JemarTisby.Substack.com. Profile picture
Apr 30, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read Read on X
It's not just that the Black Panthers showed up armed at the state house in California on May 2, 1967, it's why they were there. Assemblyman Don Mulford had introduced a bill to ban openly carrying firearms in the city. The bill was a direct response to the BPP's police patrols. Image
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense monitored police interactions with Black people to protect against police brutality and the abuse of rights. So they protested the Mulford Bill. The protestors in Michigan want to repeal restrictions meant to curb the spread of a pandemic. Image
What often gets lost in public discussions of the Black Panther Party is their 10-point platform. Many of their demands are still, unfortunately, salient to this day. Image
As a result of the Black Panther demonstration (labeled an "invasion"), the Mulford Bill was fast-tracked and signed into law by then-governor Ronald Reagan who said armed protests were a "ridiculous" way to solve problems. Image
We can't just say that the press, public, and authorities demonized the #BlackPanthers for armed demonstrations while white protestors face no such repercussions. We have to contrast WHY each group assembled. One against racial injustice, the other against public health measures.

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More from @JemarTisby

May 1, 2023
I never set out to write these stories of professors at Christian universities getting fired for teaching about racial justice, but they are becoming increasingly common and they are ominous harbingers of increasingly repressive cultures in Christian institutions. Image
It’s also becoming apparent that uniformed opinions of my work, especially The Color of Compromise, also tend to figure into these firings. While I lament that Christian administrators are firing their own professors for citing my work, I stand by it and the professors do, too. Image
These two professors who have both lost their jobs for teaching racial justice are calling the CCCU to condemn the actions of these universities and any other member institutions that fail to honor academic freedom and target professors for teaching about race. Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 11, 2023
Organizers behind the “He Gets Us” campaign are set to spend $20 million in Super Bowl ads alone and $1 BILLION over the next three years. Let’s talk about the (mis)uses of a Christian/evangelical money.
apnews.com/article/religi…
Of course these multi-million dollar funds could go to support individuals and organizations already doing good work on a local or national scale. We started The Witness Fellows program to fund Black social entrepreneurs at $100K (‼️) each over two years. thewitnessfoundation.co/fellowship
But let’s say you wanted to use media and marketing to highlight Jesus for a generation who increasingly identify as having no particular religious affiliation. There are better ways to do it than what “He Gets Us” is doing.
Read 8 tweets
Jan 14, 2023
This is the book Coretta Scott sent to MLK while he was in seminary and before they were married. In a letter he wrote to her:
“By the way (to turn to something more intellectual) I have just completed Bellamy's Looking Backward. It was both stimulating and facinating.”
In the letter MLK goes hints at his ideas about an economic agenda for uplift.
“I welcomed the book because much of its content is in line with my basic ideas. I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.”
But MLK had his critiques of Bellamy’s book:
“On the negative side of the picture Bellamy falls victim to the same error that most writers of Utopian societies fall victim to, viz., idealism not tempered with realism.” kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/do…
Read 5 tweets
Aug 15, 2022
The tip-toeing, the coddling, the deliberateness…NO OTHER racial or ethnic group, much less Black people, would be afforded the kind of delicateness authorities and politicians are using with white people who threaten and enact violence against the government.
White supremacy doesn’t only look like people marching in robes and hoods (or polo shirts and tiki torches,). It is the privilege, the deference, the innocence with which white people are treated that gives them leeway that no other racial or ethnic group has in this country.
Racism is such a normal part of the fabric of the U.S. that white people storming the Capitol, attacking FBI agents, openly spreading lies and stoking violence in the name of white power and white people is treated as behavior to discuss rather than the existential threat it is.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 14, 2022
The erasure of the Black church tradition and Black Christians in the current public discourse around religion is *strong*. White Christians in the U.S. and their issues do not comprise the whole of Christianity. A 🧵...
For instance, how might the conversation about white Christian Nationalism be changed, shifted, or enhanced by analyzing and learning from a Christian tradition that has explicitly promoted and fought for antiracism and multiracial democracy for centuries?
What if we took people like Fannie Lou Hamer and initiatives such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as starting points for examining Christian engagement in public life and the interaction between faith and politics?
Read 8 tweets
Jul 8, 2022
I was discussing films like "The Help" and "The Blindside" (white savior stories) with some folks and one of the reasons some people love these films is they offer a narrative of redemption, a way out of this racial morass in our nation. Bu there's more...
The redemption narrative of these movies ("Green Book", "The Best of Enemies" + more) is highly individualistic and interpersonal--the friendship between two people, the benevolence of a white person. No analysis of systems or circumstances that lead to widespread injustice.
Stories that have "white savior" narratives let viewers off the hook for actually changing and taking action. If I, as the viewer, identify with the white protagonist who is doing "good" things, then I'm not racist. I'm not the one with the problem and I don't have to change.
Read 4 tweets

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