At Howard; 506; Michael Eric Dyson

Struggle of any sincere so is to find comfort not in the embrace of truths that are easily arrived at but the process and the struggle to claim one's own standing before God. Hello I'm Patrick Swygert and you're watching at Howard the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel series constantly offers the community an opportunity to hear from some of America's most independent thinkers and cultural critics. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is certainly in that group. He is currently the Avalon foundation

professor in the humanities and African-American studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He also a much published writer and social critic on a variety of issues. His most recent book Come Hell or High Water Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster again reminds us that there is still much work to be done to make America a just society. It's always a pleasure to be in the presence of Howard University and to have this rich and rare opportunity to be able to sit with such incredible geniuses Dr. Richardson and Dr. Crawford just sandwiched between them. And you know the reason why we flew all night is because there's always a rare blessing that I don't want to miss that we don't want to miss by coming to Howard.

We come here believing that we have something to offer so much as we have something to learn. And listening to Dr. Crawford just read the scripture that's ultimate I promise she was like I heard it for the first time that that scripture it really came alive for me and then to be blessed with the rare penetrating pulsating lie you know back there I mean used to say that the unique characteristic of life is that life itself is a lie. And he talked about yielding the nerve center of one's consent to it him. Dr. Croft and Dr. Richardson and when you when you hear the tremendous prayer that he prayed. It is just.

Absolutely devastating in its accuracy and in its humility. And that's why I come here to hear all of the scripture reading in that prayer giving in this song singing and dancing because that's like scaffolding that you plan to get to the end. Yes. And sometimes I tell you it is hard to leave but help them leave a bad job. And sometimes I just need to hear words to leave. That is true. And even then when I hear the words I wonder if their legitimacy echoes within the chambers of my heart and can even be echoing legitimacy of the word reverberate beyond my flesh and mediate a truth which I'm called to bear witness and of which I feel singularly incapable and yet

sometimes even struggling myself. To make sense of it all because the evidence is against God in this world. And the struggle of indecency or so is to find comfort. Not in the embrace of truths that are easily arrived at but the process and the struggle to claim one's own standing forgot I was reminded of that because on Friday night I had a book signing for my latest book. Come Hell or High Water Hurricane Katrina and the color disaster in Los Angeles. And as usual this bookstore was a big old turn out. You know I don't I don't read a book at a book signing and I get a

remix. You know. I think you can listen to it and read it for yourself. I'm trying to do something different with it trying to frame it in a different way. And during the questions and answers I was so pain because I made a statement about gay and lesbian people and including them and homophobia. Black folk can be Pethick. I tell my questioning in terms of self critical reflection our own understanding of the mystery of sex out there I'm talking about being so darn. Sure and absolutely what God wants that you can condemn somebody. And be arrogant about it and vicious on top of that. I mean it's going to be on C-SPAN next week when we get to that. Just look at it. It is.

And they talking about well we don't want to play rap music because it puts forth the minstrelsy of black people and rap music can't touch the path of the ignorant nigger. Well. I'm glad. It is morning. And ignorance supported by the belief in one's absolute truth and the unyielding belief in one's own truth and not the humility that I see in Dr. Crawford and Dr. Richards and who would never phrase it the way I just did. Let me just say that. That's why I'm trying to get up where he is I. Want to be here this morning to have this opportunity. We did

fly because we want to take wing with you and experience the beauty of this holiness that we always find here. So many of my friends are here this morning. I don't know if they all made it. I know Dr. Linda Malone alone. I don't know she made it this morning. I'm not my very dear friend. He's working in the government here and is a psychologist and another very dear friend of mine who's. Who I've known since 1979. When she was a baby and I was a toddler. And she's such a wonderful young lady. Dr. Sharon Kirkbride who is on the staff. Staff psychologist at the University of Maryland. And you know black blackfellow be denying they need therapy. I don't want to keep referring to what I saw Friday but boy. You know we need some therapy.

Just talk it out. Don't be punishing people because you can't work out your own contorted distorted psycho therapeutic disco populistic. P-Funk. Deprive. George Clinton want to be. Fair. You know this. We need fair and sometimes some medicinal therapy on top of that. It. When they said Jesus died. You know they said we could not cast out demons Spirit. Jesus said this kind only comes by fasting and. Praying in Prozac. You remember. This. Don't be ashamed of it. God would have meant for me to have it. God wants you to have it. So I've been so thrilled to see her over the years and maintain law

and fidelity to the principle of loving black people enough to bring mental health to our people because we need them because of the injuries. The wings are so deep and profound that we lacerate each other. With such contempt and hostility. And so I'm honored and grateful that she's here and with her beloved husband. Mr. Patrick Gordon himself a very distinguished renaissance man in his own right does is a Jamaican man he got a job. He's a stone cold hustler. That's what I'm. Wondering is no telling. Well I guess that's what they. I'm not really sure. I would. Replace. Get. Into bed.

That we're that that other. And he's an investigator in the office of the attorney general for the District of Columbia and I want both of them to stay and so you can see them. Beautiful People. And Reverend Marcia Dyson has already stood. I know her eyes grew with excitement when she heard the job going down to New Orleans not just the party. Not for the crowd but for rendering service and love with university students with doing that we're going to make a contribution to what you know an almost start with a thousand of us. And I want you all to dig in some pockets and help these student always have my way.

Young people ain't doing Patty just listen and that is that in the third. Right. Help them out. They are going down there. And I know Reverend Marcia Dyson started out of the Wales Barnett initiative which is a non-profit organization meant to help people because she's been working like a one woman FEMA. Met with Senator Barack Obama and the head of the Red Cross and people with Department of Homeland Security came from Philadelphia and D.C. to do that because she was so motivated and concerned because of the extraordinary funkiness of the government. The failure of the government to do what they're supposed to do. And so she started that organization for black women of conscience and to respond to the people who not only hurt the Hurricane Katrina but all hurricanes that devastating blow the wind. On us and devastate us by depriving us of resources. So you can

see you're at the service as well if you want to contribute to the ATAPI Wells Barnette initiative after you write you a check for the students who are leaving from Howard. Two hundred students to go down here on spring break. Most of us are so narcissistic and myopic at the same time. That we're self-enclosed with self interest that we fail to see the need for somebody else. And I just applaud those young people for doing that. Now this morning I want to turn your attention and I must tell you that it does feel awful good to after you know I want an image award in 2000 for my book on why I love black women. That was very gratifying for me because I love black women. I love all the women of the world. I'm ecumenical in appreciation. So I hate no nobody made no attempt to dis nobody else but I still watch the news.

And when Nettie Holloway disappears the world is upset as should they be. And yet when to make Houston or nay nay Jenkins falls off the radar and nobody cares. And so we got to love our own people and in this Black History Month we need to love black women. Even more. But I must say to you it was gratifying not just in terms of Dean Richards and saying the ego we always got to be conscious of that. It's gratifying for the Cosby book because you know the death threats the naysayers the haters the opposition. How dare you even write about Mr. Cosby that should let you know right. It is a problem. Nobody is sacrosanct No. Nobody is exempt from engagement and critique and that we have about the cult of celebrity we doom our history as a people and we can appreciate as I do the incredible philanthropy of Mr. Cosby but that award

meant to me that people believe in the NAACP where he made the statement first. There are two sides to the conversation. They just want to say you can't fly a plane one way you've got to have two wings to fly the plane. And so I'm honored to be back here at Howard ironically enough where Mr. Cosby delivered the remarks to begin with. And at the NAACP that helped cost lives and so I feel I'm in the circle of privilege for which I am deeply grateful. The third chapter of Isaiah second verse before the third chapter of Isaiah and the second verse. And as he turns that again when I think about all of the great giants that we lost. Coretta Scott King and William Augustus Jones many. I'm sure no Dr. Jones out of New York reminds me of a saying that I

heard in the Southern Baptists circles about a minister Carlisle Marnie when they said he had a voice like God's only deeper. And when you think about all those great times to be sitting in the presence of these giants back here I know you all appreciate Dr. Richardson and Dean Richardson and Dean Crawford but I think you ought to rise to your feet just to say thank you to them for what they are. And what. When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you when you walk through fire. You shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you when you pass through the waters. I will be with you when through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you and

when you walk through fire. You shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you want to reflect quite briefly this morning on the subject. Come hell or high water. When I think about what happened recently on 8:29 which as a marker of meaningful transitions to more profound awareness as a nation and people ribose 9 9/11 without need for the addendum of a year it rains in my own mind with 9/11 for African-American people in particular the nation more broadly as a significant marker. 8:29 Aug. 29 2000 5

when the vicious winds and violent waters of Hurricane Katrina. Were visited upon the Gulf Coast the tragedy that natural disaster was compounded by the natural disasters that we saw revealed that day and indeed that week. And what we saw revealed that day and we were lamentable signs of our failure to love our vulnerable brothers and sisters that hurricane category has been debated whether it was really three or four. In any case it was a horrendous visit. Its vicious intensity upon

vulnerable populations who had not been protected by either governments or some argued even God. Indeed some people suggested God sent that storm to punish people because they were gay or because they were black and poor and addicted to welfare. I heard this on television or because they studied a vote done or voodoo but they didn't appreciate the vote and its intricate religious practices and its African origins or either its black dysphoric consequences or iterations it was the Edgar Rice Burroughs school of Tarzan providing the prison for voodoo that God would dare erase this city from memory because God was fed up with the sin of New Orleans.

And then one wonders has god laws. Gods I say if the reasons exist in the divine mind for the purposes that people ascribe to them I'll say more about that in a minute. And so when that tragedy occurred when that hurricane blew it blew off the cover of. The American government and the American people because we abandoned those poor black and white people for five days in a country that possesses so much richness and so much wealth. And beyond that. For a country that prides itself upon helping everybody else. Folks throughout the world. When there's a fire we want to put it out when

there's a war to be fought. We want to start. And yet that Nostrum that. Saying that cliche which is the condensed condensation of wisdom a distillation of ethnic practice of the race the human race a cliche that suggested that charity begins at home. That charity which is love really because charity food home is just as publicly articulated. After all justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public. And Charity begins at home. That's why generosity can never be a substitute for justice. Charity is an episode of kindness directed toward an object of recipients a recipient an object or a recipient. But but but but but just

as is the structural perpetuation of the initial intent of generosity. C C C charity in that sense giving is an episode of righteous intervention whereas Justice is a structural continuation of the very ideals for which charity exists. That's why. Martin Luther King Jr. said that you can flip a coin to a beggar on the Jericho Road. You just can't help that poor brother or sister out. You've got to begin to ask the bigger question why is it that there are people beaten up on the Jericho Road. King said you've got to transform the Jericho Road itself. And when you when you transform the Jericho Road justice. When you help the beggar out on the road that's charity. You've got to move toward something long term you've got to ask the question why is it in those neighborhoods

people tend to be educated to just give money to those kids is charity to figure out why those schools are failing and to fix them is just. Is charity to give money to somebody who's homeless on the street is just has to try to fix the housing problem in a particular city. And the economic inequality and the wage injustice that leads people to be homeless in the first place. See cuz what charity you can run out of feeling good about me. You just get plain tired of me. You know how it is. Look out I gave you everything I'm going to be in. Don't be X and me. But nothing. Else. And so when you when you give charity it's an episode of generosity. It is not even though predicated upon the most benign of intense and indeed the most valuable

motivations. It does not ultimately answer or address the fundamental issue at hand. And that is how can we move beyond what we feel about something to acting upon what we know to be the truth of the situation. That's why people get Katrina fatigue. That's why people get compassion fatigue because we get tired of giving when it's based upon our generosity. People already tired about Katrina. That's why I tried to write this book so fast because I knew they was going for good. I knew they weren't going to forget that phrase that correctly. I am at Howard. I knew they was going to forget. And they were gone forget because amnesias seductions are everywhere. The ability to engage in dangerous memory counteracting the intuition that people generate as a

result of social practice. And when we see it time and time again the reality is we really just don't care about hoping. So they just don't matter that much we don't care about poor white rural Southern people. We see what happens in the Sago Mine in West Virginia and we get all exercised and outrage for a minute how terrible those people were treated we say how awful did we keep up with the one surviving miner who lived and we look at his progress medically on CNN. But but but beyond that we ain't got much real serious care. And then we see that when they were fine the mine owners that led to the death of 12 miners they received a fine. That was less than the fines levied against CBS for Janet Jackson's nipple gate.

Now that's a misstep thing right there. If I had time I could just deconstruct that. One. Black city. Is so rebellious and revolutionary. When it's unleashed in handcuffs. That it will send America into conniptions. That African Arriola that I know is powerful. I just didn't know the world knew it was that black. There's. A greater fine was. Levied against C B S. How dare they. Is the implication engaged in the outlaw in

transgressive black female sexuality. Because whenever black female sexuality even attempts to get in control of its own means that's really the problem. Right. And I tried to elevate Janet Jackson is no feminist in a post feminist where I'm not trying to argue that I'm just saying even when the prospect of black intimacy and erotic engagement gets to defend itself in public and not be exploited by either black man in rap videos a white man throughout history. Don't start with Snoop. Got to go back to the. Plantation only see it to. Break. Don't start with. Don't start with T.I. start with T.J. Thomas Jefferson. Snuck up into the slave quarters. Despite being suspicious and skeptical of the critical capacity of reason for the negro. Didn't stop him from getting down. Deep. Into that black Arriola. Up Sally gimmes and. Partnering with her. To produce an

issue that contradicted his own radical racist principles. That's what black women would do for you even when you convinced we and fear that they are going to make you understand that your notion of their inferiority is subordinate to your desire to get to the heart of the mystery. Man. And so and so we don't really care about poor white Southern rural people. And if we don't care about poor whites southern rural people we care even less about black. Poor Southern people. This was after all a Southern racial narrative playing out on the global landscape Mr Bush. Texas bred and born Michael Brown and then FEMA from Oklahoma and those black people down in Louisiana and Alabama and

Mississippi. That's a Southern racial narrative being exegete and torn apart as a text. By the torchbearers of our national narrative. And on TV they were priests trying to get at. The Church. Of confusion. While they tried to deconstruct. The understanding that the nation was putting forth. They failed us in a miserable fashion and even those interpreters who were lodged in the government had no understanding of just how fundamental a revelation of our moral bankruptcy. This particular episode was. And so here we are seeing a Southern racial narrative play itself out on a global landscape and we saw it in the midst of a culture that claiming to be so sensitive and compassionate. That it was willing to save Iraqi wetly.

Mr. Bush himself engaging in preemption as an an interesting response to a threat. You saw at curettage Scott King's funeral that Mr. Lowery and poetic for. Vice President. With. No weapons of mass destruction. And no food. When are honing in on the funeral in general. I. Heard it read Mary Matalin on who should have appeared on CNN on own on CROSSFIRE. God love and respect her even though I logically oppose her tooth and nail. Let her husband know in terms of his politics brother Karl. But here she is saying that's funeral. It was just and Southern and Christian for these black people to politicize Coretta Scott King's dream. I was at the bottom line is when you come to a black funeral with somebody like that it ain't against principle to talk about this stuff they live for. When you come to my funeral say a few things about me. But the.

Rocket. In fact you could have a voter registration drive in my. State. Well. They. Let me down on the ground you rise up on the truth for which. So. Let some hip hop rock get up in there let some preachers rock it up in there talk about social injustice talk about homophobia talk about misogyny. Talk about sexism. Talk about white supremacy. I don't the life I'm. We're. Talking about what I was willing to die for. No. Politicization. Of the truth. Of the Gospel. So the texts and I say. Is just a Baptist preacher. Says that when you pass through the

waters I will be with you. Those folks have been through waters long before Katrina descended. Who were these people on television that we saw with invisible for so long. Why was America so mean that people could be poor. But the reason we were able to have some sense of moral outrage is because for once we thought it didn't implicate us. It was the local government the state government the federal government. But the moment you internalize a bootstrap mentality that says people get what they deserve. You're contributing to Katrina. The moment you believe that those people basically were lazy and dumb and after all if you sation equal to leak work and all of them have not lived up to the end of the bargain you basically thought those people got what they deserve. If you're going to be consistent in your ideological approach and your political climate

and the consequences of your social analysis sort of reality is a lot of us contributed to the belief that held in place the upward mobility of people because of structural barriers to their to their to their to their success economically and financially a lot of us contributed metaphysically metaphorical symbolic theologically to keeping them in check and holding them in place because you see we say that people should work being the most poor people are working people most poor people working every day. They are part of what we know is the contingent and the Battalion of the working poor working 40 and 50 and 60 hours a week. And so the water came down and they were vulnerable. And you see in the end of it the Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation. Louisiana is second to Alabama not that far behind. And so my brothers and sisters. One hundred thirty four thousand people in New Orleans alone did not own. They weren't starving they weren't stupid. They was.

Those of us who have cars can't imagine that those of us who got great transportation public transit don't know that. But you see the mayor let the buses drown. Mayor Nagin has been remade as a black folk hero slow down. They call him Ray Reagan because of his Republican pedigree. Don't make him bad. I'm just trying to specify the ideological apparatus in which he articulated his own political vision. Across party lines to vote against Kathleen. Babineaux Blanco. Right. The democratic right governor he sided with the Republican opponent to her goal. We just want to specify so. So when the head of the National Weather Service calls Mayor Nagin ises says that's when he caught the

government when he called the mayor and said This is the worst storm I've ever seen. And of the National Weather Service one of the few government agencies that responded admirably during the crisis. He said I want to go to bed with a good conscience because these people will pay. He told them that at 6:00 o'clock Mayor Nagin said it scared the crap out of him but did not sufficiently motivate him to move toward a mandatory evacuation to the next morning at 10:00 a.m.. What happened in the interim he consulted the business community because he didn't want to be legally the way. I'm telling you Kanye West got to extend the questions and make it. Nearly a thousand seats on an Amtrak train were let go free from New Orleans to Mississippi because the mayor saying we don't need. And then those buses drowned.

So I'll tell you my brothers and sisters it's a tricky affair where race and class converge because then we do about ourselves not simply in terms of pigment but in terms of class structure. Custom Pool. Niggas just don't feel the same way. We don't want to see it. It's a horrible word to even suggest that they would be in the word no then I guess because they get left behind Malcolm X who's 80 first birthday is this year and we just finished celebrating the 40th anniversary marking of his death. Talked about the specific definition of a nigger. I was horrible. He said You are a nigger a victim of democracy. Mr. Bush should hear that a victim of democracy. Democracy itself is not sufficient to organize the logic of Justice he says. We are victims of the mockers. And Tobys in that sense. These poor vulnerable black people did

not count as much to them black folk who were in shock. And so in the waters Isaiah says that that I will be with you. And yet. They are in the waters that toxic stew that's a petro chemical corridor from Baton Rouge to New Orleans all that 85 90 miles. Those fence line communities among the Mississippi River. There's more than one hundred and twenty some odd chemical plants. That's why they call it cancer. They are dying. They're underemployed they're unemployed. They're low wage workers. And these are the people we went down to New Orleans. Not like these 200 students going down there to help somebody. We went down there at a party. We went down there and the anonymity of our Christian identity to escape the demands of it's more visible and search of Haibo consequence. We went down at a creek to escape went down there to gamble on a little bit.

Some of us who believe in gambling. But we have but more with their lives then go into the casinos we drink we eat. We ate prawn and crawfish. We scrap. Those who are black people well they're changing our bed sheets changing the soil. That with the marks of our desire and failing in changing our sheets and then driving us around and did we tip them did we give them money generosity. But we never asked the question about why they were so poor structure justice. These are the people who were so kind and lovely people who are part of the African Diaspora. Congo Square right there in New Orleans. The drum was central to that society. We got that this was Africa in America. That's why they were forgotten. In the waters and when the waters came and the

winds blew these people were forgotten. But they have been forgotten long before those winds and rains descend and was God with them. Some people claim that God was because they held onto the promise of God to save them men to support them and those who perished. Believe. Equally. Tired of people saying that God blessed me because I lived it. God bless the people who died did God curse them. What do you mean when you say that I was blessed to have money so that people who don't have money have been cursed by God. I mean look at the logic of your testimony. Look at the logic of your witness. What are you suggesting. What are you implying. What are you inferring. Are you suggesting that if God has blessed you you will possess money or keep your life. And if God does not bless you you will not have money and lose your life. Isn't that simple. Maybe God is a Republican. So down in New Orleans when the waters rose and the question was

not simply all that we know we got to ask when does George Bush care about black people. Took a rapper to say it a nervous one at that. On television. Doing his thing. When a comedian who was all of a sudden tongue tied. Right. Where was all the comedic genius and eloquence in the face of real tragedy. Or was that low rapper. Yeah you know he's narcissistic Yeah I know he's self-enclosed. I have to testify. Roll up in the place look in the extra flat this thing. I said George Bush is a gold digger. He just really don't mess with no broke niggas. He's like some of us.

Blackfeet. Now. Hear Hear. Hear hear Mr. Bush in the administration. This administration was inept to ineptitude it and ignorance in it had inexperienced people who headed FEMA was the head of International Arabian horses said Michael Brown. You know he had no experience. This is the soft bigotry of low expectations. This is what this is. It is cronyism too. It's my boys. I'm going to put them in charge. What's the what's their what's their qualifications they my boys. What's their certifications say my boy. What's their ability they my boys I want to be there and that when we do it look we can't even get a job as a clerk without being affirmative action then. Checked out. Do we have a Ph. D. Are you a body for me in Dallas just to work at Wal-Mart. Know my brothers and sisters we say first of all Candy wasn't so much George Bush the individual we don't even know him. He's George Bush the president the face of the government the institutional identity.

That's the George Bush he's speaking about and care. How do you measure your care not in terms of whether you like me or not but whether you are sufficiently motivated to render services in a timely fashion to vulnerable people. That's how you measure care and that says George Bush didn't care about poor black people and his administration didn't what's their government philosophy. Limited government. Why is it that people hate the government want to run it. Why is it that people who say we want to reduce the government want to work for the government to put the government out of business. Why is it that we buy that philosophy so so easily while they've expanded the government. I'm almost done expanding the government here. They have expanded the government exponentially in terms of intervening on our our lives the snooping on us and trying to stop them. They tell us that only international calls don't Jabaliya. They check in on some local calls to. Help them out. You know I don't know. But I'll spell my name right. Dyson that Tyson don't.

Put my stuff in context. You know I think if they if they if they if they look you up and put you on a list for just checking out books at the library. But you think they're going to the people writing the books and the librarians getting checked out. So you know they snooping haven't they still don't. Dr. King that's what Jimmy Carter said career Scott King's funeral. That's what he said it was wrong but problematic was fundamentally distorted and it was evil in a fundamental practice of politics. So that's all Kanye West was tough about if he didn't that's what I mean by. Fine. And my brothers and sisters when we look at the context here Isaiah says that when you pass through the waters I'll be with you and then he said when they shall not overwhelm you when you walked through fire you should not be burned in the flames will not consume you. And yet we have asked the question what does that mean in light of the people who lost their lives. Reality is that some people say God calls

Hurricane Katrina. That's preached in every city Abyssinian church about a month ago and in line signing books a little 5 year old boy who was a survivor of the hurricane five years old. Dean Crawford the richest and he was five. Years old and he came up to me and he said Good God. As the storm heard is like this. What answer can I get this fat boy. Yes. God works in mysterious ways God's wonders to perform Lance's footstep on the sea and rides upon it. When he's on his own it sounds when he's in it but somebody who has been in the waters around him realizes he needs them.

So what I'm trying to struggle with that means I said no baby. God didn't cause this storm although God can cause it to come out stone that even sounded like a false confession like a like a cheap theological offering to a child whose unbridled belief in the word itself was so apparent. And yet the word by its interpreters had failed. The question is not simply do you believe in God. It's a reciprocal relationship of God talks about a covenant is not a contract. That's a reciprocal relationship predicated upon intimate engagement. If you ain't got enough faith you really can go right. Most of us ain't got it. I confess. Most of us ain't got it. I struggle with trying to even get to the first level. But then I said to this young man no God did not cause the hurt and the pain and didn't get rid of that like in the ancient world when everything

we couldn't explain was said to be God. Some ancient stuff this kind of leftovers before her reasoning lightening came along. All. Bound to reason in because reason and Leitman have been instruments of colonialism and slavery. I am trying to worship no altar of enlightment but they go mad. You don't tell people everything you can't explain is God. Everything that is problematic that you can't put your mind going is God. I mean what what. Yes that's what it is then is that we've got to grapple with what we understand God to be if you think God is all powerful and God is all loving and evil exist. You got to wrestle with that contradicts either God ain't all good for you or God and get out of hand. I'm just saying. I'm just saying when you think about that syllogism that supports the logic of your faith you've got to face that question of evil and suffering and it ain't just a philosophical conundrum to be adjudicated by competing claims of philosophical minds. That's why you have

to work out also. Them. You've got to work out. And so when I look at Katrina when people say God wiped it out I can't stand what a god like that. Because if you did it on earth they put you in jail. If you killed all children to prove your point they called you crazy. So you tell me God and God I don't I know we talk about. This and we figure it out but if it was anybody but be interesting because people shouldn't be thinking and thinking. God was trying to cure gay people can't get better.

What about San Francisco. Oh my God. If you don't get more bang for your buck you've got to have a lot of people are. You. Going to wipe out black people who are addicted. Right. Or it will go on and you can't go to black people and then you get you know Oakland D.C. and. Detroit. How are you going to start with them. Got wiped out because of abortion clinics. One guy in New York City. Now what's wrong with your conception of God. J.B. Phillips said your god is too small. God is messing up your god is messing up. Not. God. Your God. Not spiritual Spirit. Then when you begin to

back it up you say well hold on now God must be strong. And when I read the Bible God always offered over a Chevrolet or a way. To get out and I said. I'm. Is messed up. The flood is coming. On board even before you get turned to salt. You was on your way out of town. So all of us trying to blame God we tried to make God Dirty Harry trying to make God a backer of our swing for bigotry. That's why these people missed it my self. There are many people on Friday. Mad at me Why are you bringing this stuff to my gay people in our stuff. I said you know some black people are gay. To my stuff. If you're black and gay that's real stuff right. Didn't have no exemption from what they said they didn't die down there because they were gay they died because they were black.

Point taken but some black gay people still trapped you don't know. So why is it that we're so obsessed with gay and lesbian people we need a black version of Brokeback Mountain. I don't know. Maybe it'll be a black minister. Preaching against homosexuality. Saying what a sin that is leading marches against big gay men be found out to be gay himself maybe. Fag. Vicious. Maybe we could call it that. If God is God and God is God for all of us there are no asterisks. That's why God is with us in the water and the fire because

we skim the water and fire by giving us the assurance. That what it is that we confront whether we're on this side of the world of the next whether in this life or the next that God will not leave us alone. There is no guarantee of outcome. This Blessing theology is a manipulation of the relationship between means and ends. There is no guarantee of the outcome. There is a guarantee of you do. That's the difference it makes it don't mean you ain't got that. I don't mean that you ain't got that Troung Don't be that you ain't got to earn it means you ain't doing it by yourself. In fact God did it first. Came down here and suffered. Because God suffered. For you. So that God would not allow others to suffer about himself. That's what you have to do come hell or high water. The.

Me. Me.

Me. Me.

Me. Me