How Twisting History Has Hurt Young Black Men | Real Talk

[Music] even before the Civil Rights Movement the Jewish and black communities shared a history of support and celebration so like many others I was shocked by anti-semitic remarks from some notable black performers and athletes I called Pastor dumasani Washington an expert on Jewish and black relations to understand why this is happening and if it's a growing movement given that many of you might have similar questions we've decided to share our conversation [Music] hi I'm Marissa how you doing so it's interesting that we're meeting during Black History Month total coincidence but given that this is February just one of your thoughts on what what do you think about Black History Month I don't know how I feel about it I've always been ambivalent well at least as a young adult right so what I learned about black history I learned at home right my parents from from the segregated South Little Rock Arkansas so I learned about our family right I didn't learn it under the moniker of black history I just learned about my family right so my dad who's a whose dad was a sharecropper and those types of things and I had a great deal of Pride and self-worth from that because the stories that I was told they were not stories of defeat and racist this that and the other right so just quick example my mom graduated from Scipio A Jones High School the only school that took black students in Little Rock Arkansas she loved the school right and these graduated doctors lawyers politicians my uncle I talk about in my book he Uncle Levi Adams he worked for years at Brown University and helped other black doctors come into the field right so that was my reality right so when I hear about Black History Month I think it's important for the for people to know but I think the unfortunate thing that we are now is everything is so divisive and so political that it becomes something more negative instead of Celebration so I I'm ambivalent about it and yeah hope to see where it goes from there yeah I personally feel like if somebody approached me with this idea of having like a Jewish History Month in the United States and you know I have an aversion to it because I'm so focused on how we're all American and we're all united through that and so sometimes I worry about this Division I think it is important to learn history and you know obviously we'll get into the importance of history in general but also the importance of like real Unity not like the pretend Unity that our president has told us about right and so how do we how do we create that real Unity if we can consistently just approach one another as you know separate groups right right I think that's the complexity of it um Marissa that you have the uniqueness that is America right this what we used to call Melting Pot right different ethnicities different groups that have built this amazing place right and so it is both where they've come from whether it was Jewish people fleeing uh after the Holocaust whether it was even earlier in the 1900s coming from different places here and but building America the tapestry that is America they came and were proud to be Americans they fought in the wars to fight for Freedom right and we talked about uh the black soldiers who fought the World War One World War II right why would they do that even though there were struggles here because they were Americans and they're proud of that and I think that that's some of what is more lost now the being American is more ambiguous maybe even negative because of all the the propaganda people are told or anything and so that was a loss often time I think I love the opportunity to speak to you a little bit about you know your journey and some of your thoughts about the black community there's obviously a lot of conversations happening this month and you know we had the Kyrie Irving and and Kanye tantrum I'll call it a tantrum just because I'm a typical mom but before we get into that I know that one of the things that you recognize is the importance of understanding where you came from that really helped solidify your identity and your your birth name was not dumasani her birth name was Dennis right but you changed it to dumasani will you tell me a little bit about why you did that sure sure so this was in the 90s and at this time it was a real Turning Point a spiritual journey for me both cultural and spiritual and I say it that way because there were so many things that were happening at the same time right one of those was a need to and a desire to know more about just both pan-african history of just Africa as as a continent as a region right so I began to do that I I became a Christian very young age my parents my family is really really religious and so there was this love for Israel that had been there from the time I was little right I would read the Bible but I read the Old Testament more the New Testament but I don't know about the Patriarchs I want to know about Joseph I know these stories by the time I'm in grade school right because I keep reading them right I read the Morgan the investment so the Africa part that happens a little later on in my young adult life happens as a almost like a this spiritual journey that later on became Israel Africa right I didn't know where it was going so one of the things that happened for me in doing this right studying about different regions and places was that my given name no longer felt like me I literally didn't feel like when I would introduce myself and say my name it didn't feel like I was talking about Mew such a strange thing and so I began to talk to some friends and I had a very good friend at the time Noma temba she's actually from South Africa she was living here in the states her nickname is malume which means auntie and we began to talk I said manometer I think I want to do a name change I feel like it's funny if I could compare it biblically right and there was you know the name changes that happened with certain Patriarchs were at certain times in their life it felt like that to me not that I was Jacob right but I felt like it was a very interpersonal thing like that something was happening and so she said which I'm a musician and I sometime I was little it means praise and so dumisani U Jehovah is the Zulu phrase that means praise the lord it's like the equivalent of Hallelujah in Zulu and so she gave me the name I said you know I said to have a whole ceremony and everything my family was there I'd say this my parents are no longer alive but one thing that was really a blessing to me is that when I told them I'm the youngest of seven children right so your your kids coming and telling you he's changing his name I didn't know you're like why did you not like the name we gave you and they've always been like that for me when I in that they were open I told them it was quiet and I told them in the speech that I gave them it was really important to me Marissa that they knew that it was not rejection of them my family loved my family that part of the reason why I could explore something as drastic as that is because of how I came up I came up loving my family right and this was just another phase of my development my dad was it part of your discovery of your African Roots yes is that dumasani is an African name it is it's a Zulu name and it's so funny that was the 90s right so I found out my my daughter I have a big family one of my daughters want me to do my DNA for them Daddy's one I want to know so the short version is I'm like 83 Yoruba which is West Africa and there's another percentage that's actually swanna which is Southern Africa which is my daughter-in-law her tribe literally my son marries in to the one of the tribes that I descended from and had no idea I didn't so so this was part of this is like it was a it was a pan-african way but it was a I want to kind of immerse everything so yeah the creature uh it's another story so let's see here so I came up in church as a musician right played in church all my life literally started playing and the choirs in grade school like it's like eight or nine and so my family big family so that's people like all Church babies they know what I'm talking about if you know that thing you're there all the time all during the week and rehearsals and meetings and stuff like that and always had a love for the Bible always had a love for the word of God and I didn't understand it at the time at all but uh the music part of it was something that began to Usher me I began some of my pastors began to Mentor me because they saw a pastoral preaching call I was not all that interested because I wanted to you as a young person but as I got older I began to realize that and so I was ordained as a minister by my mentor at the time on the East Coast even though I was to the West Coast and began pastoring around the early 2000s I mean and you started a church right yes ma'am I started out so in 2004 I thought it was called the congregation of Zion it's in Stockton my wife and I moved to the east coast about two and a half years ago the pastors that we have there there over the congregation and everything and so yes ma'am we started it there it was all another part of that other Journey too and even in doing that it was something I never really saw myself doing when I was younger but the path just kind of you never know right yes ma'am absolutely so I called you at the height of the Kyrie Irving and Kanye West tantrum as I call it and basically it was like dumasani what is going on what is this Black Hebrew Israel light movement is it significant is it big and we had a fascinating conversation and so things have really kind of calmed down a little bit as of now but I just I wanna in a very calm way I want to understand what is this group is it something that we need to be informed about is it growing is it significant and just where did they come from the way that most people have been introduced to it especially with the Kyrie Irving the film that he posted called Hebrews and Negroes that type of thing um that group or the group that people are familiar with in the social media and I call them the radical Black Hebrew Israelites the praising Hitler hating the white people hating of Jews lighter-skinned Jews even saying the negative things about Israel it is a more of a fringe element but it is growing we don't know number I say we in terms of any real demographics is growing in that that mentality which unfortunately much of it is fueled by some of confusion or anger those type of things that group is what most people are aware of in terms of social media and media now as well right you had the whole Nick Sandman thing that happened a few years ago in DC that whole issue about the young man and the Catholic school kids and everything but what wasn't told often was there's a large black Hebrew Israelite group that was there cat calling and just it was it was a real bad scene right so there's a broader work there's a black Hebrews like Community that's in Demona Israel that's been there since the late 1960s that's a separate group yeah and that's um that was that was a controversial move as well we don't have to unpack that whole thing but that's a separate it thing but that is something so the part of the problem and the confusion that name either black Hebrews right or Hebrews light is used for so many different groups some of them that really don't have anything to do with each other and that's part of where we are now last they'll say there is a group that goes back to the 1800s of black Americans who began to associate with Judaism began to claim it as religion began to identify themselves as either being Israelite or just being a part of a Jewish religion that goes back to sometime after the Civil War that group its lineage goes all the way to Rabbi kadres fune he is over the Israelite Board of rabbis he's in Chicago he works throughout the other parts of the Jewish community and everything and so they have a very very long tradition so Marissa when you and I were talking those other two groups both Demona and the one that's based in Chicago wasn't what was being referenced what was happening with the Kyrie Irving one was the radical I keep using that term because the negative the anti-semitic the the whole thing right and and the way that that film was shared there's a lot of inaccuracies in it and everything like that that's part of what exploded it's been there for a while just kind of simmering I think the perfect storm was the NBA Kyrie Kanye you know all these things kind of happened all at once and it puts the emphasis on that group there what do they actually believe well again I know that there are a whole bunch of different groups but you know I I try to watch this movie yeah which is sad because I guess all of us watched it just because there was all this attention on it otherwise nobody would have heard about it but it was basically this like slideshow and yeah what I somewhat understood from the movie was that there was a claim that Jews who claimed to be Jewish if they're white are not actually Jewish and the real Jews are black and essentially the Ashkenazi Jews stole the Jewish identity from the blacks yes that's my my understanding and so what from your I know you've been studying this for a very long time yes ma'am what is it that they believe and I I mean is it is it a growing group of people are they having an impact so what you the summary that you gave is pretty accurate there is a group that which I would call the most radical of them again hatred white people hatred of Jews Ashkenazi Jews even in the film there I I noticed the progression meaning when I first became aware of any type of black Hebrews like it was probably late 1990s right the internet wasn't really a thing there was no social media none of those things I remember my wife and I talking because I would do research that would read and find out and that's how I found about the group of Demona how they got there and all those types of things and one of the things that I found for that negative element was that very thing the fact that there's a belief that only black people who are descendants from the transatlantic slave trade by virtue of the fact that being taken as slaves and they base most of that on Deuteronomy chapter 28 this this passage what it talks about you'll be taking this slaves on ships and no man will buy you it's a it's a vague passage but they look to that passage and they say based on this we are the true Israelites and these other people are imposters what was interesting is that that I've seen that for years the evolution that I've seen is that now they'll they'll name Ashkenazi misrahi Safari right and these are the type of descendants the Jews come from so Ashkenazi is typically Eastern European and white sephardi is you know Moroccan Middle Eastern Jews and so they're claiming that all of these folks have stolen the Jewish identity like why do they care why can't they be Jews and allow the other Jews to be Jews well that's a very logical question and that's part of the thing and that's part of the one of the most unfortunate and negative things about that mentality not only is it claiming I'm the real Jew and you're not right this it's also claiming that because of that retribution on you you stole right that's a that's a whole different thing this type of militant radical that is unfortunately what has fueled for some particularly young black men who have felt either dispossessed or otherwise disenfranchised right this becomes a message of Hope right I often have likened it to a white supremacist group that they're saying these things and here's this white young man who's feeling dispossessed for whatever reasons he's feeling that way boom here he gravitates to it so in terms of what the numbers again this is something we haven't we haven't measured right I I can say anecdotally that having been observing it since the late 90s to now it's grown right and mostly because social media right you have the Street Preachers that type of thing and these guys will wear their uniforms they'll come I remember seeing them I went to UCLA for college I remember seeing them on campus and they were pretty aggressive and I think I read in your book or or you mentioned to me that they used to protest in front of churches right because they would say that the preacher is a liar by not well actually it's a newer thing over the last several years I've seen it more right they they are they are aggressively telling this now from the same premise of those people are fake retribution on those people people for stealing and now going to black churches and telling them your pastors are fraud he's not teaching you the truth again not dialogue but like this aggressive so they would go to churches I was a few months ago we were in Stockton uh with our congregation and we're driving from somewhere in one place to another place it was a Sunday and as we were driving there was a church in the near the neighborhood we were driving and there are guys about 20 deep in the parking lot passing out flyers these people are coming to church and they're passing out flyers totally disrespecting the pastor totally different from the church he's a fraud he said that type of thing so that when I say newer I don't remember that happening up until only the last couple of years but yeah descending on churches and actually confronting church leaders with their Doctrine right with their with their Dogma but in a very very kind of nasty and disrespectful way are people responding to them I mean are they gaining attention I mean they obviously got attention on social media right but are more people joining their you know their I don't know what you call it right so they are again just from what we can kind of tell and at some point we'll do some sort of measurement right some sort of like let's do a poll it what I've seen right is that it is attracting the young some young ladies as well those who are looking to belong right there's it's almost an exploiting of lack of identity so this person is telling me one of the reasons why I feel dispossessed one of the reasons why I feel lost is because I'm actually this and they stole it from me therefore this resonates right so it's resonating with that type of person as a matter of fact having watched as long as I have I've also met people who were really deep within that movement who are no longer there and they would cite things like hatred anger they would say things like it destroyed my marriage this is a thing right there's actually people are uploading YouTubes now saying that involvement in this black Israelite movement destroyed their their marriages explaining here's why I was drawn in yeah it's an ideology that is based on hate so of course it's going to destroy right well to your point that if it was truly I believe I'm in Israel I mean I'm Jewish okay let's study Torah but I always tell my wife and we tell some of the young people who would say just more teaching to standpoint but then if you then believe that this is what happened to you then you would do what our Jewish friends call teshuva right so that nobody could steal your identity someone like Jacob you know Esau complaining that Jacob stole it well no you sold it right you you if that was your birth right you're right and so that whole story right and then they of course they had to come to a resolution that Jesus I realized that you know he didn't really take it from me I kind of gave it up so if you really believe if I believe that Marissa stole it did she steal it or did I leave it somewhere right if it and so isn't should I be in why shouldn't I be doing what I need to be doing why does that have what does that have to do with someone else and see these are some of the things that some people who've left the movement and then what those numbers are I don't know I just know I've been around it long enough to have seen and met some of them or it actually LED some of the Marissa to go deeper into study and Judaism some of them have converted to an orthodox Jew that type of thing right so it's been a strange ride the the most unfortunate part is the very negative anti-semitic things that people are seeing that's actually feeding into a more of a broader anti-Semitism in our country right now so it is an anti-semitic ideology I would say I I would say if you're saying that not only that person's not that's a fake Jew first of all that you're disrespecting their Heritage right and then you're saying that not only that but they stole that from me and they're the ones who are responsible for the slave trade which is something that film says which is not true right yeah it's pretty much textbook anti-Semitism in there I hear uh about Louis Farrakhan oftentimes can you tell me who he is and how he's connected to this whole picture well Louis rare Khan has been the leader of the Nation of Islam I want to say since the 70s since the mid 70s if I had my my dates correct he was the successor of Elijah Muhammad who was one of he didn't found it but he was one of the main leaders from the beginning Louis Farrakhan has two main reputations throughout the black community and Beyond the Nation of Islam has been instrumental in helping doing amazing things about Community Helping the reduce the recidivism rate in Black incarcerated young men coming out doing prison work job placement those type of this has been the case for a while good things the other side of this very kind of message oftentimes extremely negative anti-white anti-israel anti-semitic and this is part of the reason why his name when it comes up it engenders so much controversy people will particularly the black community have one view or the other about him it's not often nuanced right meaning there will be this loyalty to him there are a lot of young black men now older who see him as a father figure they'll tell him that he's a mentor to them and they'll tell you all the reasons why they'll be substantive reasons right and then there's this other side where he has for decades attacked the Jewish community blame the Jewish people for all kinds of things particularly the black community is concerned the book that he helped put out back in the 90s the secret relationship between blacks and Jews which is a whole detailed thing about the Jews being the main reason why the slave trade even happened oh they own this they own that which were our organizations actually dealing with now and all the the distortions of History so that's who he is he's now in his 90s and I write about in my book that though he's an older man he's never been more formidable because when you hear a Kanye say the things that he said about the Jewish people much of that is what Louis farrakhan's been saying for decades right and so he influenced in terms of some some of the hip-hop world some in this the the professional sports arena in politics right he he he has enjoyed access to some of the most powerful black people in the country for a long time and has influence because of that again has done some positive things but has brought a much of this Israel and Jew hatred there um it's it's interesting it's so controversial that even when you bring that up for those people who are the most loyal to him they'll say yeah he's not anti-semite he said the man literally said I'm not an anti-semite I might be termite right he he literally he'll say these things and I talk about I give him several pages of my book I just quote them wow I just I remember when I was editing the book it just so happens that two of my main staff and people that were helping me how many black women right so we all we would read it together we go through different things and whenever we came to that part of the chapter one of them one was one as a pastor she would stop she would probably I can't even because you're reading it the words are so negative and so bad and so in the Jews this and the Jews that and so we get that part we would all kind of get we would be meeting on zoom and it would be like a heaviness because you just don't want to read it right you just want to just goes how can at some point one of my friends said how can people just sit there and these are things because what I'm quoting from my speeches and there's thousands of people in the room to choose that's just that so unfortunately he has had a huge impact right now is it terms of the majority of the black community no when I say huge impact I'm saying for those particularly who have those anti-semitic tropes those type of things much of that could be attributed to him why is it that it's it seems like it's predominantly young black men that are attracted to this kind of narrative why are they so vulnerable and attracted to this kind of messaging I found kind of like what you asked me about the whole African Journey for me and everything I it was in the 90s again obviously happened in the 90s right well I mean early 2000s is that's when I for example became more familiar with Louis Farrakhan like there's cable TV not against cable to now and I've been every once while I would see him preaching and someone's Church usually right he'd be there there'd be a Quran on one side about another side I remember even then I would be watching I didn't that I didn't know about his anti-Semitism that part of the late 90s early 2000s I didn't know about some of those other things I'm just watching listening and I would listen and and I would hear Louis farrakhan's speech or sermon and I would agree with 65 70 of what he said okay that's on point black community and father the Million Man March and fathers and yeah I'm all down completely down right our families and then when he would say something that was either biblically strange or later on heard about the Jewish part of it and everything said okay well so to answer your question if this person is giving me self-worth he's speaking to me about things that are not being spoken of right if if this person is talking about being a strong black man and being a husband and a father and all these things which are good things right and then he makes this other turn and starts saying these other things right then I'm going to be influenced by those and I'm gonna not want to reject any part of what he's saying because I want to be a part of him I want to be part of this community and so for me I I what I recognize this only in retrospect right this wasn't in real time Mercedes I'm looking back I'm saying so why didn't you get pulled in I said well I knew who I was right so it wasn't a situation that my mom my dad not in a bag I mean we weren't any significant people just had my family right my mom my dad my my aunts my uncles my my family my our church so there's an identity that's why I said about them coming from the segregated South and I learned my mom was friends with the people who desegregated at Central High School right so I learned about these things a quick quick example I learned about the controversy of desegregation from my mother and father meaning she said to me to misani at a paraphrase it was more nuanced there was it wasn't like you're hearing about it here there was real deep debates in the black community about desegregation not whether or not we were owed the rights as constant by the Constitution but how to go about doing it she said there was a there was two minds once one said integration is what needs to happen we need to go to White schools and that's what's going to be fair and there was another school that said no what's happening is that the the revenues that are being the taxes that actually going to school is being unfairly distributed which is true they would get the revenues from everyone but they would give the most of the revenues to the white schools and black school lessons we want the revenues more evenly distributed but we still want our schools they wanted the schools to be separate why because their feeling was that once integration happened those who were racist would not stop being racist and simply treat those children differently they didn't want to throw their kids into the mix of of that they wanted to kind of shelter them Malcolm X in this conversation he said what only a fool will let his enemy educate his children so there was a separate mindset right so this I'm learning this as a kid so as I get older I hear about stuff in the middle like history books about because it wasn't a monolithic thing they so for example they saw the non-violent struggle for justice Dr King another LED and they respected it but there were debates within the black mom say they would have in the basement of the church they would be talking about these things like any other group because no group is a monolith everyone agreed that change needed to happen but how it happened was the concern and then she said to me and when integration happened her school sat there like a mausoleum they fired all the best black teachers they kept the worst ones to almost keep them on staff almost like a ridicule and sure enough here the students are in the quote-unquote white school right and what they feared happen they were not nurtured and so that's why I tell people that I told my story so let me sign are you against integration no no that's not my point is not let's keep everything separate the point was that the way that it happened there's certain things that weren't thought through right and one of those things was the institutions when we considered like Thomas soul talking about the fact that you had centuries of slavery from the 1600s to the end of the Civil War and then another Century of Jim Crow segregation but this community that had been so beleaguered still has intact families marriage rates higher 1960 than in white families how are they doing they was Thomas Sewell talked about there was nothing to see at the end of slavery black men walking across state lines to go and put their families back together right these husbands these fathers how are they building Black Wall Street at the turn of the 20th century why is that even a thing not just in Tulsa but in parts of the country how are they participating in the American dream not even a generation moves from slavery again as I told people before constitutional republic free market economy boom right they can only do this in a nation like America with all of the difficulties that are there they're able to move forward when those institutions were dissipated in a way like a integration would do in terms of like now I don't have my school yes it's a segregated school you know what's really funny now what's happening right now in the whole social justice thing kids separate now they're going racist all over again see that and it's being exploited by people who have their own political agenda why are some of the young people being pulled into it well it goes back to the whole black people's right thing goes back to Lucifer hunting why would I sit here and listen to this negative stuff these things that are actually not going to build me up except for to be in a community and to feel like I belong right if if my identity is such that you are helping Define me even though some of what you're saying is wrong and bad I'm not going to leave if I don't feel like I have enough independence from you you still have to continue to Defying me I still have to be a part of this group so I realize that as I'm watching Farrakhan in my 20s and 30s and looking at and one of the reasons why me and others like me are not being impacted in that way is because well you knew you knew your history I had a dad right and this was not I'm not saying in a facetious way I'm not on a flipping way am I going to die Marissa I my dad was this amazing person and we talk about Dad I don't give us black white it doesn't matter fathers are important right so it has a lot to do with what I believe about me my own self-worth all of those things right so I recognize as I got older I said okay why didn't I get pulled in I saw the Black Hebrew was the right thing back then I said okay well a lot of it had to do with my family I didn't have a need to be a part of something else that was going to Define me my family defined me and gave me parameters or gave me the freedom to even discover other things about me right I hope that makes sense yeah I guess what what makes sense here is that in some ways these government entities try to come in and become the parents of of these kids and I mean they're trying to do this to all of us but specifically you know the black community is vulnerable because they don't necessarily understand where they came from or what their Heritage there's a great I gotta I gotta find this so you know we all love Tom Soul around here and this book I try to read it uh over the last week so there's a there's a paragraph in here that actually resonates with me that I'd love to just read out to you and maybe you can comment on it and so he talks about false memories and the importance of knowing where you came from and what you're you know essentially your your history is and so if you don't know your history and you don't know where you come from it leaves this very dangerous vacuum that can be filled by by anybody it would not be much better to wake up some morning with false memory induced In You by some means by some other person to serve that other person's purpose with all memories expunged that you do not serve that end and other memories twisted or created out of thin air to make you the Willing instrument of some ulterior design so I can talk about this forever I'll make it short um yes absolutely um Black History Month was actually black history week which was created by Dr Carter Woodson in the earlier I don't know 1930s I believe right he was a educator black educator and one of the leaders in the black community and his purpose was kind of what we're talking about now these black young people need to know their hair extended history they need to understand who they are it became month later on he wrote one of his similar Works was called the miseducation of the Negro one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time Lauren Hill it was called miseducation of Lauryn Hill it was a play on that title from that book and so part of the point that Dr Woodson made was what Dr soul is saying there that for a person who doesn't know who he is and then is given a false image of who he is that person you've ruined them and not only them the children that they have right because then they will be defined by pop culture critical race Theory right because someone else is going to tell that person who they are right and this is what I found more and more with our we have six children we homeschool them all we kind of watch the development we do other areas of education and everything and so we had a lot of time with other young people and other parents children watching them the music education those type of things and what I found to be true is that for those students whether it was a single parent home or both parents but were loved and nurtured and that child excelled that child excelled even wasn't academically in him or her becoming who they were going to be for the child who came from a certain amount of Brokenness uncertainty God forbid abuse that child had a much more difficult time coming into who he or she was so to that point with Thomas Soul if you take away my Heritage identity whatever and then you give me something else right that's a whole I'm an Israelite and you're not the real Israelite so I'm going to write so those two things have nothing to do with each other why does that resonate with certain people I found that by and large for those people who are looking for identity and there's enough Brokenness that's there yeah I think that's absolutely true and that's part of why we are where we are right now in our society one of the things you mentioned to me when we spoke a few months ago was that there are nefarious motives that are taking advantage of vulnerable young folks that want to understand where they come from like who are these groups that are using this I guess vacuum that is created in in people's history that's the million dollar question Marissa because I think I don't think it's one particular thing I think we see like in education right critical ethnic studies here in California that Gavin Newsom signed into law back in 2020 I talk about in my book is a complete revision of History particularly anti-zion is part of it right Israel's committing genocide all these types of things which have nothing to do with the history of these people right and some other ethnic histories are completely left out right why the the question becomes why why would you tell these false stories about the leave this group out right well it has to do for me anyway with agenda right if I can confuse the person enough was it Lincoln who said the future of the nation is coming out of those classrooms right so that if I need the person to be pliable enough I need them to be suggestible enough I need them to not question things right I need to take critical thinking out of their minds I need them to be programmed to do what I want them to do right yes ma'am I think that that becomes now the impetus I don't want them to have a rigorous education which goes back to what uh Carter Woodson was saying I want them to be told what to do I think that this is some of what we've been dealing with for a while now right and then in terms of black community it became the petri dish right you have the whole I call the war on poverty a war on the black family right this somehow it's supposed to help right it didn't help right and then one of the things that it did there was an element within the war on poverty and the welfare estate that specifically focused in on men that it incentivized that home not having the father there the more children the young lady had no obligations but did not have a man there to help the more money the government would give and Thomas talks about that as well you've incentivized this very thing I believe that began to expand and goes across the country right it is there it's destroying the family and even the the purpose of these the husband wife working together right so if I inserted something that is a replacement for the man well one of the things the fact the psyche of the man the young man who comes up and that I I'll say this real quick I talk about the story of those are watching um the movie Claudine hope I'm saying it right started Diane Carroll and and James L Jones Google it watch it it came out in 1974 and it is a amazing commentary on what was going on with the black family by that point I talk about that movie We're actually doing some uh education things we're gonna be releasing later on in February and I talk about that movie in in the context of fathers what it meant the young man Lawrence Hilton Jacobs played the played the Sun and he was in a group an activist group and they were staging a protest and the name of the protest what they were chanting was work not welfare I'll never forget this right and they were the cops calm this isn't Harlem right it's all happened and what they're saying is that this government intrusion has destroyed these are these are young people right and we don't want welfare we want work they're fighting for jobs and I said to my young people to my kids that was 1974 the 1963 March on Washington was a March for jobs and freedom right so they're asking for jobs but the government's not giving them jobs it's giving them a check and that had a debilitating effect those things would mess with a person's mind right so they essentially became more vulnerable to all kinds of bizarre ideologies I've gutted your community and now here comes the next wave now let me tell you why you where you are right those people stole this and those people stole that and so the whole Black History Month all the history that is taught is about slavery it's not about victories right it's not about achievement accomplishments why you can do it's more about why you're oppressed yes ma'am that and what's what's going on in much of our history because the critical ethnic studies critical race theories let's look everything through the lens of race even if race has nothing to do with it let's do that anyway and let's look at it from the oppressed oppressor narrative and there you go it fuels that that displacement that I'm already feeling I know you do a lot of work with the Jewish Community which is really why I called you during this time where you know the whole Black Hebrew Israelites whatever you call them came about why is that such a recurring issue this black Jewish relationship I mean you you hear obviously there was the the wonderful moments where Martin Luther King you know stood and walked hand in hand with uh Rabbi Joshua heschel and worked with uh I guess Thomas also talks about middle I mean he has a whole chapter here about the Jewish community and calling a group of folks including the Jews middle middle men or or middle folk uh communities minorities uh you you have an entire book that talks about it just where does this come from I mean I think it's a very positive relationship which can also turn sometimes somehow negative I I say uh we say only halfway an organization Institute for Black solidarity with Israel that the first Africa Israel Summit was when Queen of Sheba visited Solomon 3000 years in Jerusalem right so you're talking about a relationship between African Israel then by extension the Jewish diaspora the black right the African diaspora for thousands of years so here in the states a generation before Dr King and Joshua heschel you had Julius Rosenwald and Booker T Washington at the turn of the century the Rosenwald schools right this Jewish philanthropist whose Rabbi was MLG Hirsch one of the founding members of the NAACP right so you have this black Jewish involvement here at the end of the 1800s being the 1900s that actually set the course for the nation you have millions of black students children who don't have access to schools because of Jim Crow segregation Booker T Washington philanthropists have Tuskegee you know he has an idea to provide schools for them because there was not an education system that we understand now today which is crazy thing anyway so he approaches Julius Rosenwald they began to work together and of Sears Roebuck Fame the man is very very wealthy and statistically Julius Rosenwald of the billions of dollars that he spent over half of it was for the black community I mean not just the Rosenwald schools but the roles involved fellowships for everybody from James Baldwin to Maya Angelou got money from this fund he's long gone but the fund is still help helping you know these students continue on the the housing that he built there in Chicago I mean just this this man Carter Woodson the man I talked to you about who started the whole black history he lived in the housing that Julius Rosenwald built in Chicago right so that relationship has had so much good for so many people it was that civil rights movement that defines civil rights for the world right so it became an iconic thing that Synergy is very spiritual very cultural you know the Negro spirituals back from the times of slavery almost all of them were in the Old Testament go down Moses Joshua the Battle of Jericho there's always been this deep deep identification which we believe an organization is going to continue on it's in a rough space right now but we believe it's going to history will prove that it will continue on so that's one thing that's for us is very very important I believe it's important for many many different reasons but there's a deep spiritual element that's actually there there's a shared history that's there a shared struggle in many ways too right when you're in shared victories in in the terms that you like to yes ma'am absolutely I I I was I'll share with my Jewish friends and my black American friends were when our Jewish brothers and sisters come together at Passover and they have the Seder and the purpose of it isn't to talk about how big and bad Terror was the focus is not the Egyptians right the focus is God who delivered the Hebrews from the Egyptians right so it's a time of Victory so this was very similar in terms of the black community the purpose of the June 10 celebration which is when the final black Americans learned that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed was to celebrate freedom so it wasn't a commiserating about what white people had done it was about what God had done and said this is why the 54th Massachusetts Regiment the glory of the movie Glory was made from that Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman it was a story about these black soldiers who fought for their own Freedom right and I loved we watch it periodically in a house they lost that battle in South Carolina but it helped turn the tide of the war because once both Abraham Lincoln Grant and although saw how these black soldiers fought for their freedom and then some for the union of the country other black soldiers were allowed to come in and then fight right this has been the story of black Americans right Frederick Douglass Booker T Washington and it is a rich powerful history and these were Americans right they weren't trying to destroy America right they're like they they would hold American account when Dr King gave his speech in Washington DC it wasn't to dismantle the nation he said we've come to catch a check he said is a promissory note when the framers found the signed this declaration of independence when they signed the Constitution they were saying that we would all fall heir to this whole all men are created equal right so this was what he was doing so you had some of the most quote unquote patriotic Americans being black Americans who were fighting for the nation to be true to its to calling but very much being proud to be Americans right yeah your point about Passover and how the Jews celebrate Passover is so significant because when I think about when we sit with my family and we we read through the hagada the book that we read on Passover we really focus very very little on Pharaoh or the Egyptians the majority of the book is all about our victories it's about Freedom Liberty and how we're gonna basically emerge from hell with lots of gifts right and that and how we're gonna you know build a new nation and learn and study and become stronger we don't harp over what was done to us we actually find strength in our calluses and we move forward and and if you look through many of the other Jewish holidays many of them really celebrate the victory not the victimhood in the story of Hanukkah is the same thing right you talk about of course there was a destruction of the temple but the whole holiday is really about miracles and gifts and light and all of that and I think that does a lot to the psyche of a child when you grow up in a home where your parents talk to you about yeah there was hardship but we're going to focus on Victory and we're going to build upon Victory and and perhaps that is really what's missing yes in black history month right in the community that is so starving for the celebration of success and victory and positive and light and not necessarily this feeling of constant oppression no matter where you look uh Carter woods now Carter what's the website the other words in Robert Wood yes ma'am he they created the curriculum 1776 unites and part of the point is to instill that sense of belonging and identity into not just black children right but it's coming from that perspective it's actually telling about the victories right they talked about the Hundred Years of growth and prosperity Ian Roe Glenn Laurie Robert Woodson we're sitting down with Peter I can't remember of Robinson Robinson yeah uncommon knowledge several months ago it's one of my favorite videos that I watched and they were talking about why it's Politically Incorrect to talk about a century of growth and development in the black community from the end of the Civil War to the into the civil rights movement 1865-1965 and Glenn Laurie explained that it's politically incorrect because focusing on it dispels I'm paraphrasing the victimhood you're talking about a people again slavery Tim Crow but built these families built these institutions how it speaks to the resilience of the people but it speaks to also the nation in which they're able to do that well if you tell that story that's too much of a positive story I have to strip it from all that and talk about the dogs that were sent and and the lynchings and all those things happened we don't gloss over any of those things but when you focus on that like focusing on pharaoh and the Seder and now it was a picture telling the Passover story and there was no Deliverance right this is we were just beat down and this would happen in in the Egyptians right that's not a why would you want to tell that story and if you told that the young Jewish kids every year of course they'd be angry right of course they'd be frustrated yeah this happened angry at all the Egyptians right now we're going to get them back okay so but they hear the whole story they hear the whole this is what happened these are the bad here's the light here's the darkness here's the light right and it's hard not to be upset I mean as an educator as a mom I mean the fact that it's Politically Incorrect to celebrate the victories of Black America I mean and how many there have been I mean that's really what should be the focus of the curriculum not critical race Theory right I use that one example real quick of the Tulsa Black Wall Street in 1991 1921 when it was destroyed in less than two years the residents rebuilt it most people know one or two things about that story either that it was just either nothing about it at all or that it was it was destroyed right and of course that would make somebody else they had oil rigs and all that right yeah it was destroyed it was a very very bad race riot the whole thing and the survivors rebuilt it and it was wealthier after they rebuilt it than before more businesses more families right so I started saying when you tell the black child especially half that story you're and you're doing it intentionally right you're pushing there and you're squishing their Spirit right and creating that vacuum yes ma'am absolutely the other thing you said to me earlier that which which is amazing is that homeschooling is growing in the black community was it 16 over 16 percent of black households are homeschooling now more than any that's the largest percentage than any other I mean that is incredible why well uh it's what we homeschool starting in the 90s and we know that's part of our reasoning was had to do with again identity right we want wanted our children for example this wasn't the only thing to learn about their heritage from people who knew and were not going to try to manipulate you already knew back then that if they were taught history from a perspective of victimhood they would not be set up to succeed in life you already knew that back then my wife and I remember she's like We're she's a few great she's a great ahead of me just a few months ahead of me went to the same building we've known each other since we're five years old so we literally went to the same Elementary School and we both remember in history class first second grade or whatever you have your book and then American history and you have in George Washington the other and then this one chapter of boom black people not discussed at all and the first picture I have is a slave ship mm-hmm right so okay that's the first destination for me so I didn't exist until you needed slaves right again are they attempting to do that is that the intention maybe not right but that along with now other it's really worse now right but okay here's here's a picture that's a rice movement right and then on so I knew who's Booker T Washington Frederick Douglass right who who are all these other people who I lit you remember Harriet Tubman for the purpose of the Underground Railroad right but who are all these other who was Carter what's these things I learned as a young adult after school I began to read right I said Gee in my 20s and said had I known this then so well we said we had kids we're going we're not sending them through that why why would we have them learn some reversed engineered let's kind of like get some of these other ideas out of your mind that was part of it some of it was spiritual as well right like being Christians and wanting them to have a spiritual base and Foundation those type of things so we talked about my not we my wife was her idea she's just she's the pilot I'm the co-pilot right so I said this idea I said yes honey I agree with you and it was probably one of the best decisions that we ever made so that was what was important to us that's why I said in retrospect I would look and I would see the ideologies pulling people away do you think that's what's happening with families now they don't want their kids learning CRT and and whatever other stuff that's happening in these schools contrary to what some people believe although there's all this controversy about what critical race theory is there are black families who saw it and see it as victimization and said no wow now part of the explosion had to do with pandemic right 2020 schools are shut down right slowly opened up everything and they were online learning those types of things which it's only going to last for a little while and only if you have the environment to be able to do that right everybody can't just do that way so much of it happened with that parents began to take it into their own hands their parents began to homeschool who thought they would never do it but because the circumstances became so dire they began to take it into their own hands and one of the things that was powerful Marissa whether they homeschooled or whether they wound up finding something else for their child they recognize that the ultimate responsibility for their child's education was not the state right it's the parents parents absolutely so if my child can't read or my child is being fed disinformation only part of that is because the institution that's doing it the other part of it is me allowing that to happen right so you have that so these different reasons and again it's just I didn't even know it was over 16 percent of the other about a few months ago I knew it was growing right but I know how much it was another young lady who works for an organization called free black thought did an article and then I saw it and she she's actually part of my organization now too part of AMC ambassadors and I saw and I read it and nope she had all the numbers as the young people say all the receipts wow more than any other ethnic group right and it's continued to explode they said some 2 million students have no longer enrolled in the public school system over the last two years right if that continues and I say more power to him right exactly you know but with Our Fate yes ma'am yes ma'am so they are feeling it we could be looking at a very positive thing happening right if you're talking about no more of the disinformation or at least people being indoctrinated and not having access to authentic history and education that's a that's a good thing so yeah yeah can you tell me a little bit about your work with Zionism why first of all what is Zionism and why are you why are you so involved in that well that's a part of a calling thing as well I didn't I didn't choose it it chose me right my first trip to Israel 2012. I'm part of Christians United for Israel African-American pastors tour never been this always wanted to go and I'm there at the Western Wall and I have this again Israel and Africa already passions of mine but they kind of marry each other there the wall and I have this overwhelming sense that when you go back strengthen the Titan Israel and Africa the black and Jewish communities and as I tell the church you always kind of have a nice sense of God's telling you something because you have no idea how you can do it right that sounds great but I don't even know where to start and I saw I wrote the first edition of my book Zion is in the black church began to do speaking Zionism the belief that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people and that they have the right to live there in peace and it is a both a Biblical mind but it is also a geopolitical reality right and the black community particularly since the refounding of the state of Israel has been very involved if for nor the reason than Israel's enemies have always attacked it on the basis of race zionisms racism is an apartheid state none of those things not true but they are pilfering of a legacy that was actually true for people who went through it so Dr King's vocal support for the state of Israel wasn't just because he was friends with the Jewish people he was and was because he was trying to weigh in the Middle East he had other things going on in terms of the Civil Rights Movement but it was a issue of justice for him right and he defended Israel's right to exist as he was speaking for the vast majority of the Civil Rights Community that's part of a legacy that I completely embraced after he dies his his friends and family started an organization called basic in 1975 black Americans to support Israel committee the whole Israel narrative has been so woven into the fabric of black Americans it's been the case for a long time our music all those things are preaching when Dr King's preaching I mean I get there with you but we as a people will get to the promised land hours before he's killed he's referencing Moses which happens to be if I'm not mistaken the last portion of the Torah readings right he's actually referencing Moses talking about the promised land here's Dr King not knowing he's going to die but he's saying them we're gonna get to the promised land so this this has always been the case so for me understanding that there have been all kinds of attempts to sever that tie with Israel and Africa to sour that relationship I tell young people all the time you know you have something valuable if there's somebody always trying to steal it or taint it and if this is a spiritual warfare thing that we're discussing it's just amazing that when it comes to these two communities that have so much in common that have done so much together why are there always these negative elements that are always always seemingly trying to fray always trying to pull it apart so our organization celebrates that but also looks ahead to what will continue to happen right there's amazing things happen in Africa right now with all the struggles that are happening there's also this Israel Africa uh Synergy that's happening that's never before I've met pastors over the last several years who started their own in Africa and here organizations to strengthen these ties it's almost like simultaneously they begin to work and to do my son's father-in-law Reverend Kenneth started his properties organization in South Africa the same year we started ours we didn't know each other right he's in South Africa he starts to pray his role black Zionist organization we start one in 2013 here and we believe that this is like a Clarion call that's going on this this relationship is powerful and needs to be defended and we work with our Jewish brothers and sisters to do it I remember when I met uh Ken meshway a few years ago and the reason he told me that he's so passionate about this work is because he felt that people were robbing him of his history when calling Israel in apartheid state and I I mean I'm paraphrasing what he said to me but it was basically you know my parents and my family went through real apartheid and if you're going to claim that Israel is an apartheid state you're robbing me of the true meaning of what apartheid really means and so I you know I think that when we're we accept living in a world of Lies then we lose all truth all around and that was something that I really you know was so inspired when he shared that with me yeah it resonated with me and he was saying being very similar what black Americans were saying they were defending the same thing right that not only Zionism not racism right not only are you libeling the Jewish State you are also what you're describing Marissa makes it very dangerous if everything is apartheid nothing's apartheid right everything is racism nothing is racism which is why people will get up in arms about what they feel is really apartheid and there's a million slaves in Libya and there's a Christian genocide in Nigeria and another 50 000 slaves in Mauritania and on and on right so if I was really concerned about Justice I would be concerned about those things no someone told me that Israel is doing XYZ and I've been programmed in that way right but who's paying for that more than places like Africa the slaves in Qatar the slaves in Saudi Arabia right when Israel is demonized like that in the United Nations Israel will be fine right the Israelis are strong they'll continue to build they'll continue to do what they're going to do but who's paying for that in terms of the International Community those places where there is genocide those places where it is actually happening people are dying I believe they saw the stat some 43 000 Nigerian Christians have been killed over the last 12 years and our State Department just decided two years ago that's not an issue so it took Nigeria off the list of nations in which religious persecution is going on so not only do we are we not concerned in the west right we're actually right living cover to it right but let's boycott Israel right but it's all political yes ma'am absolutely and the people that are paying for all the people who are in those vulnerable positions so we have him recognizes that yeah you're going to take that libel and use it against Israel when there are other situations particularly started with his own family what they had gone through right but in other prices of the world where people are ignoring it so well you're doing amazing work we're trying to do the best we can here at prageru you know I feel compelled to just say maybe we should end with some sort of blessing and hope as we close this conversation about so much good that we try to do in the country that is really incredible for both of our communities and for Americans in general one of the things I love that happens in the Jewish tradition is that this is I believe this description isn't part of one of your doer I think in every generation there have been those who've risen up against us to destroy us but the Holy One Blessed Be he has sustained this I think that that hope that's based in love for God and love for family that even in the midst of all the things that are going on and shout out to Prager because we've been watching you all and seeing what you're doing doing amazing work and then you know like you guys say may we all go from strength to strength the whole that's how you say it in Hebrew well thanks thanks for having this conversation thank you Marissa thank you