Black Christians vs Black Atheists | Middle Ground

is Jesus um is his appearance in the Bible uh I believe they describe him with like Bron and hair was his feet was black as brass and his hair was out of wool James Harden James Harden LeBron hi I'm gen and I explore social and controversial issues through both sides today I'll be moderating this Middle Ground episode of black Christians versus black atheists be talking about the connection between race and religion why Christians leave the church as well as the communities that exist within and outside of the church the first prompt is the black church

shaped Black Culture if we just look at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement a lot of those black people met up in churches in order to you know talk about and you know fight for the freedom of black people and so we have a lot of gospel music in our culture as well I know you guys have probably heard some even the atheists probably grew up hearing a lot of gospel music even now that shapes our culture to this day well I think it was even further back than just civil rights it goes back

to slavery it goes back to so many things as a part of our history yeah I think the black church fundamentally has helped African-Americans stay together even today the black church serves as a central hub for African-Americans to uh to gather and share ideas even in my family uh the black church was definitely pivotal for our development I think the black church contributed to the culture of black folks just keeping us together as best we could as best the church could I think giving us hope I think it was also a place of education for

most of us as black folks a place for talent and freedom of expression so I definitely think it has a a bound around us yeah I 100% agree I feel like there was a community significantly found um within the church for the black community um like you said education and music um there was a lot of belief especially with what was happening during the slavery time there's a lot of unity that brought people together and brought them hope um in worshiping together and glorifying the Lord through that so I believe that it definitely has shaped

the black um churches and the black community today yes uh the black church has played a pivotal role into um our time here in the United States as black people um but the black church I believe doesn't Define us as black people is it necessarily the greatest thing for us I definitely don't believe that well I would piggyback off of that because uh the black church as we understand it within our context is one thing but we what we forget is that black people and black Christians are not a monolith so for instance there are

45,000 plus Christian denominations I happen to be a Roman Catholic you know however I do have family that are part of the black church so I think that it definitely does have its extent but it's not all encompassing as you've pointed out as well I'm curious would you say the same thing about black atheists as not a monolith well of course I mean I think whenever you paint anyone as a monolith you've already shut down all kinds of conversation so there's many reasons why someone may choose it sounds like you guys might have grown up

in the black church or been at least exposed to it there are many reasons why someone chooses to leave and they're not all the same I'm curious what is that distinction for you two well I'm a black atheist and I'm a agnostic atheist meaning that you know maybe there's something out there but most likely there's probably not a Jesus or Jesus up in the sky or Jesus coming back or anything like that that's going to come and save us me personally um I study a sector of African spirituality right the re uh the way that

I happened to stumble upon that um I started to ask myself questions like who do my ancestors worship right what is the point of uh religion in general how to proliferate around globally right and um doing research you start to see that uh Christianity became synonymous with white supremacy around the 4th Century with Constantine uh the emperor right in which they made it uh the Roman National religion if you refuse to adhere to his uh Christian rule then you would be beheaded so I think that uh his ially speaking Christianity has been used to oppress

and enslave a lot of people globally I think it's great that you take it that far back but I think you have to really separate theology from black theologies for for the sake of conversation because I think that when I talk to a lot of atheist and agnostics we speak from the vacuum of black experience and we already understand in America number one that's Troubled Water right globally it's also Troubled Water I think a broad blanket would cover that it suppressed people of color we don't see ourselves in scripture we don't see ourselves being you

know told and when we did when we were learning these stories in church back in slave times we were told that our God wanted us to be slaves so that very thing was utilized to suppress us for heaven's sakes the KKK came out of the church right so we do have a problem and we can't just say the church is the end all to be all it's a complicated conversation said let's let me just put a pin on that uh if you let's get to this yes so I disagree that the black church has shaped

Black Culture especially as in the affirmative entirely because what that does is it it ignores our ancestors before the transatlantic slave trade it ignores the fact that they had their own cultural beliefs and that there were many contributions that black folks have made to this country that were not centered in Christianity when we think about Dr Carter G Woodson who was the founder of negro history week who was Harvard educated who had deep criticisms of the black church his roots were in free thought and and criticism Lorraine hansbury who wrote A Raisin in the Sun

uh zor NE huren the famous author and other black folks who were not religious at all just because it is prevalent does not mean that it has entirely shaped our our communities for the better and I think that we have to be mindful of the diversity that has been within our communities that has not always been rooted in Christian and religious faith our communities have ignored the non-religious atheist and humanist presence for far too long simply because there is a prevalence of Christianity in our communities I actually I actually agree with you because I don't

think Christianity is supposed to take hold of somebody's culture and completely like you know change it into something completely different I think that Christianity welcomes different cultures um I think that true biblical Christianity looks at somebody in a different culture and says hey even though you're of this culture even though you believe in U different things or whatever you can still be welcomed in the kingdom of God you know well I find it very interesting because as someone previously said there are what 45,000 denominations of Christianity some that might be more welcoming and some that

are totally damning and we're talking about the same book we're talking about the same text that has been interpreted some for that has been used in the positive and some that has definitely been used to enslave our ancestors disenfranchise our communities and also look at things through a lens that has demoralized us so we we cannot ignore that um as far as hisor something going back to something that you had said um about your belief systems now within the uh African spirituality and stuff like that which I think it's wonderful actually and I don't think

it's actually too far from some of the things that we might believe you know as Christians right but there is a a a constantly erroneous thought that Constantine came and did all these things Christians were being persecuted in Rome and in throughout you know the the the Middle East far before Constantine right and then that doesn't I mean if we're going to talk about the roots of Christianity how do you explain the Taho Church the Ethiopian Tao Church which was never anything that was forced upon the Ethiopian people in fact in the Bible you have

in Acts where an Ethiopian was baptized and went to spread the gospel to all the people where do you think he went as an Ethiopian you know so there are roots of Christianity which are far beyond this conquering of Constantine and all that stuff but what I will say in complete agreement with all of you with everyone here is that Christianity as a whole has been abused it has been taken it has been used to demoralized just because there are people who are infiltrators just there are people who use the word of God against us

as people it does not invalidate what he said and what he taught this Narrative of Christianity is The White Man's religion Jesus Christ wasn't white yeah I mean that's just that's just a fact to respond to that I think that my point was that in the 4th Century it became synonymous with white supremacy right so it did not spawn right so so um Christianity as you said was actually in Africa right but I believe that today I believe that black Christians and of course I'm not here to disrespect any of you guys but I believe

that um the modern interation of Christianity right spawning from the J Christian uh from the uh judeo-christian belief system has forced black Christians to speak a lot of multiculturalism to put to put the idea of unity above the idea of Blackness right and when you put Unity above Blackness we are the ones who suffer in America so I feel like a lot of black Christians they don't want to talk about the history of Christianity I believe that they want to ignore a lot of facts when it comes to Christianity I believe that they don't want

to look at it as a whole right so I do believe that a lot of problems do occur from this can you explain that a little bit further that difference between the Multicultural unity and not putting Blackness ahead of it I'm so glad you asked that let's go absolutely absolutely absolutely I think that I think that the George Floyd protests are a perfect perfect perfect example to look at tons of unity tons of unity when George Floyd died 2021 record police killings 2022 record police killings 2023 record police killings when people join our fight love

everybody be humanitarian when people join our fight it tends to become about unity and it tends to become about how uh not racist America is and it and uh black issues and black politics tend to get washed away so I have a lot of black Christians who say let's say accept everybody Jesus told us to turn the other cheek but they are killing us bro the world like like globally Africans are are are being oppressed it's not a joke you you're making face oh yeah I'm sorry I made a lot of faces but I mean

it's really good stuff and I don't even know where where to go back and address some of really so theology right just in a broad sense is usually defined by either one referring to Nature experiences tradition and maybe scripture right just on a broad sense it could be broken down even further so I think that when we come to a place as black folks we come and we lean heavily into our experience right and if all of these different sources are places where we would lean then we then our pillars are a little bit out

of balance if it's solely based upon what we've been through right so I think that we have to be a little bit more balanced when you said that the church hasn't impacted culture I think the church has impact has not impacted what we bring to church we still hand clap toe tap dance shout run throw wigs and everything else when you go to certain churches right because Black Culture expresses itself a certain way what it has done to us and I agree to your point is it has limited our free thought right because we have

learned to come to church and check our minds at the door and just do Church the way it does you know the way it goes and if you don't get happy and Shout you ain't been to church you ain't seen God yes so when you when you described theology you left out one word which is evidence you know when we think about the rules of how we how we learn how we train how we educate ourselves in theology especially within the black church and black theology we are dismissing evidence where is the proof well I

think coming back to the prompt you know the idea that the church really shaped the Black Culture is really community did because we didn't have spaces so the only space that we could exist in with any kind of Freedom or away from watchful eyes was being able to worship and practice that's why we melded a lot of the practices that we had especially in African uh religious Traditions to to Christianity so that we could continue worshiping and having these different Traditions continue throughout our community so black people have always survived and continue to advance and

evolve through sticking together church just happened to be the place where we could kind of do that without having other people in our business it was functional let's move on to the next prompt we all possess the capacity for compassion and connection and real connection starts with real understanding for example pure research found more Americans are religiously unaffiliated you know just by reading the story's summary I learned how researchers are predicting a significant decline in institutional religion they also listed out a Pew study so I can compare the research with how different media Outlets chose

to frame it and swiping through these articles I can read up on what this means for the separation of church and state and even how black Millennials who leave church don't necessarily give up on faith most importantly I can compare how the news interpreted This research with with peone report this especially is great when it's about something as personal as spirituality which is why we were so excited to partner with ground news their platform is designed to show you perspectives that you might be missing the why not just the what making Common Ground so much

easier to find they're really great at contextualizing Stories full of layers with information like a source's political lean how reliable they are and who owns them I also like that I can follow both Christianity and atheism interest pages to see stories I really care about and their blind spot feed is built to make sure that I'm not stuck in my own Echo chamber and I can step into someone else's news reality making understanding their point of view so much easier to do click the link in the description and check out ground. news/ Jubilee to get

40% off the Vantage plan that's $5 a month for unlimited access to the blind spot feed which is cheaper than my daily coffee run thanks again to ground news for sponsoring this video now let's get back to the conversation as a black person people always assume that I'm Christian that's really it's like oh God God bless you you have a great day and I'm like oh bless your heart I uh no just keep your religion to yourself it's just a lack of your your own personal bubble right you're in your own space you are thinking

that everyone is thinking in according to the way that you are so you need to start expanding your bubble by asking questions engaging in conversation and then allowing other and um whenever I uh just converse with a with a black person it's always God bless you oh I'll pray for you it's always um it's it's always a a religious undertone under our conversations I just don't tell people I'm atheist right away just so I can just keep the peace because there's just a good 90% of us are religious not even Christians Muslims or things like

that and when I say I'm an atheist or something like that they a lot some people shun me they'll just say oh I'll just I'll pray for you or they'll feel they oh I feel kind of I feel bad for you kind of kind of vibe sometimes and um so do you get that mostly in between black people or other races say that to you as well it's majority most do you guys find it like an offensive stereotype or is it more so just like well I think that it goes back to the last question

and it goes back to how uh the black church has shaped our culture right I believe that during the Civil Rights era of course you had almost every single civil rights leader being um Christian there's tons of gospel music in the hip-hop Kanye Chance the Rapper you know what I'm saying they're constantly um uh um sampling it so I think that um within Black Culture you kind of cannot Escape it I'll take this guy right here I think the reason why I answered no to this question is not necessarily because of who I am but

where I'm at CU I'm not going to lie to y'all I'll be outside a little bit you know what I'm saying like I'll be at a bar with some of my friends like uh this past year I went to a pride parade you know I've been to clubs to dance and hang out with some of my friends and they don't really assume that I'm Christian because I'm in some of those environments but even though I'm there that doesn't mean that I'm less Christian or uh more Christian or more Hol old than now I'm just in

the world but but again we talked about and and I mean not to just not to bring off what happened off camera but when we introduced ourselves you said amen I did that assumed that perhaps uh that we were going to be in agreement with that I mean even though there were Christians and atheists in the room e whether it is explicitly Christianity or some form of belief in itself it is often more often than not assumed that as black folks that we all share some form of belief in some sort of deity can I

can I say something what was your name again Mandisa Mandisa beautiful name by the way I'm just going to say this like that has less to do about my assumption about you and just more about the way that I personally talk so like even if I'm like around like an atheist or whatever like it's not really a personal thing or an assumption for me to be like amen because that's just how I talk you know what I'm saying if I have a Muslim friend who's around me and they want to say mashah they I don't

I don't think that they're trying to offend me just because they have a different religious belief than me I say Amen a whole lot so I'm guilty of that too but and it isn't a thing to say like God bless you amen simply means I agree you know or we are in agreement right it doesn't necessarily mean God this that the other so to me it's like if I agree with something it's like yeah amen whatever but it's not to offend to say oh we're all Christians and this that the other that's just the way

I speak but should that now um prompt you to think about why it is that we do what we do why not though I mean if if you're if you're in community with other people and they may not share the same practices or they may not share the same Customs as you do is it possible to perhaps think that that might not be the most appropriate thing to say at the time no because we live in a culture that is very much about relativism and your relative truth and being who you are and standing in

that and what you're asking me to do is not stand on who I am it's not about personifying what someone says that's just a greeting or passing or or a a statement of agreement it's not wrapped in that and if if everyone else in this culture gets to stand in their relative truth be who they want to be you know say who you are that I should be to do that too without thinking that I'm offending someone but we're really not as Americans we're you know yes we're black Americans but they don't really want any

of us to have individuality ultimately it's like get up go to work do your labor come home don't question any 24 why would you be living in that reality though of Oppression it's 2024 we so many people are still oppress I mean but and that's a mindset thing right because I I wouldn't say that any of us with our strong personalities each one of us on the stage live in a a mindset of I feel so oppressed today cuz I'm black what am I'm going to do I'm black today know we get up and we're

going to do what we have to do we're going to go for what we want regardless of our spiritual beliefs I don't I don't think that that's a that's an argument to stand on correct me from wrong but are you saying that's like a victim mentality I do do you yourself in the Black Power movement what do you what do you mean by that though do you involve yourself in the Black Power movement what does that mean because there thereally do you prioritize black politics in the black community I prioritize politics that I believe in

okay so that's why you feel that way that's why because there are black politicians that I agree with in anything you cannot diminish what I'm saying on that no no no no no I'm not diminishing what you're saying right but you said something objectively right you said that that is a victim mindset and it's not and if you educate yourself on the Black Power movement and what is going on with Africans globally you wouldn't have that mindset right I think that I actually wanted to bring the conversation to a little bit of a personal experience

I remember a time when I was in eighth grade I was speaking to my uh social studies teacher his name was Mr F and I told him I was Christian and he was like oh oh that's cool what kind of Christian are you and I was like Baptist I got baptized am I Baptist and he was like and he was like you know what Tyler you're probably one of the loud ones right and then I was like what do you mean we are loud no no no I know I accepted that immediately and that was

kind of one of my first um interactions with microaggressions right and religious microaggressions right and I think that um the parallels between how toxic it can get when you come across other Christians even in the black community is the same way right I feel like I feel like I can can tell a beautiful black person who just became my friend that I missed a bus or my phone is off and they're like the devil's after you pray and it's like bro no no I missed my paycheck it's like it's like what are we talking about

here and a lot of family members hit me up I'm they're like yo Tyler I need your help the devil's after me and after we breathe and we calm down it's like if we put these problems on paper has nothing to do with spirituality at all it has to do a lot with preparation right mindfulness right and and and just financial planning I want to go back to something real quick and and that's again it's the these narratives right where you ask me do you believe in the black empowerment movement it's such a broad thing

because you still have not told me anything specific even though that was beautiful what you sh what you shared you are painting every black person as a monolith not yes when you ask those questions because I as a black person I'm expected to vote a certain way because I'm a woman I'm expected to believe a certain thing and it it gives no room and it integrates each of us as an individual in what we think and I think that's where the problem is it's like I can care about black issues but we may not care

about the same exact things or see things differently but it doesn't make me any less black than you what was your name Roxy Roxy let me ask you a question Roxy right cuz cuz you articulate yourself very well and I'm not here to um to uh to make you qualify your Blackness or to question your Blackness that's not what I'm here at all right so when do you think that the concept of Blackness first uh came into the minds of African people I'm not here for that kind of discussion that's not Myer okay perfect perfect

do you want to answer you don't want to answer you and that's also another problem I have with Christians when it comes to free thinking it's like a lot of ducking and dodging but but but let me answer that from my perspective right so the first time that this concept of unity through Blackness I believe uh proliferated through Africans Minds was when diverse Africans from West Africa were Shackled together on slav ships and they couldn't speak to each other right they could not speak to each other right but there were things that they noticed right

and what they noticed is our hair is a certain way and our skin color is a certain way right the people who are doing this to us their skin color is a different way so when they couldn't speak and they had no cultural relevance was when Blackness became important and was when black people needed to put Blackness above everything else I personally believe that black people all around the world when it comes to intersectionality I believe that they need to put race before anything else you predate Jesus you predate Muhammad you predate as an African

woman every biblical figure that walked this earth right so what's more of a Divine command you being black or you being Christian and here's where I get upset right because we talk about how oh um I don't want to be this a part of this Black Culture moving this that and the third and and all these different things and I want to explore my own experience as a black person and da D and then you go to church black churches and there's white jesus all over the wall right and then you talk to you talk

to black people and be like what color is God oh oh oh it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what color God is right but it does matter if you are a woman or a man of the cloth how does that not matter to your book because let me ask you something in the bible let me finish this off with this right in the Bible is Jesus um is his appearance in the Bible uh I believe they describe him with like feet were bronze and hair was his feet was black as brass and his hair was

out of wool James Harden James Harden LeBron you what James Harden is in the Bible the black church is better than the white church join our middleground patreon to watch this exclusive prompt the church has help black people more than the government you hesitated a little bit totally yeah okay yeah yes because it's like a a two-headed sword right because church is someplace that we can go gather it is very helpful to the community in the sense of we can be there together we can have conversations with one another at one point during slavery may

be the only place you can see your family or connect with one another a lot of church can help build different programs within the community but I think again it comes back to that word of like wanting to assemble someplace wanting to be with people that look like you and a lot of the church movement did have to force the government's hand of like all right we need civil rights so that was kind of birthed and you know pushed through in that way so no I don't trust the government and I don't think the government

is here to help black people I don't think the government is here to help really any poor people and a lot of black people unfortunately are disenfranchised so this is interesting that all the atheists step forward for so I go back to uh history after slavery and reconstruction right so after slavery there were blacks in Congress you know there was black there was black progress however uh once reconstruction ended and there were racist people that were brought in power to dis disfranchise black black folks um there were manyi churches in the religious community that helped

support um in times when you know black folks couldn't get good jobs who could not get uh uh you know a good education even though there were historically black colleges and universities I I do tend to give the church its credit at times and again that doesn't mean you know the the black church gets to define the black community in its entirety and that it should Define all of us that way but uh we have to give credit historically where your government has had a lot of policies to keep African-Americans down for the past ever

since after slavery and even before so we also had um red lining which kept black communities uh poor and away from certain jobs in the inner city white flight all these things all these were perpetrated and supported by the US government in every single major city in the United States but the one place that where black people we can come and congregate was the church it was kind of de facto and information and get information so my question to all of you guys as atheists who stood up for this one is do you guys view

as more of a lesser than two evil situation where you guys just really distrust the government so why you guys agreed to this prompt how would you answer that oh see even the way that you worded the question the lesser of two evils because evil is a word that gets really I meant that in just like a phrase I know I know but I'm just saying the underlying tones of just like the American community and their for it's projecting as domination throughout the world let's say the lesser of two entities in this instance sure the

church itself it's about what it doesn't do it's not about how it hurts the community it's about what it doesn't do not what it does do true right so I think that with the government for every new deal that you get you get um a War on Drugs for every welfare system that's that's implemented we get cracks and gun in our community yeah right so I believe that when it comes the um I believe that the black church historically has given us jobs um organized our movements without the black church we would not be here

today let's let's let's get that straight right they were very important but today they don't have the same value historically and the government just um after the George Floyd protest the two major bills that were passed even though they passed a thousand oversight bills for police uh police brutality the main bills that they passed was I believe an Asian hate Bill and an lgbtq hate bill so I don't think that the government is necessarily I believe that it's too over stret and also let's um let's let's take it to the reparations um discussion yeah about

how there were supposed to be reparations after slavery I still want my 4 AC in a 4 AC in and that was thwarted through the US government so we can definitely even point to that and we are still having this discourse about reparations is an economic Justice that we shouldn't be having now that the federal government could have resolved a long time still let's let's hold um let's bring the disagre would anyone like to start yeah I'm a little bit neutral when it comes to this standpoint because I feel that there was a lot of

redlining you brought up such a great point when I was exposed to the amount of redlining that the government had imposed on black communities minority communities especially what's happening up in San Francisco right now up in New York it was it was bizarre um and that had pushed a lot of Christian churches a lot of churches in in general to open up Assistant Living open up um food uh shelters and home shelters for assisting in people that the government wasn't doing but at the same time the church was also pushing this on the government um

on their local legislators and their Mayors to also make uh movements and propositions to do that so it's kind of like this fine line between both I don't trust the government I don't trust also completely like people who run the church because they're not all good people they're not all good people that who we elect as well into um our branches and legislator governments and stuff so there's just this neutrality that I'm sit between with because is it really going to benefit or are these just propositions to just just temporarily save someone's butt and then

go on to the next and then just continue to like put the Band-Aid on the big scar I ask myself why didn't I walk up in in favor of the church doing more and at the risk of giving any ammo for the other side no at the risk I think I look at the church um with a very critical eye I think that I um I'm troubled by what we do and what we don't do I'm troubled by how we do some of the stuff that we do and we miss the bigger pictures right and

and so I for that reason I had to I had to just hold back and say I don't think that we're doing all that we should be doing sorry to interrupt but what are some specific examples of that I I think that we've gotten into this Western World mentality where church now is is gimmicky I think that it's about um becoming so Seeker friendly um and we we we play to certain audiences we play to certain things um we Cod switch organizationally if if you you know could believe that you can have a church over

here where everybody is praying for healing but everybody's broke this church over here is a church of prosperity this church over here is a church of tongue talking so you've got these different characteristics that if there's no balanced theological view of it and so I think the church runs the risk of showing up impotent in some of the conversations that we need to have I how much money does your church make a year this is important how much money does your church make a year I don't have that number at the top of my mind

I wasn't coming here to talk about the budget okay okay that's very important the reason why I bring it up is because we're talking about what the black community uh what the black church does for the community right and if you are taking money from uh from the black participants who go to your church you should know how much money you're taking from the community especially since the community uh isn't financially stable but also churches that make over $100,000 per year should do exactly what the black church used to do during the Civil Rights era

I I think it's a harsh criticism I think it's I think it's a huge assumption so so churches that do make over $150,000 a year they need to invest that money in the black institutions with all du respect 50,000 I do want to hear from his response how you resp you can start a bank with that how would you respond I think we have to be careful about drawing assumptions of what churches do I was making a very broad commentary about how I see churches behave but don't get me wrong there are a lot of

churches that are doing exactly what you just said they should be doing turkeys and shoes aren't enough for our commun well well see I can't get into that part of it because turkeys and shoes is not the conversation I'm having I'm having a conversation about a methodology to reach a people and be a service to a community I'm talking about down payment assistance so that black folks can own homes I'm talking about doing Financial stewardship education courses I'm talking about you know counseling and support systems for family and standing in the gap for mothers with

single the single mothers with children and making sure that they have mentors for their sons and their daughters I'm talking about programs that actually affect folks lives but meanwhile you're on a different page and I get that I get that but I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't brush that very broad because there are a lot of Ministries that are doing it what I'm looking at is the impact of the way this division amongst the body of Christ actually shows up in the world world I think it shows up a little bit less impotent than it

should and on on on behalf of the body of Christ I apologize you've seen that more than you've seen the effective work is that fair no no no no it's not fair and once again once we uh when you dive into this with Christians I I I often feel that there's this this neglect for politics Jesus was a fighter Jesus was a fighter he was not he was not pacifist he was anti- capitalist right so so so all what you're saying is very good and I respect the fact that you are a leader right and

that you do own your own black church right but there needs to be more I I I don't want you just meeting with mothers right if my grandma is is funding her own displacement every single time she donates to the church and they put their money at Chase Bank yeah you understand that right I guess like what specifically would you like what's the more that you're looking for it within the churches for the black community need I need I need that I need the church to put their race I need all black to put their

race either on the same level or a or above Christianity politically not socially politically yeah right we need to as a pastor you need to preach that the church needs institutions otherwise every single time that our grandma is go and pay tithes they are funding their own displacement how is that better than white supremacy though if you're asking us to be supremacists about being black people who said anything well you brought up white entails yes I know what you're about to say I know what you're about to say however you you have brought up white

supremacy several times but now you're saying put your Blackness about above everything black is the only way to think about and that that is a Supremacy in of itself which I can respect your your your opinion on that but I don't operate just because of my blackness there's so much more to me as a human a woman and other things an American like there are things that are intersectional about me as a person in this world that's not just everything has to be about my race and I have a problem with that in just that

that thought in general that everything must be seen Through The Eyes of being black and if you don't get your black card I think what he's trying to say is let me answer go ahead so I never told you to use your Blackness to make anybody else feel inferior by the way of their race so no no I'm not spreading black Supremacy and I find it often that racist white people and black people in the church love to call me racist bro I'm not love to call me racist and Supremacy I am not though that's

the thing I am not the church let CL let clarify let him clarify yes go for so what I'm saying is that if you are a part of the Black Power movement and if you are conscious of what goes on in the black community then there is no way in hell that you will put being gay over being black you will put being a Christian over being black you will put being a woman over being black you the you can get disabled you can get disabled but that's about it that's about it there is no

reason in the world I get your passion and I definitely do the work in our community and if you're suggesting that we should probably do other work then let's have that conversation because having a conversation that makes me feel like I need to surrender my black heart is a conversation that gives us more of a Chasm so we never get there together why in the face of Blackness why in the face of pro Blackness everyone else's Blackness feels diminished that's insane to me no because it's the what I'm saying a a portion a portion of

your energy and time needs to politically go into black institutions and black politics in order for us to get a foothold in says you you're not an authority for me you're not an authority science no no no political science is step back because I think we're getting to wrapped up actually in the black part of it right now and I think ultimately I understand a lot of what you're saying and you're specifically talking about capitalism right and how it affects black people in the world no okay so you are talking about putting Blackness above everything

else politically do you you guys feel like um do you guys feel like uh black people in Africans are oppressed globally yeah and in America absolutely okay so so so we all have that common belief right so system uh systemically right the only way for us to beat systemic racism is for us to get institutions of our own right the only way for us to get out of this oppression right is for us to stop playing around with everyone else's beliefs and ideologies and focus on an Afrocentric belief that's what I'm saying you guys can

do whatever you want love everyone be whatever type of intersectionality that you would like to be right but if you support Israel and Gaza if you're putting that on your story then I need you to put the Congo on there as well yeah I need you to put on there as well you know how many black Catholics are being murdered by other black Africans in Nigeria right now no but you but you haven't said anything about this it's all about what's going on in the Blackness that you're assuming that we don't think about these things

I think about these things I know I'm highly aware of them and highly sensitive so it's not fair for you to say that just because we're black Christians or we're black American Christians or whatever that we don't think about these things we do we might see things in a different way or a different you know way of of of solution but not we don't think it's important I just feel as black yeah I just feel as black people in our community we put a overly emphasis on Jesus and on the church and like and in

in a lot of poor black communities you'll see a bunch of churches but you know what you won't see you won't see a bank you won't see a hospital you won't even see a grocery store with like good food you know you go to a liquor store or something there's an era behind the liquor store there's people that don't look like us these are issues that aren't even addressed by the church it's like they like sometimes I feel I go to a church they don't even care sometimes you know they just want more members you

know and as a person who grew up in the black community and grew up in a in a in a black church I understood these problems even when I was young you know so these are things these are problems that us as black people need to come together and figure out and stop building so many churches in our communities how many AB Ebenezer Baptist churches are there you know what I'm saying we don't need that we need if we going to walk as Christians and have the black church there there should be we should be

helping the poor we should be helping the orphans we should be helping the Widow we should be helping the single mothers we should be helping the disenfranchised and that is a part of Christianity and the fact that is not happening I totally agree that that is that is a problem so we are absolutely on the same page about that I've considered exploring other religions or leaving the church well I have left the church because I grew up in it it wasn't for me I especially once I became a high schooler started hanging out with different

crowds of people and seeing how different people live expanding your bubble and I had my first um friend identifi as being lgbtq and my parents did not like that couldn't didn't want me hanging around this person and it was strictly because they belied that because they were homosexual they were going to lead me into a life of sin and that person's going to die and go to hell and be punished just because of their lifestyle and then I was already questioning even when I was a little kid things about the church and because of that

one fact I was like I can't keep doing this I need to be somewhere where people feel accepted because if it's something with some sexuality then I could go to another church it could be something with my blackness or being a woman or something else there's always going to be some dividing factor I also went through a lot of trauma I lost like three people that I loved all like in a row um and the question kept coming up of yeah what does happen to us after we die I don't just think that it's a

heaven and a hell there has to be something more than this and when I brought up these questions within the church I was really like shunned for it pushed away um or people just didn't have an answer for me um and I thought I began to see that fear even within my own parents because they didn't want to question their belief that's a Cornerstone for them that's their comfort I feel like for me um I've questioned leaving the church early on in my uh early years of of faith my parents went through a really nasty

divorce um so much that it had scarred my mom that she has walked away from religion in general she has walked away from God and um doesn't doesn't go to church I think my brothers have seen that and they are now grown young adults and they don't believe in that as well um and there was a low point in my life where I tried to reach out to people and I just wasn't getting the answers I wasn't understanding uh my purpose and my reason in life where I was second guessing my existence naturally we are

curious beings and so I was just naturally diving deeper into my word diving deeper into understanding like why am I going through what I'm going through and is this something that I blame God or is this something that is the Free Will and the sin that is just corrupted in in humanity um that I have no control over but there's still choices that I can make that can overcome the challenges that I'm going through um so that's personally and with the church that like I've experienced I left the Catholic church I left it and what

I didn't leave was a was a central belief in God so I was more agnostic than I was Christian Catholic and the reason why I left it was because of the rhetoric that I constantly heard I was in a I grew up in a protected bubble okay I grew up in the Catholic church I went to Catholic grammar school Catholic High School I went to forom University Jesuit Catholic college right but for me it was more of that question of how dare you as a black person believe in white jesus so I for myself okay

show me what you got I went through Islam I even went to the 5ers okay yeah the Israelites okay gotcha Buddhism oh okay and I even went to the black church because I figured if I'm going to be Christian I'm black why are you a Catholic go to the black church so my favorite place to go outside of the Catholic church is West Angeles honey okay I'll be in there that is my spot but what changed for me how did I get back to Catholicism well we all believe in communion as Christians is that that's

something that we we hold for ourselves and when we had communion at West Angeles this is where we have some divide between all of us right as Christians the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is something that for me was a real thing that I cannot let go because of what he told us scripturally so I think for me my experience even though I left I was in apostasy for a while I have an appreciation for whatever and a respect for whatever it is that you feel you are called to so do you think this

Human Experience of religion is due to the discomfort of death that humans have yes yes yes well but but for for Christians Christianity we are not afraid of death we look forward to death I am looking forward to the day I die girl we scared we scared let let me finish that let me finish that my father died my father died the day before my birthday last year it was a shock to me but for me I know where my father is as a man who believed in God to the day he died he is

with him in my belief he is with him I will see him again so I think as an as an atheist I'm even I'm scared of the concept of death or like the process of dying because it is such an unknown I I I try to spend more of my time thinking about what I'm doing while I'm alive so that when that time does come um you know one thing I've always said is that the the only life after our deaths of the legacies we create while we're here that's what lives on whether it is

whether it is good or bad so uh but yeah the the concept of death yeah I mean or like the process it still scares me there a reason I think that there's a reason for that I don't think death is supposed to happen to us like as a Christian all of us humans we have this visceral re reaction to it because that's not how things were supposed to be if we go back to the garden and all those things it's it's it's the sin it's the sin nature of humanity you know I have more of

a curiosity and excitement for once it happens cuz to me this is hell like being a a spirit stuck in a body on this planet with all these people being super decisive I think the only reason they get me to come back down here is like you can eat food again you got a Paris in a way that we I think that there's a difference between saying like I appreciate death and the concept of death and and and what it is then saying like I actually want to die I feel like like everybody nobody wants

to die but like we can still sit here pain what are your thoughts on well I never really thought about joining another religion cuz I was born and raised in the church and very strict into the church you know what I mean like I went to church every day you know black church you're there all day it wasn't until I I joined the military and I had a black friend who was an atheist and I've never met a black atheist ever in my life and he you know he planted Little Seeds you know and he

was like darus you were born and raised to believe this this is all you know you were beaten with this Bible and they tell you that it's the truth you know what I'm saying even though there's really no evidence of God actually really existing I started to think about the concept of hell and good and evil and I started to go through life situations and realize a lot of things aren't black and white at all no and you know you can devote your life to a God and go to church every Sunday and pray and

do everything and you can find something in heaven that's a good comforting thought you know and but the reality is there's no proof of any of it blaz P I I want to put on that let him talk me personally I went to church until I was 14 years old twice a week right so every Sunday and every Wednesday right my ass was in the church right from from from very young you know uh from graduating from Sunday school to actually being around the adults and things like that we probably all gone through that process

once I started to engage in free thinking and once I got into my former teenage years around like 16 17 and I was able to kind of um get away from my family and get into being really into the uh black power struggle right and I found myself um identifying with my community right and so when I realized black Christians that I came across were more obsessed with people being gay in the church was more obsessed with what the images of Jesus look like and uh and they had no time essentially for um the things

that I believe will help our community and so I started to dive into different religions the first religion I dove into was Islam right because I remember going to Harlem and seeing black Israelites on the streets right and those were the first people who cultivated a sense of Blackness in me right uh uh and and it wasn't embarrassing but then I realized that there was a lot of um there was a lot of toxicity so then I started to go to Eastern religions and things like that and eventually I decided to connect my conscious being

right with my mental being that's what left me African spirituality and it was everything that I personally um needed right in order for me to um continue to engage with everyone like I love them you know what I'm saying because I feel like there is a lot of hate there there's a lot of hate on the underside of religion so there is a French philosopher his name is Blaise Pascal and he has something called Pascal's wager and I think that you can you can relate to this we regardless of your faith belief he says that

you can make the choice that for yourself that it's better to believe in a God that there's something at least that there's something greater than this Human Condition because at the end of the day what it's going to force us all to do is to look at each other as human beings to serve mankind with kindness with Charity with care right helping those in need and to be rewarded at the end of the day that there is a God but if there is no God guess what you still left a legacy of Hope on the

planet whether there was a God or not I that's the whole what if you're wrong thing it's like an insurance policy for something that still you there is there that's like an insurance policy for something that you still do not know exists and that's we hear that from a lot of Christians the whole everything because I'm not trying to expl explain everything of the world either but you understand science but let's let her talk yes so um yeah so this is the you're that assumes once again that if you don't believe in God that you're

not good do and that yes but it's fundamental to our but sorry to cut you off but I I feel a lot of this like this this belief that says that like oh you're not good if you don't believe in God Christians believe that they're not good without God either like we're none of us are none of us are good in our in our own right so to say that like oh Christians now have a pedestal to stand up and say like hey I'm better than you now no you're not it's got no listen they're

wrong Christianity is inherently racist I look at it from a legal perspective as uh Christianity as it has been it was built into law in the United States to classify the the enslaved captives that came over that were brought over transported over from the continent of Africa and used to justify the enslavement as well as the mistreatment of of Darker skinned people um using the curse of ham that is in the Bible even though the description of Jesus himself was not white as is depicted in in in in popular culture but the Christianity as we

know it today and the distinct differences between um certain non non-black people and and black folks and other people of color and the conditions of our community certainly impli that it is it is racist even within the Old Testament you're looking at these different groups of people different tribes going to war with one another and even you know saying that my God wants you to be completely snuffed out so yeah it's always been W it in a way that's been inherently racist I think this is an interesting point because I do agree in many ways

not that Christianity Christianity is inherently RAC but that it was used in very racist ways to suppress people and oppress people enslave people so I I absolutely do agree with that um and and I think that another inar the slavery in the Atlantic slave trade also gets very sticky because you also had African slaves and tribes who were betraying their own people to give them away to these colonizers and more so I mean it's like there's so much murkiness in that entire conversation that it's like one side over the other who the Lesser or two

evils kind of thing right those who who were enslaving plus those who slowed their their families to the slavery you know well there there were a number of um captives that were kidnapped um so they weren't necessarily given over it like you said it does it does become a very very murky and very ugly history overall and so I I definitely agree that uh but yes the justification especially through the Catholic church in one of the papal Bulls which actually endorsed the transatlantic slave trade that is historic that a fact and so we have to

you know we we cannot ignore that absolutely absolutely and I think that's that's that's a good point because even as Christians regardless of our denominations we have to look at the ugly parts and stand in it and admit it that these were wrong and this happen not try to excuse it so I don't disagree with you on that right there's some really ugly things that the Catholic Church certainly did and I don't deny that and the only thing that I would disagree on is the fact that I listen I'm going to get it on the

internet I know Jesus was not white y'all okay so you can't tell me my God is a white man so inherently in what it is I don't see the racism in the original you know but how it's been used oh absolutely yeah so I think it's important if you have a kernel of Truth and I don't know that we'll all even agree with what that kernel of Truth is and someone or something Falls away from that truth does does it make the truth ineffective or does it make the falling away the most ineffective thing does

that make sense in other words if there is a God and I believe there is but if there is a God and someone distorts that understanding or concept of God does it make the god ineffective or does it make what they've done in falling away from that carel of truth there's a very simple way that this could be resolved right if there is if there is any type of God right it could very much be cleared up by them by them appearing and and dispelling all of these discourses all of these different beliefs all these

different and and and um we it it could possibly end the conversation or it could end all of this discourse right here I I disagree because we believe that he already did that yeah it's really it's really common too in the whole we already believe that and they killed him so it's like because of that and I agree there's there's a lot of evidence that shows in that I mean you guys were talking about evidence uh earlier and there's evidence in the Old Testament how the angel of the Lord had come in how he had

transformed Saul's life into Paul there's a lot of evidence in seeing the the the bush burning on fire Moses speaking to Moses um and so there is a lot of in that belief of understanding where Christ has come from and revealed himself through that through Old Testament the Bible is a book that is that does not have footnotes it does not have points of reference which means that it is a book of allegory it is a book of stories it is a book of things that cannot necessarily be replicated today you can't see this no

one can talk through a burning bush today if that could be replicated today then maybe we could see validity in that well maybe if you have some DMT which kind of leads into a lot of my own personal belief system because I don't actually identify as atheist I'm probably more agnostic than anything and in recent years I've come into a lot of African spirituality by way of epha which a lot of people in West Africa would practice some form of epha it gets you know translated through the slave trade as um Santa in Cuba it

showing up in hudo and Voodoo throughout you know which the church deemed as witchcraft exactly exactly which it does have elements of that when you get into it but it's misc conscrew and that lens of Christianity being put on those things has given it a lot of negative connotation when we really did that to have survival and a way to still connect to our culture and a lot of it still was able to survive through sharing that belief system can I can I say something real quick um so I'm Liberian so like my parents they're

from Liberia they're they're African and I grew up with a lot of Nigerians as well from the ebo tribe you know and I see and I don't know are you are you black uh American as well like Okay cool so I see this this trend of people coming into African spirituality as if to say that that's something that even people in West Africa like believe in but if you interact with those people like the African people that are over here now yeah they probably don't like they they they don't in fact they they also see

it as they also a lot of them also see it as witchcraft because they've also been colonized no well see that's that's another thing right if we're going to talk about colonization then we can't take away those black Africans freedom to also choose a religion for themselves no they can totally choose for themselves yeah so like so to say that they're colonized and that's why they believe what they believe I feel like you're looking down on their ability to choose and understand right and wrong for themselves but it's just they were colonized specifically Nigeria cuz

majority of what I know about myself my people did come from Nigeria that was colonized by the British so see how you have the ability to look at your beliefs and even if colonization had some type of oppressive thing on you you still have the ability to choose whether or not that you uh that you believe in that so do the Africans that are over there they have the ability to look at their colonization figure out what parts of their culture are disconnected from their religion and they can still celebrate it I want to go

a little bit into my personal story because I know I'm going to rant a little bit but I grew up in a African Liberian Pentecostal Church in Minnesota and over there there's so much culture like we like not even a drip of it did I did I even understand that there was like whiteness like involved you know I I we we have the same food we sing Our Christian songs in the same in a different way than like white churches do even sometimes when I went to different white churches I would be confused as to

why they're not singing it the way that we're singing it and so to say that like Christianity is this thing that deletes culture at its Roots I completely disagree with that because that's where I grew up in do black atheists have a response to that well there are different I mean that's similar to how the black church is here in the United States right the Catholic Church probably does not do as much singing as as like maybe a bti no we got we got gospel masses out here La okay well well that's interesting to know

but there are yeah there are definitely some cultural differences in the way black folks practice and and that part of that is due to the racism because black folks weren't allowed in certain white churches what we don't understand about like white supremacy and colonization that at times it it's mental yeah it can be mental so even if it isn't overtly someone physically oppressing you when we talk about the institutional practices it means that it is ingrained into your mentality that it doesn't matter who it is even in your Pentecostal practice if you are still worshiping

Jes Jesus Jesus Jesus and there are a lot of Evangelical like even on the continent now where they are still putting white jesus I think in in Ghana there is a huge statue of white jesus so even if it is a predominantly black practice it is still sort of rooted in a in a eurocentric and white mentality and we have to think about that yeah can I think that's a respon so I was going to ask like what carryovers and I'm actually very curious about this what carryovers do you see from uh white colonization that

you see in African practices today other than white jesus because we can look at white Jesus and be like I can even dis I can even agree that we should probably put up less white jesuses up in churches up in black churches up in African churches but separate from that what do you think is being deleted from our culture and our cultural expression of Christianity by adopting that into our belief system so it's the way we treat women exactly the way we treat children it is the way way that inherently we kind we still don't

stick together as well as we should you know these are things that are holdovers from from colonization from enslavement that has been used to divide and conquer us the way we still other each other in a lot of ways the one thing that we hear as atheists is that we're trying to be white yeah we hear that well you're you're rejecting your Blackness as an atheist which is the furthest thing from the truth it is my blackness that defines my atheism you know it it is because I care about black folks and the black community

no and even in our diversity that makes that that that has defined or that has determined my conclusion I'll just say that like sometimes we conflate like General human nature I don't mean to disregard everything that you're saying because I still think tribalism exists outside of Christianity I still think misogyny exists outside of uh Christianity I think racism exists outside of Christianity and all these other things so a lot of the times what you're seeing is General human nature um coming up top a belief system that preaches love and it dilutes it because that's who

we are as humans we're going to take something that's meant for love and we're going to take something that's meant for Unity not uniformity and we're going to use that to to um destroy like our relationships with other people but the reason why I call myself a Christian is because I can look at a standard that's much higher than myself to say hey even though I have a lot of these uh differences with other people we're all the same under god let's move on to closing statements for me remain curious ask questions do your own

research we should be creating things that we want to see out in the world ways that we want to replicate goodness love charity taking care of one another so ultimately that's what's most important and why we always got to make God a he like I love the conversation I love the individuality I love the the the um the commitment to it I don't have a heaven or hell to put anyone in I have a personal relationship and I throw it out and I share it and hopefully it makes a difference for the other person and

if it doesn't he's given them the CH the right to not choose it as we discover who we are as black people as we discover who we are as people as we probe into the Divine whether or not it's the universe whether or not it's some other form of spirituality that being open to the Revelation that I am bigger I am better and eternal life is mine whether or not that is The Reincarnation or whether or not that is in living with him eternally so I think that everyone here has uh beautiful backgrounds and they

all gave Beautiful Stories you know and um my my my final thought is just that um when it does come to black Christians with the historical value of the black church I do believe that it is inherent for black Christians to dedicate a portion of themselves to the black power struggle and the black movement and that is my final brother thank you thank thank you