Bishop Eddie L. Long, Cornell West, & Al Sharpton - State Of Black Union 2005

let's move on bishop eddie long last but not least thank you for being gracious enough to have us here the question i want to ask you before we expand this thing out it is clear from this last election minister farah khan alluded to it earlier that the black community is not a monolith we do not think or act the same and thank god we all have our own individuality the challenge i think is for us to express our individ individuality with integrity we all have individuality but can we express that with integrity that's our challenge that said because we don't all think the same in this last election um the white house mr roll mr bush made a strong play to get the african-american vote they decided to do that through the african-american church as you well know it's no secret you were one of the persons invited to the white house other black ministers invited we all saw the picture if you thought it was a secret it wasn't because we saw it in the new york times we saw you we saw t.d jakes we saw a whole bunch of y'all uh eugene rivers uh marvin weinings we saw a whole lot of y'all sitting up in the white house meeting with the president as he was making his play at the black churches now my point is this i'm not mad at anybody to be with the president i'm glad you all got in cbc don't but that's another issue um i'm not mad at anybody for accepting he is the president united states respectfully when the president calls and wants to meet with you you go sit down with him that's not my issue my question for you is how we it's not about your politics or mind or anybody else's i'm talking about a larger question here respectfully how do we as a people navigate what is clearly becoming tricky territory where one party starts to play to our emotions and feelings based on a couple different issues that are wrapped in morality now that's not me talking that's the reality of what happened last time there are a couple issues there were a couple of issues a couple of issues and i'm not again it's not about i'm not trying to make a statement i'm out it sounds like but i'm making asking a question here there are a couple of issues that were wrapped in morality and because black folks have always been more conservative on the moral issues and more liberal on the social questions it's called the quagmire here and and it's made the territory much more tricky so how as an ecumenical leader do you suggest that we as a people not talk about the issues now but just as a people how do we navigate what's your best advice on how we can best navigate best practices if you will this very tricky territory when these moral issues are starting to divide and conquer if you will the black vote how do we navigate that process well let me start start by this because one of the things that we're doing is that right now okay uh first of all let me say just because we went to the house did not mean we had intercourse it means and and and somebody has to go to the house right okay the the the challenge we have and one of the wonderful things this is my first time ever meeting minister farrakhan personally a warm wonderful great individual i thank god for that before with reverend sharpton and even all of us the media would tell us what we've been saying about one another and what we've been saying about issues and the things that we haven't said but being misinterpreted and our error is that we're reading ourselves from the media's eyes instead of coming together in this place or this kind of setting and talking and saying what we actually mean and being able to agree to disagree and not condemn a brother or a sister if that we are gone to the white house or the outhouse or whatever house understanding that we have a fiduciary and a a civic and a moral responsibility wherever we go to represent so if we give credence to the integrity of the men and women who are here when the first panel will be in the third panel to understand that we do operate in a degree of integrity to go into places and not limit our access into places because we are representing a people and we must gain information to make the right decisions to galvanize our people that's number number two uh i'm baptist so i don't know where i'll close number three this is your house i understand so i go behind the podium no number three we cannot be afraid to understand that we are now re-evaluating our destiny and reevaluating the direction and so in all of that we must talk to discuss where we are where we're going who we have access to who we have touched who we have moved in and all of that so what looks to be confusing if you understand god he's always operated in what looked to be confusing but when he got finished the amazing thing of god in the glory of god was revealed in what he wanted to have come the past in this thing that we're dealing with right now and understanding that we represent and have to represent understand this conversation did not just start you have just made a wonderful point of understanding that we have to get a mindset that we are doing generational works this has started long before we came together to have this conversation that is the reason why god identifies himself as the god of abraham isaac and jacob he wants you to understand and wants me to understand that we're building on the shoulders of generation after generation and the vision that god has ordained is not housing just one man or woman but it's something that has been going that we should get better and better and greater and greater as generations come to pass and as we move in that and come together and walk in that one of the challenges i have and as minister farrakhan was talking that i have with with us i this sanctuary almost feels twice on a sunday and i can say powerful things and folk will jump and tear up chairs and we got to replace it but when it's time to hit the streets nobody wants to move if you're going to grab if we're going to grab something to have this if we're going to grab something as if my people that that said a whole lot about what we need to do it says a whole lot about number one uh number five or whatever it is that somehow somehow today regardless of places we've been because we're sitting here says that we want to advance our people we want to set an agenda and we want to follow it now doing that there has to be a decision made and this is a tough decision the tough decision is will we tavis come together even meet when the cameras are not on us and make a decision for the betterment of the generations to come that what will benefit them we may not get a benefit out of it in our lifetime but we're willing to pay the price that those who come after us will be able to get what god has ordained that is a major decision that has to be made today and the only way that'll happen as i conclude as we keep access to all is the only way that's going to happen is that we not only get leadership but we have to find because every move in the black community came from a people who were sick and tired of being where they are and if you're not sick and tired of being broke you're never going to get no money if you're not sick and tired to be in the back you'll never get in the front and until we decide that we are sick and tired and enough is enough ain't nothing gonna happen and if we sit up and criticize whose house we went in just for dinner they fed you just for them and to have conversation that if we do need to pick up the phone and call them we do have access all right [Applause] i i paused i i i paused not because i didn't know where i wanted to go next i paused because since he said he was a baptist preacher i thought number seven was the offer wait for the deacons to walk out all right i i i want to do something a little unorthodoxy because i know there's so much ground to cover and i technically have a half an hour left but i'm going to steal another half an hour from c-span so whoever's waiting backstage uh give me another half an hour and we will work this out but i know you want to hear a little bit more of this and uh we'll bring out we'll bring out the next panels that gives me almost another hour here so let me just shy of an hour so let me let me do something unorthodox i know there's so much has been said and i think everybody in here on this panel understands where i'm trying to go with this conversation i know everybody's got something they want to respond to add on augment disagree with so i'm not going to throw questions out in this second round before i get to the third round i want to give you a chance to respond to whatever it is you've heard so far you want to agree or disagree with we'll start revving out sharp and come back this way there's no question but i know you got stuff you want to say i can see it on your faces already so uh let let me start with with the reverend dr alfred c sharp let me let me say this three about the covenant about the contract i want to say the the three things and i i'm glad but now so now you're about this preacher too i'm i'm a baptist costume preacher so i'll make it go more than more than two i mean you got more points than three that's right that's right one we must distinguish as we have this conversation the difference between black leaders and leading blacks there's a big difference the problem we have is that we're allowing others to project leading blacks like they're black leaders i don't have a problem with black leaders funded financed and supported by black people going in any house for me any long included my problem is when we have people raised up who are totally alien to any accountability to our community that are imposed upon us and then supposedly that becomes a new view so we must teach generationally that yeah we can be proud of a colin powell getting the way he got but there wouldn't have been a colon pile if it wasn't adam clayton powell and it wouldn't have been there wouldn't have been condoleezza rice if it wasn't for those four girls in birmingham bush picked fruit off of trees that we planted and grew he didn't plant those trees so we need to get that straight what we did in our campaign after the presidential race we went back into the dnc and we said we need to seat at the table right now we have less blacks on the executive board of the democratic national committee than we've had in 40 years since the green i was talking about we chose one of our own executive director of our group major harris she's here somewhere ran up for dnc chair asked people to support modern harry why because we wanted somebody at the table when they say we do not have the funds to know what the budget is they told us the last week of the prior of the elections they didn't have funds for travel we found out a week after the campaign they had millions of dollars still left in the bank i'm talking about democrat now so we need to hold the accountability to those we do give our votes to stop before you go for it before you go for it i'm going to finish all your points but i won't stop you right quick why then just tell me right now just tell me then why if the democrats came to us tomorrow give them what you just said and ask us to vote for them tomorrow if there are fewer nick black folk if there are fewer black folk if there are fewer black folk on the democratic leadership executive committee now than there were 40 years ago right and when they needed our votes and they wanted black folk like you and others to go out and help get those votes and they had money sitting there and didn't cut you a check to travel to help get out the vote why should i vote for another democrat ever that is the question and i think that the answer has to come from a collective discussion which is why we can't jump in on each other who we talking to if all of us is coming home with less than what we should have that's the real issue and that's why we ran hats that's why we're addressing this now i mean d i didn't get the votes i wanted if we did we'd be having this conversation in the east room but but i've got more i got twice my voice in south carolina than d i got more votes in georgia than dean and florida indeed and mississippi he's a chair of the party so we at least need to know why we're not more on the executive board that's one two the generational question as she raises we raised with uh harris we've got to bring the young generation on and not condemn them we talk about what the hip hoppers did and true hayman others did with registered voters because we didn't like their style well my mama didn't like the style when i was a kid so some of the young people today may dress a certain way but i never get when my mother saw isaac hayes with she said he had on chains and her pantyhose she didn't understand that there we can't condemn these young people because many of us sitting right here in this church did a lot of things when we were young matter of fact did all we could then come and join the church jump up the next sunday and start things singing things i used to do i don't do no more most of you things you used to do you can't do no more we cannot allow them to take the policy discussion away from health care our having with inaudib i have no problem debating morality with them their problem is they don't want that debate i'm considered a liberal left-wing democrat but i can tell them about faith and morality because no matter how liberal and left i am i still believe in salvation i still believe in jesus i still believe in god i don't need no right winger or no right christian to teach me about faith tavis i was raised by a single mother that taught us how to pray that taught us that we had to believe that god was for us it'd be more the whole world against us i went christmas day to dalton alabama to see my mom in the hospital she has alzheimer's disease didn't even know who i was didn't recognize me bothered me so i went back to the hotel i went back the next day brother minister thinking maybe it'd be better as i walked in the room she was sitting there humming the song amazing grace and even though she didn't know her own son she never forgot that song so next time let's talk next time any group of our ministers go see the president tell him you don't have to teach me about faith i know about faith because some people think it was politics but it was grace bishop it wasn't civil rights it was grace that brought me safe this far and tell bush that grace will lead us off and all right all right and the church said [Applause] dr west i want to keep advancing this notion of this what might work here no i i think even as we talk about faith and grace we have to keep in mind the art of criticism that how we learn to lovingly criticize one another that each one of us up here every black leader has the potential to be pimped and prostituted by the white mainstream across the board the question is how do we lovingly stand beside each other when it looks as if we're not being accountable this is the question when i look at this great house this man is a managerial genius but i know that the people's wealth also built it he didn't build it by himself he knows that or when i look at jake's i see a spiritual genius but i also know his people build his house and so i can still come along as a late christian and say to my brother out of love i still uh i'm suspicious of your political courage when it comes to not just eating at the house the white house but dealing with policies that's crushing working people and poor people and i can say that with love to the brother why because we may disagree on that but he needs to know where i'm coming from and for me in the name of jesus [Applause] i'm telling you in the name of jesus or dr west in other words in other words you step it in the name of love i'm stepping out i'm not just stepping in the name of love but i'm looking for a cross i'm not just looking for wealth i'm not just looking for flags i'm looking for blood i'm looking for struggle i'm looking for who loves the people enough to sacrifice for and i this brother has to have some love because you ain't gonna put up with 25 000 negroes and i have some love i know that i know that's but i want to see more political courage out of him and jake's and the other folk who have all of these beautiful black people tell them the truth about their suffering not just the spiritual reflection about their their their souls we want their souls we want their bodies but we also got structures and institutions we got to address and that's a rich legacy and if we learn how to lovingly criticize each other push each other back and forth that's what i love about this little fairy tale we set out and had the nine-hour lunch i was supposed to have breakfast with the brother for two hours we went nine hours you remember that bro sharpton the same way and then harlem why because we decided that there's something bigger than us and that's the suffering of the people and we're going to keep the focus on that by the minister

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Keywords: bishop Eddie l long, Cornell west, al sharpton, state of the black union 2005, tavis smiley, tavis smiley state of black union, George bush, black preachers bush, td jakes, noel jones, potters house dallas, Serita jakes, jamal bryant, Jeremiah wright, megafest, Dewey Smith, cogic shout, cogic bump, holy convocation shout, crazy praise break, the black church, otis moss III, Giselle bryant, maranda curtis, Steven furtick, Tasha cobbs, Michael todd, William murphy

Id: g4KG_5yRmDc

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021