@LamontEnglish89 this interaction reminds of Matt 19:7-8

They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?"
He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. @LamontEnglish89 Jesus upends hermeneutical approaches that assume a “law” in the OT was God co-signing in the ethics of the matter. Jesus points out Moses *allowed* divorce bc the alternative was worse: abandonment, abuse, etc. But the religious leaders claimed he “commanded” it.

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. The mere imparting of information is not education. If a race has no history … no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world & stands in danger... Carter G Woodson Why Black History Month?

In 1929, Carter G. Woodson started “Negro History Week” to combat the whitewashing of education, what he called “mis-education” of Americans meant to support the racial caste system that had been in place for centuries.
#BlackHistoryMonth

The First Black Senator &
The Unfulfilled Promise of Reconstruction

Hiram Revels was born free in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to free parents of African, Native and European with ancestry who had been free since before the American Revolution. 1/ In 1845 Revels was ordained as a minister in the AME Church; he served as a preacher & educator in the Midwest. His preaching was met with a great deal of opposition. He later recalled. "I was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854 for preaching the gospel to Negroes." 2/

Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Mississippi in 1917. Her family’s livestock was poisoned by local white farmers because it was profitable. They became sharecroppers & at age 13, she attended school & picked 200-300 lbs of cotton per day. 1/ In 1945 she married & was planning for a family, but her doctor performed a hysterectomy without her consent. This program of forced sterilization of Black women was so common it was called a “Mississippi appendectomy.” Unable to conceive, they would later adopt 2 girls. 2/

Cecil B. Moore was born in West Virginia in 1915. A Black WWII vet, Moore’s fight for freedom He said: “I was determined when I got back (from World War II) that what rights I didn't have I was going to take, using every weapon in the arsenal of democracy.” 1/ He moved to Philly became a lawyer & served as the local NAACP president. In 1964 he began to fight the biggest battle of his life. 2/

The First African American Author

On July 11, 1761 a slave ship named The Phillis carrying hundreds of human cargo from present day Gambia including an 8 year old girl. The name her parents gave her as they looked into her new born eyes has been lost to history. 1/ What we do know is that she was enslaved in Boston by John Wheatley, a wealthy merchant who gifted the young girl to his wife, Susanna. They re-named the girl Phillis after the slave ship that snatched her from her family and gave her the last name Wheatley.
2/

Heard of Marcus Garvey? WEB DuBois? Malcolm X?

Then you have Alexander Crummell, the father of Pan-Africanism, to thank. Crummell was born in NYC to a free mother & formerly enslaved father in 1819. His grandfather was from Sierre Leone, when he was enslaved at 13 years old. 1/ His father never let him forget that his story was tied to the African Diaspora. Motivated by their Christian faith & sense of solidarity, the Crummells worked as abolitionists. Their home was the publishing site of Freedom’s Journal, the FIRST African American newspaper. 2/

In her autobiography, Rosa Parks debunked the myth that she refused to vacate her seat because she was tired after a long day at work. “I was not tired physically,” she wrote, “I was not old, I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” #BlackHistoryMonth

https://twitter.com/TheKingCenter/status/1357361311944966145

Parks was sitting in the middle section of the bus open to African Americans . After the “whites-only” section filled up & a white man was left standing, the driver demanded that Parks & 3 others in the row leave their seats. While the other three eventually moved, Parks did not.

Part 2 of @JohnPiper message on CRT - like the 1st - contains & confusing combination of helpful & unhelpful statements which are worth commenting on. Helpful: he follows my lead in using a broad definition of CRT & affirms value in that definition. Unhelpful: 1/

https://twitter.com/JohnPiper/status/1331234872757805058

He fails to use the interdisciplinary analysis I have been trained in & which is needed to contextualize the complexity of race, racial injustice, & evangelicalism’s historic failure to adequately address these concerns Biblically. 2/

I’m grateful @johnpiper engaged with my discussion w/ @neilshenvi on @UnbelievableJB @ #CRT in a genuine manner & yet his comments regarding my thoughts & words require some clarification & expansion. 1/

https://twitter.com/JohnPiper/status/1330892624442617858

.@JohnPiper is absolutely right that the CRT label has been used as slander to reject those who talk about racism & systemic injustice as being unbiblical. He’s also correct in the caution that we shouldn’t dismiss epistemological concerns because of “blood in the streets.” 2/

👉🏾But I see that we are, to a great extent, producing a self-collapsing Christianity, insofar as our converts are told that the only important thing to do is to win more converts. It’s like getting the people into the armed forces, and they ask what they are supposed to do. 1/

https://twitter.com/drantbradley/status/1325838477473308672

Oh well, you are supposed to recruit.” Then they recruit more and more people, and set them also to recruiting still other people. Some day someone says, “Aren’t we supposed to be fighting a war?” “Oh yeah, there’s a war.” ... 2/

I’m so frustrated w/ the way this story is being covered in the media. The issue isn’t an unwillingness to concede defeat, it’s the baseless claim that voter fraud is why there was a defeat. Such accusation w/o attempt to show why is bad faith argument that erodes trust. 1/ Let’s be clear, this claim only works with the presumption of a national cabal organized to not just win but deceive (remember the GOP gained seats) in order to make it happen. That’s so much more insidious than simply “let’s counts the votes”. It’s let’s expose a conspiracy. 2/

What do I mean by CRT? In the book CRT, Delgado & Stefancic write: "What do critical race theorists believe? Probably not every member would subscribe to every tenet set out in this book, but many would agree on the following: 1st that racism is ordinary, not aberrational 1/ 2: most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic & material. Bc racism advances the interests of white elites (material) & working-class ppl (psychic) large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it 2/

1/ How do the drastic racial disparities in #COVID19 deaths relate to the lack of collective will to prioritize American’s public safety? The answer is as sobering as it is obvious: to many politicians & businesspeople Black Lives Don’t Matter, not as much as we should 2/ I couldnt figure out how sheltering in place & wearing masks was controversial in Michigan back in April until a friend fr Grand Rapids explained the common view that it was a “Detroit Problem” ... then I looked at the death rate by race & discovered what that really meant

1/ “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for that reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” - James Baldwin

Reflections on #4thofJuly2020

There is an attempt to cultivate fear that the movement pressing for racial justice, 2/ trying to fix our justice system, & remove symbols that reinforce white supremacy is REALLY trying to "destroy America" or erase its history or past. Fear is a powerful force. It stifles imagination, raises defenses & prohibits empathy. It causes us to hear things not there.

1/ Ppl have reached out to me about the Candace Owens video which is being weaponized to rebut the masses as we speak out, march & demand action against racism. Isn’t it amazing that 99% of us can say “Get your knee off my neck!” & be ignored but 1% can make a living off saying 2/ There is no knee” & be paid more attention? Almost like people want their opinions supported & grab anyone they can (not a historian or a scholar or leader in our community but a political shill 🙄). But I’ll break my own rule to break down her video to equip the folks who