Theosophia Podcast
A platform for women's voices in theology.
Theosophia Podcast
Lebron's I Promise School
Welcome to Theo Sophia, a podcast for women's voices in theology. I'm your host Sarah Elizabeth Smith, and today I'm launching a new episode format. Once a month I'll be featuring myself and another woman in theology talking about a current social issue. We will provide theological reflection on something that's going on in the world. So today's episode, my good friend and I, she's a reverend. Sean. Tell Hinton, discuss a Lebron James is new, I promise, school, and it's theological implications on the world and society. I'm calling this one, what's going on with Sarah and Shantelle so these episodes won't have outros, so as always, please rate and review on itunes and check out our patrion page to help support this awesome women's empowerment podcast and be sure to stay on top of all of our new episodes and news on our social media platforms. And while you're at it, let me know what y'all think about the new episode format and what types of social issues you might want to hear about from women's voices in theology. I hope y'all enjoyed this one. Have a great week. Peace[inaudible].
Speaker 2:All right, well I didn't tell him I am an old classmate of Sarah's. We went to school together and kind of bit rot together, figuring out how to do theology and what it looks like to be doing ministry and pastoral care to get it. And I now work as a university chaplain on miracles campus and we had been talking a little bit about binds I promise school, which is like the dopest thing since sliced bread and just really quickly some of the things that Lebron is offering through his school is free tuition for students for uniforms, free bicycle and helmet. And he's doing that because riding his bike was like a really. Um, it was like a really fun thing for him to do when he was younger and it helps them get to and from, um, free transportation within two miles. There's free breakfast, lunch and snacks as well as a food pantry for the families. Not just so amazing. He's also offering gds and job placement services for the families and for all of the students who matriculate through, I promise there is a guaranteed tuition to the of Akron for every student who graduates, which is like. That is so sweet. Amazing. Yeah, so those are my. Those are the bullet point. I don't there. There's so many more like smaller things or maybe less tangible things that the school is offering that I'm super proud of. Brian for doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll, I'm going to say what we were talking about earlier just to set this up some more like I'm going to call this the what's going on segment with Sarah and Shantelle and we're going to do a little, I guess theological, social commentary on positive things that are happening in the world because we hear a lot of negativity and certainly it fills up our newsfeeds and twitter and I'm not. I'm not trying to do that on this podcast. I'm trying to promote positive things and I know Lebron's not, you know, a woman in theology, but we're two women in theology talking about what's going on in the world of something that's super positive and for me, and I'm sure you probably will echo this, like where we see like people doing God's work on the world in the world. And so that's Kinda what I wanted this segment to be about is us just kind of, you know, talking about it, putting out a different, different viewpoints about how to look at things and promote, again, positive things that are happening in the world to make, just to give light to the good things so people get some hope and positivity in their day instead of being all, you know, bogged down by all the crappy stuff. Anyways. So initial thoughts on the school.
Speaker 2:I am in love with the concept, the idea, everything about this school. I think he has done this in such a way that is so important to the future of what education could look like. Um, he in on his website, it talks about how he had done research. You know, this has been in the works since 2011. Um, he'd done research that looked at the ways that young people, kids were being funneled into the prison to pipeline system, right. You know, by the age of eight or third or fourth grade based off testing in other behavioral things that they keep up with at schools. They are building more prisons based off of things that a see from an eight year old as terrifying. It's like so freaking scary. So he knew that he wanted to intervene at this age of a young person's life to circumnavigate that prison to prison school to prison pipeline. And speaking for myself as someone at the age of Eight, um, had a teacher who was very, very. I was the only black student in her class was I don't think that she was very equipped to deal with students of color, particularly me. And she completely damaged my sense of self in that one year of being in her class knew beyond a shadow of a doubt as an eight year old that it was for no other reason than them because I was black. Yeah. And I, I was not impoverished, but maybe I was a little bit disenfranchised because at the time my mom was a single mom and she was doing the best that she could. And so I definitely felt like an outcast that you and had it not been for people intervening in my life. My mom who was very pro education, very educated herself, I probably could have spiraled and gone into the system in a way that is not helpful for black and Brown folks. So like to see what Lebron is doing to, to, to work against that narrative is just freaking awesome.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. I am with you. I think right when I saw it, I was like, how cool is this? Like I know Lebron is an exception, right? Like a beyonce or a Jay Z of, of examples of black folk coming out of, you know, the history of black folk in this country and you know, people like to use them as examples of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps and that kind of false ideology of the American dream. Like they, he is an exception. And I had friends bring up the point will, how do you feel that, you know, someone that didn't even have an ice, you know, hardly a high school education and went straight to the pros is doing this. I'm like, I think Lebron knows he's the exception and he's just using his, his wealth and the gifts and talents he's received from God that our, our community and our country values super athletic people and we give them lots of money, especially men to perform and entertain us. And that's something we, we care about a lot. So he makes a great living. And. But I think Lebron knows that the future of the majority of young kids of color is education. And how are they going to get that if like this, you know, they always say, you know, we've learned in school that poverty's a cycle and how do we break this cycle and do we start with the mindset of the car, you know, school to pipeline a prison situation, which is horrifying to me. But like you said, we're building new prisons based on this data. Well, what if we use this data to do what Lebron's doing and start a school to help like disrupt that. How helpful is that? And I think what else I really like about it is like if functions as like a center with the school in it, so it's not just helping the kids but it's helping the families. Like you said, they're helping with career development, ged stuff and job placement for the parents. There's a food bank to help the parents. I'm not, you know, I don't think it's going to solve all know poor people's problems, but it certainly a great resource and a great start for folks to give folks a chance. And I don't know, like with anything else you can, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Um, but I just, it's so positive to me. I don't understand if anyone had any beef with it. I guess. I don't know. Have you heard any negativity about it?
Speaker 2:Um, unfortunately I have. I'm from the person who is currently occupying the highest office in the land has called Lebron. I'm the dumbest person alive, basically done this man alive or something like that, or we're not. No, he. He was a comparing, comparing him to don lemon or whoever, but either way I've heard from him and others that you know, that Lebron is unintelligent. States are playing basketball, but if you look at this school, I think it's the perfect example of intelligence, intuitiveness, ingenuity. That does not fit the norms or narratives of the westernized versions of what intelligence is. Right. If you look at what Lebron has done, he some birded everything about that exceptionalist narrative that has been placed upon him. Yes. He is exceptional in that heat. Not a lot of people make it out of the hood and make it out or you know, their circumstance to be able to play college ball. I mean not college ball Mba and all this money, but he's saying, yeah, I might have been the only one to do this, but I'm about to take all this money are playing me, paying me to just be an entertainer and I'm about to feed. I'm about to feed the village and that to me is like not only divine justice, it's more than charity. It's a big all for Deoleo who say that I'm an intelligent and I, it. It's amazing. What else I think is extremely, extremely, um, ingenious about this is that it is a community resource is not just about the children. It is intergenerational. If you look at some of the more, uh, the, the, the more, I don't want to say tribal cultures, but cultures that are not as westernized as what we are used to. Everything is centered around family and billions and tried in a way that it's not just about the, the, the child's education. It is about the family. It's about breaking that generational curse or whatever you wanna call it, generational cycles of poverty. And that is brilliant. So I don't care what anybody has to say. I believe that Lavonne is brilliant
Speaker 1:and it kind of to like disrupts this highly individualistic mindset we have in our country have, again, I'll say it, picking yourself up from your bootstraps and saying no, that's not real. Like it takes communities. It takes resources. And access to resources, the simplest of things that I take for granted, like having my own car to drive around to having money in my bank account to do basic things that keep me within the law, like being able to go get a driver's license, um, you know, buy food, you know, fresh vegetables at the grocery store that's literally, you know, a half a mile from my house. Whereas a lot of these areas that are in a lot of poverty don't even have supermarkets even within five miles of their house. So little things like this that again, I take for granted, we take for granted that just give people a chance to be productive members of society in ways that you can't, like having meals. Like we were talking about this at the church the other day because you know, right now in the liturgy it's all about bread or we're talking about bread a lot and nourishing our bodies. And Jesus is the bread of life, the bread of heaven, all these things. And so like, just the fact like, uh, we heard the story about a woman at the soup kitchen talking about how important her work was in terms of feeding people a wholesome, healthy, nourishing meal and even though she's not providing services like helping people get housing or helping people get off drugs, she is providing something extremely important for folk because if we're not nourished, if we're eating junk food all day, which poor people might only have access to chips and crappy food that's not nourishing your body in a way that, um, helps our minds and bodies be, be functional and be able to go out and do things in the world. Right? Like something as basic as that, that Lebron is providing these children that give them the opportunity then to go learn and be present and maybe not getting as many fights and be exhausted and, and not have to go home and wondering where their next meal's coming from. I mean, it's, it's such a holistic care of the human. To me it's, it's a massive gift from God via Lebron and his, his gifts that God's given him. He's using to help his community. I, I don't understand why this isn't happening more, you know, like it's just, it's such an obvious thing to, to help others. But again, we get this so individualistic. I can do it all by myself. Like it's not real. That can't work. I'll every time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I definitely appreciate liberal ions. Intersectional approach to the whole human, like you said, not just, not just about learning and education. It's about not being nourished, understanding that the family needs access to these resources. It's, it's, it's, it's amazing. I, I, I like, you can't see how anyone would have anything negative to say about it. It doesn't make sense. But I am hopeful that this is going to spark a movement, um, with others. Not, not just other athletes, but I'm even inspired churches, you know, back to back. Um, no before. So before desegregation happened and before I'm black folks and white folks could in intermix and things like that. The church is, we're absolutely these village centers, like what the, I promise school is, to be honest, they were schools they were where the young people will learn how to read because I guess what I was going to go to schools, you know, it was where people would go to share their testimony about I don't have money for this in the church, would then get the money for that person to be able to live. And so I really think back to, um, kind of not only going to the African principle, which means I am because we are as well, which, which means reaching back and pulling, pulling up to move forward. I think that Lebron is absolutely exceptional, but I think he's very aware of the people's shoulders of whom he standing upon. I think he's pulling from some very ancient wisdom wisdom. I think he's paying homage to the ways that persons of color, indigenous folks, Latinex bugs, whoever, whoever, whoever, um, have had to learn how to survive in a place that has been extremely oppressive. And he's paying homage to that with this school, which is beautiful. It is, it is such the image of beloved community if I've never seen him.
Speaker 1:There's the word right there, beloved community. This whole thing's made me think about, I'm just living in the structure of capitalism and I mean, we've, we've kind of been talking around that, that just it, I thought, you know, this kind of flips capitalism on its, but in a way it's not because still we can't escape being in the system of capitalism. We're still like getting, you know, the goal of capitalism office obviously is growth and continual growth and creating productive citizens to get into the free market to be productive and thrive. Right. Um, so we're still in the system no matter what, um, but things like this and the church and what beloved community community can do is give people a chance to participate in that, um, or, you know, otherwise, I guess you could just have communities I think of like, um, monasteries like Catholic monasteries where they literally live in community, the nuns and priests and share each other's resources. Um, and that isn't a capitalistic. I'm set up. I mean obviously, like I said, everything we're still, we can't escape being in it, but I guess it could be similar to that sort of, you know what I'm saying, but um, but at this basic level trying to break poverty and it makes me wonder like, can we and in the system of capitalism break generational poverty, uh, and, and could this be the start of something that could really help change or, or is it a kind of a false utopia? You know, that's what I've a little bit of, if any negativity swirling around for me, I wonder that, you know, like how, how much will it help?
Speaker 2:Yes. And I think, you know, lately this is, this seems tangential, but I promise I'll make it connected to a second. I've been thinking a lot about like Afro futurism, what that implies about where we're headed. And I think what most would I think about most as it relates to the I promise school is that Lebron has made a statement about the type of change agent, a change agent he identifies as or proclaims to be. He is very much working within the now and this is what we've got. I'm going to subvert, you know, turn it on his hand and I'm going to, I'm going to work with the now and what we've got, which is fine for someone like myself who was. I love afrofuturism and I love thinking about the[inaudible] the already not yet, right? It's the eschatology. It's the breaking of the spirit, right? I'm thinking about, well, what, okay, so if Lebron is working in me already, he's working in this framework of capitalism that says that I will give money to the few and I will keep the mini in poverty. If he's working against that, then what is the not yet that needs to be worth? What is that framework? And so like me. Yeah. I definitely could understand where you're coming from. Like is this a utopia? Is this, is this just working with what we've already been giving and giving and not changing much of anything. Yeah. I think that that's, that's a fair assessment and it could possibly be true, but I think there's also, you know, the necessity for people to think about like where they are in this, in this moment, in this movement, in this arc of justice, if you want to call it, are you more looking towards the not yet that the thing that has not even been created or are you the person that supposed to be working within the framework of the injustices that we see from day to day?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I think that I think mindsets and perspectives are so important. Like we said earlier, not focusing on, well these kids are going to be criminals, but no, these kids have an opportunity to make good decisions and be supported towards good decisions in every way. People that have privilege and have resources are as best to our ability as educators. Um, and also his goals are going to have longer school days. So they're in school longer. They're around people who are positive, healthy mentors and their parents can be at work longer or just not have to worry about that gap between afterschool and having to pick them up. I think that's significant as well. Um, yeah. I, the other thing I was reading this morning is that it seemed like some people were concerned about who is going to end up paying for a lot of this stuff. Taxpayers, the taxpayers. And I'm like good. Like, you know, for me, I don't know, like in Oklahoma right now we have one of the lowest, I think the bottom three, we're one of the states with the lowest funding for teachers in schools and our teachers had been writing all summer and um, are not all summer like the end of last school year. Um, and it's been a huge issue and it's like I know as a taxpayer and I know a lot of other community members like I will, I will absolutely will invest in our children and our futures and our teachers and I'm happy to be taxed more for that. And why, I mean, that's part of not being like part of being a democracy. We vote on things like this and try to give resources to things that capitalism just can't take into account for. Right. Um, and that's probably why we're not a complete and utter capitalist society. Otherwise we wouldn't have any empathy or compassion, right. And be humans. So there is, there is a balance there that we do buffer with our democracy and capitalism. Um, but I mean, what are you going to do if you don't tax people for education? Which says to me that society does value education. We all decide we want that to be a part of what it means to be a human is everyone must be educated, right? I think that's part of what giving taxes says we do value this and Lebron's foundation is obviously going to fit all the extra things that he wants to tack on to this experience that has particular school. Great. Like I don't see how that's any different from any other school. It is a public school, so that doesn't right away concern me. But yeah. Any, any other thoughts on this
Speaker 2:as it pertains to the taxpayers thing? Because I did see something about that earlier that just kind of glossed over because I don't want to say anything negatively about this wonderful thing that he's done. But yeah, I saw that and was, you know, you know, we got to always take things back. Theology, you know, how we do, but I know I was just continually a question of who his neighbor and who deserves a bread, you know what I mean? Say that like if you think about the seer Phoenician, a woman who had to call Jesus's hand, call him to the table basically when, when she's begging for him to heal her daughter and he basically calls her, you know, a derogatory name based off the customer of the day, you know, calls her a dog. And basically it's like, you know, um, the dogs don't deserve any food from the master's table. And then she says what she says about you, but even the dogs are the breadcrumbs, right? In a no, in Jesus is even captured by this woman's faithfulness to, to, to take what is meant to wound and do the work for her to get what she needed. I think that this taxpayer now this tax payer question about who's going to afford this and things like that, it comes back down to just who his neighbor and who, who deserves who deserves a bread. And some people, it is easier to figure out who his neighbor and for other people it's is. I'm not worried about my neighbor. For people of faith in this moment, in this hour, we have some, some moral and spiritual gut takes that we got to do. Because I mean, if you are, if you are proclaiming to be a person of faith,[inaudible] age and you have a, as a taxpayer with what Lebron is doing within, I want to know. I want to know what God you've been talking about this autonomy because you know, my Bible says it reads in talks about feeding, feeding the hungry. And um, you know, when I was in prison you came, visited me and now we are to welcome the stranger, the widow in the foreigner. So I don't know what God these people could be talking about is not the same one that I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't mean to. What's, you have to read, you got rev in front of your name now. So that kind of halfway expected and I want it. Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, I, I think I have no problems with paying the taxes. I have no problems with what Lebron is trying to do coming from a private school, you know, being at Vanderbilt, which is a private school teaching at a private school and seeing the ways that they don't have to worry about certain things. It's beautiful. It's beautiful though. The endowments that, that certain schools have. That's a wonderful thing. And I'm hopeful that we can get to that place where that won't just be private schools.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well I'm with you to me like as Christians we have a moral obligation to one another. And um, I don't care if I don't know you or if you've done something that's socially says you don't deserve something. Education is a human right. So is eating food being fed. Um, for me as a Christian, I believe that and I see it, what Lebron is doing is bringing God's kingdom on earth. Absolutely. And um, I just, I wanted to highlight that for the week and lift up Lebron and what he's doing and I'm hope like you said, this cascades into more people with gifts and means like Lebron did to go in and lift up these communities that need, need help the most because government programs and things, it's not enough. And I just, you know, some people are called to be prophets and in one way or another, right? So, um, I don't mind calling Lebron a profit of sorts in this. I think he's doing some exceptionally fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he's moved from team to profit. We'll have to let them know, all will tweet at them, say yes. Yes. Thanks so much for taking the time, Sean. Tell no problem. I'm happy bomb.