| Time | Text |
|---|---|
|
Teaching Through Adversity
00:03:02
|
|
| Your parents had memories of slavery, didn't they? | |
| Yes, yes, very much so. | |
| But through all of that, my father was, he never allowed that to, he wasn't jaded. | |
| And he taught us to love. | |
| How did they get their own land? | |
| They owned their own farm. | |
| He was a Korean War vet, and when he'd come out of the Army, he purchased hundreds of acres of land. | |
| He was one of the only African-American men at that time that, and he purchased it for his brothers, not just for himself. | |
| But they taught us principles coming up that you honor and you respect. | |
| How did they become, I'm sure they weren't extremely wealthy, but they had a lot of land and they grew things and sent all the kids through school. | |
| Yes. | |
| An amazing thing. | |
| We're hearing so much that slavery is causing poverty among the current black children. | |
| Could you explain that to me? | |
| And what did your daddy do that these kids could learn the secret? | |
| Because I want to tell you, your mom and dad are amazing people. | |
| And to raise 10 kids and send them all through college, there's hope. | |
| Yes, absolutely. | |
| Well, we were taught work ethics. | |
| I couldn't fathom in my mind trying to raise 10 kids. | |
| We raised three any, many, many, and don't want no more. | |
| Come on, Scott. | |
| That is the truth. | |
| But they taught us work ethics. | |
| Nobody laid around the house. | |
| We're looking at a generation now that's fatherless and children are not working now and opposed to when we were coming up. | |
| There were always something to do. | |
| They made sure that you were working. | |
| But is it because of slavery that they're not working? | |
| Because that's what I'm hearing right now. | |
| At the time, when slavery ended, there was a question as to what do we do with these people that came from Africa? | |
| And they called us all kinds of names. | |
| You couldn't even identify at that time what we were. | |
| It's not that we were not intelligent, of course we were. | |
| But our language was forbidden here in America. | |
| And then we were also forbidden to read. | |
| And because we were not readers and we were not trained, but many of the inventions that are still here today were invented by the slaves to do their labor and their domestic work. | |
| But the master kept the copyrights and the patents. | |
| So you had historically, oh, these are poor, ignorant people. | |
|
Laws of Inequity
00:02:59
|
|
| They can't work. | |
| So then the welfare system came along. | |
| Jim Crow and segregation came and then the welfare system. | |
| Well, we'll give money to these poor, disenfranchised people because they can't help themselves, and we always could. | |
| And so you had many African Americans, Negroes, we were called at the time, learning and going to school. | |
| We built our own institutions, our own colleges, and we did quite well. | |
| After, and this was the only thing about desegregation during the 60s and during the time of my uncle and my dad during the work that they did, I said, if and when we integrate, let's not lose the strength of our institutions. | |
| But we let those go. | |
| And then the Morrill War in 1963 and when prayer came out of schools, 1973, when abortion was legalized, we began to be told that you don't have to pray anymore. | |
| And that abortion is a way to liberate a woman. | |
| So this hit the black communities very strongly. | |
| And so here we were told now, if there was a mom and dad in the home married, you could not get any assistance. | |
| But if you put the man out, send daddy away. | |
| Then we'll give you money. | |
| So she began to keep having all the children, not raising them with a father. | |
| The father's disenfranchised. | |
| And then other things happened in the penal system where the laws of inequity, and that was more of the elephant in the room, the white privilege situation, there were two sets of laws. | |
| If your skin color was one thing and you perhaps had a little bit of marijuana and something, you got a slap on the wrist and then you were told don't do it anymore. | |
| But if you were Negro and now African American, you went to jail. | |
| So you couldn't get back to your family to help them. | |
| And so it did begin, Jim. | |
| You're so right. | |
| It started with slavery. | |
| And over a progressive series of events, it brought us to where we are now with all the, but Monaghan, Senator Monaghan wrote a report. | |
| It's called the Monaghan Report. | |
| He says, okay, you're going to try to suppress one group of people who live in this nation called black people, whatever you want to call them. | |
| He said, law of unexpected outcomes, a few years later, everything that you try to do to them will happen to your children. | |
| So here we are now in 2017. | |
| All the children, no matter what color they are, are experiencing all of this turmoil. | |
| And you're right, it started with slavery. | |
| It started first with disenfranchising the Native Americans and then the slaves. | |
| And then the suppression of women. | |
| I hate to say it, and that's Lori knows this is true and I do. | |
| Women were so mad at being held down, they said, we're going to abort our babies. | |
| That was the wrong way to handle that. | |
| We never should have done that. | |
| So all of this sin, as the bishop keeps saying, racism is sin. | |