Posted on Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Why Black Pastors Cozying Up to the Donald (Trump) Is the Wrong Thing for the Black Church…

Hello World,

The honest truth is that I’m in political mourning right now as in just over a year our nation’s first black president will have to pass the mantle to another president. That being said, I haven’t really been paying attention to the wooing efforts of Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, etc. I know who they are, and I’ve seen some of the headlines, but I’ve been too busy holding political shiva, if you will, to care…

But when I heard last week that the Donald had secured the endorsement of 100 black pastors and that they were going to meet at the Trump Tower for a telecast press conference on Monday, I realized attention must be paid…Thankfully, “more than 100 black religious leaders and scholars” trumped Trump and disseminated an open letter via one of the nation’s oldest black magazines, EBONY magazine, criticizing this purported unholy alliance…Below are last two paragraphs of the letter, which was signed “for the cause of justice.”

By siding with a presidential candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes Black people, what message are you sending to the world about the Black lives in and outside of your congregations? Which Black lives do you claim to be liberating?

To stand with Jesus is to have great skepticism about systems of power and a willingness to question the motives of the powerful. Or, as James Baldwin once penned to Angela Davis: “If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night. Therefore: peace.”’

Once the seemingly political Goliath started to be hit by a few of the Black Church’s stones including many pastors who said taking a meeting with the Donald was not synonymous with an endorsement, Trump backed up and said rather than his scheduled political preening to show off his breaking bread with black pastors, he would instead have “an informational meet and greet with many members of the Coalition of African American Ministers,” that it would not be “a press event, but a private meeting, after which, a number of attendees are expected to endorse Mr. Trump’s campaign for President,” according to rawstory.com.

So on Monday in the Promised Land (let some black pastors tell it) of the Trump Tower, more than 100 met with the Donald and afterward, he reported that he “saw love in that room” and that he anticipated “many, many endorsements” to be secured. One pastor who was there already voiced his endorsement, according to CNN.

“You want stories, you want controversy. Anybody who knows Donald Trump personally knows that he’s not a racist,” said Steve Parson, a black pastor from Richmond, Virginia. Parson said he was in “total support” of Trump.

But Pastor Jamal Bryant, who got criticized for saying “these h*** ain’t loyal” in one of his sermons, rightly divided the word when he said those who met with the Donald are “prostitutes” simply seeking “their 15 minutes of fame” according to the New York Daily News.

One only has to look at this photo below to see this meeting was more about bragging rights than building bridges…

My mom has always told me that “birds of a feather flock together.” Take a look at the flock around Trump…To his left is Rev. Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth…I remember when she became a reverend as a I wrote a post about it “Bad Girl Gone Good: Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.” At the time when I wrote the post, she had “two categories on her Web site: naughty and nice. On the nice page, she [was] dressed in a white flowing gown with her hands outstretched presumably pointed to heaven. I guess she [was] dressed as an angel. Well, on the naughty page, she [was] undoubtedly dressed as a devil. She [had] horns on her head and is in some red pleather get-up with her stomach showing.” According to her current website, she is an assistant pastor of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church on Skid Row in Los Angeles” and that, ironically, she preached her first sermon at Pastor Jamal Bryant’s Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Maryland. But most of us know her as that crazy chick from Donald Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”

To the Donald’s right is Dr. Darrell Scott. Scott is married to Prophetess Dr. Belinda Scott, who was featured on the canceled show “Preach,” which was billed as a docuseries on Lifetime. Presumably, it was cancelled due to ratings, but some think the show may have been canceled after 15,000 people signed a change.org petition calling for the show to be yanked off the air…Tachina Carter, who started the petition, said “Preach” was “TRAVESTY to the Christian Community.” She went on further to say:

The women aka Prophetesses are making a MOCKERY of the church and promoting foolish behavior that is not necessarily a true representation of the REAL power of God. Cameras do NOT belong in the church filming the “spiritual” things that society as a whole does not understand. By airing this show it will cause more harm than good to the Christian community who already has a difficult time in sharing “The Good News” of Jesus Christ to the masses.

Well, honey, Prophetess Belinda Scott went off on her Facebook page according to an article from The Christian Post.

We now live in a world were every word about anyone, whether it’s your personal opinion or not; if it’s NEGATIVE or HATEFUL and DEGRADING in anyway against RACE, SEXUALITY or LIFESTYLE or LEARNING and BEHAVIOR disorders…you can’t say that…but, I watch hatful people who say they love the Lord, type like that FROG typing at that machine …TURN UP ON ‪#‎PREACHTV‬! A show that is not mocking the church, but exploring the lives of believers in the Church and hear me out first. The word reality is this …the state of being real, a real event or state of affairs, One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual. Now, do I hear from God…YES, did He call me to be a PROPHETESS, YES, Have I and Do I hear God’s voice concerning events, people and issues…YES! Did I see these attacks against us coming….YES! Is there a harvest on the way….YES!!!

I wrote some recaps about the show, one, “Have You Heard of Prophetic Dancing?! ‘Preach’ Episode 2 Recap…” of which features a view into the relationship of Dr. Darrell Scott and his wife Prophetess Dr. Belinda Scott.

I’m not saying that if you appeared on a reality show (Hello Donald Trump), everything you do from that point on is a ploy for publicity, but this picture is not a good look…

The Black Church in America is our greatest heritage and our greatest legacy. To demean it by cozying up to a man who does not seem to care about the souls of black folk is akin to selling our souls for a mess of pottage. We cannot sell our birthright under the guise of building bridges when the architect of the bridge is building a bridge to nowhere.

I’m not saying that meeting with an adverse political candidate is wrong in and of itself, but that meeting has to be couched in sincere conciliation. The Donald proved that his motives were less than savory when he said a meeting was on par with a political endorsement…

All that to say, God will not bless a mess…

Any thoughts?

Posted on Friday, October 30, 2015

Jordan Davis’s Mother Lucy McBath Stars in New Disney Documentary About Faith & Gun Control: My Interview (WITH AUDIO)

The Armor of Light is Playing Today Through November 5th...

Hello World,

Three years ago as of Nov. 23, at the tender age of 17, Jordan Davis was shot and killed at Gate Gas Station in Jacksonville, Florida. He was murdered by Michael Dunn, a middle aged software developer because he was agitated about how loud Jordan and his friends were playing music in their car. Their case was considered a mistrial in February 2014. The case was re-tried in September 2014 and Michael Dunn was convicted of first degree murder in Jordan’s death. Since then, his mother Lucy McBath has been championing and fighting for common sense gun legislation and solutions to the issue of our country’s rampant gun violence. Lucy is the national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. In her work as a gun safety advocate, she has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the “Stand Your Ground Laws: Civil Rights and Public Safety Implications of the Expanded Use of Deadly Force” as well as both Georgia and Florida State Legislature Committee Hearings for Repeal of the Stand Your Ground Law.

Lucy is a co-star in THE ARMOR OF LIGHT, the directorial debut of Abigail Disney (granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Company with his brother Walt Disney) in which Disney follows the journey of an Evangelical minister trying to find the courage to preach about the growing toll of gun violence in America. The film tracks Reverend Rob Schenck, anti-abortion activist and fixture on the political far right, who breaks with orthodoxy by questioning whether being pro-gun is consistent with being pro-life. Reverend Schenck is shocked and perplexed by the reactions of his long-time friends and colleagues who warn him away from this complex, politically explosive issue.

Along the way, Rev. Schenck meets Lucy McBath. McBath, also a Christian, decides to work with Schenck even though she is pro-choice. Lucy is on a difficult journey of her own, trying to make sense of her devastating loss while using her grief to effect some kind of viable and effective political action—where so many before her have failed.

Below is my interview with Lucy McBath about THE ARMOR OF LIGHT which debuts today (If you prefer to listen to the interview, please go to the end of the questions):

I know you’re coming up on the three-year anniversary of your son’s death and I just wanted to find out how you’re coping.

Fairly well as can be expected. I have kind of moved on from the devastation now because I am really kind of understanding my role on a larger scale and a bigger purpose and Jordan’s role on a larger scale for a bigger purpose. And I can’t really be angry or mad or devastated because in the prayers that I prayed for Jordan and myself for years and years, I asked God that we would be used for His purpose so here I am being used not in the way I expected to be used, but most certainly in the way that God would use me and so I am being used just as well as Jordan so I’m okay with that. I’m accepting my role. I’m accepting what God is calling me to do because I know the work that I’ve been given to do is not just for Jordan. It’s way beyond Jordan. It’s for a bigger purpose so I’m doing okay. I think I’m starting to adjust to it. I’m learning tremendous amounts of information. I’m learning so much about the gun culture. I’m learning deeply my moral beliefs and understanding and how much it plays a really large part in being able to really change the kind of gun violence in this country. So I’m accepting and moving forward.

How did you get involved in “THE ARMOR OF LIGHT?”

I met Abigail Disney, which has been such a tremendous blessing. I met Abigail Disney through my attorney John Phillips, my civil attorney. And I’m not exactly sure whom contacted whom between John and Abby but we came to meet Abby here in New York City through my attorney.

When you were first approached about this film, were you skeptical? Did you have any concerns? What was your thought about it?

Well, of course you know, I had to do a little bit of my research and research Abigail Disney because I just knew she was a part of the Disney family, but I really didn’t know who she was. And frankly, I was just in awe. I was very surprised that she would be interested in our story. But then as I got the chance to talk with her and find out where her heart was, her willingness to really kind of do far more investigating and research, finding out more about public opinion in terms of the NRA gun lobby, the moral part of that, I thought, ‘Well, Wow, why not consider it a blessing and an honor to be able to work with her.’ It was pretty much not to the end of filming that I really understood that she was only following Rev. Schenck and myself. I thought all along, she, because she said she talking with different organizations and individuals, and I would just be a part of it. But it was not my understanding that I would be one of the principals until toward the end of filming I just asked the crew, ‘Well, who else is she filming?’ And they said, ‘Just you and Rev. Schenck.’ I said, ‘Wow!’ So I really didn’t have any idea.

3. What was your opinion of Rev. Schenck before you met him and now since you’ve met him?

Well, of course, I didn’t know of Rev. Schenck. I had to Google him and read about him on Wikipedia, but I was really excited to meet him because I felt that he was the kind of person, a voice, that I needed to speak with. Of course, my community, the minority community, we’re all about safer gun laws and curbing gun violence in the country. But I truly believe that the right evangelical community, most of them, a lot of them are gun owners, NRA members. That was the community that I thought that we really needed to speak to morally. So when Abby said to me, ‘There’s this pastor, Rev. Schenck, that I think you might be interested in speaking to, I was absolutely very nervous because I didn’t know how well received I would be by him but excited at the same time because it was my opportunity to really try to engage someone who was absolutely not like me in this conversation.

And do you think you changed his mind at all about gun control laws? Well, he says I did. He says that my appeals to him and my story and my coming to him was the impetus for pushing him, giving him that last bit of inertia to move forward on those stirrings, the moral stirrings he had about the problems of gun violence in the country.

4. And what is he working on now, as far as you know, as far as that is concerned?

Well, most definitely, he has some new initiatives that he is working on which I’m probably sure I cannot talk about but definitely just beginning to galvanize a lot of support from pastors across the country that are defending what he has been feeling that are morally disturbed by the gun culture in our country, and he says, ‘It disturbs me that people in the United States think the only way they are going to solve their problems are to shoot people dead.’ And so based upon the inkling, that the preservation of life is foremost for him, absolutely pro-life from beginning to end, then this is about him stepping out of the boat into the water, treading the water and going toward what he believes God is calling him to do.

5. Now, why do you think the evangelical right are so adamant about having guns?

Well, I will say, I can speak to you from that viewpoint of being a minority, as a black woman, I think what we have is just is an overly exaggerated, unadulterated fear that America is changing and that America is becoming far more diverse and that there may be an element in this country that believes that they’re losing their power and they want their power back. And the NRA gun lobby feeds right into that with creating and instilling fear in the community that you’re gonna be gunned down, you’re gonna be raped, you’re gonna be carjacked, all those kinds of things. I think it just plays into the whole idea, the ideology that I should be afraid of people who don’t think, act or look like me, and gun violence plays a huge role in that. And that is the element that we’re afraid of. So I think from my perspective, that is what I believe is happening in the country.

I talk to people around the country that blame the government, and I ask them, ‘Who do you mean by the government?’ Because I want them to say to me, ‘President Obama’ because that is really who they mean. So I press them to say, ‘Who do you mean by the government?’ And when they say, ‘Oh you know, the administration,’ I know exactly what they’re talking about. And I have to say to them, ‘Trust me that is not President Obama’s goal to take away every gun out of every household. He is for 2^nd Amendment rights, but he understands equivocally that we have to have some tempered laws in place to protect those rights and to protect the rights of individuals that are not gun owners that don’t want to use guns, that don’t want to walk in fear in this country and being gunned down.’ I have to really say, ‘I understand what his platform is. And it is not to take your guns. It is not come in and control your household.’ And the NRA gun lobby spends a lot of time and rhetoric on pushing that. And that is just absolutely not the truth.

6. So what types of laws do you think need to be made or what types of laws need to be eradicated? I’m sure you want the ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws to be eradicated, but have you ever given thought to what types of laws would be most effective?

And let me say, I don’t think ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws should be eradicated because in some instances they can work if used properly. That an individual should be able to protect themselves from imminent threat and danger but not based upon a, you know, the threat has to be credible. It can’t be based upon a perception of a threat and that is how the law is interpreted now, on a perception. I think that is very, very dangerous. And so in some regard, the laws can work if used properly. But I think background check legislation is the number one way that we know in this country to deter a lot of the crimes with guns that we see here. When individuals can walk into gun shows and buy guns with no background check, online sales, no background check. People are selling guns to their family members. We know most definitely that women in large numbers go into gun shows and into gun stores and buy guns because if an individual in their family is a convicted felon and cannot legally get a gun, they’re buying guns for them. So these kind of loopholes.

These are the kinds of things that have to be addressed, child access prevention, making sure that law-abiding citizens that have guns, making sure that those guns are safely put away so that children don’t have access to them. Domestic abusers, making sure that there is legislation put in place, background check legislation that prevents domestic abusers from getting their hands on guns if they’ve already been convicted of domestic abuse because we know the number one way that women are dying in this country in domestic violence confrontations is by a gun. So there are a lot of big moving parts and pieces to the gun culture. A lot of laws have to be examined, but we know the number one way is just background check legislation. We know that 90 percent of Americans in this country agree with what I’m talking about. They all agree that, ‘Yeah, there has to be some sort of sensible solution put in place to close the loopholes that allow people to do the things that they are doing with their guns in this country.’

So do you think that background check legislation would have helped with what happened at the college in Oregon or at Emanuel AME? Absolutely because we know that there was a default with that background check in Charleston that allowed the young man to buy the gun that he used in the Charleston shooting! So there again, we’ve got defaults in these existing laws that allow people, that are allowing gun sellers to sell their guns to people that really aren’t even supposed to have them.

7. My final question for you is I know you were involved in another documentary “31/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets” and that is supposed to be coming to HBO this fall. When will it debut on HBO?

November 23. Do you have any times or just to look at HBO’s website? Yes. Nationwide, it will drop Nov. 23, but you can definitely go on to the website.

Below is a trailer for “THE ARMOR OF LIGHT”

For more information about where you can see “THE ARMOR OF LIGHT” which is being shown in more than 20 cities across the country, go to armoroflightfilm.com.

Any thoughts?

Posted on Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Brown Girls Publishing Founders Release Similar-Themed Novels Without Intending To Do So…

Hello World,

Victoria Christopher Murray & ReShonda Tate Billingsley, who refer to themselves as “writing twins,” have written several novels together such Sinners & Saints, Friends & Foes and Fortune & Fame: A Novel, and the two also co-founded Brown Girls Publishing in 2014. However, apart from their joint ventures, ReShonda Tate Billingsley & Victoria Christopher Murray maintain separate careers as novelists. Still, without intending to do so, Victoria Christopher Murray’s latest novel Stand Your Ground: A Novel which debuts TODAY, and ReShonda Tate Billingley’s latest novel Mama’s Boy, which debuts a week from today on July 7, explore topics that dominate today’s headlines. Read the descriptions of each book below as well as my interview with the “writing twins” and Brown Girls Publishing founders.

From the #1 Essence bestselling and award-winning author Victoria Christopher Murray comes Stand Your Ground, a new novel about two women who are faced with the same tragedy.

A black teenage boy is dead. A white man shot him. Was he standing his ground or was it murder?

Janice Johnson is living every black mother’s nightmare. Her seventeen-year-old son was murdered and the shooter has not been arrested. Can the D.A. and the police be trusted to investigate and do the right thing? Should Janice take advantage of the public outcry and join her husband alongside the angry protestors who are out for revenge?

Meredith Spencer is married to the man accused of the killing and she sees her husband and the situation with far more clarity than anyone realizes. What she knows could blow the case wide open, but what will that mean for her life and that of her son? Will she have the courage to come forward in time so that justice can be done?

#1 national bestselling and award-winning author Victoria Christopher Murray’s Stand Your Ground is a pulse-pounding meditation on race, motherhood, marriage, and vigilante justice that will have readers spellbound until its shocking end.

When her son is in trouble, a heartbroken mother finds the courage and faith to save him, in ReShonda Tate Billingsley’s powerful family drama—a novel as timely as today’s headlines.

The breaking TV news rocks Jasper, Texas, to the core: a white police officer is fatally shot in a scuffle with three black youths—and a cellphone video captures Jamal Jones, the sixteen-year-old son of esteemed Reverend Elton Jones, escalating the tragic encounter. Now, as the national spotlight shines on a town already rife with racial tension, Jamal is a murder suspect on the run. And all of Jasper—even the Reverend’s congregation—rushes to judge the boy they thought they knew.

But Gloria Jones knows her son best, and she races to find Jamal before the law does—to the outrage of her workaholic husband. Once she finds him, she has to decide whether to turn him in or help him run. With ruthless prosecutor and Houston mayoral candidate Kay Christensen hungering to put another young thug behind bars, Gloria will face her biggest battle yet. And when long-hidden secrets and shocking lies come to light, throwing Jamal’s case and his destiny into a tailspin, all Gloria can do is pray that the truth—and a mother’s unconditional love—will be enough to redeem the mistakes of the past and ultimately, save her son.

INTERVIEW

1. I’m sure that the deaths of several black males such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and more at the hands of police officers and or self-imposed authority figures inspired you to write your respective novels “Stand Your Ground” and “Mama’s Boy,” but please share what specific case(s) or news story(ies) inspired you to pen your novels?

Victoria: I was actually watching the Michael Dunn trial, the first one, and when the verdict came back and it was announced that it was a mistrial — the jurors couldn’t decide on guilt or innocence — my social media timelines blew up. But people didn’t understand the law, and I saw this as an opportunity to entertain and teach.

ReShonda: There was no case in particular. As a longtime member of the media, we would get the ‘you can’t film us’ from law enforcement. And we knew our rights. The rise in people recording just got me to thinking of how many people don’t know their rights. So that was the nugget that started this story brewing. From there, I threw in the dynamic of ‘what would you do if your son had committed a crime’ and doing the right thing meant turning him over to a racist police department.

2. How long did it take you to write these novels, and what emotions did you experience as you wrote your novels?

Victoria: It took me a year, and as any writer experiences, you go through the same emotions as the characters.

Reshonda: It took me about five months to REWRITE my novel. I say rewrite because I firmly believe good novels aren’t written, they’re rewritten. It was an emotional roller coaster because I’d like to think I would always do the right thing, but as a mother, and under extenuating circumstances, I found myself seriously questioning that.

3. What do you hope readers will learn and or experience through reading these novels?

Victoria: I really hope readers will come to understand not only the SYG law, but how dangerous this legal license to kill is for our community. Stand Your Ground only seems to work when our boys are the ones on the ground. We must fight against this.

ReShonda: I want readers to think about how they would react. I also hope to educate people while entertaining them.

4.Victoria and ReShonda, the both of you refer to each other as writing twins! In fact, you have written three novels together such as “Sinners & Saints,” “Friends & Foes,” “Fortune & Fame” and the upcoming “A Blessing and a Curse” to be released in 2016. When did you discover that the both of you had written separate novels about similar themes, and what did you think about that?

Victoria: We read each other’s books so, we knew we wrote about issues in the church. I didn’t think anything about that fact — lots of authors write about similar themes.

ReShonda: It’s amazing. We talk about everything, but we had no idea how similar our stories were in terms of dealing with topical issues, until we began reading each other’s completed manuscripts. Honestly, I even asked my editor about waiting on my book, but it was already done and in the production process. But I realized that while we both deal with serious issues, we use our own unique storytelling styles, so that makes the books uniquely different.

5. Brown Girls Publishing has been in existence for just over a year now. What accomplishment has your company achieved that you are most proud of to date?

Victoria: The fact that we are still standing is an accomplishment to me. It is much more difficult than we anticipated. I am proud of the fact that we’ve given new authors who would’ve never been published a chance for exposure.

ReShonda: Wow, there are so many things I’m proud of, so it’s hard to narrow it down to one thing. I’m thrilled with our author roster, the new imprints, and especially the Brown Girls Kids/Brown Girls Teens division because that is giving us the opportunity to begin building the voices of tomorrow.

6. Why did you start two new imprints, Brown Girls Faith and Jacquelin Thomas Presents, and what do you hope to do accomplish with these imprints?

Victoria: The imprints give us an opportunity to publish more authors and give better attention with Jacquelin Thomas and Rhonda McKnight joining our team.

ReShonda: We had to close down our submissions process because of the sheer volume of submissions, and there were so many good manuscripts that we weren’t getting to. Jacquelin Thomas and Rhonda McKnight are two consummate professionals who we thought we be good additions to our tear. Our hope is to further expand the Brown Girls brand and bring readers a wider array of quality books.

7. Victoria, I know that you are a political junkie. Now that our sorority sister, the newly elected Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the first black woman to be Attorney General of the United States, is in place, what do hope you she will accomplish during her tenure? Congratulations ReShonda! I’ve learned that TV One recently announced that it will adapt two of your novels “The Devil Is A Lie” and “The Secret She Kept” into original movies to be released in 2016! How did this happen?

Victoria: Wow. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know what she has in her plate. She’s not a policy maker in the Obama Administration, so there aren’t any policy issues. I just hope she continues the work of Eric Holder with voter rights and police brutality cases. And I wish her the best.

ReShonda: Well, my movie, Let the Church Say Amen (which will air on BET on Aug. 29 at 8 pm/7m Central), based on my sophomore novel, has been in the works a long time. And I’m blessed to have been on Hollywood’s radar. So TV One actually reached out to me because they are serious about revving up their original programming. I am honored that they chose two of my titles.

Thank you ReShonda & Victoria for your time!

Any thoughts?