In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” Sidney Poitier said this line to his father, “I love you, but you think of yourself as a Black man. I think of myself as a man.” This line needs to be embraced today.
Someone asked me, “Are you a Black preacher?” No, I first see myself as a preacher, able to be in any place, the pulpit, the streets, etc. This is why I resist and fight anytime racism and classism seeks to treat me as less than a man.
For instance, some say @VP Kamala Harris is a Black woman and a Black vice president. No, she is first a woman and the Vice President, and this is why she must resist any limits and blocks that are tried to be placed upon her.
On Tuesday, @POTUS Biden will travel to Georgia. My prayer is that he takes a cue from that Sidney Poitier line and says, “I’m here as the President to be clear about the constitutionally protected voting rights. Not Black voting rights, but voting rights,
and any attempt to suppress these rights in any way, for anyone, is wrong.”
You see, he is not the President to protect Black voting rights. He is the President sworn to protect voting rights for all people, period.
You see, he is not the President to protect Black voting rights. He is the President sworn to protect voting rights for all people, period.
When I was president of the @NCNAACP, ppl would ask, in your fight against voter suppression, why do you bring in women’s groups, white, Latino, native, students, veterans, workers, & others? B/c I said the NAACP should never see itself as only a Black org only for Black people.
Instead, the @NAACP was founded as a justice org, equality org, truth-telling org. To address discrimination, racism, and inequality, we must embrace the wisdom of Brother Sidney.
Let us hear afresh the wisdom of Brother Poitier and walk in it, never allowing anyone or anything, even ourselves, to limit us. As a woman or man thinks so is s/he.
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