say well when you gonna give me a five day a week show and we are negotiating that.

[00:36:01] I said then I might consider it he gets fired in 2010 my contract doesn't get renewed

[00:36:08] in 2013 and when did it get renewed I was still with Tom Jonah still with TV one still

[00:36:13] to my own books and speeches so what I kept trying to explain the black people is I never

[00:36:20] left my black on media because it was CNN so as you were talking in many ways that's

[00:36:30] actually what we do when you talk about activists we talk about and live in the high life we

[00:36:36] go oh don't know now I'm over here not realizing you might be a so-called celebrity activist

[00:36:42] but can you still walk in black neighborhoods without security and so that's a that

[00:36:50] so that requires a completely different mindset that even when you are on stages and being

[00:36:56] fed it by president or senators you still realize you still are brother or sister who you

[00:37:03] got to steal talk to regular ordinary folk.

[00:37:06] I will you know I mean when I look at this room I see people I have mentored and I see

[00:37:13] people I've been mentored by and so I think when I listen to what you're saying a lot of

[00:37:20] us don't move in humility you know I mean we want to we want to jump to the stage we want

[00:37:27] to jump to the moment when you're on stage with Roland Martin the right Roland Martin is in

[00:37:31] conversation with you we want to jump to the book we want to jump to the sold out book launch

[00:37:36] and DC right but don't want to talk about the 20 years it took to get there right right 20 years

[00:37:42] that it took to get there when you had 30 followers.

[00:37:44] You know your name right one thing I will say by myself I studied under people I learned

[00:37:51] I I was in the church basements I literally watched and listened I learned how to pray watching

[00:37:57] prayer warriors you know I learned how to speak watching Mark Lamont Hill on every person

[00:38:03] you see me with mentored me in their own capacity right.

[00:38:07] I learned how to be a journalist through Bacari Katswana I could go down the list but you

[00:38:11] know what that was that was humility it was knowledge that I was not ready it was knowledge

[00:38:16] that I was not ready and I had to sit under those who were to get to a place where they

[00:38:22] could see me as an equal and sit on the stage with me and talk to me like an equal Roland

[00:38:28] used to have me on his show and I let I hope nobody ever finds those videos.

[00:38:32] I got all the videos no baby I kept all the videos I have all the videos oh my god they're

[00:38:40] embarrassing oh I was scared they're not embarrassing no they're not in there no no no no no no

[00:38:47] no no no no no they're not embarrassing no no no because first of all first of all were

[00:38:57] you on multiple times you can't bring in me back no no no no so now I'm not getting my

[00:39:03] makeup done because I used to go to Roland studio and DC and they would sit me in the

[00:39:08] little and I was like oh this would have feel like to get your makeup done yes yeah it was

[00:39:13] a black makeup artist it was a black makeup for a reason yeah but but here's what I'm saying

[00:39:18] there were multiple videos yeah and the reason they're multiple videos is I understand that

[00:39:28] just what you said we all didn't arrive at a certain spot right and so every move that I made

[00:39:36] every move and people have no idea every move wasn't intentional move yeah every move no one

[00:39:43] no one sat on that show that I didn't approve right and if I didn't want them they never came back

[00:39:49] right so I would people will be on the panel and if they were not strong my deal would be all right

[00:39:57] pull folks aside teach teach teach teach yeah this year this year this year yeah now some

[00:40:02] folk did listen yep they don't have multiple videos yeah but the point but but but but but

[00:40:10] the point not now but but but but I need because I need people to understand why I'm saying it's

[00:40:15] intentional because if you make that move because I knew how white media operated so I knew

[00:40:25] how white media only put a few people in yeah so what happened was I kept putting so many people on

[00:40:34] teaching making them better then all of a sudden they started appearing other places

[00:40:39] I knew they were watching but you know what you created a space right that then allowed

[00:40:45] because well ultimately I was able to create I mean there are people in here who wrote for urban

[00:40:50] because I mean you know there's a way in which I talk about cooperative economics and cooperative

[00:40:55] economics not just that we share resources but we share our platforms yeah I mean we we share

[00:41:01] everything we have we share our brilliance our resources and that's how these moments are created

[00:41:06] but that's why I mean by being the Titch and there you go there you go but one thing I will say is this

[00:41:11] you know I'm gonna go find videos too no when I get home I'm gonna go to all of I got some CD

[00:41:17] wrong don't worry oh I mean I got it four years of them but I will say this imagine freedom is

[00:41:23] rooted in the knowledge that God is inherently for the poor and the press I learned that in seminary

[00:41:32] but before I learned it in seminary I learned it in Darfur Sudan where there was a little boy

[00:41:37] who was in this camp with nothing literally nothing literally a sheep as his home and he's just

[00:41:44] smiling and happy and I'm like why are you so happy little boy and he says because I know Jesus

[00:41:49] loves me so if I don't say anything else to you before this time runs out there's something to

[00:41:56] a little African girl who could not speak English who was born in a war torn country and came here

[00:42:01] poor and didn't have her father and family was divided all over the country and generations of

[00:42:06] refugees and political asylum and no money no way to get into Stanford and being told you might

[00:42:12] get in but we can't pay for you to be in there and every step of the way the resources not being

[00:42:17] there the knowledge not being there my peers knowing things because they went to private school and I

[00:42:21] went to public school every step of the way I should have been destined to fail but God

[00:42:28] but God had a plan and this is not my story this is not my plan this is not my celebration

[00:42:36] but it's the idea that if God is for you who can be against you that literally

[00:42:44] demonic enemies will rise up against you white supremacist enemies will rise up against you your

[00:42:50] family will rise up against you your friends will rise up against you but if God is for you

[00:42:55] can't nothing be against you you earlier you said earlier you said we've done a whole lot with a

[00:43:05] little but there comes a point when that then becomes our state of mind so you talk about trauma

[00:43:14] you talk about pain how do we get folk today let's go back to the root reprogramming to stop

[00:43:22] thinking surviving but thriving

[00:43:29] I think question I think question that was okay I mean we you know Dr. Dyson knew if he couldn't

[00:43:34] make it who else but rolling do you call right I mean couple and literally I called him and I

[00:43:38] said you ready you need anything for me he's like you know I got this right so I can see your whole

[00:43:43] kid I'm saying you can send it but I need it right I don't need it so I was I would say this you

[00:43:51] know I want you to fundamentally understand what imagine freedom is imagine freedom is a

[00:43:56] journey it is not a book it is a journey and I promise you it's going to become a movement take

[00:44:00] my word right here right now because I believe our generation needs imagination to survive the

[00:44:06] times that we're living through you got to see beyond this when we talk about African ancestors

[00:44:11] living in traumatization hunger starvation no intimacy no love no family nothing just utter

[00:44:18] depravity and they have to see themselves out of that how did they do it one looking back to Africa

[00:44:24] okay they look to the past because it was remnants of what freedom tasted like look like felt like

[00:44:31] they literally so remembrance as resistance what do you have to remember to survive right you

[00:44:39] there are things that you cannot allow the oppressor to make you forget and some of it is the

[00:44:45] basics of life remember love remember fellowship remember intimacy remember laughter remember joy

[00:44:52] remember being with the elders because they won't be here for too long remember the basics of life

[00:44:57] right that is how remembrance becomes resistance and in the presence in the presence you think about

[00:45:04] what do I need to learn what do I need to be who do I need in my life you literally craft the life

[00:45:09] rooted in change and liberation where everybody around you thinks like you in a way in which they

[00:45:16] are moving closer and closer to liberation with you you can't bring everybody with you where guys

[00:45:20] trying to take you and a lot of us are left behind because we're trying to take everybody with us

[00:45:25] some people cannot go I say that to you today some people cannot go you got to leave some people behind

[00:45:32] and lastly the future I mean I talk about this black Eden and what I what I'm saying is that we can

[00:45:38] reclaim the garden of Eden because black people have never really known paradise wouldn't have

[00:45:43] black people ever known paradise wouldn't have Africans known paradise wouldn't have any indigenous

[00:45:48] people ever known paradise and why we don't know paradise is because as long as white supremacy lives

[00:45:54] as long as capitalism lives as long as the America and the Britain and the Italy and the France that

[00:45:59] we know lives we can't have paradise but we can cultivate a paradise within ourselves within our homes

[00:46:07] within our community that they can't touch and that and this is if we end here I'm good with it

[00:46:13] that's what you see in Palestine you see your people so deeply rooted in who they are so deeply

[00:46:20] rooted in their own sense of God and eternity and paradise and honeness and love for community

[00:46:28] literally dying starving bleeding but giving all they got because they not looking to the oppressor

[00:46:36] they looking to that paradise within and if black folks if black folks could find that paradise

[00:46:44] within and stop looking forward in the external world and you're to do this and your resume

[00:46:51] and your 401k in your graduate programs in whatever in your sorority your fraternity whatever it is

[00:47:02] that we have given ourselves that I got it all but I but I've come to a place where I realize

[00:47:10] when we leave this world when we're dying we leave naked just the way we came naked you come naked

[00:47:17] you leave does she come does she return so when you die what you taking with you what you taking

[00:47:24] with you but your legacy one thing I know when I leave this world there will be people I don't care

[00:47:29] if it's 10 or 400 they will say she pray for me she fed me she gave me money she meant toward me

[00:47:36] she loved me that will be my legacy

[00:47:44] last question I asked this question of all authors that I interview what as you were writing it

[00:47:51] as you were researching it what was your wild moment that moment where you went

[00:47:58] wow either there was a thought over something that you had and you had and you had confronted for

[00:48:05] years was there a wild moment for you that caused you to step back and say okay I'm gonna need to

[00:48:12] take a take a walk take a breather well maybe that's the perfect way to end you know um

[00:48:19] I am grieving

[00:48:28] the first the first sentence of this book is that it's between a birth of my daughter

[00:48:37] and the death of all my major arts

[00:48:40] so my wild moment is I'm now a matriarch

[00:48:53] there's nothing like that when the matriarchs are gone

[00:49:01] and you're all left and you got to take what they taught you

[00:49:08] what you saw them do how you saw them survive

[00:49:15] how you saw them literally carry the world on their shoulders

[00:49:20] you got to take everything you watch those women do and I if I'm blessed for anything I'm blessed

[00:49:26] for those women four of them different stories different ways they played out in my life

[00:49:33] but I am a product of them I I wear my hair the way I do because of them

[00:49:38] I am all the way black because of them I'm all the way African because of them so one thing

[00:49:43] my wild moment and I had it yesterday too is I love black women period right because when I think

[00:49:52] about it whenever I reflect on it it is black women that have made me who I am not just them but now

[00:49:59] it's the black women creating my websites is the black women who are my publicists

[00:50:04] it's the black women who are carrying my books in my bags it is black women who have loved me

[00:50:09] endlessly and I say to the black men if you want to build a better black America you love us

[00:50:16] fiercely there's no better gift you can give us than to love us fiercely you do that you have

[00:50:25] blessed our children and future generations that is my wild moment imagine freedom transforming

[00:50:36] pain into political and spiritual power put your hands together for our hell test them area

[00:50:42] yes

[00:51:03] okay okay I see you I see you we did it you did it you did it

[00:51:09] we did it yes yes yes thank you what I want to do also at this point is open it up for questions so

[00:51:19] what I'm going to do is stand on this side if you have a question we want to open up the floor for maybe

[00:51:23] 15 20 minutes for questions if you have one join me on this side here and we'll keep it going for

[00:51:28] a little bit longer come on don't be shy we don't have a lot of scurrying but first we got

[00:51:35] ground rules you don't need to touch the microphone tell them she got it keep your hands in your pocket

[00:51:42] if you touch the microphone she's authorized to smack your damn hand that's right come on come on come on

[00:51:48] come on what we got what we got we got a gentleman right here I usually I do hold the mic I do I don't want

[00:51:54] yeah thank you so much I have been truly blessed tonight and I had to be here you know that

[00:52:08] I know it so Roland Martin says something that has prick my imagination

[00:52:18] so we're going to do a movie you know what when I keep saying urban cuz I forget which baby I'm on but

[00:52:28] anyway when imagine freedom release on the same day well actually not even when I announced imagine

[00:52:37] freedom I got an email from a company requesting movie rights so a lot of times you know you have your

[00:52:45] vision and God has God's vision so I don't know where God's gonna because I didn't know where God

[00:52:50] was gonna take urban cuz I didn't know where God was gonna take not one dime not anything that

[00:52:53] ever did so I can't wait to see where God takes imagine freedom yes Fred so I just want to say

[00:52:59] and this is I'm honored you know you all she was my intern and she was a student at Stanford but

[00:53:10] she was coming back to DC doing some stuff and I thank God Denise is here in Lafayette here

[00:53:19] and all of us we embraced you in Southeast DC and so we are part of you forever forever

[00:53:27] and you know that I know that and I saw all of our Southeast friends are here too we love y'all

[00:53:34] thank you

[00:53:38] I thought Tiana's answer next question anybody I'm gonna

[00:53:43] come on this side of room y'all can ask questions I must say to you that I am thoroughly enriched

[00:53:52] by this conversation this afternoon being a former educator and now a clinical psychologist

[00:53:58] I engender various forms of pain and hurt that are generational how do we as a people

[00:54:12] teach this instructionary lesson that you have given us this afternoon

[00:54:21] I mean I was contacted by a young woman who you know lost her mother and said she opened up

[00:54:26] the book and it was on the page where I talk about losing my mother and she said you know

[00:54:32] are you gonna mentor us how what can happen like how she said I'll be the first to sign up please

[00:54:39] and I said well you know the first thing I could ever do to mentor you is that you sit with

[00:54:44] that book and I say that because I literally poured everything I learned from my elders my mentors

[00:54:51] from the continent from Ferguson from Palestine from Haiti from every single inch of the world

[00:54:55] that I've been to an organized and did humanitarian work I poured it into that book so this is my

[00:55:01] start my start is allow this book to because I remember being at Yale and I work with Dean George who

[00:55:09] was the dean over the FM Center and she said to me she sent me one day she said you're gonna

[00:55:14] write down all these pieces of your life and one day create a manual and I looked up and I had it

[00:55:21] you know I had it so I'm not asking for replication duplication I'm not asking for follow I'm

[00:55:27] not asking for anything but I wish I had this book when I was at age when I was 20 and 30 and

[00:55:32] trying to understand liberation and guidance on on Jesus and justice and all these things I didn't

[00:55:38] I put into there what I wish I had and even just the survival strategies I learned along the way

[00:55:45] you know or how I crafted the media that went viral and got people like Roland and Washington

[00:55:50] Post and every single inch of it is there because I'm not hoarding and if I have anything to offer

[00:55:56] is that we must stop hoarding our add this to it we have to we have to read we have to redefine

[00:56:05] how we are utilizing our social media so you have to first assess what am I posting without realizing

[00:56:14] that people are paying attention this morning literally a sister DM me saying thank you for this

[00:56:21] I'm like what's she talking about well there is a everyday is Juneteat at least what they call

[00:56:26] a social media they reposted my interview with the white supremacist Richard Spencer that was 10

[00:56:33] years ago now understand when I interviewed him the Washington Post the New York Times had done

[00:56:40] these profiles on him that I felt was making it seem he was way too it was too friendly and I said

[00:56:47] no we got to I said we got to take this white boy down so that was the purpose of the interview

[00:56:52] but the point is they are reposting stuff as 18 years ago so a lot of us are posting things not

[00:57:00] thinking about there's somebody who's actually reading it so part of the way to do that is now

[00:57:07] rethink what you post what you're pushing and then that causes people I think also think differently

[00:57:12] that's one way of doing let me do this real quick because I've been a moderator many times in my life

[00:57:21] to get through this and make sure I get through all your questions let's get all the questions

[00:57:25] I won't forget them that way we'll make sure we get every question go ahead you name some very big

[00:57:32] things and constructs like capitalism and white supremacy what are some practical ways because

[00:57:39] you also talked about remembering but we have a generation who they don't have anything to remember

[00:57:45] they don't have that paradise that you talked about inside of them so how would you recall or

[00:57:51] reprogram them or advise because they don't have that core okay no question oh my goodness

[00:58:04] what's happening right here my god it's amazing to see you so proud and pleased to have seen your

[00:58:12] journey from our time back at the YWCA and I have a 20-year-old daughter now to solve more in North

[00:58:23] Carolina and T she chose to spend her spring break in Miami but I wanted her to be here with me

[00:58:33] but part of the reason why I wanted her to be here with me because every time I followed you and

[00:58:39] paid attention to what you've written and to listen to what you've said I definitely know that

[00:58:46] you carry the spirit of the essence of a true black woman and what I've seen from you

[00:58:53] I want to definitely make sure that she sees you she reads your book and she understands your journey

[00:58:59] because uh you know my struggle was rough but hearing yours is something special thank you thank you

[00:59:05] so much so good to see you after like 20 years hey now now you know dog on well

[00:59:13] and you know dog on well that that that liberty youth group you just threw up

[00:59:18] now you know how for your dad is so take a seat go here to question go see don't

[00:59:23] install that little fly away move away hello my sister so good to see you so good to see you so far

[00:59:30] from Ferguson no anacostia DC come on now hey um you I really appreciate how you your integration of

[00:59:40] activism faith and all the things we know that the faith landscaping the landscape has deeply changed

[00:59:46] right there are folk who have left our institutions with good reason how what is the message for

[00:59:54] those of us who still lead in the institutions how that we as opposed to being oppositional

[01:00:01] as we so often are getting the attitude because folk ain't doing us what is the message that we

[01:00:09] might curate spaces that help folks to imagine freedom while still holding on to a faith context thank you

[01:00:18] hey sis um hey keep my god you know Tiffany and I love you um 25 years ago when you were my array

[01:00:30] at Princeton University um my whole life in this room oh one of the things I think was

[01:00:37] transformer you mentioned the rebirth in Africa and I think one of the most transformative aspects

[01:00:41] uh for you was becoming a wife and a mother and just um I know you've sprinkled pieces of that

[01:00:47] but if you could touch on that piece too as well thank you okay sis you got this yeah paradise

[01:00:56] faith in the context of institutions mother go ahead hello um I'm glad that Natasha invited me

[01:01:04] I'm never senior and social media or anything but something that I've been grappling with um

[01:01:11] is I have a 14 year old 16 year old um you know many years ago I said oh I want to live in Howard

[01:01:18] County because you know I want them to go to these particular schools so currently I'm grappling with

[01:01:24] you know having you know growing up like oh no I'm not going to HBC I'm gonna go P.W.I. and I'm

[01:01:30] gonna do this and it's like over time you kind of see in yourself like the thousand cuts right

[01:01:37] in terms of grappling with you know how do we cultivate education for our children that maybe

[01:01:44] potentially can delay those cuts right you know that's something that you know now that my

[01:01:49] daughter is talking about HBCU I'm like well maybe it's better for her to be in an environment

[01:01:54] that delays those cuts right so how do you see us I know you said transforming us through culture

[01:02:00] but how do you see in terms of us developing an educational system that allows our children to

[01:02:07] actually be taught true history and also like embracing um because I will say one of the things

[01:02:14] that I have a mentor um I'm in the Navy um that he taught me he said that one of the worst things

[01:02:19] for African Americans that he saw he's like about 60 something was actually desegregation right

[01:02:25] because of the fact that we were they were being taught in an environment of people that truly

[01:02:31] love them that were within their community because that's one of the things that I constantly see

[01:02:35] within my in my community is like constantly uh going after like they're intentionally even

[01:02:41] Howard County cutting programs that were started in 1986 for black children right and now we're

[01:02:47] dealing with the pandemic slide so how do we actually um within our own culture create these

[01:02:53] educational systems and not rely on the outside so thank you for being here this evening this is

[01:03:06] such a great opportunity for all of us to learn from your experiences I brought my kids um

[01:03:14] my 14 16 and uh 20 year old um my wife is uh from a retry as well and uh she raised her hand where is

[01:03:24] uh the warm resanna my car stand up stand up stand up stand up get up get up stand up say say

[01:03:32] Camila he stand up I love it I love it I love it oh I love it so my wife and I we've we've raised

[01:03:42] our kids and Howard County and much like the sister right before before us um before me um you

[01:03:48] know we're we navigate daily the the struggle of the culture capitalism all these different things

[01:03:55] that that pull pull that tension on our kids and with social media it's it's kind of like they're

[01:04:02] now experiencing it even earlier at a younger age and just navigating that space so I guess my

[01:04:08] questions are more so what can you um I guess offer as some some guiding principles that can help

[01:04:15] these young folks as they move um to the next phase of life and envision a new world imagine a new

[01:04:22] world for themselves and how they want to live um you know my daughter she's probably gonna

[01:04:27] hate that I say this but she wants to say it she wants to be a digital nomad and work globally wherever

[01:04:34] can be and see herself as a global citizen and I'll be tether not be tethered kind of my story um

[01:04:40] America you know she's like you know look yeah five years from now I want to exit this place and

[01:04:45] find other places where I can lay down my roots wherever I want to in the world and not just to

[01:04:50] be somewhere else but come and go as I please right and so if you can just offer some thoughts

[01:04:55] around that that'd be great okay thank you hi bro hi boo I don't have a question

[01:05:03] but since you literally called my name because I don't think you were gonna be here so what I saw

[01:05:08] okay go ahead and I was good I was be praised in the Lord when he that wasn't raised in my hand but

[01:05:14] he was he appreciated um but I just decided to come up to just bear witness um to your

[01:05:23] imaginations to your dreams to the girl I met my first friend when I transferred to DC public

[01:05:30] schools and sixth grade who was in my class from six to 12th grade through three different

[01:05:37] DC public schools thereafter when all the days before school after school all through the summertime

[01:05:44] when you would call them on my mother's house phone and telling me you was leaving walking up

[01:05:48] 12 street now I was walking down seven street we were going meet in the middle all those times

[01:05:52] all those conversations even in sixth grade she was a beautiful writer using her words to create

[01:05:59] and dream and rap and porn revolution I had a little boutique and great call my house revolution

[01:06:06] okay and you know it's just not to despise small beginnings because in all those conversations

[01:06:15] you were dreaming and we were imagining different kinds of freedom back then but I'm just here to

[01:06:23] just a reminder from the past to see how far you've come and just to know how much further

[01:06:30] God is going to take you thank you this from a full of people from all parts of your life

[01:06:35] and I just thank God for the seat that he gave me from the vantage point of where I see him take

[01:06:42] you from so I love you but you already knew that but we're gonna make it we're gonna make a do that

[01:06:48] rap to my mentees isn't this a beautiful way to be amongst my mentors and amongst my mentees

[01:07:00] I think these will be the last two yes yes hey Rao um I love you um I'm not being facetious when

[01:07:10] I say that literally that day you stopped me in the park in Baltimore in 2015 literally changed

[01:07:20] my everything I have in life is because of that day and because of all of my friendships

[01:07:27] me being a father me being in DC me traveling us having fun in New York I didn't even know

[01:07:32] where I held was a pastor until like six months after I met her nor did I knew what she did for

[01:07:38] a living but my question is being a freedom fighter or an activist you know most people might

[01:07:49] think it's sexy and that it is fun or you know you get these big speaking engagements but it takes

[01:07:55] a toll on you yeah um why do you continue to do it thank you especially since you came back

[01:08:02] because you went away well why continue what's up sis oh my god brother rerouted himself from Australia

[01:08:15] to come here for this event I had the book I was showing everyone the book that is not down the street

[01:08:21] either and I came all the way from that's further than Africa money earned in Mount Vernon so it's

[01:08:26] you know yeah let's put it out there um yeah you know I even when you know you were at

[01:08:33] divinity school and I was an undergrad you know you could just see Rao's light you know especially

[01:08:38] this strong erich here and woman you know that all of us could just see as you know teenagers

[01:08:44] you know you've been a model for so many of us for so long and you know there's something you said

[01:08:49] I've seen you say it about Palestine before like even the conversation you had will in this

[01:08:52] our sore uh like a week or two ago and I agree about I think it's 100% on point you know like when

[01:08:58] I was there I just felt like this unwavering optimism commitment to purpose and I think about it

[01:09:03] in the context of erich it's gonna sound political but I don't mean it in a political way um because

[01:09:07] it doesn't matter what your political stance is because I feel like comparing to like our past

[01:09:11] generations that sort of hope and and you know commitment to purpose and just the faith in the struggle

[01:09:17] whatever that struggle might be um is not what it was back in the day like what it was of our

[01:09:22] our generations passed and so how do we cultivate that you know right now again irrespective

[01:09:27] of what your political preference isn't in the country how do we get that sort of you mean are

[01:09:31] people or you mean meaning like us as erich trans or you mean erich and erich and as per erich and

[01:09:36] americans are in any context how do we take that sort of commitment that we see amongst like Palestinian

[01:09:41] youth who face like the most insurmountable odds but feel just like eternal optimism

[01:09:47] how do we take that input into other contexts okay um my good brother mentor rolin was so gracious

[01:09:54] to actually have my back and make sure that i take notes i'm gonna report it i'm gonna have all

[01:09:59] the questions documented right so um your voice is important to me which is why I always do that

[01:10:04] I don't like when somebody leaves without their question being asked so um I'll go through it as

[01:10:10] quickly as I can but the question about reprogramming our youth who don't know what paradise I mean

[01:10:15] I'll answer that very quickly right we often think that we have to turn them into something

[01:10:20] we have to make them something we have to train we're so focused on what we need to do to them

[01:10:26] with them when the greatest paradise we can create is to be a safe space for them

[01:10:32] and if we just focus on what it looks like for us as adults to be a safe space for our children

[01:10:39] that is their paradise i promise you i know that is their paradise you love on them

[01:10:44] you create a space in which they feel nurtured not controlled they don't fear you but they feel

[01:10:49] they can talk to you you become that paradise for them right and i and i tell you this even if you

[01:10:55] don't do it there is a god who will fill in the gaps you know so so the burden is not fully on you

[01:11:03] because I believe that one plants is seed another waters but only god can cause the increase

[01:11:07] and some of us have made idols out of parenting we've made we've turned it into an idol right

[01:11:14] we've turned it into an idol surrender your child to god surrender your child to god who but

[01:11:19] god can take better care of that child you are flawed you are traumatized you are not enough

[01:11:26] you live in a culture that tells you you could do everything all by yourself you cannot

[01:11:31] you cannot you need a community you need a village you need a god and i tell you oh my three

[01:11:37] year old child the other day started saying mommy i'm gonna pray i said okay i said you go ahead

[01:11:44] pray baby she said thank you god for mommy thank you god for daddy thank you god for my house

[01:11:51] and she was preaching from a place of gratitude at three years old gratitude she prayed better than me

[01:11:57] because all of us come before god asking my three-row knows that she comes before god thanking god

[01:12:04] right i don't know how but i know let me tell you it has been so hard as a mother to go to keep

[01:12:09] question as a mother the guilt that i carry because my daughter deserves every minute she deserves

[01:12:15] me right now so the guilt the pain the sadness of writing for 16 hours straight when she was with a

[01:12:22] nanny you know the guilt of her being with her dad when she when she wants mommy to put her to bed

[01:12:28] the sacrifices that i have made right and so it has been probably one of the hardest things i've

[01:12:34] ever done in my life more than being a freedom fighter organizer activist is being a mom

[01:12:40] who's juggling loving her child trying to be a wife and trying to help and change and liberate a

[01:12:48] world right and one of the reasons i'm so adamant about what i do is because white supremacy

[01:12:53] distracts us from our families takes our time away from us doesn't give us the luxury of being

[01:13:00] with our families so until i can create a world where my daughter doesn't have to lose time

[01:13:05] with her children fighting for freedom then none of us are free but the fact that she knows how to

[01:13:12] pray the fact that she's three and already a prayer warrior is the one thing that has comforted me

[01:13:17] and said hey you may not be doing everything the way you want to do it but you've done something right

[01:13:23] you've done something right to cultivate a three-year-old freaking prayer warrior oh my god um

[01:13:30] she adiva too but um so integration of activism and faith

[01:13:36] you know oh the revolution in the faith context what they have done to Jesus

[01:13:43] and when i say they aren't just talking about white people what they have done to Jesus

[01:13:49] so i talk about reclamation in the book if you don't do anything else when you leave this room

[01:13:53] you reclaim christ you reclaim christ the liberator you reclaim christ the revolutionary the

[01:13:59] feeding fighter the organizer the political prisoner you reclaim the true one christ who died

[01:14:05] under a state on a cross crucified with a poor mother a single mother surrounded by women who buried

[01:14:13] him with no resources you reclaim that christ for a generation that thinks that christ is about

[01:14:18] prosperity that thinks that christ is about comfort and about a paradise to come you give them the real

[01:14:25] christ that saved our grandmothers the christ that saved our fathers when they were in prison our

[01:14:31] brothers when they were in prison there are people generations of us who survived for finding christ

[01:14:38] you reclaim that christ for them that's the best thing you could ever do it ain't about the church

[01:14:43] i can't even really think about the last time i you know what church don't really do it for me all the time

[01:14:48] let's be honest right because they performing and i don't need a performance sometimes we need a

[01:14:56] prescription okay moving on um okay the rebirth of africa you know i answered that so grappling with

[01:15:05] thousands um the education how do we develop our own education system i'm a product of public

[01:15:11] education you know Thompson elementary school Jefferson junior high school hey kiewe

[01:15:16] bandica academic high school i mean i'm a product of public school so can nobody tell me you got to

[01:15:21] go to private school i'm a product of public schools but what i had was amazing teachers black women

[01:15:28] teachers who saw something in me and said baby you coming with me on the weekends you coming with

[01:15:34] me on the afternoon they loved on me if you could find you a school a community a daycare whatever

[01:15:42] where you know that the people working there love your children fiercely that's all that matters

[01:15:47] because the system could be flawed the resources could be flawed but if they got somebody in there

[01:15:53] who sees that light and doesn't want anything in the world of damage they'll be fine

[01:15:58] and that's what i had i had a i had a coalition of women who saw a light in me and said we're

[01:16:03] going to preserve that light at all costs so we only got like three more i'm moving through we almost

[01:16:09] finished but also also create your own external education so that's the school education but you can

[01:16:14] actually create your own curriculum outside of school i mean so that's part of what she was also

[01:16:19] asking about yeah i mean the best i want to stand for yeah Oxford my resume is nice right nice

[01:16:27] and i spent years and years cleaning it up changing it editing it because i was so proud of it right

[01:16:33] i don't even touch my resume anymore i don't touch it i don't touch the internships the fellow i have

[01:16:39] it all everything i've been recognized but i have it all the best education i ever received was on

[01:16:44] the continent on the continent political education qua me and krumma school freedom fighters people

[01:16:50] from all over and i think the mentors who brought me to the continent who saw something in me in

[01:16:55] Ferguson who saw something in me because of urban cuss and said will you move here and do the work

[01:16:59] that you're doing in the united states that continent i said no because i got to get married

[01:17:04] i'm into my upper 30s i don't have time for this my girl was like rock comes to South Africa

[01:17:10] free your eggs is sheep the free your eggs there go ahead and do do the movement work

[01:17:15] when a hair froze my eggs in South Africa it was like here i am let's pop off on a revolution right

[01:17:21] one year turning to three years i mean two two lessons there the plan you have for yourself

[01:17:27] will never suppress surpass the pain that god has for your life i had a plan i was supposed to be married

[01:17:33] by certain time have a baby by certain time i had a plan god rerouted my plan took me to southern

[01:17:41] Africa right to a place i never thought i would be and literally changed the course of my life

[01:17:46] and changed me i had a i came back grieving the death of rye hell that i knew and i was like i don't

[01:17:51] want to go back to america i'm scared because i don't want to go back to my old ways my old way of being

[01:17:57] and i had a friend Gregory Ellison who i talked about in a book who said to me

[01:18:01] rye hell this was your hodge to mecca he said this was your hodge to mecca when Malcolm came back from mecca

[01:18:09] he was no longer Malcolm X

[01:18:13] L

[01:18:14] Malik right

[01:18:18] he was renamed

[01:18:20] he was reborn he spoke differently he looked differently he saw the world differently so

[01:18:25] so i think there's a way in which we have to ask ourselves what are we learning that is causing

[01:18:29] death to those parts of us that have to die okay you won't learn that in the classroom

[01:18:35] but there are parts of you that need to die and parts of you that need to be reborn and where

[01:18:39] you gonna get that learning from where you gonna get that training from right sometimes it's conversations

[01:18:45] it's relationships sometimes it's places you gotta go and some of us gotta stop going to coast

[01:18:49] the reek of the resorts and the islands go somewhere where you see life

[01:18:57] and don't even just do the poverty ministry and the poverty tourism but like roll your hands up eat

[01:19:02] what people live with them immerse yourselves in the struggle of other people okay moving along

[01:19:08] well especially young folks capitalism and what they're constantly being

[01:19:11] inundated within social media you're advised for them my god i say we pray for them um because

[01:19:17] that's not an easy one i mean how do we all struggling not to be enslaved by capitalism i don't

[01:19:23] that i don't have an answer for right because we straddle like if i was truly living the life i

[01:19:29] want to live i would not look like this right now i would not be on this stage right like there's

[01:19:34] an element of luxury and opulence that all of us want i'm gonna have my day right but it doesn't

[01:19:40] mean that a forsaken of capitalism doesn't mean that we don't get our day we deserve our day

[01:19:46] we deserve our celebrations we deserve money we deserve comfort we deserve everything that this

[01:19:51] world has taken from us unjustly but i think it's about our relationship to money

[01:19:58] i think it's our relationship to the luxury like do we define our worth by it how do we

[01:20:04] how do we define our worth how do we be content with what you've been blessed with but still strive

[01:20:10] to do more no let me ask you this if you are on a on a on a on a deathbed they told you you had six

[01:20:16] months to live you can't move you can't go anywhere you're literally in bed can't see nobody

[01:20:22] are you still valuable do you still have worth and the reason i asked that question is many of us

[01:20:27] define our worth by our productivity right so as long as i'm doing moving operating i'm worthy

[01:20:35] but when you sit still do you still deem yourself worthy right hold on that during COVID

[01:20:41] when you got cancer when you're dying i watch people die with nothing literally starving losing

[01:20:49] life like watching somebody and the thing is we even think death is glamorous right so my point

[01:20:56] is if you've been stripped of everything everything the world gave you do you feel that there's a value

[01:21:01] inside that nobody can take from you or if it's not death if you've been fired if you go through

[01:21:06] a divorce are you still a person yeah like for me i transition out of many jobs when i you know i

[01:21:12] went from the informer to urban cuss i did everything in this so the job did not define you

[01:21:17] i remember being in the club once got to keep it all the way real i'm in this lounge at dc

[01:21:22] and they were like all my ladies making sixty thousand k with a business card which are title on it

[01:21:27] raise your hand and i was like oh i ain't got that right now

[01:21:32] because i'm but you probably would dress cute i mean i'm always cute see i don't care what it is

[01:21:37] say what you want how how do you maintain your optimism hope and unwavering commitment to a better

[01:21:45] life okay that was the last question that's the last question and the air to your court yes so

[01:21:51] so my point about always no no that is the that is the question no no i know my point about

[01:21:54] always being cute or always having that value when you're in the club and you can't raise your hand

[01:21:59] because you're not making that salary you know be comfortable in the transitions of life you know

[01:22:07] and um something you know what the power you see today because i know you see it i know you feel

[01:22:13] every time i speak i feel a fire in my heart and and where it came from was because i realized like

[01:22:20] if i could survive all i've been through all i've been through what can't i do what can't i do

[01:22:28] it ain't the jobs because they come and go you lose the contract to the Washington Post

[01:22:32] you know people you go to Africa you go on sabbatical you lose the 350,000 followers of Erbukas

[01:22:37] whatever it is you lose it you lose the friends right but i've gotten to a place where i'm like

[01:22:43] no matter who comes with me no matter who's there in that season i'm a survivor right and so

[01:22:49] i would say that there is value in resilience going to and them's question you know many of us

[01:22:55] carry resilience like a badge of honor the thing about you know being a retrain and it's a powerful

[01:23:01] way to close i mean i learned strength for my people i learned resilience i learned

[01:23:07] everything that is me is a product of the home that i was in every single day right because there's

[01:23:13] no like i talk about my brother let's you know he thought it was cute to tell a young girl

[01:23:18] um delicious stories right like i was a baby and he's like so you know i was carrying an AK-47

[01:23:25] and it came from me and i'm sitting there like like probably a kid but he's telling me stories of

[01:23:29] guerrilla warfare literally that was my childhood because that was his reality being in a liberation

[01:23:34] front being a political prisoner so it was normalized for me you know the pictures of the the

[01:23:40] freedom fighters mountains the mountains whatever right but my point is this um

[01:23:46] our resilience in some ways has also been our curse you know it's been our curse because

[01:23:51] we have survived to the point that everything is disposable you know we've survived to the point

[01:23:56] that we take pride in our survival right i mean there's just there's so many ways in which we have

[01:24:01] not had the luxury of loving we have not always had the luxury of being still because we've always

[01:24:07] been in a survival mode and i think you know something you know i don't i don't know how to answer

[01:24:13] your question in the context of like there are ways in which i see things out of Palestine that i

[01:24:17] wish i knew how to replicate in other parts of the world right yeah how do you take that that

[01:24:22] collectivity um you know that that commitment to paradise one thing i know about our people

[01:24:29] is white supremacy did a number on us it made us feel powerful in how we saw ourselves different from

[01:24:38] other Africans and other black Americans if i'm being really honest right like we saw ourselves as

[01:24:44] uniquely Ethiopian or uniquely erotry and not African right i mean that's the reality i knew you

[01:24:50] know no no no we're have a shot we're not African and you know you grow up like what the hell does

[01:24:55] pride come from where the hell does colorism come from where the hell is racism come all is where

[01:25:00] did all come from right and then i have to forgive my people quite honestly and i have to forgive

[01:25:05] them by understanding that it came by training it came by design so i think there is power and our

[01:25:10] people reclaiming our Africanness that we are part of a greater struggle a greater anti-colonial

[01:25:17] that is not just us it's diasporic and it is connected to Palestine and Cuba and all these other

[01:25:22] places right like Chagavera fought in Angola like they went to Africa right they saw their struggles

[01:25:28] connected and until we also see our struggle as tied to the struggle of all oppressed people

[01:25:34] and not think that we ourselves are on this mountain top looking down on others and i don't say

[01:25:39] that about all of us but there's a pride that must be buried and not just Africans but also some

[01:25:46] of some black Americans we will close this out his plane did indeed land put your hands together

[01:25:53] with Michael Erkideson come on dot come on dot come on

[01:26:06] i think the coolest interest ever

[01:26:21] yes ma'am wow give it up for these two right here and for

[01:26:25] i just got to say this i called rolling at two forty three

[01:26:34] i'm i'm i'm just telling you he could have been making it up i'm telling you what it is

[01:26:39] and uh he ain't he ain't he ain't haram't he ain't hesitated he ain't said well let me check

[01:26:47] he didn't say how much he didn't say nothing like that and that's because of the quality and

[01:26:53] pedigree of the intellectual acuity celebrated here and the cerebral assassin right that's what that's

[01:27:00] what it is and since she's acknowledged he's already cute in my hood they said finer than cats

[01:27:10] whiskers beautiful brilliant insightful and this man right here the foremost black journalist we have

[01:27:19] independently working as an intellectual i watch this brother every day because he feeds our souls

[01:27:28] Rahel one who leads and shows the way is what that name means

[01:27:36] and this woman in this book has so brilliantly sculptured an amazing product

[01:27:45] that is not merely a book but a transport into a different world hearing people hear talk about how

[01:27:54] she changed their lives is astonishing and it is even more astonishing because in this book that

[01:28:02] i was privileged to read and to blurb to hear her talk about the reclamation to hear her be honest

[01:28:09] about the trauma to speak about the heartbreak and the hardship and the setbacks and the determination

[01:28:17] to foster a coalition of conscience against a pusillanum as Christianity that had surrendered

[01:28:25] the integrity of its authenticity to shadows of greatness as opposed to being in the light the

[01:28:34] radiant light of that truth of Christ and so who we have here today is a remarkable prophet

[01:28:43] you can hear in her voice that prophecy and a lot of people like to fashion themselves as prophets

[01:28:51] but they really ain't you know i was just in Houston dr. Rowan and and Moe Negroes in Joe Lostin

[01:29:00] church then in any black church in Houston i like to start with a story right with a man who would

[01:29:11] never raise his voice when a black person was murdered you're in a white supremacist arena

[01:29:18] worshipping an ecclesiastical difference to a god who has no awareness of who you are i am an

[01:29:25] atheist to that god martin Luther King junior and his letter to Birmingham jail said i look at their

[01:29:32] churches in these people sometime and i wonder who is their god so when she says church doesn't do

[01:29:39] it for her she's talking about a physical reality a kway hall is the Hebrews call it but the ecclesiastia

[01:29:47] as de greeks talked about it was a verb it was a movement where she is is the church

[01:29:55] because whether two or more are gathered in my name and it ain't just physical people it's not

[01:30:02] just biological whether two or more ideas of the divine congregate in one spirit there is the

[01:30:09] presence of god and so to read this book i'm not going to take much of your time to read this book

[01:30:16] and to hear this extraordinary conversation carried out by one of the greatest intellectuals

[01:30:21] in this culture today with one of the greatest intellectuals in this culture today this book

[01:30:27] cements her as a divinely driven a kind of you know black imperative put forth to us to that she

[01:30:36] now rises to a different level this book did make her this book revealed who she is this book reveals

[01:30:44] the soul of a woman who has been obsessed with god and look you ain't got to have all the answers

[01:30:51] to capitalism the first thing Karl Marx said Karl Marx the inventor of Marxism and the struggle

[01:30:57] of communism against capitalism said when a dude was dating his daughter can you pay for her and take

[01:31:03] care of her that's what Karl Marx said so it's no capitalism doesn't mean that you are allergic to

[01:31:09] capital it's the deployment of capital it's the strategic use of capital it's the degree to which

[01:31:15] you will use that fund and that ability to make a difference martin of the king jr. May 240,000

[01:31:21] dollars in 1963 that's a whole lot of loot he gave every dime to the movement so the accumulation

[01:31:28] of wealth was critical to create a basis for the transformation of our people what you have here

[01:31:35] in imagine freedom i'm an old Negro from Detroit Michigan the temptations each day through my

[01:31:43] window i watch her as she passes by i say to myself i'm such a lucky guy to have a girl like her is

[01:31:52] truly a dream come true out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me but it was just my imagination

[01:32:00] right that imagination was delightful but he was tripping it was deluded the imagination of what she

[01:32:07] speaks is a divinely given glow that reverberates and articulates itself within the context of a

[01:32:16] Christianity that is bold enough to reject ecclesiastical limits and to embody what God is because if

[01:32:24] you are a serious Christian you got to be a atheist to most of the crap that we hear coming out of

[01:32:29] these churches if you are a serious Christian you got to embrace gay and lesbian and transjittered and

[01:32:35] bisexual those who were black and forgive me even the light skin i'm having a light skin hair day

[01:32:42] so i had to keep my hat on but we have to divorce ourselves from the colorism that drives us in our

[01:32:50] community to look down on others we are after all part of the same community her going to Africa

[01:32:58] to find her real truth and as i end think about it the black Atlantic is a concept articulated in the

[01:33:05] last 25 years in scholarship it means not simply what's going on in Birmingham here but in Birmingham

[01:33:12] in the UK in Salvador de Baia in Santiago de Cuba in Brazil in wherever we find ourselves that's

[01:33:20] where blackness operates blackness is a force that when unleashed on this world can ultimately save

[01:33:27] and transform it but it must do so with us first the beauty of this book the beauty of this prophet

[01:33:35] the beauty of this woman is that she has made herself vulnerable for the God Almighty to speak through

[01:33:42] her voice to articulate God's self to her very being and we feel the vibrations and we are grateful

[01:33:50] for the presence of this beautiful brilliant and amazing woman we celebrate her Rahel tesfamari.

[01:33:57] Woo give it up give it up give it up thank you discover a world where words ignite change tune

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