Danté Stewart's book Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle is one of the most stirring and powerfully written that we've encountered on the podcast. This conversation with him is comparable. He's engaging, funny, and erudite all at once, and he has critical things to teach the white church if we'll listen. He's also super well-read, and he wants you to be too. Here are the five authors/books he mentions in the episode:
This is one of those interviews that was so rich we had to trim it down significantly for time. If you want to hear the extra content that didn't make it into the episode--including a deep dive into the philosophy of Frantz Fanon, some reflections on the interview from Kyle and Randy, and more--subscribe to our Patreon (link below)!
The whisky we tasted in this episode is Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban.
To skip the tasting, go to 7:08.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
Danté Stewart's book Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle is one of the most stirring and powerfully written that we've encountered on the podcast. This conversation with him is comparable. He's engaging, funny, and erudite all at once, and he has critical things to teach the white church if we'll listen. He's also super well-read, and he wants you to be too. Here are the five authors/books he mentions in the episode:
This is one of those interviews that was so rich we had to trim it down significantly for time. If you want to hear the extra content that didn't make it into the episode--including a deep dive into the philosophy of Frantz Fanon, some reflections on the interview from Kyle and Randy, and more--subscribe to our Patreon (link below)!
The whisky we tasted in this episode is Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban.
To skip the tasting, go to 7:08.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
00:04
welcome to a pastor and a philosopher
00:06
walk into a bar the podcast where we mix
00:09
a sometimes weird but always delicious
00:11
cocktail of theology philosophy and
00:13
spirituality
00:16
[Music]
00:22
this episode is one that i was really
00:25
really looking forward to i've been
00:26
looking forward to since i read this
00:27
book the book is shout in the fire an
00:30
american epistle
00:32
by dante stewart and this book moved me
00:34
this book
00:35
captivated me it brought me into his
00:37
world he is a brilliant beautiful writer
00:40
he's a poet
00:41
and it also ruined me i mean it just it
00:44
affected me it's still i'm still feeling
00:47
the effects of it in in the best ways so
00:50
i couldn't wait to speak to dante and he
00:51
did not disappoint so we've decided that
00:53
a fun thing to do on the podcast will be
00:55
to start reading reviews that we've
00:58
received it's gonna be fun yeah mostly
01:00
from apple uh reviews that's where most
01:01
of them are if you haven't yet go to
01:03
apple podcast or itunes leave us a
01:06
positive review facebook is another
01:08
place you can leave reviews so we're
01:10
gonna we're gonna start reading those so
01:11
here's one
01:12
so this is from
01:14
baron von yolo44
01:16
baron
01:18
i already like it
01:20
uh and they say more questions than
01:22
answers on this podcast and i love it i
01:25
feel like i've been given permission by
01:26
a preacher and a smart guy hey i like
01:28
this guy already to not have it figured
01:31
out
01:32
uh the booze tastings in the beginning
01:33
are surprisingly influential skip that
01:35
part if you're on a tight budget baron
01:37
faniolo thanks for the review and
01:39
friends we'd love to read yours sometime
01:42
soon and speaking of something that we
01:43
do around here we also shout out a
01:46
patreon supporter we couldn't exist and
01:48
couldn't get better and better without
01:50
you patreon supporters and so today we
01:51
just want to shout out a top shelf
01:54
supporter joseph stanky the man the myth
01:58
the legend
01:59
joe thank you for supporting the show
02:01
cheers cheers
02:04
[Music]
02:06
so for the tasting today we get yet
02:08
another week of enjoying kyle's
02:11
ridiculous
02:12
luxurious
02:14
just absolutely absurd collection of
02:16
liquor and beer and we get to benefit
02:18
from it so
02:21
i mean an cheers
02:22
collection but
02:23
he brought some uh glenn merengi
02:25
[Laughter]
02:31
let's have let's have proud scott brian
02:34
cox tell us how to pronounce glenn
02:35
rangie
02:37
glenn morenji
02:39
as as youtube that was one just prior to
02:41
our episode
02:43
okay so tell us about this kyle so this
02:45
is glenn moringe that's all have always
02:47
said it and i think of course
02:51
uh so
02:52
the first scotch i ever had was the
02:54
glenmorangi scotch i knew i was gonna
02:56
like it i had had just a little bit of
02:58
whiskey like jack daniels level and
03:01
knew could tell enough that if there's
03:04
like a good version of this i'm going to
03:05
be really into it
03:07
but but i also had this i don't know if
03:10
my family had some scottish ancestry or
03:12
what but i've always just kind of been
03:13
into scotland that my dad has too
03:15
and so i wanted my first scotch to be
03:17
special and so i did a bunch of research
03:19
and i got on a bunch of like you know
03:21
forums and people recommending what they
03:22
thought a good first scott should be and
03:24
what i settled on was glenn moore and
03:26
g10
03:27
and i'm glad i did it's a highland no no
03:30
this is a little more special than that
03:31
but if anybody's never had scotch before
03:33
has a kind of a taste for whiskey wants
03:35
to get into scotch that's a good one to
03:37
go with because it's easily available
03:38
it's affordable and it's a really
03:40
excellent balanced expression that'll
03:42
give you a little bit of all the good
03:44
stuff and none of the like stuff that
03:46
you kind of have to acquire
03:48
um so i loved glenn orange and then my
03:49
wife and i vacationed or honeymooned
03:52
part of our honeymoon in scotland and
03:54
literally our time in scotland was
03:56
planned according to where the
03:57
distilleries were everybody knows kyle
03:59
so we uh
04:01
we we spent a night in a really awesome
04:04
airbnb
04:05
uh or actually it was an airbnb it was
04:07
an actual b b
04:09
really close to glenn morangie and it's
04:11
one of the fancier distilleries we we
04:13
visited it's kind of out in the rural
04:16
area and they have this um
04:19
if you can see it on the bottle it's
04:20
like a signet that's on everything they
04:22
do that's kind of plastered everywhere
04:24
their distillery
04:25
there's a lot of money there you can
04:27
feel it feels like you know but they're
04:29
really good at finishing their stuff in
04:31
a lot of interesting casks they do a lot
04:34
of sherry um they do a lot of wine
04:36
barrels they obviously do bourbon
04:39
barrels
04:40
this one's port
04:41
so this is finished i'm getting port
04:43
piper it says matured in bourbon casks
04:46
then extra matured in forecasts yes
04:49
so the standard for all scotches uh ex
04:52
bourbon casks and then sometimes
04:54
finished and other things england
04:56
oranges just has a really excellent
04:57
finishing program so this is a 12 year
05:00
old non-chill filtered port cask finish
05:03
scotch it's called quinto ruben yeah i
05:06
mean
05:07
i'm excited that you said it's finishing
05:09
pork casks because i'm i'm smelling this
05:11
and the nose is not just like
05:13
straight up smoking pity it's it's dark
05:16
fruit and it's
05:17
autumnal and it smells hot to me yeah i
05:21
don't think it is on the palate so much
05:22
it's 46 percent
05:24
okay wow
05:26
shouldn't be much if any people so much
05:27
going on
05:28
no i don't call petey-ness out at all i
05:31
would i mean i taste the peanuts but
05:34
it's not like
05:35
the crazy
05:37
that's all you can taste like there's
05:39
there is that dark fruit rich there's
05:41
not a ton of smokiness to it it's sweet
05:44
but there's just it's complex as hell
05:46
like it's really good
05:48
so apparently quinta is uh portuguese
05:51
for wine estates
05:53
anybody cares
05:55
somebody somebody who's listening cares
05:57
kyle
05:58
that's really good yeah the dark fruit
05:59
and then
06:00
it smells more like orange than it
06:03
tastes like orange
06:05
no i get that no yeah like caramelized
06:07
almost
06:09
this is one of the better
06:11
not i won't say one of the better
06:12
scotches because i don't know what a
06:13
better scotch is this is one of my
06:15
favorite scotches i've ever had oh nice
06:17
it's very good yeah they have a lot of
06:19
really excellent interesting finished
06:21
stuff i would say i want this with the
06:23
fire in a cigar in fall weather but at
06:26
the same at the same time i want this
06:27
before after the cigar because the scar
06:29
is gonna
06:30
blast my palate and i'm not gonna be
06:32
able to pick up on this good stuff this
06:33
is delightful yeah this is a little bit
06:35
i thought of this one actually when we
06:37
had the uh basil hayden dark rye because
06:39
it had actual port in it yeah
06:42
this one obviously is not quite as uh in
06:44
your face with the port but yeah it's a
06:46
similar
06:48
yeah yeah no this is yeah very smooth
06:51
and
06:52
sweet complex yeah all the best things
06:54
well thank you for the treat kyle of
06:56
course what's it called again king to
06:58
ruben from glenmorangie glenn morangay
07:01
[Laughter]
07:02
cheers
07:06
[Music]
07:08
so dante stewart welcome to a pastor and
07:10
philosopher walking to a bar hey what's
07:12
up what up what up just tell us a bit
07:15
about your like
07:16
who is dante stewart
07:18
who i mean i'm a husband
07:21
uh i'm a father
07:22
i'm a minister i'm a writer
07:25
i live i live in augusta georgia i was
07:27
raised in the black rural south and in
07:29
between swansea south carolina saint
07:31
matthew south carolina and sanderon
07:33
south carolina
07:35
i did my schooling at clemson did my
07:38
undergraduate day where i met my wife
07:39
played football
07:41
as well and now
07:43
my wife she's actually in the air force
07:45
and we're stationed in
07:46
augusta georgia or whatnot where i'm on
07:49
staff at uh the historic tabernacle
07:52
baptist church
07:53
and i'm a student at uh emory university
07:56
at the campbell school of theology so
07:58
yeah and i love to read a lot of books
08:00
and i love to write i absolutely adore
08:02
writing there's there's nothing like
08:05
jason reynolds say there's nothing like
08:07
the uh feeling of completion and just
08:10
that feeling you get when you write
08:12
something you think it up you dream it
08:13
up you imagine it and you get it
08:14
completed so
08:16
that's me yes me yeah so dante i had
08:20
this experience when i picked up your
08:21
book and i started reading the
08:22
introduction it was similar to this
08:24
experience now this is this is a high
08:26
level comparison here but i remember
08:28
where i was the first first time i read
08:31
east of eden by steinbeck and i remember
08:33
where i was because i was so arrested by
08:35
the beauty in the prose in in his
08:37
writing i was just like this guy writes
08:39
like nobody else i've i've read
08:41
and i had a similar experience when i
08:42
picked up your book and read your
08:44
introduction and you brought us into
08:45
your world in south carolina and i could
08:47
smell the smells and i could taste the
08:50
things and i you you had me in that
08:52
introduction and i was like oh
08:54
i'm having an east of eden moment like
08:56
this guy is a real writer you know like
08:58
we talk to thinkers we talk to
09:00
people who write things but they write
09:02
things because they know about them a
09:03
lot you're
09:05
you wrote about something that you first
09:06
hand experienced in your life but at the
09:08
same time you my friend are a poet like
09:11
i was stunned thank you yeah in the book
09:13
in chapter one you dive right in you
09:15
bring us through your your childhood and
09:17
your youth in southern black pentecostal
09:20
culture in rich ways in ways that like i
09:22
can smell the fried livers and hot sauce
09:25
in the air you know what i mean and then
09:26
you bring us into this spiritual
09:28
transition that you went through where
09:30
you get you're reading listening to
09:32
sermons by guys like john piper and john
09:35
mcarthur which
09:36
jeez oh my god i wanna i was deep in
09:39
there bro i was in there i was in i was
09:42
deep i was like
09:43
so and then eventually you tell the
09:44
story of getting baptized re-baptized
09:47
and telling your mom about you getting
09:48
re-baptized and it sounds to me
09:50
like you're writing about getting
09:52
baptized into whiteness tell us about
09:54
that transition in
09:56
like how you got to getting baptized in
09:58
that white evangelical reform church
10:01
yeah
10:02
yeah and what's crazy is actually you
10:04
know that particular church wasn't
10:06
reformed but it was a white evangelical
10:08
church it was actually calvary chapel
10:10
okay okay uh or what not so associated
10:12
with the kind of california movement of
10:14
the i think it was like the 70s or 80s
10:15
or whatnot when it came into being with
10:17
the people who called themselves the
10:18
jesus movement
10:20
or whatnot and what's crazy is you know
10:22
so so much of my story began like so
10:24
many of our stories young young black
10:27
people
10:28
on college campuses and as readers who
10:31
read and you you saw
10:33
you know the the longer i was on clemson
10:36
university campus the further
10:39
i moved away from you know my own
10:42
upbringing
10:43
um because just like like just like the
10:45
military or football there's there's a
10:47
sort of re-education process so like
10:49
when you go to basic training
10:51
you know as much as we we
10:53
we're simply talking about you know
10:54
you're getting trained in military
10:56
doctrine and practice and things like
10:57
that
10:58
in a very real way you're being
10:59
re-educated as a person
11:01
uh and this place this institution wants
11:04
you to become a certain type of person
11:06
once you leave
11:07
you know for good or for ill you know
11:09
every environment whether that be
11:10
political whether that be social whether
11:12
that be militaristic whether that be
11:15
business uh civic whatever
11:18
that institution has a certain type of
11:20
values and practices and principles and
11:23
and and philosophies and and and and and
11:26
things of that nature
11:28
um and rhythms that that that are
11:31
integral to the institution's own
11:33
self-conception
11:35
of itself and what it wants to
11:36
prioritize and what it wants to be like
11:38
in the world
11:39
and and it has ideas of what type of
11:42
people uh it wants to be there and just
11:44
so happened that you know being on uh
11:47
clemson university's campus
11:49
oftentimes being in white social space
11:51
which clemson university is and i would
11:53
deem
11:54
you know many churches many business
11:56
civic institutions and things like that
11:58
uh social groups uh are white social
12:01
space and that space comes with a
12:03
certain type of buy-in
12:05
so either through assimilation or
12:07
through silence
12:09
many of us young black people because so
12:11
many of our older
12:12
so many of our elders
12:14
back home
12:15
had this ungiven given this kind of
12:17
unwritten message of in order for me to
12:20
make it
12:21
means that i have to be in closer
12:23
proximity to white people
12:24
so we we
12:26
some simplest football you know
12:28
recruiting
12:29
that when as many of us work uh are are
12:32
good at football you know you start
12:34
talking about recruiting you know the
12:35
hbcu does not represent the creme de la
12:38
creme of where uh to use the popular
12:41
phrase we want to go take our talents
12:43
you know and so
12:45
uh this this white social space becomes
12:47
like you know god in a sense so
12:50
this message we we learn over time
12:53
through our investment in that space uh
12:55
because of his access
12:57
uh because of his aesthetics because of
13:00
its rewards and things like that what we
13:03
believe is that these institutions
13:06
are to be deemed
13:08
sacred you know worthy of our ultimate
13:11
devotion worthy of the best that we have
13:13
to offer and many of the places that we
13:15
come from are to be deemed with
13:17
suspicion as as i write about with the
13:20
cop you know in college you know saw me
13:22
through the lens of suspicion
13:25
um and and oftentimes that's that's the
13:27
that's the
13:28
that's the story that's so bound up into
13:31
these institutions you know where i
13:32
write you know this is the script that
13:34
was already written we we're just
13:36
performers in that story often time
13:38
uh in ways that we often don't really
13:40
understand don't really are not even
13:42
aware of because sometimes not you know
13:43
we're not on that wavelength we're not
13:45
we're not in that mindset we're not
13:46
using that framework
13:48
but yeah i think i think you know the
13:50
further i got into that space the more
13:53
deeper i got invested in whiteness um
13:56
and many of those spaces wouldn't
13:57
believe themselves to be white but when
14:00
you think about who benefits in these
14:02
spaces
14:04
and who can we survive whose presence we
14:06
can survive without and thrive without
14:09
then you'll understand that at the
14:11
center of both of those questions
14:13
is what eddie glide calls the value gap
14:16
white people are valued more and then
14:18
this ideology has risen to the level of
14:20
religion that tells us the message that
14:23
to be closer to whiteness is to be
14:25
closer to god to be closer to whiteness
14:27
is to be closer to success to be closest
14:30
to whiteness is to be closer to beauty
14:32
or to whatever we desire for ourselves
14:34
and i think that that section
14:36
particularly talking about being
14:37
baptized you know that that pretty much
14:39
was the crescendo
14:41
of kind of my acceptance and
14:43
assimilation into that way of thinking
14:45
and that way of being in a world that so
14:47
many so many young black people uh fall
14:51
victim to is it a hundred percent that
14:54
if you as a black man try to enter this
14:57
white world and try to you get baptized
14:59
into that whiteness and you
15:01
find acceptance in the white world is it
15:03
pretty much a given that you're going to
15:04
lose
15:05
part of who you are in your blackness
15:07
so that's a tough question but i do
15:09
think in some sense that that to exist
15:12
in this white space there is always you
15:15
know as i write about in wages there's
15:16
always a cost and there's always a price
15:18
to pay
15:19
and i think when we talk about giving up
15:21
things that to exist in white spaces
15:24
those who give up most are those who
15:26
care for least
15:28
and we have to we i will say that exists
15:31
in that space you know we have to give
15:33
up so much of ourselves whether that be
15:36
thinking about athletes you know
15:38
um and what i write about with trayvon
15:39
martin and what happened that you know
15:41
for me the cost was too great
15:42
for me to to stand in solidarity with my
15:45
teammates uh in solidarity with trayvon
15:49
because i felt like you know i was
15:50
standing on fragile ground
15:52
and oftentimes especially when you're
15:54
talking about you know putting when you
15:56
talk about racial dynamics i'm and and
15:59
in some sense you know gender and
16:00
sexuality dynamics whenever we feel like
16:03
our existence is on fragile ground we're
16:06
always going to bargain our humanity to
16:09
those who have the most power
16:11
it's like many progressive movements in
16:14
history you know oftentimes you know
16:17
they fall prey to
16:19
those who make decisions within those
16:22
movements you know having to bargain the
16:26
humanity of others in order to function
16:28
sadly that that's that's that's kind of
16:30
the struggle in politics
16:33
is that oftentimes the bargain is
16:36
always is most times
16:39
with
16:39
white people benefiting in mind
16:42
and things like that and so i would say
16:44
you know to be invested in white social
16:45
spaces
16:46
is is fundamentally to give up a certain
16:49
part of yourselves but i do know that we
16:51
have to live an attention and a nuance
16:53
of of being and and we have to say
16:55
that if one exists in white space that
16:57
doesn't mean that that responding to
17:00
whiteness
17:01
is is the totality of our being as if
17:04
like to simply
17:05
go to clemson and to be black is to be
17:07
fundamentally concerned with what white
17:09
people think that's just not the case
17:11
there would be moments where you know
17:13
you're forced to think about that in
17:15
ways that are
17:17
more pressing than others but i will say
17:19
that to exist in that space there is
17:21
always cost and a price to pay and that
17:24
cost in some sense seems to always be
17:26
racialized
17:27
and benefit white people most and you
17:29
think about conversation about
17:31
reconciliation
17:32
you know it's always you know when you
17:33
talk about unity and reconciliation you
17:36
know it's not
17:37
it's not many times especially christian
17:39
conversational reconciliation and unity
17:41
it's not really taken into account with
17:44
the liberation and the humanity of the
17:45
marginalized but oftentimes the comfort
17:48
uh and the progress of the powerful yeah
17:51
and and and i think this is this is also
17:53
true with being black and white and in
17:56
white spaces and and one of the reasons
17:58
why i wrote my book
17:59
is if somebody is black and white space
18:01
which i'm sure many readers
18:03
will be and i would say to be in this
18:05
country and to exist will mean you have
18:08
to be tied to white white space because
18:10
you know the power of dynamics in this
18:12
country now hopefully by the time people
18:14
finish my book
18:16
they will
18:17
embrace what it means to be black
18:20
more
18:21
um and when white people read this white
18:23
people will stop making black life about
18:25
white education yeah or about white
18:27
terror
18:28
that we would be allowed to exist as
18:30
human beings ordinarily powerful and
18:32
beautiful in and of ourselves and worthy
18:35
of love and liberation and in the
18:37
fullness of our being uh in ways that we
18:39
don't have to bargain
18:41
seriously last year dante as you know
18:44
george floyd was murdered right in our
18:46
faces and we go through a summer of
18:48
upheaval and protests and you know yeah
18:51
beautiful noise and then you know my
18:53
church literally did this
18:55
day of repentance and solidarity for the
18:57
for the white church and the same day we
19:00
had this event with black churches and
19:01
white churches coming together jacob
19:03
blake is shot just 20 miles south of us
19:05
seven times in the back by a police
19:07
officer and
19:08
i processed with a
19:10
black man who's part of our church
19:12
in the weeks after that and he was just
19:14
struggling so much with hatred he wanted
19:18
he wanted
19:19
a white police officer to be shot and
19:21
killed so that the white community could
19:23
feel in that pain right like because it
19:25
was just felt so personal for him
19:28
yeah
19:29
in chapter two you talk about your
19:30
conversations with your dad and your
19:32
desire to talk about his experience as a
19:34
black man in dillard south of carolina
19:36
and you quote him by saying it takes
19:38
everything not to hate white people
19:40
this is your dad who didn't share a
19:42
whole lot about his experience as a
19:44
black man
19:45
can you tell us about what you felt in
19:47
him saying that in what must be this
19:49
constant battle not to give in to
19:50
bitterness and hatred towards white
19:52
people yeah that's a hard question to
19:54
answer that that you know i don't know
19:56
how to answer you know in some sense
19:57
like
19:59
you know you got to realize my daddy is
20:00
a baby of the 50s
20:02
and
20:03
my my daddy is
20:05
grew up in this in jim crow south
20:08
you know
20:09
the stories that my daddy tell me is
20:11
incredibly visceral
20:13
and in some sense
20:14
like
20:15
i'm even trying to formulate how i think
20:17
about hatred you know and and like how
20:20
are we to respond to a world
20:23
that allows people
20:25
to terrorize us with impunity yeah
20:28
and and given that dynamic
20:31
is it really hatred
20:32
is it really characterizes hatred
20:35
or is it characterized as
20:38
you know one's profound belief in your
20:40
humanity so much so
20:42
that you refuse
20:44
to allow
20:45
you refuse to allow people to terrorize
20:47
you in impunity and you refuse to allow
20:50
your ideals of them to be neutral
20:53
so like there's a way to think about
20:55
whiteness and white people as if like
20:57
every single white person in this
20:58
country is neutral but that's not the
20:59
case
21:00
and so given that dynamic
21:03
of of of the non-neutrality of whiteness
21:06
you know how can we reformulate how we
21:08
think about concepts of hatred in a
21:11
moral framework
21:13
i'm kind of talking kind of heady real
21:14
quick
21:16
because i'm even thinking about this
21:18
right now because you know my dad has a
21:20
right to hate white people
21:21
we have a right to hate white people
21:23
because white people have done terrible
21:24
things to us
21:26
and and have done terrible things to the
21:27
world
21:28
you know there's a familiar
21:29
colloquialism that everybody has done
21:31
terrible things you know and that's and
21:33
that's very true
21:34
but there's a particular way that
21:36
whiteness has functioned within the
21:37
world
21:38
that has been particularly terrible to
21:40
the earth and to the inhabitants of the
21:42
earth and we got to take we got to be
21:44
honest about that and we have to say
21:46
you have to make room for the tension of
21:49
living
21:50
with those whom the country believes
21:53
should just get over everything
21:55
and just forget as if like they're not
21:57
alive
21:58
because in reality today
22:01
so many people in this country
22:03
are acting so i'm 29 years old my
22:06
grandma i'm still alive my granddaddy's
22:08
still alive my daddy and my mom are
22:10
still alive people great-grandmas and
22:12
great-granddaddy are still alive
22:15
and it's as if
22:16
people are asking them not to exist
22:19
like it's as if people are asking them
22:21
to get rid of their memories yeah
22:24
and and they saw all of this
22:26
and they experienced all of this and
22:28
their children have to experience all of
22:29
this
22:31
and and you tell them
22:33
that they're not to hate
22:35
those people in that situation
22:38
seems a bit cruel yep in a sense
22:41
but also i can understand especially
22:43
given
22:44
you know the religious and moral
22:46
framework of hate and love that we are
22:48
so used to
22:50
that
22:51
many of us don't have room for living in
22:53
that tension
22:54
but i want to i personally want to make
22:56
room for that tension
22:58
while also realizing that
23:00
my daddy did not become what he saw in
23:02
others
23:04
nor did many black people become what
23:06
they saw in others but for those who did
23:09
they had a right to do that
23:10
so nat turner had a right to do that you
23:13
know denmark visit had a right to do
23:14
that and i and i want to hold that
23:16
intention i don't want to be the type of
23:18
christian that says you know hey
23:20
love and forgiveness become a way to
23:22
allow people to destroy you with
23:23
impunity without any accountability here
23:26
or in heaven
23:27
you know it's like you want justice in
23:29
heaven well we have to deal with terror
23:31
on earth yeah and i just think we need
23:33
to do better you know make intention for
23:35
that which is why i personally wanted to
23:37
wrestle
23:38
with the idea of rage you know as a
23:40
spiritual virtue
23:42
um and and it allowing
23:44
one to live an attention to being while
23:46
not losing
23:48
an idea to hold the capacity
23:50
for another person's humanity within my
23:52
own living
23:53
you know and i think that's the only way
23:55
we can understand
23:56
you know how we are to survive and to
23:59
love and to imagine and in some sense
24:01
like i said earlier my dad's living was
24:04
not simply
24:05
focused on what white people did you
24:07
know he had to get up and provide for
24:08
his family he had to live
24:10
he had to go to church he had to do this
24:12
to do that you know his capacity of
24:14
being and being alive
24:16
was about the life he built for himself
24:18
and for his family and and i think
24:20
whatever ideas of hatred would mean
24:24
he did not become whatever that was
24:25
because in some sense the question
24:27
really is why do white people hate black
24:29
people so much yes yes that's that's the
24:32
real that's the real that's the real
24:33
question yep someone should walk away
24:35
from is not my daddy's ability to you
24:38
know hold that intention but the
24:40
question one should really ask is
24:42
why why have white people not have as
24:45
baldwin would say the capacity to love
24:48
i want to ask about a couple of concepts
24:50
that you've mentioned and just go a
24:51
little more deeply into them
24:54
unity and also rage and i think these
24:56
are maybe connected to what you were
24:58
just talking about so you tell a story
25:00
of preaching a sermon in this white
25:02
church that you were in in 2016.
25:05
and this was just a couple months after
25:07
alton sterling was murdered
25:09
and you said you chose the topic of
25:11
unity
25:12
and i guess at the time you were still
25:15
what randy described as being baptized
25:17
into this white culture
25:19
and you say i believed that a message on
25:21
unity was what we needed to help me feel
25:24
human white people less racist the
25:26
church more equal and the country more
25:29
loving
25:30
and you you write with regret about that
25:32
sermon
25:34
i know a lot of christians who
25:36
currently think that way
25:38
not so long ago i thought that way
25:41
and i still get like warm fuzzies in my
25:42
stomach when i read jesus talking about
25:44
unity in his last prayer before
25:46
ascending into heaven you know what i
25:48
mean so yeah unity is important and it's
25:51
it's part of the dna of being a
25:53
christian i would argue and yet
25:55
there's also something obviously off
25:59
about
26:00
a white church only wanting to hear
26:02
about race relations in the context of
26:05
unity so
26:07
what do you say to people now who think
26:08
unity is the answer to racial tension
26:11
yeah
26:12
i really want to cite this black sister
26:15
and i and her name is slipping me
26:17
she said
26:19
unity is good
26:21
but freedom is better yeah yep
26:24
that's probably the best way to think
26:26
about that
26:28
unity is good
26:29
but freedom is better
26:31
and
26:32
now i'm four five years removed from
26:35
that moment
26:36
i think it's becoming increasingly clear
26:38
that whatever conceptions of unity
26:40
people had
26:42
is not powerful enough
26:44
to change
26:46
a person's ability
26:48
or inability to see you as human
26:51
i used to think
26:53
that proximity
26:55
would make people more loving
26:57
i i used to think that that simply being
26:59
close to people being nice
27:02
you know saying the right words
27:04
preaching the right things and things
27:06
like that will make people
27:08
do better
27:09
and become better
27:11
but in some sense
27:13
i i feel like many times our presence
27:17
became an excuse and even some sense a
27:20
weapon
27:21
you know our very presence became
27:23
weaponized in ways
27:25
that allow people to talk about race
27:28
in life
27:30
while also evading them yeah because
27:33
their ideas of proximity never wanted to
27:35
talk about power
27:37
and i'll never forget reading stokely
27:39
carmichael's quote
27:41
where he says that racism
27:44
is not about
27:45
attitudes he said i don't care if a
27:48
white man don't like me but i do care
27:50
that a white man has the ability to
27:52
lynch me mm-hmm
27:54
and
27:54
monitor the king rift off to that rhythm
27:56
down to my dude can't rift out that and
27:57
say you know laws may not change your
28:00
heart but laws can keep someone from
28:01
lynching me
28:03
and and what both for them are talking
28:04
about both in the
28:06
legal dimensions from martin luther king
28:10
or from the political
28:12
dimensions or philosophical dimensions
28:13
from still become michael to bray it is
28:16
really they're talking about power
28:17
dynamics kwame terry says you know it's
28:20
it's not about attitudes but it's about
28:22
power
28:23
and i think so much of our ideas about
28:24
unity and reconciliation
28:27
do not want to deal with power because
28:29
to talk about power
28:31
i think one has to critically examine
28:32
the ways in which our theologies and our
28:35
traditions have given justification
28:37
moral political and theological
28:39
justification for the inequities of
28:41
power
28:42
and the asymmetries of power in the ways
28:44
in which we have given
28:47
a given system of injustice that people
28:50
have to live in whether it be race
28:52
gendered or regarding sexuality
28:55
regarding class
28:57
we have oftentimes given moral and
28:58
theological justification for that so to
29:00
think about jesus in john 17
29:03
and and that prayer i oftentimes you
29:06
know think about
29:08
this reality that like when i wrestle
29:10
with that text
29:11
that that jesus prays for us
29:14
but he does not protect us
29:17
explain that
29:18
he prays for us that we be unified but
29:22
he does not protect us from bad religion
29:24
he does not protect us from toxic
29:26
theologies
29:27
he does not protect us from people who
29:29
as howard thurman would say who who use
29:32
christianity become the religion of the
29:33
powerful in ways that was not in the
29:36
mind of jesus
29:37
you know jesus prays for us and he gives
29:39
us a framework but jesus does not
29:42
protect us from bad religion and toxic
29:43
theology that's our job
29:46
you know that's that's that's our side
29:47
of it it's to try and develop
29:50
communities and institutions and ways of
29:53
being together that will come become
29:55
more loving and more just and more
29:57
equitable and take into account the as
30:00
as the feminists will talk about the the
30:02
standpoints in which we we understand
30:05
the world the ways in which we enter the
30:06
world as embodied persons the ways as
30:10
tony morrison would say the ways we
30:11
flesh
30:12
and the ways in which in this kind of
30:14
system of fleshing and being alive
30:17
yonder wherever yonder is whether you
30:19
race gender sexuality class or or
30:22
immigration or things like that whatever
30:24
these dynamics are
30:25
wherever yonder is they don't love your
30:27
flesh but you have to love it and so how
30:29
do we
30:30
think about power dynamics and creating
30:32
a
30:33
way of being together where people don't
30:36
have to be reminded to love themselves
30:39
to embrace themselves
30:41
because they are in a situation where
30:44
they are not loved how can we create an
30:46
environment where they don't have to be
30:47
reminded yeah but that is the given
30:50
and i think in so many conversations
30:52
regarding
30:53
unity
30:54
and things like that you know i don't
30:56
think people are reading enough maybe
30:59
you know we need better frameworks
31:01
especially as christians we need to read
31:02
better books we need to be listening
31:05
better to different traditions and
31:07
different
31:09
ways of thinking in ways i guess
31:11
epistemologies we need better epistemic
31:13
frameworks
31:14
to help us understand what what ails us
31:18
and so you know when i think about that
31:20
sermon when i think of back then i
31:22
really do
31:23
look on on it with regret because of the
31:25
ways in which
31:27
my presence oftentimes gets weaponized
31:30
and the ways that i saw that happen the
31:32
ways i benefited from that happening and
31:34
the ways that i even exploited it and
31:37
made it happen and did it to others
31:39
oftentimes you know this is what tends
31:42
to happen i think for many
31:44
yeah for many young black people
31:46
particularly i'm thinking particularly
31:47
about black men in these spaces
31:48
oftentimes it's black men when we kind
31:51
of you know as they say drink the
31:53
kool-aid you know we become what other
31:55
people want to see in us without really
31:57
taking into account whom it harms
32:00
in the process yeah you said you know we
32:02
we need to read more and read better can
32:04
you give us five authors that our
32:07
listeners need to just write down and
32:09
make sure they read in the next six
32:10
months
32:11
give us five hands oh man that's that's
32:14
easy too easy
32:15
robert jones jr okay read the prophets
32:19
d shafiel y'all the secret lies with
32:22
church ladies
32:24
read kiese layman heavy
32:27
read jason reynolds
32:30
and read jasmine ward okay this is for
32:33
like literature yep of course read the
32:35
classes in blacklit but i do think that
32:37
these
32:38
these five
32:40
are doing such brilliant
32:42
brilliant brilliant brilliant thinking
32:44
today so yeah yeah oh that's that that's
32:47
my favorite question
32:51
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33:30
you write about as you put it earlier
33:32
the virtues of black rage and seeing
33:36
rage as a spiritual virtue i've seen
33:38
this in other authors before
33:40
particularly people of color i think you
33:42
probably quote from some of them
33:45
this makes as you put it nice white
33:47
christians super uncomfortable
33:49
right part of this inability to kind of
33:52
examine the power dynamics you were
33:53
talking about in white spaces
33:56
means that
33:57
even talking positively about anger
34:00
particularly in the context of race
34:02
pretty dangerous in white spaces much
34:05
less actually being angry in those
34:07
spaces
34:09
and there's let's you know let's admit
34:11
that there's a long christian tradition
34:13
some of it in the bible
34:15
of warnings against anger warnings
34:17
against wrath and so forth i'm not
34:20
saying that's the whole of the testimony
34:22
of the scripture but it's in there
34:23
so what does it mean to say that
34:27
as you as you put it my black rage in an
34:30
anti-black world
34:32
is a spiritual virtue
34:34
and and how are how are rage and love
34:36
connected
34:38
yeah yeah yeah so like
34:40
you know a lot of a lot of my thinking
34:42
on that kind of grew out of
34:44
reading james combs and
34:46
i never forget reading said i wasn't
34:48
going to tell nobody last year
34:50
for the first time ever which was his
34:53
autobiographical kind of memoir text
34:54
making of a black theologian
34:56
and i'll never forget him writing about
34:59
you know the detroit uprising
35:01
and how he said you know i had a phd in
35:03
theology but i had nothing to offer my
35:06
people
35:07
and i need to figure out how to take
35:09
what i had and i'm paraphrasing of
35:12
course
35:13
and and make it
35:14
accountable both to god and to black
35:17
people
35:18
and and and as i read that that section
35:21
in that early in those early chapters of
35:23
the book
35:24
i could feel the seething anger that
35:27
comb wrote with
35:29
so yeah man as as as i as i was reading
35:32
cone
35:33
you know i i wanted to
35:35
figure out a way
35:37
that really
35:38
it was a selfish question and some sense
35:40
of
35:41
based on what i was reading i wanted a
35:43
way to figure out how
35:45
like what to do with my anger in some
35:47
sense
35:48
you know but not like
35:50
like i was tired of like
35:52
how triumphant christians thought about
35:54
anger
35:56
like and even
35:57
and even black christians like the ways
35:59
black christians wrote about anger
36:01
almost as if both communities believe
36:03
that love
36:04
is absence of anger or rage or
36:07
or or whatever kind of visceral reaction
36:10
we have to injustice
36:13
i was tired of like
36:15
as if everything had a crescendo until
36:16
forgiveness yeah you know like like
36:19
every every
36:21
every act of injustice had to have a
36:23
happy ending
36:25
where
36:26
everything was okay in a sense
36:29
you know even if it's not okay
36:31
and and i and out of my reading the cone
36:34
you know it really
36:35
sent me to read nehemiah
36:38
you know and i deal with the biblical
36:39
texts as as you do
36:41
and in my studies of the biblical text
36:43
of the hebrew bible in my story
36:45
i was very struck by nehemiah chapter
36:47
five
36:49
where when he came when they came back
36:52
and they come to repair the walls
36:55
and he sees the situation
36:58
in which
36:59
people who look like him
37:01
you know were treated as second-class
37:03
citizens
37:04
as charles charles mills got god rest
37:07
his soul who just passed on not too long
37:08
ago
37:09
who who talked about in his tanner
37:11
lecture
37:12
three things kind of are markers of
37:14
racialization of colonialism
37:16
is second-class citizenship
37:18
for the colonized
37:20
exploitation of their labor and their
37:21
bodies and their creativity and their
37:23
humanity
37:24
and continual disrespect
37:26
of who they are and what they offered to
37:28
the world
37:29
you know as i thought about you know
37:30
neil meyer through that
37:32
framework that charles miller opened up
37:35
nehemiah was dealing with a similar
37:36
reality where people who looked like him
37:38
was treated their second class citizens
37:40
where they were exploited and they ran a
37:42
system that continually disrespected
37:44
them
37:45
and then when he saw the injustice
37:47
chapter 5 right
37:48
he thought about it
37:50
and was angry and he brought charges
37:52
against the officials
37:54
and i wanted to
37:56
play with the idea theologically
37:58
and ask the question what would it mean
38:00
to write about
38:02
rage that was not
38:05
bound to the white imagination of rage
38:10
so if you think about like if we are to
38:12
ask the honest question like
38:13
how many times like name name
38:17
where
38:18
black people
38:20
or indigenous people
38:22
or hispanics or anybody who's non-white
38:24
per se
38:26
in mass
38:27
did something violent and destructive
38:30
whereby which there was loss of life
38:32
property power
38:34
and place
38:36
toward white people
38:39
that's a hard historical task that's a
38:40
tall order
38:42
now if we reverse the question
38:44
and ask to name that in which white
38:47
people did that against others that's
38:49
not a tall task it's a very easy task
38:52
and because it's such an easy task
38:55
that is in some sense shapes the
38:56
imagination
38:58
of what we mean by violence what we mean
39:00
by rage what we mean by
39:02
suffering and so many in so many ways
39:04
because you know that visceral
39:06
experience of historical narratives that
39:09
we are so
39:10
so shaped by and so often times when we
39:12
say simply say the language rage
39:14
in some sense
39:16
people think they are talking about
39:18
non-white people when in actuality
39:21
they're actually thinking about what
39:23
white people have done and what we can
39:25
become so that's why you know it's
39:27
always the language of you don't want to
39:30
become what you hate to see in others
39:32
okay what is it that you hate to see in
39:33
others that so people are fearful of you
39:35
becoming and how can you name that and
39:38
how and what the story does that naming
39:40
that reality tale
39:42
you know about what has happened in our
39:44
country and what has happened to so many
39:46
people
39:47
and so for me
39:48
i didn't want to give
39:50
white religion white theology white
39:52
people
39:53
the ability to have a monopoly
39:57
on the language of rage
39:59
on the language of anger
40:00
on the language of resistance and
40:02
protest and things like that
40:04
either for good or for bad whether one
40:06
is criticizing it or whether one is
40:08
embodying it and oftentimes being black
40:10
and angry
40:12
has been used as a trope and a
40:13
stereotype
40:15
which i wanted to ask the question as
40:17
elizabeth alexander in her incredible
40:20
book the black interior asked
40:22
what would it mean to look again
40:25
and what i wanted to do is
40:27
look again
40:29
at what it means to be black and angry
40:31
and allow us to tell that story allow me
40:33
to tell that story in ways that look
40:35
like nehemiah and thought like nehemiah
40:38
and examine the world like nehemiah and
40:41
held the intention
40:42
you know what it means to be embraced at
40:44
a situation
40:45
while not losing
40:47
your humanity or the humanity of others
40:50
in the process
40:52
yeah i mean y'all really got me thinking
40:53
about a lot because you know as a writer
40:57
i'm i mean for the last year and some
40:59
change i've been in the text as a writer
41:02
you know now now i'm shifting to
41:04
thinking critically about my own text
41:06
yeah you know as a as a reader
41:08
of my own text as a rereader of my own
41:10
text as a thinker and there's so many
41:12
questions you know that that i haven't
41:13
even thought about and and even thinking
41:16
about and trying to formulate yeah in in
41:19
my own mind but you know that's the part
41:21
of the process
41:22
it's part of the growth and learning you
41:24
in your book
41:25
bring us into the sensual world that you
41:27
grew up in that you lived in and i'm a
41:29
foodie so as soon as you started talking
41:31
about smells and flavors and cooking i
41:35
was i'm there what's
41:38
when you think of like your favorite
41:40
meal that you're gonna go home to your
41:41
grandma and granddaddy and you're gonna
41:43
you're gonna have that quintessential
41:44
meal from family what is it oh yeah oh
41:47
pig feeding rice bro okay okay
41:49
pig pig feeding rice with the pig feet
41:51
gravy on the rice with some collard
41:53
greens and that pig feet gravy has been
41:55
going for hours right oh yeah that's it
41:57
right there new year's eve bruh everyone
41:59
every new year's eve one time a year all
42:02
right you know you gotta you gotta look
42:03
out for your pressure now yes yes yes
42:06
yeah man that that pig feet and rice
42:09
really reminds me of back home
42:11
and and it reminds me so much of like
42:14
you know the ways in which food and the
42:17
process of food and
42:19
the earth and the land
42:21
and the new year
42:23
yeah and and the prayers like so much of
42:26
so much of
42:27
food and culture in general you know
42:30
especially if you think about cultural
42:31
studies
42:32
you know in the ways in which
42:34
anthropologists or philosophers or
42:36
theorists sociologists think about the
42:39
relationship between
42:41
people culture you know food is very
42:44
much you know a public cultural artifact
42:48
it is it is very much public history how
42:51
people think about the land and the
42:53
earth
42:53
you know what people make with their
42:55
hands how they build life food is so
42:57
much a part of that and and that is a
43:00
really brilliant documentary that i
43:01
don't i hope it's still up on netflix
43:03
high on the hog
43:05
if people get a chance to look at high
43:07
on the hog it's a beautiful beautiful
43:09
documentary about black people and food
43:11
yeah um and and like that quintessential
43:13
meal bread is like is is the pig feeding
43:15
rice and it it just
43:17
reminds me of so much that i love about
43:20
back home
43:21
but like when you eat that pig feeding
43:22
the rice but y'all chilling like you
43:23
ain't moving yeah it's sticky and messy
43:25
so you got it it's a very you know
43:27
delicate thing you know you gotta really
43:29
you're up in there you gotta sit and eat
43:30
you gotta sit and eat with everybody yep
43:32
and i'm a cooker too so good good so
43:34
much of so much of what i learned back
43:36
home you know i can still cook today
43:39
whenever i have guests and so we can
43:40
still wherever we go i'll never forget
43:42
going to cali you know we're stationed
43:44
out there i did thanksgiving dinner for
43:46
everybody and and people got a taste of
43:48
the south and they never had food from
43:50
the south
43:51
you know they thought it was the best
43:52
thing ever i knew it wasn't you know
43:54
my mom yeah i knew i can't cook like my
43:56
mom and grandma but i mean it was decent
43:58
it was good you know but but there
44:00
there's something about southern food
44:02
yeah you know and southern ways of doing
44:05
food that i would even say is sacred in
44:08
some sense yep amen one one heavy
44:11
question because there's a chapter in
44:13
your book
44:14
pieces in in pieces pieces was just
44:17
brutal for me i mean like
44:19
it affected me in some visceral ways
44:21
where i just read through pieces in
44:23
i just felt this lead weight on my on my
44:25
chest and you talking about
44:28
the hopelessness in the black experience
44:30
in america and how
44:32
basically you say
44:33
white people destroyed hope and optimism
44:36
in you
44:37
can you just
44:39
and i feel bad for even asking for for
44:41
asking you to recount this this
44:43
experience of hopelessness in blackness
44:46
but can you just give us some words for
44:48
our listeners to understand to bring us
44:50
bring him into that experience
44:53
first of all i would i would think about
44:55
it the way imani perry thinks about it
44:58
in her essay
45:00
for the atlantic
45:01
racism is bad
45:03
blackness is not
45:06
so
45:07
when i when i speak of hopeness and
45:09
blackness and race
45:11
i'm not
45:13
you know because the question becomes
45:14
you know are you giving white people you
45:17
know too much power
45:18
you know within your own story your own
45:20
kind of self-conception of hope
45:22
you know i can hear somebody saying you
45:24
know i can hear like a black christian
45:26
saying that or something like that
45:28
are you giving white people too much
45:29
power in what you think about hope or
45:31
you know have you have you conceived of
45:33
definitions of hope
45:34
that is rooted in slaveholder religion
45:37
and things like that in traditions of
45:40
you know thinking about hope uh that are
45:42
bound to whiteness and i would respond
45:45
i don't know
45:47
you know in a sense you know because
45:49
i i don't think any of us can can claim
45:51
certain type of purity you know in any
45:54
type of thought but i will say
45:56
that
45:57
whatever
45:58
people have thought about hope does not
46:01
work for us
46:03
you know
46:04
whatever whatever people have
46:07
conceived of hope
46:09
needs to be deconstructed dismantled and
46:11
something better held out
46:14
you know because i think i think for
46:16
many people hope
46:17
is a theory or an abstract principle
46:20
uh it is it is a certain destination to
46:23
be had and reached so hope much like
46:26
conceptions of home
46:28
in in literature or in religion
46:31
you know represents
46:33
a completion of the journey we're all as
46:35
well
46:36
you know whether people think about
46:37
heaven as a home or
46:39
people think about going back home or
46:41
people think about home when i leave you
46:44
know and things like that you know
46:45
oftentimes conceived of it's an abstract
46:48
principle that keeps one grounded in the
46:50
midst of one's reality that is
46:52
unpleasing and sometimes unpleasant and
46:55
i i just kind of
46:57
i now long gave up on that because i
46:59
think that conception of hope is
47:01
often tied with ideas of unity which are
47:03
often tied to ideals of anti-blackness
47:06
you know white supremacy that wants us
47:08
to be hopeful
47:10
and hopeful in the sense of accepting
47:13
the worst as ksa will write about the
47:16
worst of white folk
47:17
just us accepting the worst of white
47:20
folk
47:21
and believing
47:22
that like
47:24
believing that you know there's coming a
47:26
day where where all will be well you
47:28
know it's this familiar thing when like
47:31
just like when bolton john was murdered
47:33
like and that thing pissed me off to
47:34
this day thinking about it
47:37
and thinking about his younger brother
47:38
giving that white girl a hug yeah
47:41
and then years later she appealed him
47:44
come on like like and you and you i'm
47:47
trying to hold my tongue but you know
47:50
don't bother
47:51
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no i i i i'm
47:54
just looking out for my mommy if my mama
47:55
listens
47:55
[Laughter]
47:58
you tell me
48:00
that your conception of hope
48:02
you know i'm speaking when i say you i'm
48:04
speaking in general like your conception
48:05
of hope can it hold intention
48:08
the reality of this is the world that
48:10
we're living in
48:11
this is the world that we said or we
48:14
have inherited that said is to come
48:17
but this is also the world that our
48:19
ancestors died in
48:20
and lived in
48:22
and were buried
48:24
and how do we make sense of that
48:26
without
48:28
being triumphal
48:30
and so as i write about my hope is in
48:32
the struggle
48:33
yeah i hope there ain't no principle am
48:35
i hoping in my hoping in no abstract
48:38
place
48:38
you know it ain't it just ain't you know
48:40
i i ain't there
48:42
that ain't my thing no more bro i just
48:44
don't i just don't think that i don't
48:46
think in those terms anyway it's so
48:47
funny
48:48
you know that that people would listen
48:50
to that
48:51
and and say like oh man like yo yo
48:54
hope for heaven
48:55
and i'm like you know no
48:58
you know
48:59
i i you know people often times talk
49:01
about like you know
49:03
you know you your best life is in is in
49:05
you they criticized your old thing you
49:08
know the time saying your best life is
49:09
not now your best life is later
49:11
i want my best life now in my best life
49:14
later yeah and i believe that we deserve
49:16
our best life now in our best lives
49:18
later you know and when i get whenever
49:20
whenever we get wherever we at
49:22
let it be then
49:24
you know but right now
49:25
whatever i conceive of hope
49:27
will be my capacity to tell the truth
49:31
be honest and vulnerable
49:33
and try and do something of love while
49:35
standing in the world as who i am and
49:37
the fullness of that being and the
49:39
fullness of that life
49:41
trying to help us imagine something
49:42
better which jesus called the kingdom of
49:45
god yeah and in some sense that the hope
49:47
the hope of of the faith
49:50
you know the traditions of faith
49:52
is that somehow
49:54
together we can make some hopefully we
49:56
can make something better
49:58
you know than what we leave behind and i
50:00
think that's what baldwin said at the
50:01
end of
50:02
his um essay entitled in search of a
50:05
majority he says i conceive of god
50:08
you know not as a means to control other
50:10
but as a means of liberation
50:13
and too often times people think about
50:15
god as a tool than a toy
50:17
that's not god's way
50:19
and i think you know as he concludes he
50:20
says he says the world is before you
50:23
you know you you need not take it or
50:26
leave it
50:27
as you found it
50:28
and i think if we're not going to take
50:30
the world and leave the world
50:32
as we found it for me that meant giving
50:35
up
50:36
those theoretical and theological
50:38
conceptions of hope
50:40
that were triumphalistic
50:42
that was reductive
50:44
that simply meant black people must
50:45
always forgive
50:47
that just simply
50:48
felt like sacredness was just simply
50:51
bound to the bible
50:52
so like for me now like
50:55
the same way
50:56
those in the biblical text
50:58
the biblical narrative
51:00
can name their ancestors
51:02
as sacred
51:03
and their lives worthy of finding
51:06
meaning in
51:07
i.e you know books named after people
51:10
jeremiah you know
51:12
you know isaiah
51:14
and things like that then i want to read
51:16
the book of james baldwin i want to read
51:18
the book of tony morrison i want to read
51:20
the book of tony cave and barbara
51:22
i want to read the book of
51:25
um of nelly lawson and gene toomba i
51:28
want to read the book of june jordan and
51:29
for none
51:31
and the likes and cone and canon
51:33
and many more contemporary writers i
51:36
want to read there i want to read the
51:37
book of them
51:38
and figure out how can i learn how to
51:40
live and as the bible say not let my
51:43
living be in vain yeah and so
51:46
i guess that's the conception of hope so
51:48
in the book of dante stewart
51:50
you you open by talking about listening
51:53
to your mom pray prayers at night
51:55
crying out to jesus on your behalf on
51:58
your brothers and sisters behalf
52:00
and now you have two kids we just heard
52:02
your son calling calling your name right
52:05
and you have a six-month-old daughter
52:07
what are your prayers now as you're the
52:09
one praying these prayers for your black
52:11
son and daughter yeah
52:14
you know i i pray
52:16
simply man health
52:19
life strength
52:21
something simple bro
52:23
you know i mean i pray that when they
52:25
see me and jazz my wife
52:28
and they see how we move and maneuver in
52:30
the world that
52:31
they see something commendable in us
52:34
you know that whenever we write about us
52:36
they have good stories
52:38
you know
52:39
and when i mean good stories i mean that
52:41
they are able to tell human and honest
52:43
stories of us
52:44
but stories of ways in which we've tried
52:46
to get better and more loving and more
52:48
mature and more responsible
52:50
you know i pray that you know as they
52:52
grow up and they see
52:54
this house surrounded by books
52:56
that they realize that the world is open
52:59
to them there's no place in in this i
53:02
mean there are worlds surrounding me
53:05
it's almost like the multiverse yeah you
53:07
know there they're multiverses there are
53:09
multitudes and multiverses in this in
53:11
this room
53:13
and you have freedom to go
53:15
wherever you want
53:16
and that's my prayer for them yeah
53:18
they'll land yeah they need to land
53:20
that's just like you're just like you
53:21
know i landed where i needed to land my
53:23
wife landed the way she needed land
53:25
i want to do better at helping my
53:27
children soar
53:29
in ways that i felt that i could have
53:31
been helped better yeah when i was
53:32
coming through yeah
53:34
dante do you know what your next book is
53:36
yet
53:37
yeah
53:39
can you tell us can you tell us
53:41
no i can't tell you
53:44
uh but i will say
53:46
i'm probably going to follow what many
53:48
black writers have done
53:50
memoir essay collection but also
53:53
i kind of like this memoir genre you
53:56
know i like that type of style of
53:58
writing i feel like you're a storyteller
54:00
yeah i'm a storyteller so i feel like
54:01
that's where i excel the most as a
54:03
writer
54:04
is give me give me some people give me
54:07
some books
54:08
and kind of let me go to work and and
54:10
let me think and let me write and let me
54:12
wrestle let me revise
54:14
you know and i feel like that's where i
54:15
do my best work at so
54:17
i've been thinking a lot about book
54:18
number two uh or whatnot i kind of got
54:21
me a i kind of got a name and a
54:23
you know an
54:24
outline you know it's just
54:26
i'm i'm a more kind of a like
54:28
i got to be in it writer and right now
54:31
i'm not in a writing kind of book
54:32
writing mode i'm in essay writing mode
54:34
and school work
54:35
you know i'm not in book writing mode
54:37
yet but i think when i get there it's
54:38
gonna it's gonna be special yeah
54:41
well friends the book is shouting in the
54:43
fire an american epistle by dante
54:45
stewart and i want to tell you
54:47
i mean this every word it is a must read
54:51
everyone listening should buy this book
54:54
and read it talk your way through it
54:55
process your way through it come back
54:57
and listen to this episode to make
54:59
connect dots but it was it's an it's an
55:02
extremely important book i think dante
55:04
stewart thank you so much for joining us
55:05
oh wonderful wonderful thank you thank
55:08
you for having me
55:09
[Music]
55:12
so dante mentioned a ton of books in
55:14
that episode
55:16
we're going to link to some of them it
55:17
would be quite a chore to link to all of
55:19
them but the five that he mentioned for
55:20
sure will be in the show notes his book
55:22
will also be in the show notes and
55:24
that's a special link if you want to
55:26
support the podcast and you also want to
55:28
buy the book so you're supporting us
55:29
both at the same time use that link
55:31
it'll take you to amazon buy the book
55:32
we'll get a kickback
55:34
thanks for listening to a pastor and a
55:36
floss for walk into a bar we hope you
55:37
enjoyed the episode and if you did
55:39
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55:41
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55:43
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55:44
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55:46
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55:50
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55:52
and a philosopher we're so grateful for
55:54
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55:56
until next time this has been a pastor and
55:58
a philosopher walk into a bar