Black and Blurred
Bringing clarity to the blurred view on personhood, ethnicity and culture through the lens of two Christian brothers from Baltimore.
Black and Blurred
#146 Narrative Breakers pt. 1: How Christ, Free-thinking and Patriotism Changed Our Father's Life
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We're joined for the second time by our father, Dale for the first of a 3-part series that shows how the narrative surrounding black men in the country is meant to attack them rather than reveal the multifaceted reality of being a black American. How did a boy from Baltimore with auto-democratic syndrome become a conservative who espouses what would be called hateful, xenophobic and un-Christlike rhetoric? If you think our podcast is edgy...then listen to the tree from whence the two apples have fallen.
Hosts: Brandon and Daren Smith
Learn of Brandon's Church Planting Call
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Speaker 2
Understand this very word. Secrecy is a free and open.
Speaker 1
According to the power that's working with.
Speaker 4
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to black and Blue. Bye. That's there. I'm Brandon. Guys, we're back with another episode for you.
Speaker 3
That's me.
Speaker 4
We had a little bit of rest dealing with some social media stuff and media team stuff, but then also just really family and rest and and.
Speaker 4
Dealing with work, so we appreciate you guys patience and we're glad to be back with you for another episode. Guy, we got a special guest here, but before I get into that, if you're listening to this, we are currently in Dallas, TX. We're willing, as I say this on Saturday, but we are currently, as you're listening to this.
Speaker 4
In Dallas, Dallas, TX, if you're listening to it, when it when it airs at the G3 conference on the Reformation Conference is what this is in Dallas, TX and we're hoping to get some good episodes out of that from you guys to talk theology and a lot of things that are lacking in a lot of aspects of church when it comes.
Speaker 4
Onto just biblical teaching and fidelity to the word of God. One thing that's very popular on YouTube is highlighting the Tom Foolery of different pastors in the pulpit today.
Speaker 3
There's a lot of it and.
Speaker 4
There's a lot of it, a lot of it, and but even when you leave the extreme of that, you can get to like just kind of modern church and it's very pragmatic, overly pragmatic.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4
Where it's like, you know, let's just figure out good ways to do stuff, to draw people and keep people and. And a lot of aspects about the supernatural reality of our faith that God builds his church, that the gates of hell will not prevail and that God is the one who sanctifies and he's given us instruction in his scriptures.
Speaker 4
To be able to do it well and everything we need for life and godliness is found in the scriptures.
Speaker 4
Because it everything we need is according to the pertains that pertains to life and godliness is according to the knowledge of the Lord, who has called us by his own glory and excellence. And if you know anything about second Timothy 3 also the Scriptures of God breathed. And if we want to build be built to a stature of godliness, for every aspect of life, the scriptures, that's profitable.
Speaker 4
And teaching and with banking and correcting and building up very sufficient, wholly sufficient, and so that conference is centered on that specifically the Reformation, pulling away from false Catholic doctrine.
Speaker 4
To the the biblical faith that we have today.
Speaker 4
As Christian. So yeah, we hope to be able to provide you guys with some good content from that. So be praying for that time that we be edified as well, please.
Speaker 4
So into this episode into this episode, you guys, it's been a while since you've heard this guest. Well, actually you should you hear them every single episode actually in our intro.
Speaker 4
If you know exactly what he's saying, we're not gonna tell you what he's saying. Somebody text us. Somebody text us or an IG or on Facebook, or send us an e-mail. You can find it on our bio.
Speaker 4
On YouTube, wherever.
Speaker 4
You want and tell us what our guest of the day says in our intro and we'll get you a new shirt that's dropping. That's dropping very soon.
Speaker 4
We'll get you a new shirt, which I had a new shirt. You're going to get one soon. It's in the meal.
Speaker 3
Dummy to me. Yes, it's coming to.
Speaker 3
My house? No, it's.
Speaker 4
Gonna come to me. Ohh.
Speaker 1
All right, so off track.
Speaker 4
We have our father here. They Will Smith on black and blue once again against the.
Speaker 4
In some ways, creator of black and blurred and directly indirectly welcome back to the podcast that.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 5
Thanks for having me back. It's always fun to.
Speaker 5
Interact with you guys, even if it's not in person. Just listen to what you all produce is I think it's really having an effect on those.
Speaker 5
And listen to it and listen to the message that you have, because it's different from any other podcast message that I've heard.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Wow, that's encouraging. Well, if you, if you remember our earlier episodes guys, I mean, this podcast is a fruit of just the things that we always do. You know we we always do. We would sit together, we'd have a.
Speaker 4
We are we talk life.
Speaker 3
Which all father.
Speaker 4
Frustration with son. Ohh my goodness.
Speaker 4
Gracious. Ohh my goodness.
Speaker 3
I hate that we all see him coming to the door. Ohh, come over here they come with y'all. Father. Son. Goodness gracious.
Speaker 4
OK.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Yeah, we've been doing that for years, almost decades now.
Speaker 4
We've been doing.
Speaker 3
Yes, as soon as we're old enough to be frustrated.
Speaker 3
About stuff.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4
And so it's really a.
Speaker 4
Great bonding time of building time and just relaxing time where we could just.
Speaker 4
Really rant, but our rants aren't empty minded and so we want to invite you guys to that. But but in a more guided way today because.
Speaker 4
Last week.
Speaker 4
Was Uncle Mo last week marked the funeral of the last sibling of our grandmother, my father's mother. But then also of just senior men in our family, the same senior men in our family. So that all the siblings have passed.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 4
And I got this.
Speaker 4
Idea to do an episode.
Speaker 4
Where we not.
Speaker 4
Only have my father, but we also invite his brothers. So this is going to be one of three episodes that you guys listen to where we invite you into the lives of black men from Baltimore. Who?
Speaker 4
Don't fit the stereotypical narrative of black men from Baltimore, but do have seeds of those stereotypes. But it's not they're not. Are not defined by them, if that makes.
Speaker 4
Sense and the same would go true for Darren and I. It was go true for Darren and I. So that's what we wanted to do. That should be a cool episode and and then also, as my father six round we're going to do a patron only segment at the end of this as well. So patrons respect to you, but this is the moment that really inspired it.
Speaker 1
That.
Speaker 4
It was Uncle Wilbert's funeral now. I mean, what was it? I guess, aunt Thelma?
Speaker 4
Thelma, Grandma, Grandpa, Ralph or no Grandpa Ralph. Aunt Thelma. OK, grandpa Ralph. Aunt Thelma. Aunt Thelma is my grandmother's younger sister. And then our grandmother. And then?
Speaker 1
No. Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uncle Robert? No.
Speaker 3
Uncle Jane, Uncle James, then uncle, uncle.
Speaker 4
That's right, Uncle James, Uncle Wilbert and then Uncle Moses, the youngest. The youngest. But it was Uncle Roberts. You know when.
Speaker 4
The efficient or, you know Pastor or I guess the funeral director.
Speaker 4
The funeral director.
Speaker 4
At the moment I really don't really care for it too much at funerals, which they haven't done a lot really. But they did a very dramatic slow closing of the casket. You know, things like that where it's like it's playing on, I don't know, the drama of the funeral, where it's like, there's plenty raw organic emotion out of.
Speaker 4
Funeral already. It's unnecessary however I.
Speaker 3
Also think that maybe they do it slowly, slowly, slightly slip. You know that that would that would.
Speaker 1
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3
Be awful, that would.
Speaker 5
Be well, let me tell you, my grandfather's funeral after they had closed the casket and the funeral was over, they rolled them up the aisle, stopped at the door and lifted the gasket.
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Are you serious?
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 5
Wow, that was different, yeah.
Speaker 4
Why just to get one last look?
Speaker 5
Or something, or must be some kind of Louisiana thing out of boy. Yeah, Louisiana, man.
Speaker 3
That's putting the spirit out right.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
The family director said that they're about to close the casket and you know, if you wanted to get one more, last glint, glimpse at the, you know, the shell of your loved one and and then come up and look at and in unison all all of the men.
Speaker 4
So you, Uncle Bubba, Uncle Ronnie, uncle Michael.
Speaker 4
Who else was there? Like? Wanna Lee? Uncle Ronnie Lee? He's that's his son. He was the son of of who's from where we were at all. Got up to to just go up and look at the casket and and and look at Uncle Wilbert.
Speaker 4
And it was really, I mean, it was really a beautiful moment for me because, I mean, I've I've explained it to the family and everything you take for granted, the position that we've been in for generations as men in Baltimore City and having men who.
Speaker 4
Raised us and and cared for us and discipled us and took took us in in different ways and molded us. And I've got a lot of friends who don't fit that mold who don't who don't fit that narrative in. And I just thought that that was a very natural kind of inherent.
Speaker 4
Piece of evidence that shows that that's what Uncle Robert was to you guys. I mean, what? How would you describe?
Speaker 4
Kind of like thinking through that time when.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I thought a lot about that and and obviously with the families so large, thirteen siblings, there are some that I was closer, closer, closer to than others if.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 5
Not.
Speaker 5
Just purely because of age reasons, I was too young and the others are too old, so my uncles like Uncle Lewis, who was the oldest sibling, Uncle Sam, who was next to him. All of them. I didn't really know them very much when we gathered over our grandmother's house and grandfather's house, we weren't there, obviously. I mean, we saw him on occasion, but the ones I was close to were the ones you just.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 5
Mentioned first by Mother's twin uncle Bernard, Uncle Wilbert, uncle James, and Uncle Moses, we're very close to them and so back to.
Speaker 5
Question Uncle Wilbur was like a second father to me. You know, even though my father was present and you know, pertinent in my life, Uncle Wilbert treated me as another son. And there were so many things I learned from him in terms of.
Speaker 5
Manhood, first of all, and then biblical manhood. Now he didn't go around. He wasn't. He didn't do a lot of biblical exposition or anything like that, but his actions were godly. Yeah. And he certainly proved.
Speaker 5
Jesus as Christ, and so that's what I grew up with, with him always being around. And so us three cousins, Michael, Ronald Lee and I, we were, if we weren't home, we were over there either either one of our houses, either over Michael's house or around his house, our house.
Speaker 5
And the interaction between us and the parents that were there in that household just edified us and our growth and our progress in life.
Speaker 4
Wholesome biblical at least, if not.
Speaker 4
At heart, on the surface, biblical families. Now I remember, I was in a conversation. This was probably, I don't know, maybe six years ago, and it was actually a conversation on a portion. I was having cigars with some other pastors.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 4
And.
Speaker 4
You know I everybody knows my stance on abortion.
Speaker 4
And I was just trying to explain or trying to understand another pastor's stance that wasn't against abortion. I'm just trying to understand it where you said.
Speaker 4
You know, you know. And then there was a rhetoric being used. What was it at the time, there was a rhetoric. What was the thing?
Speaker 4
It was threefold.
Speaker 4
Abortion needs to be very well, yes, safe.
Speaker 3
All safe and.
Speaker 5
Rare or something. All right. Right. Right. Yeah. I don't know. Safe, safe, but rare.
Speaker 3
I thought it was just.
Speaker 4
Save something and ray.
Speaker 4
I forget. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4
But but yeah.
Speaker 4
That was the rhetoric and. And so that was used with me in the conversation.
Speaker 4
And I said, but.
Speaker
But.
Speaker 4
Why do you think that's something that's necessary? Why? Why? Why do you? Why do you see it as somebody who's theologically sound and you for a biblical lens, you know what life is and you know the purpose of it.
Speaker 4
And so the the reason given to me was that there are families in poverty.
Speaker 4
That are having a lot of kids and they aren't able to take.
Speaker 4
Care of hear that?
Speaker 3
A lot, yeah. So kill them.
Speaker 4
Yeah, and. And I'm not transforming this into a, quote UN quote political conversation. But you know, as we in general, the church sits silently and acquiesce to culture. We're going to wake up one day and just living life will be an attack on some type of political.
Speaker 4
Stance. You'll be making some type of political stance, and that's because we've given a lot of things over to the culture, but I bring that up to say.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
This is A is a big family. I mean, I, Uncle Wilbert, who we're referencing now, is like the Patriarch of making sure our family stayed in contact. We have family in North Carolina, family in other places, and then mostly family in Maryland. And every year we have a family reunion to make sure that we gathered.
Speaker 4
Somewhere here now and then. The year after it would be in North Carolina, which is Clinton, right? Yeah. Clinton NC, why is Raleigh in my mind?
Speaker 5
Clinton, NC.
Speaker 5
I don't know. Ohh. We passing going into Clinton? Yeah. Raleigh is like West of where?
Speaker
I know.
Speaker 4
I know it's like West of where it is out out in the boonies where it's nothing but grass and the smell of slaughterhouses.
Speaker 3
Our drive to.
Speaker 3
The bowling alley.
Speaker 4
To the bowling alley, the Lord have mercy. The most fun thing we could do at night is the most fun thing we do at night is go over to the Super Walmart. It's our first introduction to Super Walmart.
Speaker 1
To bring that up.
Speaker 3
I know, yeah.
Speaker 4
My first introduction there, but so even with that big family, immediately speaking, you're one of five, right?
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah, you're you're.
Speaker 4
One of five and.
Speaker 4
What was it like?
Speaker 4
Now you're also. You have a bit of a well-rounded childhood too, cause your father is in the military. So just generally speaking, what was life like growing up as one of five as a black man in Baltimore City?
Speaker 5
That's funny. Well, technically, I'm one of five now. When I was growing up.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
I was one of four.
Speaker 4
Oh, that's true. That's true. Sorry.
Speaker 5
Because on April didn't come online until 12 years later, I was the youngest for 12 years. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, growing up.
Speaker 4
That's right.
Speaker 3
That's why.
Speaker 5
For me, we were close as a family and so I wasn't shunned too much by my older siblings. So when they had parties, I was at least allowed to sit on the steps and watch them dance.
Speaker 5
Or rehearse their bands.
Speaker 5
I never had to worry about.
Speaker 5
Anybody in the neighborhood giving me trouble because they knew they would have to see my older brothers and that was back in the day when people didn't have guns. You gave somebody trouble. They come, you fight it out.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
The next day.
Speaker 5
You're playing together, you know, but they knew I had two older brothers.
Speaker 5
That that wasn't the thing, and I relied on them for that. Not that I was a troublemaker or anything.
Speaker 5
Yeah, but, you know, I was. I felt a little more.
Speaker 5
Confident.
Speaker 5
Being me and my sister, she was very studious. I learned that from her. She was a big reader. She was just sit in the room and read all the time. And, you know, and I learned the importance of school and scholarship from her. But.
Speaker 5
So yeah, as a younger brother, I valued my siblings, my parents. My dad was in the military, as you mentioned.
Speaker 1
I.
Speaker
MMM.
Speaker 5
AM.
Speaker 5
So as you mentioned, again my dad was in the military, but by me being the youngest, the only place I actually traveled, they traveled some other places before I was born. But we lived in Germany for a while and that was an experience unto itself, because a foreign country. And it's funny how your mind thinks. You know, I grew up looking at the hogans heroes and world.
Speaker 5
Movies and so forth, and I thought I was gonna say like.
Speaker 5
German soldiers sitting there by the by the airplane, yeah.
Speaker 5
Needless to say, I did not. Yeah, and it was fun. And we met a lot of friends over there. People who were in the military, that became lifelong friends. To this day, the ones that are.
Speaker 4
Still alive reduced now to white people you're talking about.
Speaker 5
No, these are black people. These are other black soldiers. My father was Smitty, and he met my name Big Smitty. And we they knew them for years until they passed away. Another family that became my sister's guide. Parents. All of them, anyway.
Speaker 4
Oh wow.
Speaker 1
Anything.
Speaker 5
We moved to where we moved on Bonner Rd. When he came back. I'm sorry. Well, yeah. When he came back from traveling before I was born, when I was born and my mom started immediately taking ours, my siblings and me to church, Forest Park Presbyterian Church.
Speaker 5
Now my dad wasn't going at the time.
Speaker 5
I remember that.
Speaker 5
But over time he started going and he accepted Christ and became a A A member of church and a leader of the church came as a trustee, or so. I don't know what it was. The name of the leaders of the church. And so it impacted me because I saw how he was prior to that. And then I saw how he was.
Speaker 5
After that and that had a huge impact on me.
Speaker 5
So that was basically it. I mean, we grew up in a household that loved the Lord.
Speaker 5
Starting from my mom and then seeing my dad join in on that.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
We were trained from childhood. Yeah, at least to be in church. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? So we heard the word on a regular basis.
Speaker 4
Really quickly, who's the most reckless sibling?
Speaker 4
Well, Uncle Ronnie, OK, You guys were here from Uncle Ronnie soon.
Speaker 1
No.
Speaker 5
Let let me.
Speaker 5
Tell you one story about operandi in Germany.
Speaker 5
Yeah, we were.
Speaker 5
Kind of latchkey kids in Germany cause we get out of school before my parents were home from work and we were on the third floor of the apartment building.
Speaker 5
For, you know, military personnel and.
Speaker 5
Families. And so we were home one day, Uncle Ronnie decided to go up into the attic. It was a full attic. You could floor it and you could walk in there and it had windows.
Speaker 5
He climbed out of one window on one side of that building up onto the roof.
Speaker 5
And down the other side and into window, the other side of the roof.
Speaker 4
Wild. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah. Wild wild. So it's it's.
Speaker 5
Race and he lived to tell the story you.
Speaker 5
Can ask him about it.
Speaker 4
Baltimore City. What are some things I'm going to I'm going to get into kind of like your political views and and how they've evolved over the years and things like that. But just in general, what was the framework, the societal political framework of Baltimore City that you remember during that time, even ethnically, you know?
Speaker 4
Relationships there because the community you grew up in was a former Jewish community and was it still remnants of?
Speaker 4
Fish.
Speaker 4
Community while you were still there or.
Speaker 5
It was more like it was remnants of black community cause you were the second Black family to move in there. Everyone else was, well, not everyone else was Jewish.
Speaker 1
Oh.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 5
That's a good point. There it was remnants of Jewish, but everyone else was.
Speaker 4
OK.
Speaker 5
White.
Speaker 4
I see. I see.
Speaker 5
Right. We were the second black families moving there, so there were still quite a few Jews.
Speaker 5
But the whites that were there, most of them went to our church.
Speaker 4
Yeah, right. Right, right. And I played a big part in the way.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
And in your view of, I mean it began a big part in in just the how to address the realities of the world and humanity and racism and things like that. We'll we'll get into that. But what are some other things that you remember about Baltimore City during the time that has either worsened or gotten better today?
Speaker 5
Since the community was certainly far different than it is in a.
Speaker 5
Good way.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
I mean, we had to worry about. We had to play our.
Speaker 5
Friends.
Speaker 5
We could go outside. I mean, we went outside.
Speaker 3
Forever. It seemed like that's what you did, yeah.
Speaker 5
Just go outside and you know, they weren't always looking at you cause they didn't because your neighbors would be looking at you too, you know? So you had to be aware that no matter where you are, someone is watching you. And so that that sort of, you know that determine what?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
We would do.
Speaker 1
No.
Speaker 5
That's crazy, boys, as we were.
Speaker 5
It does some crazy thing.
Speaker 5
Most of which got told for our fans before we could even show up back at home, you know, they knew it. So that was the big thing. The community of it. Then the other thing is we grew up in the civil rights period with Martin Luther King and all that kind of stuff. Stuff happening. And I remember we had just moved back from Germany. We're living at my grandmothers house.
Speaker 5
In Fulton Ave. when he was assassinated and the riots and stuff, there was a curfew was supposed to stay in your house. And I remember people running up and down the street and they were looting. I mean, people were literally dragging refrigerators up the street that they had stolen from stores. Wow. Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 5
It was really crazy, so that that was a sort of a tumultuous time for that to happen. And then what it meant you, you know, you looking at the TV at the funeral and the newscast about his assassination and all that kind of stuff it was.
Speaker 5
I think that's sort of.
Speaker 5
Affected me.
Speaker 5
In a in a way, yeah, it it infected me to see that happen.
Speaker 4
What the assassination or their their help, OK.
Speaker 5
Your.
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 5
And the thing that I remember because that was happening.
Speaker 5
Before the racial situation, the racial tension was happening prior to that, before we left for Germany, and I remember the level of disdain that I would see in people's faces if we went, if we went certain places, you know, the other race would would look at us like, you know, what are you doing here? Kind of a look.
Speaker 5
And I quickly learned that that was an American thing.
Speaker 5
Because when we went to Germany, we had some indigenous German friends who would take us to little towns in Germany that other people weren't.
Speaker 5
Going.
Speaker 5
To and we go into this little town and we were literally the only black specks in that town. Crowded town and everything would.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Up.
Speaker 5
We were the focus and it was scary at first. I'm like, oh, Lord, they're gonna get me. We're not even in our own country. Yeah, but no, it wasn't that.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
They were happy to see us. We we were like, I guess, a novelty event to see because they didn't see black people like that and they would come up to us. They want to shake our hands. And I was.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
Thinking boy, this is different from home. Yeah, you always.
Speaker 4
Because that would be categorized as racist. Is it right? You know, what's the the, the the. I guess the the primary way is, you know, touching your hair. It's the ignorance. So why we don't know about each other. And the fact that you want to learn about one another is racist, right? What they would say.
Speaker 3
Racism. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3
That's racism.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right, right.
Speaker 4
That's very interesting. So Derek, so.
Speaker 3
Think about the the the sense of community more. I mean, we've been to that.
Speaker 3
House on Barner Road, we flew up there.
Speaker 4
Yeah, well, that's that's that was the place to.
Speaker 1
Go after church.
Speaker 3
Right. And I always wondered like man like.
Speaker 3
Five children or four children.
Speaker 3
Grew up in this house and now you think about now and it's like, you know, the houses are close together. They're not townhouses, but they're close together. Mm-hmm. And there's about.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 3
30 houses on each block.
Speaker 3
They do more. I don't know. There's a lot of houses.
Speaker 3
On these back, yeah.
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 3
But those are the healthiest communities, like now everybody wants space in yards and I don't want my neighbor near me. I don't even like. Even if you got townhouses, people want to be separated.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3
And we just couldn't be more further apart.
Speaker 3
Like, don't even you. You. You send your kids out now if you're not watching them, no one.
Speaker 3
Is right.
Speaker 4
Nobody is and they get snatched.
Speaker 4
Up and it might be your.
Speaker 3
Neighbor that does it. Yeah, and that's that's that's insane. That's insane. That sense of community that you know we had growing up on Dorchester. Yeah. You know, the houses weren't as close as Bon and.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 3
Well, but.
Speaker 3
We knew every neighbor, all right, and they knew us.
Speaker 4
A as a as a.
Speaker 4
Student.
Speaker 4
What was schooling like?
Speaker 4
As a black student.
Speaker 4
During that time.
Speaker 5
That was interesting too, because.
Speaker 5
This was a time where busing became a thing, and so my schooling was.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Really quickly background with blessing for anybody.
Speaker 5
Where they bus.
Speaker 5
Black children into white neighborhoods to go to school. Basically, I mean, we weren't aware of what it was about or, you know, obviously we weren't politically aware, right? I don't even know if my parents were that politically aware. Yeah, but they just looked at it as an opportunity for us to go to school. Or I'm saying us.
Speaker 5
Just.
Speaker 5
Me really to to go to a better school.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 5
And so yeah, I went to kindergarten and 1st grade at your elementary school. Liberty Elementary, 2nd grade, where I was in Germany, 3rd grade and 4th grade back to liberty. And then they started bussing 5th and 6th grade. I went to Pima.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
School no Falstaff Elementary School, which was? Yeah, primarily Jewish. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. And so.
Speaker 5
The thing I remember about that it seemed like we were under a microscope by all of the teachers, white and black, and I know my one of my best friends, Darrell Taft and I were in the same class most of the time and we felt like that we got the brunt of all the correction.
Speaker 5
And discipline.
Speaker 5
It seems like we could do the slightest thing and our parents would be called up for a conference when the other Jewish little kids could do the craziest things and their parents would never know about it.
Speaker 4
Interesting.
Speaker 4
Interesting. I'm thinking about this. You talked about the busing, I remember.
Speaker 4
Watching, I think it was Uncle Tom with Chad O Jackson. He directed it and.
Speaker 4
But I forget who it was I was talking. I'm trying to find it. If I can find that clip. But but, but. But what? What? What Chad is pointing out is when it came down to integration, the reason why there were a lot of black leaders who were against.
Speaker 4
Integration.
Speaker 4
These for the same reasons they were against segregation.
Speaker 4
Is that segregation was a government mandated division.
Speaker 1
Which?
Speaker 4
Via ethnicity and integration was, or desegregation was, government mandated.
Speaker 4
Integration, right. And so they they were black and white Americans who had relationships, close relationships during that time. Obviously we don't know about them because that would mess up the narrative a bit, but.
Speaker 4
Who were friends and had strong sense of community with one another and things like that, but.
Speaker 4
What the demand was, the work it takes for a neighbor to get to know neighbor.
Speaker 4
The some of the civil rights movement, if not all of it, was demanding the government enforce that.
Speaker 4
And and it and it ended up messing up a bunch of aspects of community because they were black-owned bus companies, but.
Speaker 4
During that civil rights era in.
Speaker 4
The Rosa Parks the.
Speaker 4
They were demanded to, like, allow like white people to get on there and like, but they don't allow people live here, so we need to go and pick up some white people and, you know, let them get on and whatnot and then get in the front and stuff like that. So they can create the picture that demands the government intervention to create integration.
Speaker 4
Those things, but it there, there, there. It's very interesting about the history that we get on this side of it versus what it looks like having gone through it, where you will have evil, you will have actual racism.
Speaker 4
But I think whenever the government steps in to do the work that a neighbor ought to do for his neighbor or her neighbor, you get an overcorrection and you end up getting a a facsimile, maybe just inverted.
Speaker 4
Of the same thing, the same exact thing.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I mean it said that the government doesn't do anything. Well now I've come to realize that now what you've said brought a lot of a lot of thoughts into my mind about, again, I wasn't aware of any of that sort of political stuff and why we we were being bussed. But then I I was just thinking about it. You know, my closest and oldest friend.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 5
My pastor's son, Billy Mingus, was white.
Speaker 5
Why wasn't he at false? Never elementary school? Yeah. Why wasn't he at Pimlico? You know he didn't get busted.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4
There didn't get busted.
Speaker 5
You know, and so we we lost that relationship in terms of being in class together, but thankfully he lived in the neighborhood. So we saw each other.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 4
Yeah, right, right. Well, that's a good segue because I was just about to ask you.
Speaker 4
You know as.
Speaker 4
You got older? How?
Speaker 4
Did you begin to understand politics and how that you know, as far as the narrative of the day, how engrossed were you in it and what was it like having that awakening to say, oh, this is stupid.
Speaker 5
Well, that's a that's a very good question. I think my politics just took on the nature of my parents politics for a very long time.
Speaker 5
Even to the point of being in college and arguing.
Speaker 5
Pro Democrat, which is which was arguing for those things that Democrats were for. I don't really believe I had.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 5
I don't really think I believed in what I was arguing for, so it was just a process of just of, of being able to.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
Uh.
Speaker 5
Put forth.
Speaker 5
Something that at least sounded good. Yeah. You know, for those policies and those ideologies that the Democrats stood for at the time. And isn't that ironic? Because I think a lot of people.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
Do that now.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5
Because there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't make any sense, and I think that's what changed me as it became more independent.
Speaker 5
And I and and my independence again. Probably wasn't until college, and I didn't learn to be independent until I was around independent thinking and independent.
Speaker 5
People I had sort of a self-confidence issue up until college, you know, until I met people like Tom Wilkins who.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
Who didn't? Yeah, and he didn't come from a very favorable background. He came from a single parent home and A and a downtrodden neighborhood in Norfolk, VA.
Speaker 5
But he's a major conflict conductor. Today around the world. Yeah, we're over now. So he didn't let whatever his circumstances were, stop him. And I saw that very early and it it helped me to realize that, you know, this stuff goes on and people even today.
Speaker 4
Yeah, around the world. Right. Well, we're now. Yeah, well, right now.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
All racing is around. Well, sure it's around. So what? Yeah. Yeah. So what does that have to do with me?
Speaker 4
So back up real quick, because what's important, you mentioned college, I think what your college was is important. Where did you go to college?
Speaker 5
I went to Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music, and I went there as a double major in music education, major and a piano technology major. My intentions were to become a piano technician with which I am today. I don't. I just took.
Speaker 4
OK.
Speaker 5
Music education because was a it was a four year degree, the only one that.
Speaker 5
That thought.
Speaker 5
About taking now nowadays there's so many more avenues in the music field, engineering and music law, and that wasn't around back then. You were either a teacher, you were a performer, you were a composer. Yeah, that was basically it not.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 4
This theory of part of the teaching.
Speaker 5
Yeah, it's part of.
Speaker 4
All of them. I really. Yeah, I bet. I bet.
Speaker 5
Part about them so.
Speaker 5
Yeah. So that's why I went again. Big school blacks were in the minority there. And the thing I remember the most about that as we mingled with whites and a lot of them came from very remote areas in Virginia and other southern places.
Speaker 1
M.
Speaker 5
They would tell us that if I were to take you home today to my home, my parents wouldn't let you in.
Speaker 5
You know, and I didn't get mad at that. I mean, I knew that to be true, but I understood it took a lot for them to say that to us. See, because if they didn't feel comfortable around us, they would never see it. Yeah, they would never sit.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Yeah, they would never say that.
Speaker 4
That's a sign of relationship for them to share that it what what?
Speaker 4
Did you experience?
Speaker 4
Any animosity?
Speaker 4
Throughout that time racially. Ohh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. Winchester. Winchester was a wild tank.
Speaker 5
I mean, everything was named after a.
Speaker 4
Was.
Speaker 5
A general in the.
Speaker 5
A Civil war general that was, you know, in the in the.
Speaker 5
Of. Mm-hmm. There was a rebel yell restaurant. There was Lee Jackson Hwy. All of that were reminders at my time and and my time. They were reminders that I was black. Yeah. You know, and I remember one of the guys there who was White saying why? Why does everything have to be black and white?
Speaker 5
With.
Speaker 5
You guys, I said. Well, we're always reminded that we're black.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 5
You know, look at the restaurant name. Look at the street name. Look at this. Look at this. Everything in that town was like that. And there were a lot of personalities in that town that grew up thinking in that way. Yeah. So again, you know, Tom Logan's, who was my one of my best buddies up there. We will go out the restaurant. He he dated white girls. So.
Speaker 5
I mean, that's just what it was. And so we go out.
Speaker 5
The dinner and there would be times where whole tables of guys would just sit there and stare at us, you know, just stare at us because she was there with a group of black people. Yeah, you know, and we would do crazy thing. We didn't realize that the South had.
Speaker 5
Guns back then, but we.
Speaker 5
We sit there and Westbury, OK? On the count. If we were going to stand up and stare at them.
Speaker 5
And we would do that and they would just turn around and not look at us anymore. You know, that could have gone bad, but.
Speaker 4
The Grace of God was on you.
Speaker 5
Yeah, it was, but yeah. So but again, you mentioned those relationships, the relationships that we had with people who were formerly of that mindset, yeah.
Speaker 4
It was on you.
Speaker 5
It changed it and we became friends. Relationship, lifelong friends. Yeah.
Speaker 4
Yeah, relationship. So having gone through that, I mean, like you you, you know through tables of people staring at you, whatever it is and stuff like that. I, you know, I remember one time I have no idea. We were maybe you maybe we were going to one of my travel.
Speaker 4
Soccer.
Speaker 4
Games or something like that and.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 4
We were pulling into a gas station.
Speaker 4
You know, whatever happened, maybe somebody was trying to go while you were going. Whatever something happened with just traffic or whatever, and and he rolled his window down to say something and you couldn't hear him. So you pulled up next to him to make sure do not want to be rude like he was trying to talk to you and you know, and he said some like F your.
Speaker 4
Mother. Niger. Something like.
Speaker 4
That and he said, oh, you're stupid.
Speaker 4
OK.
Speaker 4
Alright, have a good one and then you went and pumped your gas. Yeah, I tell that story often because based on the fact that you, you know, the, you know the the the anti superpower of the day is racism. Nobody wants to be racist except the black people that people could be there but but but. But if you're if you're right then the the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Speaker 4
You know, God could could sit you in front of the phone room and say.
Speaker 4
You have not trusted in the blow spilled by my son. You are condemned the hell.
Speaker 4
But you're not racist. Ohh.
Speaker 1
God, thank you. Alright, right.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
So it's the worst possible thing, but but you you know, you go from real racism because it's a real thing in the world. Sin is a real thing in the world. Why aren't you an angry black man?
Speaker 5
I think because of the and I'm using the word in its truest sense, diversity of my experience. I had been around.
Speaker 5
White people before.
Speaker 5
I've been around American white people and German white people.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
They were. There was a contrast there in most cases.
Speaker 5
Well, I did experience some things with some younger white Germans, but I don't think it was red.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 5
Related, I think it was us. Yeah. Yeah. They knew we were Americans and knew we didn't know our way around there. And so, I mean, they stole from us and stuff like that little stuff like that. But I think the diversity of my upbringing.
Speaker 4
It's national.
Speaker 1
Bill.
Speaker 5
Started to change my mindset and I started to realize that.
Speaker 5
I am who I say I am not who? Somebody else says I am.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 5
And there I mean, I could be walking right where we grew up in Dorchester and Granada, walking on Liberty Heights.
Speaker 5
And back in those days, our car will ride down the street and I never want understand why people don't want to say the word. What? I won't say it cause it's a podcast they may kick.
Speaker 5
You off and.
Speaker 4
I said it.
Speaker 5
Just say OK and holler out the window.
Speaker 5
Speaker 1
That's funny. That's funny. Yeah.
Speaker 5
That was a common. Yeah, isn't that crazy? And I would just look at him and.
Speaker 5
Wave and say thank you, yeah.
Speaker 5
Yeah, because they that doesn't affect me.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 4
Like I feel like.
Speaker 4
In you taught us this, I feel.
Speaker 4
Like it is way more.
Speaker 4
Condescending because if you.
Speaker 4
Translate what's happening in that moment.
Speaker 4
Is they've condescended you so much, they believe their words do have power over you and all they're doing is rolling down their window and, say, dance right. And the moment you get angry and riled up and start tap dancing.
Speaker 4
Who's the real? I mean, you really are. Who?
Speaker 3
They say you are, yeah.
Speaker 5
You realize that? Yeah, they win.
Speaker 4
And.
Speaker 4
And you see that? I mean, what? What one common denominator that you know I've found in related conversations with people and the people that I know who have such a narrow mindset towards national, I mean ethnicity and things like that is that one, they are deeply ingrained in.
Speaker 4
The quote UN quote politics, they're not knowledgeable of it, obviously, but they're deeply ingrained in the messaging of the politics of the day and the media of the day. And they do not have a plethora of diverse relationships.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 4
And their mind is so narrow towards their neighbor.
Speaker 4
And that's across ethnicities.
Speaker 4
Right. That's across ethnicities. And so you'll have people.
Speaker 4
From remote parts of the country who are growing up on farms, they're white, deeply ingrained in the messaging of their politics, and they don't have any relationships. And as a result, they might have narrow mindedness. I'm not saying that's a guarantee for anybody in that circumstance, but the people that I've met.
Speaker 4
And you know, I I've.
Speaker 4
Come across, I told you.
Speaker 4
The story before I was in Florida.
Speaker 4
Talani was on a work trip and so I decided to go with her.
Speaker 4
And I was going to just be fine to, you know, to.
Speaker 4
Do with drill.
Speaker 4
You were in the farm place. Where is the?
Speaker 4
Closest cigar lounge.
Speaker 4
And and you know, they they they had just shut down Uber and Lyft in Panama.
Speaker 4
The city is because, you know.
Speaker 4
They got multiple reports of drivers ******.
Speaker 4
People and like let's.
Speaker
Let's go.
Speaker 5
Over here, yeah.
Speaker 4
Type of vetting process, yeah.
Speaker 4
But so I caught a taxi cab.
Speaker 3
That's safer. They exist.
Speaker 1
Where man was.
Speaker 4
A taxi service and it was a big old country white boy that.
Speaker 4
Picked.
Speaker 4
Me up and he's like, I mean, he was a very friendly guy but had not been able to have conversations.
Speaker 4
Two aspects of who I am a pastor.
Speaker 4
And a black.
Speaker 4
American he hadn't had that. So we were sitting there just having an honest conversation while he's and he, you know, he was kind of quiet in the beginning, he said. He said, where you from, you know, from Prince Georges County, but, you know, born and raised in Baltimore City so.
Speaker 4
OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, that's up north.
Speaker 4
And so, you know, you kind of died down.
Speaker 4
And he was like, can I ask you something?
Speaker 4
And it started with gay stuff, he said.
Speaker
What? What? What's?
Speaker 4
Your thought about gay stuff, you know?
Speaker 3
That's a question, goodness gracious. My question is this.
Speaker 4
And so that was the past oral context. But then?
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 4
You know, we started getting into ethnic context and things like that and just really bonding in conversation as he's just learning about stuff and asking me who I am and my experiences and then giving his thoughts that he can't share because he's afraid that he'll be called a racist if he shares them and and and those concepts are, you know, my thought is that, you know, black people are just disgusting.
Speaker 4
Obviously that's not his his context. His context is.
Speaker 1
Just.
Speaker 4
An ignorant person about a people group that he doesn't have any information on, really besides information he's given that he wants to check and come back by asking questions. So we're driving around and I told him my circumstance and say, well I I need to find a place with Wi-Fi. So this is the place, the address I gave you and and I and I think they have a lounge on Wi-Fi.
Speaker 4
And he's like, well, there's a place closer than this, but I'm not really sure about that Wi-Fi thing. So here's what I'll do. I'll, I'll take you to the closer place. And if they don't have Wi-Fi, then I'll take you to the other place for your charge. I'm sorry. OK, cool. I'll get to the the the closer Cigar lounge I walk in, and it's three older white guys.
Speaker 4
You know the belt door belt, the.
Speaker 4
Door rings, yeah.
Speaker 4
They kind of stopped talking and look at.
Speaker 3
Me must have been the faders.
Speaker 4
And I said, hey, how you guys doing?
Speaker 4
How can I help you?
Speaker 4
Yeah, you guys.
Speaker 4
Have a cigar lounge. You look at each other.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
OK. Is there is there a Wi-Fi?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Alright, thank you guys. I walked out.
Speaker 4
And he got back in the.
Speaker 4
Car. He's all didn't have Wi-Fi.
Speaker 4
I said yeah, they do have Wi-Fi, but.
Speaker 4
And he was like, oh, the.
Speaker 4
Racist. Oh, let's go to the other place.
Speaker 5
That's funny.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
But yeah, I think conversation is the one thing that people are dissuaded.
Speaker 4
From having with one another.
Speaker 5
Right. Yeah, right. Sometimes they're forced to to into the situation where they have to consider something other than their mentality has been for years. And I remember a situation at at Shenandoah, I was a trombone major there, and the school assigned you a piano accompanist. So we get together in a company.
Speaker 5
I had a a recital coming up and I needed to rehab.
Speaker 5
So my confidence was white and from the Winchester.
Speaker 5
Area by the.
Speaker 5
Way she came, she brought her boyfriend. This dude didn't seem too happy that I was there and I'm just non conversing, you know. Had a smug face and you know just seemed angry.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
I was saying, OK, let's get this rose over so I can get out of here. And so we rehearsed and.
Speaker 5
After playing that music, this guy was a different guy. Conversing man. You guys sounding good. How long you been playing drums? And I was thinking to myself.
Speaker 1
Now.
Speaker 5
What was the difference that changed this guy?
Speaker 5
That's amazing. I guess music does what it say. It's.
Speaker 5
Music cures to savage Beast or savage breast. I believe it really is. Yeah. Hmm. So I guess it does.
Speaker 4
Ohh is that OK?
Speaker 1
Huh.
Speaker 4
So Fast forward, you know, kind of one last leg here. So those things evolve, you you you recognize the beauty of.
Speaker 4
Individualism, when it comes down to.
Speaker 4
Thought.
Speaker 4
Soaring Kierkegaard said that most people.
Speaker 4
Cry for the.
Speaker 4
Right to the freedom of speech when they are born with the freedom of thought, which they seldom use.
Speaker 4
And.
Speaker 4
And so you you are aware of this and you begin using your own thought, which then in in inevitably takes you away from not only the narrative but the narrative that's been kind of pinned on our identity as black American.
Speaker 4
Which then puts you at odds with other black Americans, right? Like what? What were some experiences regarding that and different conversations, different thought processes, that has rubbed you up against the, quote, UN quote, black thought of the day? It's it's, I would say in your younger years. Really.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I I think the difference was.
Speaker 5
Knowledge versus ignorance.
Speaker 5
And the impetus for me was as a senior, I had all of my credits that I needed, so I didn't need any courses, but I had to be in school, so I had to pick courses. I've done that. I picked 2 history courses.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
One of which was American history. Mm-hmm. And I started. My teacher was like, I'm coming to class. I mean, you got two history courses. I'll just give you an assignment. So I I was reading that American history book, and I begin to see.
Speaker 5
What the founders of this country meant by freedom, what it was that they were escaping from, and what it was they were trying to develop with by following this country. And I realized that.
Speaker 5
What they intended.
Speaker 5
Did not exist even back in the that's back in the 70s, it didn't exist. Now it's certainly it's like on its last breath. Now. Yeah, and that.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 5
Just made me aware that.
Speaker 5
This freedom that they talked about.
Speaker 5
These truths to be held self-evident that all.
Speaker 5
Yes. By God, yes. You know the created by God, he says they're creator.
Speaker 5
With certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and people can scream all day that ohh yeah. But those people that wrote this stuff they had, they had slaves and blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5
But what they wrote.
Speaker 5
Is true.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Ideal. Yeah.
Speaker 3
The idea, yeah, the idea.
Speaker 5
Is true. You ain't black.
Speaker 1
Now.
Speaker 4
Now some people will probably hear you said that, and one thing probably called them of God if they're also history buffs and they're knowledgeable. The Constitution and knowledgeable.
Speaker 4
Of what you just quoted, and they'll probably think what the heck did you just say? Honor what?
Speaker 5
Ohh.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And so explain that briefly why you pronounce it that way, unalienable rights versus unalienable rights.
Speaker 5
It it goes to the root word, I mean the root word based on what unalienable rights are, rights that cannot be taken away or cannot be possessed by another person.
Speaker 4
Is there a difference?
Speaker 4
Like a lien placed on your rights.
Speaker 5
Like a Lynn, not an alien. An alien that has nothing to do with that has.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
To do with that, but it's on a learnable. They can't lend your rights. They can't claim ownership of your rights. So I learned it from somebody else, a book I read.
Speaker 5
Or something like that. So it was probably.
Speaker 4
When he a linguist as well.
Speaker 5
No.
Speaker 5
Was he what?
Speaker 4
A linguist. Ohh.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I learned a lot from him. OK. Yeah, I learned a.
Speaker 5
Lot from him.
Speaker 4
OK, so an aspect of that you guys.
Speaker 4
I mean, you have taught us about American history. We grew up in that you would ask us like questions and things like that. I remember whenever you were either taking us to play basketball or whatever it is, you would just randomly ask me and my boys different questions about history in in America, in the country and things like that.
Speaker 4
And today.
Speaker 4
I mean very quickly to have any type of semblance of.
Speaker 4
Happiness towards America.
Speaker 4
Puts you in some domestic terrorism category. It's wild, it's it's very wild meanwhile.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Speaker 4
You can care about something like.
Speaker 4
Randomly thinking of taxation.
Speaker 1
Ohh and.
Speaker 4
And people have been so programmed.
Speaker 4
If you want to learn about taxation, I mean this is multifaceted programming. Now, because now we've been so conditioned when it comes down to individualism and learning, the ability to learn, that you can only learn truly if you've paid 80 to $100,000 for someone to teach you what they know.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
That's the only way you can properly learn, and they've given you a paper that stamps and stamp it and say I've taught them everything I know. That's the only way you can learn. And two.
Speaker 4
People have been conditioned to believe that the way our tax system is being carried out is its proper way.
Speaker 4
And that's something you've spent a lot of years reading and learning about and that people.
Speaker 4
C is foolish one. What started you wanting to learn about the tax code and then live by it truthfully?
Speaker
Well.
Speaker 5
I've always been an advocate of the truth. First of all, and if I know a truth.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
And and particularly if we're going to go into this realm, particularly about freedom and the feelings that I have, we're should have, I'm going to act on them. I mean it. It's just as simple as that. I think it's my duty to act on them. Otherwise they just disappear if we don't act on our our freedoms, they'll disappear. And So what led me to that?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
Was is that what you asked?
Speaker 1
Well.
Speaker 5
Was again.
Speaker 5
Just learning about about history. One of the enumerated complaints in the Declaration of Independence against King George is for taxing US without our permission. So why would it then set up a system that did just that, and worse, doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, right.
Speaker 5
So the the logic of it all.
Speaker 5
And the thing about it is when you when you face people, unfortunately.
Speaker 5
You know, somebody says if you tell the lie some enough times, it becomes the truth and it does for a lot of people. And so we're so far removed from the truth. Now most people are. And it's funny because I I rarely even bring up taxation unless unless it just hits me in the face of conversation. I have to bring it up. I don't bring it up because what happens is when I start talking, you should see the.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
Basically it's like a, it's like just staring at me blankly. You know, I had last week the lady brought it up and I mentioned something said. Well, you know, everybody has to pay tax. And I said, well, how much of the Internal Revenue Code have you read?
Speaker 3
People start. Yeah. You start following. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5
The the What the Internal Revenue Code, the tax statutes.
Speaker 5
Oh, I haven't read that.
Speaker 4
Night. Night. Yeah, yeah, you'd be good now.
Speaker 5
You.
Speaker 5
I mean, you're a Christian. How much?
Speaker 5
Of the Bible.
Speaker 5
Have you read?
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
Umm, it's important, isn't it?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
So that's just that's just it. And so as you alluded to, a lot of times people and I you know, I know what plays into it like you said, I don't have a degree in in tax law. I don't have a degree. I don't, I'm not a CPA.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
I'm just a piano tuner. Yeah, that happens to be black, and that does play into it. Trust me, that happens to be.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure. Any trade? Yeah.
Speaker 5
Black what in?
Speaker 5
The world. Can you possibly know about the tax?
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4
And and and and the next stuff plays up that plays into it up to a certain point because when the messaging.
Speaker 4
When, when? When people have been so conditioned to adopt the messaging and you go against the messaging at that point skin credentials.
Speaker 4
Head or not, head don't matter.
Speaker 4
Because the, I mean it's basic form is, it's just cognitive dissonance at that point where oh, no, this is all I know. Even though you don't know anything about it, it's all I know. I think about body bakom shoot. Sorry. I think about body balkam he said this thing and he was talking about creationism.
Speaker 4
And he was speaking at a commencement for.
Speaker 4
Seminary grads, and it was in.
Speaker 4
Kansas, where's the ark thing?
Speaker 3
Saint Louis, Saint Louis.
Speaker 3
Ohh, it's really what you mean. The the Ark, Ark, Noah's ark that's ohh.
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, Kentucky. And and and I think the commencement actually had at that museum and and you know, kind of whatever presentation room but and and and what he said was that.
Speaker 3
I want to go to bed.
Speaker 4
Though you're graduating with a degree, obviously root yourself in who God has called you through his son Jesus as a son, a Co heir and inheritor the Kingdom of God. And do not fall victim to the silly pursuits of winning the hearts and minds of man.
Speaker 4
Through big pieces of paper, people look at me. She smoke talking about herself. What about them?
Speaker 4
You know, I'm from, you know, raised in South Central LA, single mother. I played college football. I studied at Oxford, got a degree from Oxford.
Speaker 4
But man, you went.
Speaker 4
To Oxford. Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. I've published books. I've been quite successful.
Speaker 4
Then they ask me how old the universe is.
Speaker 4
And they asked me to interpret Genesis and I tell them that God made the.
Speaker 4
World and everything, and in six days.
Speaker 4
And then that vast array of credentials gets whittled down to ohh you're an idiot.
Speaker 4
You're an idiot. That's it. Because it's not about the credentials. It's about the messaging. And if you go against the mandated messaging, whether or not it's logical and it and it's evidentially true now, I'm not saying I'm not taking his stance on that. I'm I would, I would agree with him.
Speaker 4
I believe the Lord made the.
Speaker 4
The world in six days but.
Speaker 4
I'm. I'm just saying that no matter what, that is what you're battling is people's inability to think for themselves.
Speaker 3
For themselves. And that's I mean that's right that weaponization of of messaging has been added for a long time and we and in more recent history. What is it now I mean.
Speaker 3
If your if you have a a pinging about COVID are you are you a virologist?
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 3
All of us are shut down conversation because if you have conversation, you build community and and relationship. Now you have to you get to talk to each other and discover what's true. If it's about taxes or work for the IRS because IRS people know everything about taxes apparently, or if you are.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 3
Anti abortion. Are you a woman? Didn't showed up. So all of all of it is about just.
Speaker 3
Silencing you? Yeah. Are you from Israel? It doesn't matter what it is. Are you a rabbi? Because I am. You know it's it's. And usually that doesn't even work out that way. Usually it's someone who's not a virologist asking.
Speaker 3
Are you a virologist?
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 3
Because you go against the messaging and say, well, are you? Yeah, right.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Or do you work for the IRS?
Speaker 4
These are all.
Speaker 3
You know, not logical and they're not really. They're not really arguing against what you believe. They're arguing for the messaging on behalf of.
Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
Speaker 3
The brainwasher? Yeah. I don't even know who they are.
Speaker 3
On behalf of, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4
We saw that play out. I I I spent.
Speaker 4
Multiple opportunities to talk about.
Speaker 4
Ben Carson few years ago, 2016 through 2020.
Speaker 4
And it's because during that time Black was super in black. Is is whittling out a little bit. You know, you got illegal immigration and things like that. So Black is is what you got? Illegal immigration and gay stuff. So black people as the ethnic pawn in the political game, they're being whittled out and they're jealous over it.
Speaker 4
And some people are just waking up.
Speaker 4
But a lot, a lot of black Americans are just jealous that their master isn't.
Speaker 4
You know.
Speaker 4
Commanding them to carry his his things.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
But.
Speaker 4
So Black was in at that time and it was becoming very popular to just reduce doctor Ben Carson to idiocy because of his conservative stance.
Speaker 3
MHM.
Speaker 4
And that's very interesting.
Speaker 4
That I think that messaging that origin of that messaging is worse than what you were talking about, that where it was like.
Speaker 4
I think his faith and his skin color played a part in it and people are adopting that even as black professing Christians saying.
Speaker 4
Yeah, he's an.
Speaker 4
Idiot. Just like my racist master just said.
Speaker 4
That's so wild that that's what happens. Ben Carson. Ben Carson. Like Ben Carson.
Speaker 5
Yeah, he was a hero just a few years back.
Speaker 3
You can't think.
Speaker 4
Yeah, that's it. And that's what I would tell them. I said, look, growing up in Baltimore City, when it comes down to posters that are on school walls. Yeah, Ben Carson was all all of them, all of them.
Speaker 3
His books, yeah.
Speaker 4
But his evidence that the messaging of today is false, so he has to be an idiot and everybody has to join in and call him an idiot. So what you want to say?
Speaker 5
No, I was gonna say yeah. And. And the thing that that really works against that.
Speaker 5
That mentality, that mindset, it's facts. I mean, that's the only thing that work because all they have is emotion.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 5
When you start putting facts to that, yeah, they can't really battle that. Yeah. Yeah. I saw a a perfect example of that. Just today, in fact, on YouTube, I got YouTube that was on there anyway. It was a kind of release.
Speaker 4
No, they have to do ad hominem. They have to attack you.
Speaker 5
Of Rice was on the.
Speaker 5
View. Ohh wow, she's silenced.
Speaker 5
Stuff, yeah.
Speaker 5
Because she had facts.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
You know, and it had to do with race and race relationships and so forth and.
Speaker 5
She just made it nonsense and they really didn't have any comeback.
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah. And and so we see the messaging of today.
Speaker 4
Which they I mean you create foot foot soldiers because at that point, if you are a free citizen who is acting on your freedoms within the structure of the law, that's important.
Speaker 4
Because a lot of Christians.
Speaker 4
Will hear a.
Speaker 4
Viewpoint about taxation and citizens who are saying, hey, I'm actually within the tax structure and I'm I'm, I'm doing this legally, they see any desire to go against the messaging and then they love to quote Jesus and saying.
Speaker 4
They run to Caesar what is Caesar's and they fail to realize that.
Speaker 4
When you follow.
Speaker 4
The truthful way of the tax.
Speaker 1
Code you are right, right.
Speaker 4
They don't. They just don't know that that's the way it's set up. They don't know that it's voluntary for certain citizens. What it means to even to be a citizen and and things like that and and. And in that battle that you will fight.
Speaker 4
Will never be fully against the government. It'll be against your.
Speaker 4
Neighbor.
Speaker 1
Because they've created foot soldiers, they've created foot soldiers.
Speaker 5
There you go.
Speaker 5
Front front line of ignorance. I have to call it.
Speaker 3
Do you know how like this?
Speaker 3
What do you call it? Residual taxing started.
Speaker 3
Residual tax like this, taxing just.
Speaker 4
Income tax, you mean or?
Speaker 3
Maximum. Yeah, federal income tax. Ohh yeah.
Speaker 5
I don't know that I can explain it.
Speaker 5
But I can tell you the book that I read called the.
Speaker 5
What is it called? It's by Peter Hendrickson.
Speaker 5
The truth, the truth about the federal income tax or something like that. He gives a good sort of analogy about a bike.
Speaker 5
Manufacturer or bike renter and how the tax system starts and and basically basically what it is is.
Speaker 4
Wasn't cracking the code.
Speaker 5
Cracking the code is the name of the book. Yeah, the.
Speaker 4
The fascinating truth about taxation in America.
Speaker 5
Yeah, basically it was.
Speaker 5
Certain people were legally liable for taxation, but then the populace began to be led to believe that.
Speaker 5
The criteria for taxation fit them.
Speaker 5
Too.
Speaker 5
And as that developed and developed.
Speaker 5
Everybody was sure that they owe taxes and now it's to the point where everybody thinks that anybody earns any money owes taxes.
Speaker 5
And.
Speaker 5
The hard part about that is.
Speaker 5
People think that they look.
Speaker 5
They can look at certain portions of the law. They can cherry pick the law and they think it says what they believe to be true. But what? Unfortunately, our government and the IRS has done is they have substituted meanings for words that we are familiar with. So it's very and so a lot of times.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5
But like when I go to court.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I don't go to court.
Speaker 5
That often. But when I frequent the Court House.
Speaker 5
I'm careful about what I said.
Speaker 3
Yeah, because they're just words.
Speaker 5
Because there are words I can subject myself to their jurisdiction by using certain words.
Speaker 3
Is they've used common words to mean something. That doesn't mean they used commonly.
Speaker 5
See. There you go. There you go.
Speaker 4
Well, that's happening in society in.
Speaker 4
General. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3
Right.
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a method, another method, but I was thinking more because I was reading.
Speaker 1
Hmm.
Speaker 3
About like the origin of because I'm trying to because I'm trying to trace the timeline where because like our founding fathers.
Speaker 3
Didn't view themselves as government. You mean they didn't view themselves as the federal government or or kings or some kind of authority? They view themselves as the people, people, the people governing the people. And why does George Washington not want to have infinite terms or more?
Speaker 3
Terms because he viewed himself as the people and the the government should be represented by.
Speaker 3
The people, the people representing the people, because the people ultimately have the best interests of the people, not a king, not someone who has something to gain because when you have that, which they.
Speaker 3
Left.
Speaker 3
In England.
Speaker 3
You you get tyranny. Yeah. And so it started. I was reading something about how it started with certain.
Speaker 3
Small wars and disputes.
Speaker 3
That they tried to basically tax people.
Speaker 3
I came up who the president was at this who certain presidents were at the time, early President, obviously after George Washington can't remember.
Speaker 3
But you can't just tax people because the tax code says we owe taxes. But you can't just tax people to fund a war. The Constitution says, yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Right. The Constitution says you can't just tax people. You can't just take money from people that's illegal to.
Speaker 4
The.
Speaker 4
There was no tax code.
Speaker 3
It you know, so they agreed.
Speaker 3
And said so, what if we just ask the people, have them vote on it? Hey, can we tax you this amount for this amount of time for this war, people begin to agree to that.
Speaker 3
And it was about four years where they taxed.
Speaker 3
American citizens to fund a war.
Speaker 1
Here.
Speaker 3
And then after that four years, the taxation was over.
Speaker 3
But overtime they would just levy those taxes over and over again as as generations fade away, the taxes don't stop, right. And so now people are just they believe that that's just what we do. Yeah, we pay taxes to live in America. Free country, which makes no sense. And and and we do right. I know. Right. Yeah. Right in every other way. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
Speaker 4
We do so explain that really quickly when it comes down to people. So when the what, what's the common response you get?
Speaker 4
Let's say that you walked up to somebody.
Speaker 4
And you whispered, hey, you know.
Speaker 4
You know, paying taxes voluntary, right? What's the common response you get?
Speaker 4
From people.
Speaker 5
Well, yeah, probably the most common is, well, how would we pay for the?
Speaker 5
Schools and the roads.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
Bridges in the bridges.
Speaker 4
So explain explain that. Explain that really quickly.
Speaker 5
Well, the federal government doesn't pay for that stuff. First of all, unless it's on federal territory, states pay for that.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 3
Which won't work, which is why it's terrible that Joe Biden is recommending that we get taxed.
Speaker 1
X.
Speaker 3
Build.
Speaker 3
Build the bridge the bridge.
Speaker 5
Keep keep it. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Nobody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not to do it. And that's the that's the key term that's missing jurisdiction. People don't understand. They've created well, they've believed this hierarchy in politics of federal government is above all. Then there's a state government. Then there's local government.
Speaker 3
But that's the.
Speaker 4
That's a jurisdiction, baby boy.
Speaker 5
And us, us, the peon people.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
It's the opposite. Yeah, the exact opposite. It's the opposite. The founders wanted us to be in charge. Yeah.
Speaker 3
It's the opposite.
Speaker 4
We are the despots. Yeah, we're the despots.
Speaker 5
They were to govern at the consent of the governed, right? How many of us get consent or or ask consent for some of the laws they put us?
Speaker 4
Yeah, right. None.
Speaker 3
None, never. All the sudden paying 2564 cents for.
Speaker 3
A bag. Yeah, right.
Speaker 3
But don't forget what you were saying about though.
Speaker 3
You forgot what was I saying? Yeah, you were talking about you asked him. Oh, what's the comment response? And you?
Speaker 5
The.
Speaker 5
Oh yeah, that was.
Speaker 4
Were saying. Yeah, what's the? Yeah, but but.
Speaker 4
But Oh yeah, he just explained that he.
Speaker 5
Yeah. How will they pay for that? And the lady asked me that as well. And I said, well, you know, the common misconception is that the taxes that we pay in federal income tax pays for that type of stuff first of.
Speaker 4
Just he just explained that, yeah.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 5
All those estate.
Speaker 5
Responsibilities. You know the bridges in your state are paid for by the state. Second of all, and maybe most importantly.
Speaker 5
It's a fallacy that the federal income taxes pay for any.
Speaker 5
Of that, yeah.
Speaker 5
And I pointed it to the Grace Commission. Peter Grace was the chairman of a Commission put forth by Ronald Reagan in 1984 to find it was about federal waste, waste of money and the federal income taxes. What it actually goes towards.
Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
The summary of all of their investigation was that that not one penny of what we pay in federal income tax goes towards the services we think it goes towards, not one penny if you wonder why our representatives become millionaires as servants.
Speaker 1
Unpin.
Speaker 4
Start there, right. Start there.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 4
So let's just do.
Speaker 4
One practical kind of mind opening thing before we close when it comes down to the tax code real quick, I want to point out the fact that in a statement you made, you said the US government and the tax.
Speaker 4
System as two separate entities. Hopefully it's known knowledge to people that the IRS is not a federal entity. It's a private owned entity. It's not a government entity.
Speaker 3
Created by the federal government, yeah.
Speaker 4
And that that's a that's a rabbit hole. I mean our, our.
Speaker 5
Incorporated in Puerto Rico, right. It's insane.
Speaker 1
This this it is.
Speaker 4
And that that goes deep that goes deep. You start talking about Federal Reserve and then we start getting.
Speaker 4
Dark.
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4
It gets dark fast, it gets dark real fast, but so, so real quick. Let's get into the weeds with one exam.
Speaker 1
People.
Speaker 4
No matter what type of.
Speaker 4
Application somebody's filling out or something like that.
Speaker 4
Identifying themselves.
Speaker 4
As a U.S. citizen, that's extrapolated in many different applications now, things like that, but regarding taxes.
Speaker 4
Why is that? Why is it necessary for us to know what they mean by U.S. citizen? What does it?
Speaker 4
Mean.
Speaker 4
And why is it necessary?
Speaker 5
Well, I'm gonna refer back to that word you just said jurisdiction, federal government or the United States, which is the federal government. All right, when they when you see United States, they're talking about the federal government, corporate, federal government.
Speaker 5
Has jurisdiction over federal corporate government entities and thing.
Speaker 5
So if you are a U.S. Federal.
Speaker 5
Citizen, you're a federal citizen. Yeah, and they have jurisdiction over you. Now, how do you become a federal citizen?
Speaker 5
Either by residing in a federal territory so those people living in DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, all those places are U.S. citizens indeed.
Speaker 3
CC.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 5
Or.
Speaker 5
By taking advantage of some federal privilege that earns you money. All right, so say somebody from Germany wants to work over here in the United States.
Speaker 5
The government grants and the permission to work here United in the United States. They are taking advantage of a federal privilege by which they are now liable for federal taxes, and they are a U.S. citizen or US person. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5
It's interesting that you can see on tax forms US person and even on like the W9 form it says only fill out this form if you are a US person. Nobody even questions that whatever says US person. Yeah. What does that mean? It means you are a person which can be an individual or a corporate entity.
Speaker 4
Yes.
Speaker 4
Entity.
Speaker 5
That is under the jurisdiction of the US corporate federal government. Yeah, if you're a.
Speaker 5
Inhabitant of a state I'm. I'm not using the word citizen anymore. If you are inhabitant of one of the several states, you aren't under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The state isn't. The president can't tell the government of your state what to do. All they can do is try to sue them or something before not doing what they want them to do. But they can't tell them to do.
Speaker 1
MHM.
Speaker 5
Because the governor is the president of his state.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 5
They have jurisdiction over the state, not the federal government, not the president.
Speaker 3
So if a person is not a U.S. citizen or a US person, what are they? If they reside in the states?
Speaker 5
There is a term called an American state national.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 5
That's what they are.
Speaker 5
And that's separate from any citizenship. I mean it's they've just tied up everything into you being.
Speaker 3
And they know people aren't going to read the tax code with all these fluffy words and silly symbols, and you know, subset dot F, you know, line X, nobody's reading that, and they know.
Speaker 5
No.
Speaker 4
Yeah, they know it. And that's why a lot of bills are smuggled using smuggling devices. Now to a lot of things because you talked about people who are recipients, recipients of government privileges.
Speaker 4
Of.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
And they're putting government privileges in in everything right and everything. And and that's the that's one of the found fundamental differences between what it means to be conservative versus liberal in that a conservative ultimately mute your microphone.
Speaker 3
And everything. Yeah. If they're everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 4
A Conservative alternately recognizes the original intent of the founding fathers.
Speaker 4
And also recognizes the threat of a growing government influence, and they don't want that growing threat to to grow, to exist, they want to limit the government.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
Next, turned into you know it's a conservative is now a racist terrorist now.
Speaker 4
Fascist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And it's so ridiculous. How unhinged it's gotten. I mean, the fruit of it. We've just seen all our college college campuses, you know it. What a mess.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
What a mind dribbled mess that is.
Speaker 4
Let me bring it back home.
Speaker 4
We were raised in this, you know, we we were not raised as some America loving people.
Speaker 4
We loved our country because our birth here is a result of God's grace in our lives. Many different graces in our lives, and his grace extends to people who are not born here. They're Grace in their lives, looks different than our grace.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
But the same grace comes through Jesus, and that's what you guys have raised us in intentionally from.
Speaker 4
The fact that.
Speaker 4
Every morning before we went out to school, we would gather in living room as a family and pray together. I still remember that. I remember whenever my boys will come over and we're walking to school together, they would be a part of the prayer and things like that. And they, you know, in the beginning feel awkward. But they knew what to.
Speaker 4
Expect as the years went on and stuff like that.
Speaker 4
UM and.
Speaker 4
There was something that you and Mommy did.
Speaker 4
As a result of your faithfulness that created.
Speaker 4
This kingdom's atmosphere in our house.
Speaker 4
That everybody's locked to.
Speaker 4
Good or bad? The house in in, in, in West Baltimore City we were on, we were off set. Just one house from the corner of a very busy St. Liberty Heights and.
Speaker 3
I know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4
Grenada first place I heard. I can't breathe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ohh yeah. That's wild. And if it's a tragedy that happened from with strangers, like a car crash, people went to our house. If it was a need from neighbors, people went to our house. But the one piece of evidence I always share with people.
Speaker 3
The.
Speaker 3
Person.
Speaker 4
But I still even see the day with Mom is still doing childcare. Is that adults always refer to you all as Mr. Dale and Miss Karen?
Speaker 5
Hmm.
Speaker 4
And that that was just a reverence for you. I mean, I always, I always notice that, you know, but they always refer to you as Mr. Dale and miss. Can your peers in that. In that context, parents that mommies shepherded through childcare and just neighbors and things like that, it's always referred to you guys in that because that's what you raised us in.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1
All right.
Speaker 4
In a fruit.
Speaker 4
Of that is taking advantage of the grace of God as experienced as.
Speaker 4
American citizens and citizens of the State of Maryland and residents of Baltimore City and and and not adopting the identification language of the narratives that people push in those times. And no matter what it is, somebody says about us, that we would have the identity given to us through Christ.
Speaker 4
And live in it and take advantage of it. And so we're appreciative of it. And that was kind of like.
Speaker 4
That that was my sentiment that I shared at Uncle Wilbert's funeral that.
Speaker 4
I take for granted just.
Speaker 4
God's grace to be at a funeral.
Speaker 4
Of a man from Baltimore City who had such a deep influence on men in my family in Baltimore City that have a deep influence on us. I mean, that's.
Speaker 3
And other men we didn't know.
Speaker 4
Other men? We didn't. Yeah, right.
Speaker 4
That is the patriarchal biblical system that God has set up.
Speaker 4
It's good men. It's good men to lead and be influential.
Speaker 4
And care for their families and be present and things like that. And with the fruit of that. So if you guys have enjoyed our podcast, if you if you guys have enjoyed our discussion our thoughts and things like that our post on social media posts with the fruit, with the fruit of the tree that you've been introduced to for the second time on this episode.
Speaker 4
On this episode. So Dad, we love you. Thank you for the investment.
Speaker 4
In our lives.
Speaker 4
We are looking forward.
Speaker 4
Who here? In Uncle Ronnie's side of that scaling the building. Things like that. But I I we know Uncle Ronnie, he's.
Speaker 4
Got crazier?
Speaker 4
Yeah, I know, I know. And when you talk about the grace of God, yeah, you'll hear about it in that episode. And we also have our Uncle Bubba, who's the oldest, the eldest sibling or no, no, no. The oldest brother. Sorry. Aunt Debbie is the eldest sibling, but he's the oldest brother that we'll hear from. And we're looking forward to that. Looking forward to you guys's feedback. So thank you, guys for tuning this episode.
Speaker 1
OK.
Speaker 4
A black and blue, we are guaranteed to hear one of two things, our.
Speaker 4
Humble opinion or the facts.
Speaker 4
Yes.
