The Black Perspective: February 23, 2025

This week on the Black Perspective, Andrea Coleman brings us Part 1 of a two-part series on a powerful new film by Stephanie Calabrese. The documentary, created by a white filmmaker, uncovers stories of racism in a small Georgia town— stories many in the community would rather leave in the past.

Gracie Award winner Esther Dillard presents another segment of The Color Between the Lines, while Vanessa Tyler speaks with author and civil rights attorney Deborah Archer about discrimination within the Black community.

Doug Davis explores Black healthcare in a conversation with a physician, and we hear insightful commentary from Mo Kelly. 

Listen now!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Sunday, February twenty third, and on today's show, Andrea
Coleman gives us part one of a two part series
about a film chronicling racism in a small Georgia town
made by Stephanie Calabreez, a white woman retelling the stories
that many in her community would probably prefer to be
left in the past. We get another segment of the

(00:20):
Color between the Lines from Gracie Award winner Esther Dillard.
Vanessa Tyler speaks to author and civil rights attorney Deborah
Archer about discrimination in the black community, and Doug Davis
talks about black healthcare with a physician, and we get
commentary from Moe Kelly. These stories and more are coming
your way on today's program, Welcome to the Black Perspective.

(00:43):
I'm your host, Mike Island.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to the Black Perspective, a weekly community affairs program
on the Black Information Network featuring interviews and discussions on
issues important to the black community.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Good Sunday, everyone, and Welcome to the Black Perspective. A
film chronicling racism in the small town one of the Monroe,
Georgia is shining a fresh light on the hardship in
trauma the black community has suffered in its quest for equality.
The film was made by Stephanie Calabreeze, a white woman
who moved to the town a little more than two
decades ago. In part one of a two part series,

(01:16):
The Black Information That Works, Andrea Coleman speaks with miss
Calambris about the retelling of stories that many in her
community would probably prefer to be left in the past,
especially when dating back to nineteen forty six and the
lynching of four black people.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
So, Stephanie, one, thank you so much for joining us
here at our iHeart Studios. We so appreciate you coming in,
especially on this rainy day. Tell Us about.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Unspoken, Okay, Unspoken is a documentary feature film. It's a
look at the racial divide in this country through the
experiences of one small town. And I live in that town.
I wasn't born in Monroe. I've lived in Monroe about
twenty seven twenty eight years. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
When did you learn of this story? And the story
we're talking about is in nineteen forty six Mores for
lynching that involved, for African Americans, two married couples who
were shot and killed. But it's referred to as a lynching.
So tell us a little bit about that story and
that incident, which remains unsolved.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
True. Well, when I first moved to Monroe in nineteen
ninety six, it definitely was not a topic of conversation.
So it was, i would say, many years after I
lived there, before I had even heard of the tragedy.
And even when it was mentioned, it was, you know,
very much a hushed conversation. It was not something that
people wanted to talk about. It wasn't like you could

(02:36):
go to the museum and find out information about it,
and so it felt very much like the people of
the community just wanted to pretend as if it didn't happen. Right,
It's a painful thing, and so I think, really, it
wasn't until many years later when I started working on
a documentary photography project as a sort of study of Monroe.

(03:00):
And that project was featured in the New York Times,
and one of the commenters was someone who lived in
California but had grown up in Monroe. And one of
the comments that the person left was, you know, this
is a great look at Monroe, but you're leaving out
the very tragic mores for lynching. And so that comment

(03:21):
was sort of like a little push for me to
try to dig deeper and really understand that story and
understand the lingering impact of it on our community. And
that's really sort of what started me down that path
of trying to understand the story.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
What did the residents of Monroe say when you picked
up this not so much as secret, but this moment
of pain, the story that they worked so hard, I
guess even to live through and then maintain some kind
of decency in the midst of its shadow.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Well, I'll tell you I really didn't set out to
make a feature film. I started thinking, I'll create a
short story just based on the morris Ford lynching.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
The film goes into segregation in our community, the integration
of schools, you know, up through current today issues. And
so when I started thinking I'll create this little short
to help tell the story in the form of video,
I did that fairly quietly. So I did the research
on my own. I read several books, and I had

(04:24):
an initial conversation with Tyrone Brooks. And in that conversation,
Tyrone was also telling me about other involvement he had
had through a SCLC in Monroe, working with local community leaders.
So as a as an outsider, he could come in
and do a lot of the work that local community
leaders would have had a much more challenging time to

(04:46):
really spearhead. And so in having those conversations with Tyrone,
I realized the story was connected to you know, many
other things, and I could no longer just focus on
the Morse Forward lynching. But I needed to better understand,
you know, what racial injustice looked like in our community,

(05:06):
to find out, you know, why we still have problems today.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, what did you learn?

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Oh gosh, I learned so much. I didn't really know
a lot about. I mean, of course, you know when
you're in school and you have history classes and you
kind of gloss over the civil rights movement, right, I
mean you hear about Martin Luther King Junior, you hear
about the sit ins, But what you don't know is
like what that impact look like in a small town.

(05:33):
And so I think, you know, to really be a
part of your community and to understand and really love
your community, you kind of have to not only look
at all the positive things, right that you say to
people when you want to draw them in, but you know,
what were the really traumatic things that have happened and
continue to happen in the town so that you can
look at the town wholeheartedly and accept all of it,

(05:54):
right the things that you don't like as much. And
so in the learning, I realized that there was a
lot I didn't know. And in having conversations with people
in our community, there were one on one talks that
did forty interviews. A lot of depth and very traumatic
stories you know, came from these individuals. We would sit

(06:15):
in at their kitchen table, or we'd sit on their
front porch, and you know, I think hearing these stories
from people one on one moved me significantly, and I
felt as though it gave me a different look at
not just the civil rights movement, but you know, experiences
that people had, you know, even a couple of years ago,

(06:37):
and so really getting a close look at what racism
looks like in our community through people who lived through
it changed me deeply. And so I felt like, you know,
I couldn't know that information and not find a way
to share it with others in the hopes that other
people would feel moved and inspired to change their thinking

(07:00):
and change their actions.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, have you seen any indication that your film is
doing that I see it.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
You know, I'm truly grateful that the film has moved,
you know, far beyond Monroe. I mean, it's been screened
at places all over the country. It's in universities, it's
in public libraries all over the country, and so, you know,
I'll receive emails from people who've seen it. I've had
conversations with people who grew up in Monroe, and many
of them didn't even know the mors Ford lynching story.

(07:30):
It happened right here in our community. So I think
it's making a difference. I think it's helping people maybe understand,
you know, racial injustice. It's one thing to understand it
at a very macro level, but I think seeing it
drilled down into a single community and the depths of
that is maybe helping people see it and feel it
in a different way. And I'm speaking mostly for people

(07:53):
who look like me, mostly for white people.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I've
got a couple of questions regarding that, But before we
get that, I want to stay with where we were
for just a moment. What is the root of the difference?

Speaker 5 (08:06):
Right?

Speaker 3 (08:06):
I mean, you went and what was so powerful one
aspect of your film. There were so many that were powerful,
but one aspect that really stood out to me was
the level of trust and transparency that the people you
spoke to shared with you. What is the root of
the difference, because you can feel each side kind of
showing and resting in who they are and their perspective

(08:29):
and their opinions. Where's the difference? Where does that come from?

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Well, I think, you know, all of us have different backgrounds,
We've grown up in different life scenarios, and you see that,
particularly in some of the older community members who were interviewed.
I think what was important. What's important for me is
I think if we can begin to have conversations and
understand really the honesty that people feel. Right, it's an

(08:57):
honest conversation without fear of maybe being judged, but to
be able to just share, you know, this is how
I see it, this is my experience, this is what
I think. And while I may not have a perspective
of someone else, if I'm open to hearing that, even
though it may not be the easiest thing to hear,
at least I'll understand where you're coming from. And in

(09:19):
that understanding, you know, it was important for me to
allow people to share their thoughts, their experiences without any
judgment from me. And I think if we can, if
we can take in that hard honesty. Sometimes it's hard
to hear. I didn't like hearing a lot of the
stuff I heard, But in understanding where they're coming from,
you begin to make sense of why things have been

(09:43):
a certain way for many years.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Right.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
It's like a societal pressure to you know, fit in
with your community, or to avoid conversations that might make
me feel guilty or shameful. It helps you understand, you know,
where that's coming from.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, how important was it for you as a white woman,
especially a white woman who didn't grow up in that
town but is now resident, to pick up the story
and share it with the world.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
It was hard, Yeah, you know, it took many years
for me to get comfortable and really to get the
courage up to do it, and so I started it.
I was worried about it for a lot of reasons.
I mean, one, here I am exposing stories and stories
that have been hard for people to experience, hard for

(10:35):
people to hear. It was difficult, you know, for me
to think about putting people I interviewed from our black community.
You know, I knew them sharing their stories was a
difficult thing for them to share that and then expose
those stories like the reliving traumatic experiences. You know Dorcus
Jernigan who integrated Minor Area High School. You know, she's

(10:56):
taking her back to a time when kids stole her books. Yeah,
you know, and she's sitting in the lunch room by herself.
So that was painful to know. I'm churning up things
that are difficult for people to share in the hopes
that it might move individuals in a very emotional way.
I was also scared, you know, really honestly from my

(11:17):
own safety, right, Like, I live in this community, and
you know, I think for documentary filmmakers it's easier to
drop into a community where you have no connection and
then you can kind of drop back out. But I
live here, like the people I interview, I see on
a pretty regular basis. So I had to get really
comfortable with standing in my truth and standing in the

(11:38):
history and presenting that in a way that you know,
it's like, let the chips fall where they may. If
I lose relationships, if you know, my safety is in jeopardy.
I mean, this is the truth, and at some point
you just get to a point where I can't hold
this truth in this history and not reveal it. And

(12:00):
any fear that I felt paled in comparison to what
members of our black community felt. So it was kind
of a no brainer. I had to keep moving forward
in it.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Was there a specific turning point? Was there an interview,
Was there something you run across and said, Wow, I'm
going to have to move forward with this, whether I
want to or not.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
I can't really point to one. I just knew that
with each interview it pointed me to another person, or
it pointed me to something to look for In the
city council meeting notes. It was as if each experience
I had led me to the next dot, and then
it was my job to kind of connect the dots.
So I really just took it day by day. You know,

(12:42):
I'd never created a feature film before, so I wasn't
one hundred percent convinced.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
I could do it.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
I had the skills to do it, And even if
I did it, would anybody want to watch this film?
It's not the easiest film to watch. So I just
honestly just took it day by day and was saying
I was able to finish it with the help of
a lot of folks.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Have you lost any relationships behind it.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
You know, I really haven't. I would say I would
say that it's brought some clarity around some existing relationships,
and I would say it's broadened, it's increased the relationships
I have, especially with people in the community. Have had
people that I didn't know previously who reached out to
me after they saw the film or attended our community

(13:27):
dialogue after the film screenings in Monroe, and we're very
open and honest about how the film moved them, how
it shaped, maybe reshaped how they saw things. It opened
their eyes that you know, as a white person living
in Monroe, I thought life was like this, and well,
now you know what, It's not like that for everybody.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah, And you could see that sometimes and the response
to your questions of some of the white community members
you spoke with, you could see them having to respond
and hearing them process that answer. And I don't know
if it was shame or what they were feeling, but
you could see them almost hesitating to have to speak
their truth, which I thought was very powerful. I thought

(14:11):
it was powerful too. The young black lady who had
integrated the high school there when she said she started
dressing like the white students and she lost friendships in
the black community because they felt she was selling out. Yes,
And I just thought that was really interesting. There are
so many different facets that you touch upon in this film.
Why is in a film that we should really pay

(14:32):
attention to in this moment in time? And I'm talking
about this specific moment in time where we're seeing a
resurgence now of racism in our society and the fears
of what we have experienced as a black community previously
in this country starting to increase again.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
I think the film is critical to watch, and it's
not just for people who live in small towns in
the South, like many of the stories, the integration of schools,
what life was like during segregation, even life today. I mean,
we have our you know, a historical black cemetery in
Monroe that's featured in the films, Iinhill Cemetery, and Elizabeth
Jones has done an incredible job of helping to restore

(15:14):
that cemetery. So you know, we're losing black cemeteries all
over the country, So you know, we still have these
issues today. And I think, you know, there's so many
other incredible films, right that have been created, that have
been created by black directors. I mean, I think my
film is really just one edition, right, a different flavor
of way to understand racial injustice through a white person's lens.

(15:38):
So I think, you know, it's not a silver bullet
to solve big problems, but it is a way that
someone can spend seventy eight minutes to sink into the
experiences of other people. It's very emotional, people are very
raw in what they're sharing, and I don't know how
you can see the film and not feel moved in

(15:59):
some way to question your own perspectives. I think it's
particularly important now, especially you know, like we just had
the Super Bowl and you know, they took end racism
off the field this year, and obviously racism still exists
in this country. And I think, you know, if one
very important white person or a group of very important

(16:20):
white people say hey, we're done, we're good, it's not valid, right,
It's not the truth. And so I think it's increasingly
more important for people to dig in to understand our history, right,
because that influences the problems that we still have today
in the present.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Thanks Andrea. Next week, as our conversation with Stephanie Calibreez continues,
we'll learn of the suspicious death of a young black
soldier in the nineteen eighties that's been written off as
a suicide. His body was found hanging from a tree
in a wooded area outside Monroe. And we'll get an
update on the latest efforts to unseal the grand jury
documents related to the moor's Ford lynchings. You can learn

(17:00):
more about Unspoken at www dot Unspoken dot film. Sometimes
black women feel marginalized even in the Black church. That's
the sentiment of at least one author, who is our
guest on this week's The Color Between the Lines.

Speaker 6 (17:19):
On this edition of The Color Between the Lines.

Speaker 7 (17:22):
A lot of fishings find ourselves names, which is this
idealization of all feelings must be good, right, we must
still feel good even in the midst of some of
the most worst parts of our human experience.

Speaker 6 (17:35):
We talked to d Daniel Thomas, founder of the Unfit
Christian She addresses the Black Pentecostal religious experience and how,
in her opinion, it needs to change if it wants
to keep attracting new members. I'm Ester Dillard chatting with writers,
authors and experts who offer an added perspective for listeners.

(17:57):
This is the color between the lines. The book we're
talking about is The Day God Saw Me as Black,
and the author is d. Danielle Thomas. She is a
faith and spirituality leader as well as a founder of

(18:18):
the Unfit Christian Her work has been featured in Essence
the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture,
Just the name of You, and we're going to get
her thoughts on what might be what some might describe
as controversial points of view. Welcome d Danielle Thomas to
the bin.

Speaker 7 (18:36):
Thank you for having me. Well.

Speaker 6 (18:38):
This book dives deep into why you joined the ministry
when you had some major concerns and criticisms about the
Black Church and what you believe is deep contradictions. And
this is not new as far as folks who have
been pulling out some of these contradictions. One reason I
believe stemmed from the passing of your father. You wrote

(18:58):
about in the check called the Preacher's Kid that you
never thought you'd become a pastor or a leader in
the church, but you did. Do you think that caring
for your Dad during his last days before he passed
was the reason why.

Speaker 7 (19:14):
No. I honestly never thought I was going through the industry.
But when he passed, it reminded me just how brief
life is, and literally I just didn't want to die
with all of this conflict, with all of this wisdom,
with all of this journey within me, as far as

(19:34):
my faith was concerned. Of course, has passed me with
a challenge kill my faith. It challenged all the things
that it had been normalis to me about dealing with
death and dealing with grief. It challenged that space that
a lot of Christians find ourselves in, which is this
idealization of all feelings must be did right, We must

(19:56):
still feel good even in the midst of some of
the most worst parts of our human experience. I actually
listened to Kirk Franklin today talk about this very thing
on his Instagram when he's talking about being in Florida
and witnessing the devastation of these two hurricanes that have
just passed, and talking about his frustrations with the ways

(20:17):
in which Christians liked to throw scripture at everything and
a lot of religious cliche at everything. And I found
myself in that same location and dealing with my dad's passing,
and so it led me to creating and fit Christian
and starting to have these conversations. I like to say
that I was processing and thinking aloud, but even then

(20:37):
without the intention to become a pastor. But once folks
started to tune in and started to find themselves identifying
within my words and within my language, they sought me
out in that way of being a leader, of giving
an offer and pastoral care. So I kind of fell
into it. I like to say I was volunteld to

(20:58):
become a pastor as opposed to this ing one, but
it's not a path that I regret. In healing other
folks relationship to the church by offering a different perspective
or paradigm of a pastoral experience, I also filled my own.
I became the kind of pastive and offered the kind

(21:18):
of pastoral fear that I wish I received in my
time as a member of various churches.

Speaker 6 (21:25):
You addressed the fact that you became conflicted with church
philosophy and traditions when you started taking courses in college,
and at one point you feel you appeared that you
were going to abandon the church altogether. What made you
come back to the ministry and how is your ministry
different than what you grew up with.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
I think for me it always came down to this
idea of core belief in the spirituality of blackness and
of black people. I think more than the church. I
think the church houses or in some ways in trecks
our spiritual But I think black folks just have this

(22:03):
innate connection to spirit, this innate connection to something that
is bigger and more divine than our mortal human existence.
And for me, it was difficult to walk away from
that altogether. For me, a separation from the spirit would
also mean a separation from community. I think a lot
of folks are very cultural efficient, If not professed Fishians

(22:24):
have faith, they at least have a deep cultural connection
to what the Black Church has offered to our community
and what it has been established as part of our
communal ability. So for me, I always put it this
like blackness has outlived Jesus. It's older than Jesus. And
whether or not I center my faith in this particular deity,

(22:48):
there is still a deep connection to spirit for me
that will not allow me to say it doesn't exist,
it doesn't matter, But it's not something that I want
to be part of my life. That connection to my
culture and to my supersed may be kind of fault
or issue or umbrage I may take with the church,
and there's certainly quite a few, but it matters to

(23:12):
me to be in that deep community. And so I
created that kind of community where people can show up
as their whole selves. The reason the book is called
The Day God Saw Me as Black is because there's
so many of us we showed up in religious spaces
having to compartmentalize parts of our identity. We could show
up as the maybe gender self, but not the sexuality self.
We can show up in black churches the racial self,

(23:34):
or maybe not the radical cell that questions and interrogates
the things that have been talked to us about our
color and our identity and what that needs for us
in this world. So I created a space that I
felt allowed folks to show up as their whole self,
including their questioning self, including their agnostic self, including their
not Christian self, and still have that space of community

(23:58):
to connect the spirit and just the things with the speech,
without the confines or at least most of the conflicts
that many of us have experienced in traditional church faces.
So I think that's what differentiates my work is that
it does offer that familiarity that most of us still
love and loan for when we have been a community
with the Black Church, but also offers that freedom and

(24:20):
liberation that many of us have been demanded from that
institution but haven't found.

Speaker 6 (24:26):
In your chapter called Black and Ugly as Ever, you
talk about some of the scriptures used over the years
by white Christians as the reason for black people not
beingcoming successful and why they were subject to servants and
much more. And in your opinion, are those things that
you feel like the Black Church has neglected to teach

(24:47):
in those Sunday school classes and Bible classes because it's
just too painful or do you think it's just something
that they don't think that it's important to address.

Speaker 7 (24:56):
I think, ironically in that the Black Church actually has
a very for the most part, or at least someone
that I experience, so that there are different experiences of
the Black Church. Now I can admit to that when
I think of some of the popular sound bites that
are coming out from the Black Church these days that
found very white supremacist in nature. But the one I

(25:16):
deal with have a very strong black ethic and politic
and identity. So those things we've both talked about. The
problem is that supremacy doesn't begin an end with our enslavement, right.
It is literally this idea of the humanizing black bodies
as wess than And so our teachings around racial identities
may be very black, but our teachings around sex are supremacists.

(25:39):
Our teachings around gender are supremacists. Our teachings around every
other facet of most of our identities tend to be
rooted and grounded in a very supremacist theology. And so
I think that is where the issue comes in. And
this separation, this austrilation, if you will, for most folks
engagement with this institution, there it's like you're black, yes,

(26:02):
but everything else that you've taught me about myself is
anti black and engages into anti blackness. And so I
don't think the church is afraid to approach race, but
I do think it is afraid to approach the idea
that it's theology in every other regard is a re
articulation of white supremacy.

Speaker 6 (26:23):
For those of who are of you who are just
joining us, i'mster Dillard with the Black Information Network, and
we're speaking with spiritual leader and writer doctor I'm sorry,
d Danielle Thomas, who is a founder of the Unfit
Christian and the author of the book The Day God
Saw Me as Black. You address a lot of different
points in this book, but I believe what I wonder.

(26:45):
I wanted to make sure that you got out what
you wanted readers to come away with as far as
the central message, and you'd be able to articulate that.

Speaker 7 (26:54):
Yeah. Absolutely, I always want folks to know when they
are reading this book. First of all, I'm not crosstizing
to you. I have no interest in making efficition or
taking away from your beliefs. Where I want you to
know that there is you to consider who you are
and how God sees you, because it matters how God
sees you. You can only receive the God that you understands.

(27:17):
And the only way you understand God is see your oppression.
You need begin to associate oppression with holdings. You will
mean to associate it with what makes you redeem, with
what has saved you, as opposed to what may be
hindering you from having life abundance. Here, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
Funny, but when I was reading the book, I kind
of felt like it was part of it. Not only
is the day God told me as black, but as
feminine because it is a very big part of how
people relate in the church, because it's there very masculine,
you know, absolutely, yeah, part of the church where feminine,

(27:54):
being feminine and being able to be outspoken is kind
of like a dichotomy there and right you bring about
you bring that out in the book a lot.

Speaker 7 (28:03):
I do because for me, as a black woman, I
live in an experience where besogynalir dictates. I never know
of the discrimination is because of my race or my gender.
There is no beginning in there is and in black space,
there's particularly the institution of black church, where I should
find rested from racism. I am still dealing with what
it means to be a black woman in spaces where

(28:26):
Black women are not always loved, but we are not
always welcomed, even though we serve in so many capacities
of making the Church of space space. We serve in
the capacity of making folks steel welcome literally in our sanctuaries,
and often we are bullied as a bold face or
if we get access to it it is to continue
to uphold patriarchy and not to do with with liberation.

(28:48):
And so it's very important for me to talk about
that experience because the black women are women in general,
not even just about women. When you look at a
Christian church, the majority of its attendance is women. We
literally create these churches, We sustain their membership by our
direct participation, but also as the people who bear children,

(29:09):
and that of course improved. You know non binary folks
who are able to bear children, but we produce the
next generation. We are the people who keep this going.
We keep the lights on, quite literally. So to not
include this and to not make that our voices matter,
and for many of us to then internalize that oppression
as normative and to not see an option otherwise because

(29:34):
like the religious texts for normalizers or has been used
to normalize racism and has also been used to normalize
incentify aspectism. So I want to offer people a different perspective,
a different way of seeing their feminine or I should
say non masculine identity, because I want to include people
who are of all marginalized genders, and that may not

(29:55):
be sis gender identity as well, but as a black schist,
ginger woman. It look extremely important to me to lift
that up because if not for the women there will
emo gospel. I could not have written this book without
the central idea of what it needs to be seen
as both black and feminine and those things together there.

Speaker 6 (30:16):
Well, Djandille Thomas, we appreciate your time and thank you
for joining us on the BION. Thank you for having
that's it for this edition of The Color Between the Lines.
The book is the Day God Saw Me as Black.
I'm Ester Dillard.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Thank you, Wester. Now we get commentary from Moe Kelly.

Speaker 8 (30:34):
The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed in this commentary are
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of BN and its founding partners and employees.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I'm mo Kelly on the bin with your two minute warning.
Earlier in the week, I told you how ESBN personality
Stephen A. Smith not only fancies himself as a political pundit,
but also that the Democratic Party wants him to run
for president. In so many words, I said it was ridiculous,
but not too ridiculous for the nation that we live
in right now. Legitimate political pundit and democratic presidential campaign

(31:06):
architect James Carville has had enough of Stephen A. Smith's
delusions of political grandeur.

Speaker 5 (31:12):
I am a big stephen A Smith's fan. I remember
I saw him some years ago on TV and I said, man,
this guy is coming in hot. I don't know how
long this is going to last. The truth about it.
He's really wing well with me. He's very outspoken. Look,
he's like anybody else does any kind of commentary, sports commentary.
He's sometimes wrong, way more times he's right when it

(31:34):
comes to sports. I find him a big really insightful.
When it comes to politics, he don't know his from
a hole in the ground. He's on that running his
mouth about how he may have to run as a
Democrat because there's nothing left to the Democratic Party. There's
no talent. Stephen are me. You say you're friends with
Wes Moore and you say you're friends with Jos Shapiro.

Speaker 9 (31:55):
I'm friends with both of them.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
I think they're really extraordinary talented people. I got news
for you. That's six or seven other people in a
Democratic Party that are just that talented. So before you
start running your mouth off about politics, a topic of
what you really don't know anything about, you ought to
sit back and think about it and call some people
and run it by it. But don't let your political

(32:19):
stupid to stand in the way. You're outspoken, and I
think often in psychul views when it comes to American sports.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, Carville's not wrong. I'm mo Kelly at mister mo
Kelly on social media. And that's your two minute warning
on the Black Information Network.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Thanks Moe, and remember to catch mo Kelly, James T. Harris,
and Roland Martin for their daily commentary reports right here
on the Black Information Network. For those intent on discriminating
about black people, there was a way to get around
the law. They did it by community design, by creating
dividing lines. The Black Information Networks. Vanessa Tyler speaks with

(32:56):
author and civil rights attorney Debora Archer, who researched the
insidious plot, which says.

Speaker 10 (33:09):
One nation, one nation. The reality is America has always
shown to be at least two one black, one white.
It was literally built that way.

Speaker 11 (33:19):
We built institutions so that they assisted and supported the
well being and success and lives of some, and we
built them so that they destroyed and displaced the lives
of others.

Speaker 10 (33:33):
Lives destroyed and lives lost like that of Cynthia Wiggins.
It's racist and that's what caused her death. Look around,
is your neighborhood one of those with racism rooted in
the blueprint? We all know about redlining, but Deborah Archer
wrote the book about how city and town planners got

(33:54):
around segregation laws with highways and transportation and so.

Speaker 11 (33:59):
As the judicial decisions and civil rights laws of the
nineteen fifties in nineteen sixties made it more difficult to
isolate black communities using zoning laws and other regulations, we
saw urban planners turned to road construction, in highway construction
in order to impose the segregation that they couldn't count

(34:20):
on the law to enforce anymore.

Speaker 10 (34:22):
Deborah Archer's book Dividing Lines How transportation infrastructure reinforces racial inequality.

Speaker 11 (34:30):
I would like to say that Dividing Lines helps us
understand the history of civil rights. As the civil rights
movement began to win victories and segregationists could no longer
consistently rely on the law to enforce racial hierarchy, communities
around the country began to rely on transportation infrastructure highways,

(34:50):
public transportation, roads, even sidewalks to do the work of
oppression that they could no longer depend on the law
to do. When I was writing the book and told
people about it, a common reply was for people to
mention The Power Broker, that incredibly and insanely popular book
about Robert Moses. And in many ways, this is the

(35:12):
other side of the Power Broker. The Power Broker is
about what Robert Moses did to build and shape New
York and his philosophy of development, really disregarding black and
brown communities in order to build highways and parks and
community institutions. So dividing lines tells the stories of the
people impacted by that philosophy, the impact on their lives

(35:34):
in their community.

Speaker 10 (35:35):
When you think about even Central Park, which was at
one point a black community, which was then condemned, as
you mentioned earlier, you know, made to seem well first,
not built up, then condemned, then taken over. It's right
to put a park in. It happens all over, and.

Speaker 11 (35:55):
It happens, you know, there's a story to tell about
the way that Robert Moses did that with Lincoln said
in New York City as well, it's important for us
to understand this history and not think that black communities
have these conditions because of the community, the people who
live in those communities, or because it's natural, that's just
the way things are. We built our communities this way.

(36:18):
We built institutions so that they assisted and supported the
well being and success and lives of some, and we
built them so that they destroyed and displaced the lives
of others. There's a long history, particularly in the United States,
around displacement as a tool of racial oppression, denying people

(36:41):
a sense of self by denying them a sense of place.

Speaker 10 (36:45):
The deep dark history of black community it's being displaced.
When America built its highways, white men's roads through Black
men's homes turned out to be the way to go.

Speaker 11 (36:56):
That phrase, white men's roads through Black men's homes was
the rallying cry for a community in Washington, d c.
That was fighting a highway that was planned to be
built through the community would have destroyed their community. The
idea of using transportation infrastructure to reinforce and lack in
racial inequality is something that I explore in my book

(37:19):
Dividing Lines. When we expand our understanding a government sponsor
sererogation beyond racial covenants and redlining, it's clear that it's
not just the invisible lines created by local, state, and
federal laws that divide us. It's also the physical, literal
lines that run through and around our communities, and that's transportation.

(37:40):
They may seem innocuous, it may be seemed just merely
practical or necessary or natural, but that part of the
architecture of racial inequality is real. The nation's transportation system
is really an essential element of that infrastructure of inequality
that helps to keep communities and separate, that keeps communities unequal.

(38:04):
And while we're talking about civil rights and racial justice,
I think it's important that we have real and meaningful
conversations about where we are and exactly how we got there.
And I think this conversation around infrastructure, and even more broadly,
that the way that we've used infrastructure as a tool
to segregate is something that has been missing from the conversation.

Speaker 10 (38:29):
The buses and trains were part of it, whether walking
a mile for a bus or no bus at all.

Speaker 11 (38:35):
We hear a lot about what's called transportation deserts, and
that's the term for the kind of communities that you're
describing where the supply of mass public transportation doesn't meet
the demand, and even as parts of the country really
continues to invest in highways and suburban commuter rail systems,

(38:55):
we still have transportation deserts, and most of those are
in black communities that have been ignored and left out.
So when black neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for
highways and roads and urban urban renewal projects, the people
who lived there found themselves scattered in these transportation deserts.

(39:15):
And this made, as you said, everyday life really infinitely
more challenging. Residents of these communities. Again, largely black communities
have a hard time getting to work, in school, going
shopping for groceries or clothes, getting to the movies or
the park, or seeing the doctor or the dentists, or
visiting family, and they may find themselves walking long distances

(39:39):
on unsafe streets, really forced to literally risk their lives.
And white communities can become transportation deserts too, and as
they talk about in the book Dividing Lines, some residents
of those communities actually fight for that outcome. They want
to limit public transportation in order to keep black and
low income people from coming to merely traveling through their neighborhoods.

Speaker 10 (40:06):
The trouble to travel, racist, inconvenient, Deadly.

Speaker 11 (40:10):
One of the stories I tell in the book is
about racial stigma that's attached to bus riding, and I
learned about the death of a seventeen year old black
woman named Cynthia Wiggins in Buffalo, New York. And Cynthia
worked at a fast food restaurant that was in an
upscale suburban mall, and to get to the mall from

(40:32):
the nearest bus stop, Cynthia had to kind of spring
across seven lanes roadway because the mall barred city buses
that were used primarily by black commuters from driving into
the parking lot, but they let other buses in a
suburban commuter and tourist buses that both had greater white ridership,

(40:53):
they are permitted to enter the parking lot. And one
day Cynthia made that run from the bus stopped to
them all, and she was crushed by a dump truck.

Speaker 10 (41:05):
Cynthia Wiggins, the teenage single mom, killed in nineteen ninety six.
Back in the late nineteen nineties, ABC's Nightline did a
story on this very issue of transportation racism and talked
with those who knew and loved her.

Speaker 11 (41:20):
And Cynthia's story is, of course, an extreme version of
what I think is an all too common story black
people needing access to jobs and opportunities that are located
in white communities, white communities manipulating public transportation policies to
exclude them, or black folks not being able to access
public transportation at all within their communities.

Speaker 10 (41:42):
Now that we are rebuilding America, what's the likelihood of
that those wrongs will now be made right? Meaning communities
will be reunited that were separated by let's say, a
highway or something like that.

Speaker 11 (41:56):
We've certainly start to have what I think is an
important conversation out the role that highways and transportation infrastructure
played in dividing communities and the need to rebuild and
to bring those communities back together. But as they say,
you know, it's hard to put humpty dumpty back together again.
It's a harder process than we would like to believe it. It

(42:17):
is not just about tearing a highway down, and it's
not just about an infusion of economic investment into that community.
We really have to do the work to reverse the
decades of compounded inequality that comes from having a highway
destroy your homes, your churches, and the businesses in your community.

(42:41):
We have to figure out how we can invest in
homeowners and renters and business owners in those communities over
the long term so that the economic investment doesn't lead
to displacement. And we have to figure out a way
to change policy. As we engage in building new infrastructure.

(43:03):
Black homes, black businesses, and black communities still continue to
be valued less than other homes and communities. They stand
in the pathways of bulldozers again, and we can actually
reinjure those communities and do more harm if we don't
go about rebuilding and reconnecting in a way that acknowledges

(43:26):
the history of harm, the current harm, and the potential
for future harm. One reason why transportation infrastructure has proven
to be such an important tool in white supremacy is
that removing a physical barrier can be even harder than
changing a segregationist law. And these efforts really kicked into
high gear when the Court signaled the fall of segregation

(43:50):
with Brown versus Board of Education in nineteen fifty four,
and then the Interstate Highway Act, which has passed in
nineteen fifty six, became this tool that governors and mayors
and city planners were using to fight back. So in
the wake of Brown government officials demonstrated the extreme methods

(44:11):
that they would go to to resist change. And right
at that moment, the Interstate highway system was being built.
And so we see that the interstate highway system just
destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, and one estimate of
the United States Department of Transportation estimated that more than
four hundred and seventy five thousand homes and more than

(44:34):
a million people were displaced nationwide as a direct result
of the original construction of the highways. And those households
and those people were disproportionately black and poor. And in
dividing lines, I talk about Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia,
and Indianapolis, Indiana, which all provide powerful examples of how

(44:58):
the highway became a tool of a post Jim Crow
segregationist agenda. In Birmingham, racial zoning laws created an invisible
line that divided black and white neighborhoods, and once a
federal appeals court struck down Birmingham's racial zoning laws, white
residents and city officials sought to replace the invisible dividing

(45:20):
lines with physical ones, and they turned to the highway.
Similar things happened in Atlanta and in Innneapolis. The city
government and private actors had under invested in black communities
that had been redlined, and then they used the challenges
that those communities face as a reason to justify their

(45:41):
further devastation by building highways through those red line communities.
And that really is just the tip of the iceberg.
In states around the country, there are stories about the
way that a highway was driven through a black community,
a highway was built around a black community to contain

(46:01):
black people, and the result was economic disinvestment, loss of homes,
loss of businesses, and loss of community institutions that really
tore at the fabric of those communities under the guise.

Speaker 10 (46:14):
Of imminent domain, which is always questionable in subjective.

Speaker 11 (46:19):
Absolutely using eminent domain as an excuse and a tool
to seize black homes and black property and to build
those highways through those homes and that property, and not
providing assistance with relocation, not providing adequate compensation for the
loss of what was for many people their most valuable asset,

(46:41):
and then aiding further segregation because the people who lost
their homes and communities were forced to resettle in already
deeply segregated communities.

Speaker 10 (46:53):
Another note about Cynthia Wiggins, the young black mother who
died crossing a highway because the upscale mall wanted to
prevent crime by not letting city buses in the lot.
The late civil rights lawyer Johnny Cockran handled the case.
The family agreed to a two and a half million
dollar settlement from the mall and the bus company, money

(47:14):
used for a trust for Cynthia's young son. After an
NAACP fight, city buses were able to go into the
parking lot of the upscale Walden Galleria Mall.

Speaker 11 (47:26):
So ultimately, Dividing Lines is a book about how adaptive, creative,
and resilient racism is. Those who love yesterday will always
fight against tomorrow, and they're good at it. And this
book is a story about how we have allowed racism
to adapt and involve in our transportation infrastructure to help

(47:47):
white communities fight against tomorrow.

Speaker 10 (47:50):
The book Dividing Lines how transportation infrastructure reinforces racial inequality.
Get the book on pre order at ww Norton dot com.
Oh Deborah Archer wears another hat. She is also the
president of the American Civil Liberties Union. That sound that's

(48:11):
President Trump's signing yet another executive order. On my podcast
black Land on the iHeartRadio app. More from Deborah Archer,
who tells us what we're seeing in plain sight and
what the ACLU is doing about it.

Speaker 11 (48:25):
Well, I think what most people are seeing is the
destruction of our democracy and really the destruction of the
infrastructure of civil rights and equality. There has been a
flurry of executive orders and other actions that are challenging
so many of the pieces of our communities and our

(48:46):
government that have helped bring us to a place where
we are more equitable, more inclusive, and more free.

Speaker 10 (48:53):
Honestly, I'm Vanessa Tyler with a Black perspective on the
Black Information Network.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Mike, do you thanks Vanessa? Healthcare for Black Americans in
a two point zero world will be quite a challenge
our very own Doug Davis continues his conversation with a
black Las Vegas physician about the outcomes we will see
in black healthcare under the Trump administration.

Speaker 9 (49:16):
Doug, thanks Mike. This is Doug Davis. It's Black History
Month and our discussion about the health of Black Americans
and the Trump two point zero World continues with doctor
Nasha Isom, a highly experienced and coveted Black family physician
and founder of IMMD in Las Vegas, Nevada. Doctor m
Welcome back to the BIM. We left off speaking about
how the rollback of DEI and the federal government will

(49:36):
hurt the health of Black Americans.

Speaker 12 (49:38):
Well, thank you for having me back.

Speaker 13 (49:40):
There's no way that I see DEI making any improvement
in the lives of African Americans. In fact, you know,
this becomes a serious issue for us. It's gonna make
things a lot worse. So if we're already having highest
numbers of rates of diabetes, hypertension, so you get rid
of the need to have representation, you don't make any

(50:03):
improvement in any of those. So even when it comes
down to staffing, right, which is really the issue for
us those who work in the hospital, the medical community
unfortunately is already played with so much disparity, it's really
difficult to see how it could get worse.

Speaker 12 (50:21):
But wow, without DY, it absolutely will.

Speaker 9 (50:25):
Right. What are some of the federal programs you know,
related to health that will be affected that will ultimately
trickle down to black patients.

Speaker 12 (50:34):
So your federally qualified health clinics.

Speaker 13 (50:37):
Right, those are like pretty much almost everywhere they take
in your lower income individuals, and unfortunately, you know, a
good majority of that is where you know, we find
health care if we even you know, attempt to seek
health care. So in those particular programs, we're going to

(50:58):
likely see less different in staff, which again then reduces
the quality of care that people of color will get.
And then with that, unfortunately, you'll probably start to see
less people actually going right.

Speaker 12 (51:12):
So depending on how roague it gets.

Speaker 13 (51:15):
As far as the people they decide to hire, you're
going to see a dip in people actually trying to
seek care. And since it's federally funded in that sense,
they don't have to see patients in order to get funding, right,
they're not necessarily making the money from the patients walking
through the door, right, So that is probably one of

(51:35):
the biggest areas where I can see it potentially being
a really big harm.

Speaker 9 (51:40):
What about like, you know, programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Speaker 13 (51:47):
So when it comes to DEI would as far as
Medicare and Medicaid, the only thing I can foresee, right
is them structuring things in a way where obviously if
it's programs that are initially meant for us, which they are.

(52:07):
There really aren't many within that in the medical system.
I can't think of one actually within Medicare or Medicaid
that's specifically outlined for people of color. So I don't
think whatever they do to Medicaid is going to hurt
everybody other than that federal funding you know, goes to
you know, some hospitals. But outside of that, Medicare and

(52:30):
Medicaid are essentially insurance programs, except for Medicare has like
the benefits programs to like Medicaid has some bit off
it programs as well, So I guess when you talk
about those particular programs, they're not like directly medical, they're
more of like the support part of it. So Medicaid

(52:52):
being able to have like wick or like the financial
compensation on their cards, or the Medicare being able to
actually get their benefits and what you know, and the
things that kind of come with that. So indirectly I
think harming those and DEI, you're probably gonna have fewer
people being able to get it of color. I think

(53:14):
it may make it a lot more difficult because unfortunately
a lot of these federal programs are about, you know,
whose desk a lands on, what time at lands on
their desks, and how do they feel that day is Unfortunately,
you know, not a lot of real sincere thought about
you know, who gets what win?

Speaker 9 (53:33):
Well, the elimination of DEI affect clinical trials related to
Black Americans.

Speaker 13 (53:39):
So unfortunately, we don't have programs that are specifically and
not federally funded programs specifically aimed at African Americans. You know,
they know it's already pretty difficult to get African Americans
to participate, right, So with that being said, you know,
we've not had many in the past that were federally funded,
so we already don't want to go. We're not gonna

(54:02):
have people asking us to come. That the environment won't
feel comfortable or safe for people to participate, which then
affects us, you know, in the long run, because we
don't have the data or the information to help us
actually have better help.

Speaker 9 (54:15):
That's right, That's right. Let's fall over to abortions. How
do you view the shift in Robert F. Kennedy junior
stance on abortion to align with President Trump's policies.

Speaker 12 (54:26):
So I'm gonna say that he is essentially a puppet.

Speaker 13 (54:31):
It's pretty clear that you know, he is there as
he said to do his you know, to do Trump's will.
So I don't think we're going to be able to,
you know, see any significant changes when it comes to
where we've been with abortion. So we're not getting the
reversal of Roe versus Wade. We will probably have these

(54:52):
other states go who really want to push you no
abortion laws actually get them passed. So we're gonna have
very few states in the coming years that will actually
still allow abortions.

Speaker 9 (55:05):
What kind of impact do you think these changes in
abortion policies will have on black women and their access
so to reproductive health care? We're already at the bottom
of that. You know, what does it look like? I mean,
what do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 13 (55:19):
So essentially we are rewinding time. Okay, so the whole
reason for having Roo versus Wade, right, those issues just resurface.

Speaker 7 (55:29):
Right.

Speaker 13 (55:30):
We have more people dying right from attempting to have abortions, right,
so if we get rid of abortions, they're going to
make it even harder for women to actually have birth control.

Speaker 12 (55:45):
Right.

Speaker 13 (55:45):
So again we're just literally rewinding time, even though we
have you know.

Speaker 12 (55:49):
A plethora of options.

Speaker 13 (55:51):
When it comes to birth control, those options also are
going to disappear in those days where they no longer
allow abortions because again it really is unfortunately, the government
creep on women's autonomy.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Right.

Speaker 9 (56:07):
What do you think those consequences you know, of restricting
abortion access will have on the black community?

Speaker 12 (56:13):
I don't want to be dealing glone.

Speaker 13 (56:15):
I understand we're going to see we're going to see
more complications with births. We'll probably see more children because
again they won't have any options but to have them,
and by having them more frequently, we don't get any
better results when it comes to maternal feudal outcomes with delivery.

(56:37):
So we'll see those numbers go up probably a bit.
I hope not, but again that's the possibility when we
are looking at what may happen. The other part of
that is that when we have more children when we
don't want to, it's going to increase unfortunately, you know,
children born in poverty, which again increases the poor outcomes

(56:59):
of health right for them mother and for that.

Speaker 12 (57:00):
Child as they grow.

Speaker 13 (57:03):
So the next four years, unfortunately, are going to be rough,
and we hope it's only four I think we'll start
feeling the effects of it, you know, in the next
couple of years, which is pretty soon.

Speaker 9 (57:12):
Let's move over to vaccines. President Trump wants to empower
states to make more decisions about the welfare of their
citizens when it comes to vaccines. He wants to do
that as well. What do you think he's going to
do next regarding vaccines.

Speaker 13 (57:28):
I think he's going to do exactly what Trump wants
him to do. I think he's made that are really clear.
So it's going to look much like the abortion right.
So the states where Trump has a stronghold, those governors
are going to flip and so we're going to see
a greater majority of states actually adopting these terrible laws.

(57:53):
And then hopefully, my hope again I don't want to
be gloom and duke, hopefully when these particular states starts
to see that creep people actually will come out right.
So if they made a mistake in their recent choice
of voting, they now will have another opportunity locally.

Speaker 12 (58:11):
To fix that.

Speaker 9 (58:13):
How can we sure that health policies are inclusive and
equitable for all racial and ethnic groups as we move
forward in this Trump administration.

Speaker 13 (58:21):
Again, in order to do that we have to have power.
You know, my real hope is that people really start
to understand the importance of acting locally, acting federally, because
I feel like people are really going to start to
feel the pinch when it comes to healthcare, and because
of COVID, people are way more health sensitive than they've

(58:43):
ever been before. So I think playing in this particular
arena may again give us someone of an advantage. I'm
hoping that people start to be more responsive so that
we do have at least the power of the vote.
I think that's really all we can hope for at
this point. Without the power of them vot during the administration,
there's not much we're learning to accomplish.

Speaker 9 (59:03):
Doctor Nasha isom African American family physician in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Thanks for sharing your insights with us here on the
Black Information Network in the Black Perspective, I'm Doug Davis.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Thanks Doug, and that's our program for this week. For
more on these stories, listen to the Black Information Network
on the free iHeartRadio app or log onto binnews dot
com for all of the latest news impacting the black community.
Also be sure to follow us on social media at
Black Information Network and on X and Blue Sky at
black info Net, I'm Mike Island, wishing everyone a great Sunday,

(59:37):
and be sure to tune in next week at this
time for another edition of the Black Perspective right here
on the Black Information Network