DC Council Members Speak Out On Federal Occupation of the District

“Wealthy Wednesdays” featured regular contributor, Atiba and Rev. Dr. S Todd Yeary, Esq., guest host of “THE POLITICS OF OUR FAITH” on the Jesse Jackson Jr show. In the first hour, Council Member, Janeese Lewis George articulated every legal problem and insult to the local government that comes with the order of the President to takeover the DC police. In the second hour Council Member Robert White specified the community burden that the presence presents and the motives that the presence suggests. Over these two hours, Jackson led a discussion based in the reality that must give pause to all Americans. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson
July Talk fifteen eighty. Today, the President of the United
States essentially announced the takeover of Washington, d C. Secretary
Heabs Heseth and Pam Bonnis flanked the President of the
United States as he indicated that he was taking over

(00:24):
the DC Police Department, some of the critical functions of government,
having not notified the DC Police, or notifying the mayor
and the elected officials, sending a scramble through local city government.
In nineteen ninety one or so, my father ran for

(00:44):
shadow senator from the District of Columbia to raise a
simple point about democracy. That there were eight states in
the United States that had fewer people in those states
than lived in the District of Columbia. The district is
not a city, It is not a state, It is
a district. He argued that democracy was to be apportioned

(01:08):
on the basis of people, not on the basis of
land and territory. There are more people in Washington, d C.
Than live in the state of Vermont, and yet Vermont
has two United States senators. There are more people who
live in the District of Columbia than live in New Hampshire,
but New Hampshire has two United States Senators. Reverend Jackson

(01:30):
made the argument that the more than six hundred thousand
people who live in the District of Columbia were entitled
to at least one congress person that would have been
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who would have the power and the
right to vote in the United States House of Representatives,
but that the District of Columbia was also entitled to

(01:52):
two United States Senators, provided that by a simple vote
of the House of Representatives, of Columbia could be welcomed
into the Union as the fifty first state, almost guaranteeing
two progressive United States Senators. Giving the overwhelming African American
population in the District of Columbia outed as potential candidates

(02:16):
at that time, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the late Commerce
Secretary Ron Brown, the late head of the National Urban
League Vernon Jordan, as well as others were seriously considered
as potential candidates for the United States Senate. And even
though Democrats maintained control of the Congress of the United

(02:39):
States and at times the Senate of the United States,
as well as well as having Democratic presidents of the
United States. The same people who are crying and hollering
about the absence of democracy right now ignored their plea.
By simple majority in the Congress of the United States
and simple majority in the Senate of the United States

(03:00):
and the president's signature, the fifty first state could have
been welcomed in our country, adding another star to the
American flag, but certainly strengthening in the United States Senate
progressive majority, a majority the Democrats needed then and the
same majority that Democrats need now. And instead of that,

(03:23):
today we have a federal takeover of the district of Columbia,
with Donald Trump promising more takeovers California. Los Angeles already
has a National Guard presence, but today in the press conference,
the President indicated that he wasn't very happy with what's
going on in Oakland, California, or in Baltimore, Maryland. He

(03:47):
just went down a litany of cities where he said,
very specifically at the press conference, we will go further. Now.
Call that a diversion from the files. Call that a
diversion from whatever it is that may be mentally ailing
the President of the United States at this hour. The

(04:07):
reality is these are cities where we live and coming
to a city near you is a federal presence unprecedented
in the United States since the American Civil War. He's

(04:28):
looking for reasons to bring the federal government into our
local municipalities. While Maryo Bauser's administration in Washington, d C.
Is touting its numbers that we are at a thirty
year low in the District of Columbia with respect to
crime and by definition, violent crime. Donald Trump uses the

(04:50):
excuse that this is the most crime filled city in
the nation without any facts or any substantive justification. And
interestingly enough, I've already heard from several black businessmen in
the District of Columbia who see what they call the opportunity.
What the hell is that the opportunity, Well, the opportunity

(05:14):
is to restructure business in the District of Columbia. And
so they don't see that everything Donald Trump doing is
doing isn't necessarily in their own interests. We can expect
that in many cities across the country, should Donald Trump
decide to expand federal authority, look for the business community

(05:34):
to say, this may not be a bad thing. We'd
like to find a way to relate to the anti
democratic forces that have seized our federal government. Today is
moving Mountain Mondays with Ernest Krim and doctor Teresa Hordorns.
When we come forward on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show,
We're going to talk about the federal takeover of the
District of Columbia and much more. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior

(05:56):
on KBLA Talk fifteen E on KBLA Talk fifteen AD.
The District of Columbia, commonly known as Washington d C.
Was established as the capital of the United States in
seventeen ninety following the US Constitution's authorization for a federal district.
The area was chosen to be independent from state control
and was formed by land ceded from Maryland and Virginia.

(06:19):
The district was named in honor of Christopher Columbus or
New Columbia, and President George Washington. Over time, it became
known as Chocolate City because of the number of African
Americans that subsequently ended up working in the District of Columbia.
Our guest in this hour is Ernest Krem, the Third,

(06:41):
an Emmy nominated producer, public teacher, anti racist educator, and
hate crime victor who uses black historical narratives to empower
and educate through a culturally equitable lens. Mister Kreme, a
South Side of Chicago native and University of Illinois Urbana
Champaigne graduate, is a former high school teacher education for
twelve years who now advocates for social justice issues and

(07:04):
teaches black history to the world through the social media
and with platforms that reach roughly four million people each month.
He's created content for companies such as HBO, Hulu, Disney, Paramount,
and The History Channel. Ernest Krim Welcome forward to the
Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Hey, what's up brother. It's good to be in community
with you again.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Man, It's always good to be in community with you. Well,
looks like black history is being made again today with
the federal takeover of Washington, d C.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Your thoughts, Yeah, I think there's no shock that it
is a town, like you said, that is known as
Chocolate City. There's no shock to me that we've experienced
in DC a thirty year low on violent crime and
yet this is happening. It for me reminds me of
growing up in Chicago in the nineties and having had

(07:55):
no idea that crime at that time violent crime would
sometimes medius eight nine hundred murders a year, Yet through
the twenty and tens we were overloaded with propaganda. It
seemed at the end of every weekend about how many
shootings there were, as if there was some type of
race to reach a certain mark. And because of that

(08:17):
misinformation being proliferated, it made people feel uneasy about moving
around the city, even though it was lower into twenty
and tens than it was twenty years prior. Oftentimes, it's
not about what the truth is, it's about how politicians
in the media is able to make us feel. And
I think when I come across news like this, what
I get from that is not only the misinformation that

(08:39):
is allowed to spread, but just how we have always
been viewed historically, particularly post emancipation, when our very existence
was viewed as a crime. Us just standing still vagrancy
laws were a crime. If you can imagine our ancestors
having worked for hundreds of years without pay, having to survive.

(09:00):
Now you have freedom in eighteen sixty five. For many
of us, you don't know what to do next, right,
so maybe you are homeless, or maybe you even want
to just take some time to do something you can
not have done before. That's rest and your very existence
in that moment is viewed as criminal. In a system
of capitalism where the top priority is to make money

(09:22):
by any means, we have to be very concerned about
not just the people in our community, but those of
us in our community that are in the lower economic classes.
I'm very concerned about what the overall objective of this
is for because at the same time this is happening,
we're seeing record numbers of unemployment within black women in
our community. We're seeing jobs being replaced time and time again,

(09:45):
day in and day out with artificial intelligence or automation
self checkouts for example. To me, this seems like a
way for us to be funneled into the prison system.
And we know, based on the thirteenth remember what the
prison system functions as in this country. It is another
method of enslavement. I believe that it is of the

(10:07):
utmost importance during this time that we have people in
office who are doing their jobs the appropriate way to
challenge this. We know there's a lot going on, Like
we we were just talking about what was happening in
Texas right the last week or so, and at the
same time that's going on. When we had Texas politicians
having to flee to come to Illinois. Now we have

(10:28):
this going on, we have to make sure all hands
on are on deck. Democratic politicians have to challenge this.
We know it's illegal, we know he cannot do this,
but who's going to step up and say that you
can't get away with it? And for those of us
who are not directly in office, on the grassroots level,
what can we do to protect people? What can we

(10:48):
do to communicate this? Because I've seen footage already in
the middle of the night before the official announcement even happened,
people being confronted at bus stops, people who look like us.
This and again, this is not new. We've seen it
in Chicago, We've seen it in New York stop and first.
We've seen it time and time again. But to have
it approved on a federal level is especially dangerous, and

(11:12):
we all have to be a proactive moving forward.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
To my opinion, I appreciate that, and I think that's
a very insightful analysis of what's going on the ground
in Washington. I want to add to that that the
people of the District of Columbia pay more taxes per
capita than like six, seven or eight states that the
people of the District of Columbia have fought in every

(11:36):
major American war since the Revolutionary War itself. That the
people of the District of Columbia, while they are not
part of the state of Maryland or the state of Virginia,
which in seventeen ninety seeded essentially ten square miles to
create the District of Columbia for the purposes of housing

(11:59):
the federal government. There is a delineation between the federal
territories where the capital is and the Archives are, and
the White House and the Washington Monument and the Lincoln
Memorial and those federal territories within Washington, But the rest
of Washington, d C. Where the residents live Rock Creek Park,

(12:22):
belongs to the people of the District of Columbia. It
does not belong to the federal government. And so Donald
Trump's extremely broad overreach into an area that of middle
class Americans largely middle class Americans, just outside of one

(12:42):
of the wealthiest African American per capita income districts in
the United States, Prince George's County, Maryland and Old Dominion
in Virginia. This is not like one big, second class
urban ghetto. This is a very well planned city that

(13:07):
has functioned. It's had its struggles like every municipality does.
But it just doesn't seem right that Donald Trump would
authorize the National Guard on this occasion. But he did
not authorize the National Guard on January sixth.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Ernest powerful powerful expose a right there, and I think
what we have to remember and hopefully this remains to
be a wake up call. Everything that we've seen roll
out since he took office in January impacts all of us.
Everything he's done with ice being rolled out on the

(13:46):
streets in California, the deportations, disregarding the Constitution with this,
the goal and the effort of detaining three thousand immigrants today,
this is something something that impacts all of us constantly.
This is not just something that's impacting the Latino community.
This is not just something that's impacting even us. We

(14:10):
have to all be aware of this because I believe
what has happened right before our eyes is this is
just a way for him to practice what you've already mentioned,
where he intends to roll out across the country, and
in fact, he's already mentioned places that he's targeting. We
have seen what it looks like for a fascist dictator
to come to rise, and we're witnessing this in real time,

(14:31):
and the question that I constantly have for people is
what will we do? Are we going to be prisoners
of the moment as we scroll through social media? Are
we going to react in all? Are we going to
send smmh and angry reactions on Facebook? Or are we
going to commit to doing something moving forward? It feels

(14:54):
as though we're in something that's too deep right now,
but there has to be aware. There must be a
way for us to mobil lies in a progressive manner
moving forward, because we have to remember that this is
not something that this is something that was handed to
him essentially, And I think that's what's truly when I
think about it, Brother, it's so upsetting because you know,

(15:17):
people like yourself, people like me, have talked about this
and we saw what we saw a glimpse of what
it was like for four years, for twenty sixteen to
twenty twenty. So when we think about the way that works,
I think we have to then recognize that collectively we
then have the power to make sure that this doesn't
happen again. And I think that's what we have to

(15:39):
be focusing on moving forward. What can we do in
this moment to mobilize and what can we do to
ensure that we have some form, some remnant of a
democracy moving forward.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
You know, there's a part of me that says that
that's the question of the hour, the one that you've
raised about what can we do, how can we do it?
And what makes the most sense? Now? If I told
everybody to make sure that their neighbor were registered to
vote and to drag someone to the polls, they would say, well,

(16:14):
we've already heard that, we've already done that. Well, there's
nothing else short of that. And how powerful that moment
actually is if, in fact it happens on the scale
of recognition of the problem that the only nonviolent approach
to what is taking place in our country is the vote.

(16:37):
It is the Christian, the Jewish, the Islamic response in
the truest sense of our religions to the moment. It
is the only system in human history where we have,
within our individual and ultimately our collective power to do

(16:58):
something about it that is acceptable in the sight of
the people. What I am concerned about is in all
of the recent polling, forty three percent of voters in
the United States are still undecided about who do support.

(17:20):
In twenty twenty eight undecided at forty three percent, even
on the South side of Chicago undecided forty seven percent.
And when we begin to peel back the onion earnest
of the undecided in the United States, there we find

(17:43):
poor whites and poor blacks, and the LGBTQ, and those
who are struggling to live on Medicare and Medicaid, and
those who are working hard every day and at the
end of a hard day's work, they cannot buy bread cheaper,
they cannot pay rent cheaper, they can't even get a
bacon an a sandwich cheaper. But they deserve fairness from

(18:04):
a government of for and by the people. I don't
have the answer to that, arnest, other than I wish
I could vote ten times. I wish I could vote
more than once.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
And I think what's interesting about that is I think
we can because when you think about the fact that
we have so many people who have not been exercising
that right, that's essentially what it what it boils down to.
When I think about the county I live in in Illinois,
where in local elections, for example, we have sometimes a
ten percent of registered voters, which means that ten percent

(18:38):
of people are picking who will rule over the one
hundred percent right. And when I really as you speak,
and I think about all the different ways this can
go based on what he's doing, because the more you
criminalize people, the less likely they are to have the
opportunity to exercise that right to vote. I think there's
a method to this madness in so many ways and

(19:00):
so many fast is that we have not yet begun
to impact because the goal has to be daily for
this administration to so confusion and chaos, because if we
are confused in this, we can't even think about the
importance of making sure our neighbors are registered, but then
also too, making sure that our neighbors are okay, because

(19:21):
when you are in community with folks and you're checking
on them and you're making sure that they can vote
for the betterment of their livelihoods, you're also checking on
their livelihood in that moment. We have to know our
neighbors literally the ones next door to us and beyond,
and we have to make sure that they are in
some type of communication with people that can respond to

(19:41):
this proactively if they are placed in harm's way with
what's happening in DC.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
I am I am particularly moved by your understanding of
the issue and just how deep profound it truly is.
I do want to add that when we think about
this fledgling of an experiment, the democratic experiment, that African
Americans have been so central to its development, as Ernest

(20:09):
said earlier, from thirteen fourteen and fifteenth Amendment to the
nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing the women the right to vote, the
twenty sixth Amendment guaranteeing eighteen year olds the right to vote,
it seems to me that our democracy has never been
in more peril than it is at this hour. And
I can't figure out completely for the life of me,

(20:31):
why forty seven percent of the people who are not
voting in are in effect voting for what is taking place.
In other words, you have no choice but to be
conscious in this process. An unconscious and an ignorant voter
is the worst thing on earth. I've bumped into some
elected officials the other day and I told them we
need to start doing voter registration. They said, no, no, no, no, no, no,

(20:53):
don't do no voter regstation in my area. I got
all my voters. No, no, don't do no voter registration.
I got. I'm I'm not discussing about the voters that
the three people that vote for you. I'm discussing about
the ninety seven percent or the ninety seven people who
aren't voting for anybody beyond you. But they're so afraid
of the ninety seven that they are happy with the

(21:16):
three people who vote for them. That's an example. That's
a stretch. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. This is kbly Top
fifteen eighty. When we come board more with Ernest grim
the third Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
My very special guest in this hour is none other
than our regular contributor Ernest Krim. Ernest, welcome forward to
the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Thanks for having me back. We're having a very important
time to conversation and discussion now.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Ernest is my favorite millennial, a young man whom I
have great expectations for to lead our people one day
out of the wilderness that we find ourselves in. President
Donald Trump called out five cities across the United States
as he discussed his decision to formally declare public safety
emergency in Washington, d C. Trigger ring a federal takeover

(22:01):
of the city's police department. Trump's remarks insinuated that Baltimore, Chicago,
Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland could face similar efforts
from his administration, with the President saying the effort to
address crime and homelessness in the US would go further,
as he specifically named the cities. Why the Blue Cities,

(22:24):
ernest Why is every time he tries to distract from
personal problem, does it feel like it hits us harder
than it hits anyone else? And I specifically mean us
as African Americans. It just looks like, as soon as
the Liberals come after Donald Trump for his personal behaviors,

(22:46):
from gislaying Maxwell to the Epstein files, he just finds
a group of negroes somewhere to beat the hell out of.
Why does that way?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
You know? It's like, oh, don't it's not me. I
didn't do a thing. Look at the black person. They're
the problem. They're the problem. No, no, no, no, not me,
the white guy. It's them. It's them. It's seriously fit
as a history like a history teacher, I just see
the same playbook US over and over, and it's mind

(23:18):
bigler because that's essentially what has been done since the
colonial period. If there's class solidarity amongst different groups of people,
those who have the wealth, and we're talking primarily it's
been white men in this country, they will throw that
in there to distract people. Oh no, it's not me
that's disenfranchising you. It's the black person who has not

(23:39):
been able to gain any wealth in this country. That's
the issue. They're the problem. Look at them. We're talking
about the fouls. We're talking about this fascion state that
we see unfolding. And he keeps pointing at these blue
cities not just because they're blue, but many of them
are led by black men. There's black leadership, and a
lot of the these cities are doing things that are

(24:02):
in direct opposition to him. First, but then also too,
they're finding success with violent crime being down in many
of these cities, from Baltimore to Chicago and so on
and so forth. And these are sanctuary cities too. These
are cities that are welcoming migrants in this area, regardless

(24:22):
of all the flac they may have caught locally. They
welcome the people in which seems to be the antithesis
of what he wants. And isn't it funny that the
party that is so called for personal rights and personal
liberties and in states rights would exercise this type of
federal overreach. It's the same party that wants your kids
to think in school that the Civil War was about

(24:44):
states rights. But it's only about states rights when it's
about disenfranchising people especially.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yes, that's the history. I mean, that's why Ernest Krim
the third is my favorite millennial. All right, that's not
an or from notes. That's what he knows. It's what
he studies. It's what he takes with him into the
classroom every day. It's what he takes with him when
he arrives at the voting booth. All of that information

(25:10):
matters when you make a decision about who to vote
for and who not to vote for. Those are the facts.
That's the culmination of a free mind, of a free
black man's mind. Who can think that's what it sounds
like now, Ernest. I do have this question, however, because
our liberal friends right now, from my perspective, are unusually

(25:32):
quiet about the federal takeover of the district of Columbia.
We don't hear much from really, in my opinion, maybe
I've not heard it yet from Democrats in the Senate.
I've not heard much from our liberal friends in the
House of Representatives. Several governors want to be president of
the United States, but I don't hear them pushing back

(25:53):
against this federal takeover. We've got other governors who, as
a result of Governor Abbott and Texas's move against the
Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five, are now threatening
their own version of it, without mentioning that they would
have to unpack minority districts to create more conservative Democrats.
That's the reality. So you know, right down the middle

(26:16):
of this history is this black line that is our history,
and we get to observe it, right, but we also,
at the appropriate time get to intervene in it and
hold the line on what constitutes justice because neither side
I feel like the avatar, I see you, I see you.
It's like neither side can see us. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
It to me, it feels as though, from especially those
who are in power, there's a certain level of comfort
ability that they have that doesn't seem to make these
issues as urgent of a matter to them as they
are to the people on the grassroots level. We are
talking about issues now that are between life and death

(27:00):
for us. This is our livelihause these are people hopping
out of SUVs, unmarked cars, who are disappearing people. Again,
what we have seen happen to migrants to Latino and
black and otherwise is now happening to us, or it
was already happening, so as I should say, it's the
cycle of it all, but under this administration, it's now

(27:22):
happening to us. The target of BC that's against us
right now. And I think that when we consider, you
know why some may be still would support him, and
I know some people who look like me and otherwise
who supported him prior to the election and said they
were going to vote for him. In all those type
of nonsense, I think that there's so much pride that

(27:44):
people have and making their decision and pride and not
wanting to admit that they were wrong, And there's so
much grandstanding that I don't understand not being able to
call out something regardless of your party affiliation, when somebody
does something wrong. This is not a representation of what
anybody who claims to be for America and a democracy

(28:07):
should be for but you see so many people making
excuses for it, and it just rings of this allegiance,
this unmitigated allegiance to what we refer to as white supremacy.
But what often comes across, like my good friend John
Graham says, is white insecurity. There has to be I

(28:29):
understand there are a lot of things going on right now,
but for the congressional members on the Democratic side who
have not yet decided to speak up, everybody has a
role to play. And what I hate to see though
so often it seems as though those of us black folks,
especially who are the minority in Congress, are often the
ones who are put on the front lines of these

(28:49):
issues without any type of support. Who's going to take
this on. Everybody has a role to play and they
have to be front in center on this. On the
political end, we have to exercise every avenue we can
legally to confront this and contest this, and the community

(29:10):
on the grassroots level has to do the same. But
it doesn't feel like it's validated unless we have that
voice speaking out, and I think that's what we're missing
right now. I would like to be optimistic brother Jesse
and say, well, maybe because you know it's still very
early that maybe because it's just it just happened. People
are trying to, you know, put things, put pieces together.

(29:32):
But the time is now some type of statement must
be made for us.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
I am well, I'm somewhat bewildered by what is taking place,
the absence of certain voices, and I even woke up
this morning saying to myself that was taking place in
tex Texas.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Maybe maybe we're taking the wrong tact. And I know,
I just have a minute, So let me say this
me things. Democrats should not react to Abbots mid decinil
jerymandering scheme by opening up their state plans to comply
that do comply with the Voting Rights Act. Methinks states
should enter into a lawsuit together against the state of

(30:12):
Texas defending the Voting Rights Act. Let that be the issue.
If the p Supremes see the Democrats willing to join
Republicans mid dicinil Jerrymander, the Supremes will strike down the
Voting Rights Act and blame the Democrats. We need to
be plaintiffs in Texas against what Texas is doing, not
adjusting or conceding the Voting Rights Act in our states,

(30:35):
playing a game that could undermine our representation. I'm Jesse
Jackson Jr. When we come forward more with Ernest Krim
on KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty show on KBLA fifteen
eighty Ernest to welcome forward on to the show.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Thanks again for having me.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Brother. Ernest Krim the third has created content for companies
such as HBO, Hulu, Disney, Paramount, and The History Channel. Additionally,
he is the CEO of Crim's Cultural Consulting LLC and
international speaker who's spoken at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Microsoft,
Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp, and audiences in the
United Kingdom and Canada. The author of two books and

(31:16):
a passionate progressive education activists who's worked closely with organizations
to advocate for educational and political equity, reparations, mental health awareness,
and food justice. Ernest, We're really glad to have you
on our program today. You know what is the what
is the millennial thinking on this question of the overreach

(31:41):
of federal power and the unwillingness of the other branches
of government to hold the President of the United States accountable.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
I would say, you know, just of seeing this for
half a day or so. In going based on my
own feelings as well, I think that millennials, again going
back to some of our previous conversations too, we have
a distrust for those in power. We understand that there's
a need to participate, but we have a genuine distrust already.

(32:17):
So we already in a sense are wondering if they
if they could have done something to prevent it, more,
what they have done something. More So, from what I'm
seeing now, just the conversations I've scroll pass, there seems
to be this feeling of we have to do our best,
ourselves as best we can to mobilize our efforts. But then,

(32:38):
of course you also have folks who in any generation,
any group, that are apathetic to this and probably won't
be as concerned until it literally is knocking down or
coming down their block, knocking on their door, which we
see now is the intention, right. But I think that
there's already a distrust we have seen on the grassroots

(33:00):
level Jesse politicians who speak a certain way, who appear
to be grassroots, who appear to be you know, for
the people when they're coming up the ranks, and then
when they get elected, it seems as if they changed
completely or decided not to speak out on the same
issues that got them to that point. So it's really like, well,

(33:21):
what can we do ourselves because we don't think they'll
do anything anyway. And but on that same token, when
those politicians do speak up, I don't feel as though
we often give them the credit they deserve, because unfortunately,
those who are both enough to do such a thing
are often by themselves on an island.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
You know what I think that. Let me tell you
what I observed. I watched outside of government a bartender
become a member of Congress, And I mean she came
in there with all of the vivaciousness, all of the energy,
all of the excitement, all of the right stuff on

(34:00):
health care, housing and education and tips and everything else.
And now she's becoming increasingly a part of the establishment.
I think she still maintains some of her flare for
what is right, her youthful idealism, but that operating and
working the institution itself changes you, right, the institution itself.

(34:24):
Now I see a lot of millennials with a lot
of energy. They're very excited, they want to do right.
They've heard the call, but they don't necessarily go there with,
you know, a history, an understanding of the nuances of
all that it took to get to that moment that

(34:45):
they are there, and therefore, shortly thereafter getting there, rather
than advocating for the idealism that you suggest got them there,
they end up regurgitating the Democratic Party's talking points, which
are given to them the first thing in the morning
from people who've been writing them all night long, and

(35:07):
then they hand them to all of the Democrats, and
they expect those Democrats to tow what we call toe
the party line, that is, all of the things they
saw that needed to be fixed when they were running
for office. When they got there, they became institutionalized to
get to where they ultimately want to go, and suddenly

(35:29):
the things that they remembered from where they were mean less.
Does that kind of make sense to your.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Brother, definitely? And as you were speaking, I thought of
a sister named Corey Bush I believe it's her name,
and she was someone and again I don't know every
single thing she's voted on, but on the outside looking in,
being outside her district, it seemed to Zif coming from
that Ferguson struggle. She was saying true to a lot
of the things that she ran on, and they decided

(35:56):
the establishment ran somebody against her. And that's where we
have to come in as people and say that we
can't be fooled by them trying to have somebody come
in who's not going to actually speak up for us
in a manner that we want. Times are too trying
right now for us to have somebody that's going to
play the minim or the status quote. You know, like

(36:19):
it's almost like this quote and I'm probably gonna mess
it up a little bit, but like, there's no such
thing as neutral teaching. You know, as an educator, I
am not a giver of neutrality. I am choosing the
side of justice on everything. And when I was on
the in that classroom for twelve years, that is exactly
what it was. You can label me whatever party you

(36:40):
want to, but the fact that the matter is, I'm
on the side of the people. I'm on the side
of justice and what benefits us as folks in our
community and the broader humanity as a whole. And until
we have people in power who are willing to commit
to that, then we're going to see people do that.
It's like that, It's like, you know, the interview phase.
These politicians oftentimes will impress us people during the interview

(37:01):
and then they get the job and forgot everything that
they said. It's not just us who are whose livelihood
is at stake because of this presidency. It is them too,
and they have to realize that.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
I think, I think no truer words have been spoken.
We only have about a minute and a half left
before the before the heart stop at the top of
the hour, your thoughts, A word of hope from Ernest Krimir.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Oh Man, you put me on a spot with that
when I knew you were going to give it to me.
But asking for a word of hope, I would just
tell people, you know, when I speak to audiences, my
main goal to at all times is to say that
our people, especially during the period of enslavement, sisters like
Harriet tell me, brothers like Richard Allen, they did not

(37:51):
care who the president was. They did what was necessary
in that moment, and I want us to sometimes we
have to take the time to breathe in deeply and
not look at the bigger picture. Let's just focus in
on this moment and think about what we can do
that is most necessary. I recall being so discombobulated when

(38:11):
George Floyd was murdered in twenty twenty, and the thing
that got me moving forward though was to say, what's
happening right here that I need to do to help
my community out.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Ernest Krim is an Emmy nominated producer, public school teacher,
anti racist educator. He's always asking the question, what's love
got to do with it? Common unity, community, common unity?
What are we going to be and what are we
going to accomplish together? I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. This has
been another great hour on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty When

(38:41):
We Come Forward It is Moving Mountain Mondays with doctor
Teresa lord Owens, author of Staying at the Table. When
We Come Forward on the Jesse Jackson Junior showing the
show on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty, Moving Mountain Mondays The
Faith Not to Fall with Reverend Terry Hoard Owens on

(39:01):
the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Reverend Ary Hoard Owens is
the President and General Minister of the Disciples of Christ
in Canada and the US. Reverend Ary Hoard Owens joins
me to dive into the role of faith community and
stepping up to the challenges of being not only what
we say we are, but who we are ultimately within

(39:22):
the very fiber of who we are as a people.
Doctor Owens's new book, Staying at the Table, scheduled for
release just this past July twelfth, which serves as a
push for all believers to shun the hypocrisy that critics
may assign to the church in exchange for a unity
born from love, a vision to talk, to serve, to

(39:42):
work together, to fight for the cause of Jesus. Doctor Owens,
welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Thank you Congressman. As always, I've enjoyed listening into the
previous conversation and look forward to deeper conversation.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Doctor Owens the the idea that the President of the
United States not only is not expanding democracy by supporting
statehood for the citizens of the District of Columbia, where
they would have one voting representative Eleanor Holmes Norton in
the Congress and two United States Senators. I think the

(40:20):
same thing can be said of Puerto Rico. They could
have one United States congressman and two United States senators
based on the distribution of population in the last ten
censuses of the that's one hundred years. So this idea
of expanding democracy is absolutely on the retreat, Doctor ROWOODZ.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
It really is, and it's happening without a lot of
pushback and with a great deal of capitulation. I think
that's perhaps been the most disturbing thing is not even
so much the actions that Trump has undertaken in this
second term, but there is even less resistance and even

(41:07):
more capitulation from those in his party and even those,
as you've been mentioning, in the Democratic Party and in
the general public at large. It's almost as though, well,
he's the president, he gets to do that, and or
elections matter. What's falling apart is our understanding of the

(41:27):
actual rule of law. I grew up you. We grew
up in a generation where civil rights were secured through
legal means, right, we were in the courts. No people
in the United States has ever taken the Constitution as
seriously as black people. We were using every john and

(41:48):
tittle and claiming our rights there. So Jeneral Truth said,
you know, I love this Constitution, but it's got a
little weasel in it, and we've got to we've got
to get that out. But we're watching courts, federal courts,
federal appeals courts, Supreme Court, all rule in ways that

(42:11):
are affirming this huge expansion of executive power and are
diminishing and disrupting civil and human rights that our generation
grew up believing had been hard fought and hard won
by our ancestors. And so now I'm in the position of,

(42:35):
you know, I've got a two and a half year
old grandson. I'm in the position of fighting and working
so that these rights are not beyond his grasp. I mean,
it's just a serious upheaval, a shift, a clawing back,
and then an environment of a lack of resistance and
over capitulation by people who are literally put themselves and

(43:01):
their own financial gain above what's good for the country.
The only reason to capitulate to Trump if you're afraid
as a person who is in the Republican Party and
you're in a red district, et cetera. The only way
that you're capitulating is because you care more about being

(43:22):
wrecked reelected than you do about what's right. You care
more about the gain that you are experiencing than you
do about the justice that you came or that you
said you came to advocates. It's disturbing on so many levels.
It's it's evil. I've quit trying to be nice about

(43:43):
it and trying to find other euphemistic things to label it. Moral. Yes,
it's all of that, but sometimes you just have to
get kind of black and white and name a thing
a thing. It's it's it's evil. It's just evil.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I think we got that from ober Hendrick last week.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yes, yes, yes, I was shouting in my seat when
we said.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
That, given a demon a name. Let me ask you
a question. I know we're going to come forward in
the next segment talk about it. You brought this idea
that black people love the Constitution. No people have worked
the Constitution more. You know, it's so ironic that on
September seventeenth, seventeen eighty seven, a group of men in Philadelphia,
all white men, no white women, would sit around and

(44:26):
debate the structure of the government of the United States.
And yes, they did put something in the Constitution called
the Finger of God. There is no doubt about them.
I'm convinced of that. It's a literary word there, but
throughout the history it is the very people who are
not allowed in the room who've been fighting for the document. Yes,
it's amendments and its changes. I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. I

(44:49):
want to explore with Reverend doctor Teresa Lord Owens the
deeper meaning the faith that underlies the Constitution and why
we turned to it and others have turned their back
on it. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior listening to the Jesse
Jackson Junior Show on KBLA Talk fifteen. Then Teresa Ford Owens.
She is a doctor and a minister and the President

(45:11):
and General Minister of the Disciples of Christ Church both
here in the United States and Canada. Reverend Owens, welcome
forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Oh thanks, as always, it's always a treat to be
private conversation on Mondays.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Reverends, I want to go a little deeper on this
question of our faith. Now. On September seventeen, seventeen eighty seven,
it's a group of white men in Philadelphia Liberty Hall, arguing, fighting,
debating back and forth the structure of the government of
the United States. What would become the federal government recognizing

(45:45):
that there were states and territories who all had representatives
there battling over their respective interests. Yeah, now we weren't
allowed at that meeting. White women weren't allowed of that meeting.
A black woman who's the president of a major denomination
in the United States wouldn't have been allowed that meeting.
Probably nowhere near the meeting. In fact, you better not
be that meeting. And how two hundred and fifty years later,

(46:09):
the very rules that crushed us, either through the federal
government or the state government through the federalism system. How
we find ourselves decades later, two and a half centuries later,
defending the document and the rules, demanding that white men
follow the rules that white men put together, that we

(46:35):
amended the processes that allowed us to participate in the
structure of the government itself and in the country as
a whole, in the nation. They don't want to follow
the very rules that we've all been following since the
inception of the Republican And.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
It ain't like we can make them either right right
right right right right.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Part of it remendans we have faith in a in
a flawed document, and yet we still in your thoughts.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah, and it's always been flawed, right, It's never really
fully been all that it needs to be, even with
the very the Voting Rights Amendment, the Civil Rights Act
that are, you know, sixty four and sixty five respectively,
or the other way around. I think Civil Rights Act
sixty four, Voting Rights Acts sixty five, those things have

(47:26):
been torn apart by what I'll call the discretionary authority
of the Supreme Court. And I lay these failures squarely
at their feet and fully at their feet by number
one removing the requirement for federal oversight. And I think

(47:51):
we didn't understand fully at the time how important that was,
because you were talking with Ernest earlier about states right
and how we always turn to states rights when we're
trying to avert compliance with something that people feel safe
and just if it doesn't align either with your higher

(48:11):
values or with your economic interests, we christ states' rights.
But if the federal government does not have the ability
to oversee and ensure that the states were actively enforcing
those voted rights laws and those civil rights laws, the
whole thing falls apart. Because you know, as doctor King said,

(48:31):
I can't legislate your heart. All I can do is
give you or insist that you behave in a way
and behave in accordance with the rules that will affirm
my own dignity and my humanity. And even though we say,
and your reference to there being a finger of God

(48:52):
and there being this almost you know, expectation that the
people who served in government, the white men who serve
and government, would be those of high moral character. I've
heard some analysts say, well, there hasn't been enough. There
wasn't enough in the constitution to put more of a
check on the president's power, because the idea that somebody's

(49:15):
so fundamentally immoral and flawed as Donald Trump would ever
be in the office. So then I think we have
to ask ourselves questions about what does it mean to
vote in our interests? You know, posters will say, well,
people were voting because of prices and economic issues and sensitivity.
We can't just be one issue voters. We have to

(49:39):
be thinking citizens. We have to be people who engage
with news and information, and we have to be people
who speak up and demand from our elected officials those
things that are necessary. So I think it's we've gone
from a certain kind of inequitable society where we grounded

(49:59):
the ingest this in our view of God, a very
colonial view of God that God had to established, you know,
the Western white man on a higher level, the whole
doctrine of discovery, that we have the right to take
lands where the name of Gospel of Jesus needs to
be proclaimed. And now we're operating in a place where
we're not even pretending that faith is at the heart

(50:21):
of this. Now that slow dog whistle that I'm always
talking about of racism, that that Trump extends really to
lower income lights who really have more in common with
people of color than they're willing to admit. We've kind
of let morality go by the wayside, and we've allowed
somebody to talk us into a very narrow understanding of

(50:43):
what our self interests are. And it's there's so many
there's so many layers to it. It's hard to name
a single cause for what's happening. But we have to
be vigilant as even as in the midst of the
chaos they're trying to create, we have to be vigilant
about understanding how those layers go together and really trying

(51:05):
to get at the root of some of this.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Madam President, the Church itself, and no one knows it
better than you is divided, divided largely upon an inability
to agree on the word itself, on the Bible itself.
Obra Hendrix, Walter Flucker, Howard Thurman, yourself, Bob Franklin, Michael Dyson,

(51:31):
Cornell West, myself. We all agree on one interpretation, Doctor
King's interpretation by and large, William Barber's interpretation by and large.
But when we get to when we hand our same
Bible to Billy Graham and look at the same words,

(51:53):
it becomes a different Bible to the evangelical. Now, I'm
not hanging around that you're which as much as I'm
trying to say that theoretically we bought into this idea
that there is an agreement by all of us upon
the power of the Constitution of the United States. Now,
if we can look at the Constitution of the United

(52:16):
States and both sides see two different things, Yeah, then
there's no basis. There can never be a basis for agreement.
Except I'm reminded, as our ancestors spoke to this issue
so clearly when they read the book, everybody talking about
heaven ain't going there. Yeah, how do we take half

(52:43):
of the country that looks at the Constitution of the
United States and does not see your freedom or even
your right to be Madam President.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
And I think this is where the church really has
to stand up and as a mind saying, actually be
the church that we say we are, and not just
mottos and platitudes. And we want to get our numbers
back up. We want people to come to be in
the building on Sunday morning, and we're concerned about participation

(53:14):
in worship club basically on Sunday without preparing ourselves to
leave and do the work that the Gospel demands. It's
going to take I think a faithful few who will
take this work seriously, who will really understand that the
commandment to love one's neighbor has to be taken out

(53:36):
to its farthest logical conclusion. And that means that what
I want for myself I want for you, and I'm
willing to work to make that world a reality, a
world where you and I both get everything that we need.
I'm here in Calgary at the United Church of Canada's

(53:58):
General Conference. It is there by any triennial decision making conference,
and they are a full communion partner with my denomination
the Disciples of Christ, and in Canada they're probably their
number one justice issue is justice for indigenous peoples. And
they created a time when the elders from their indigenous

(54:20):
nations can speak to the church. And one of them said,
I look at a country like Denmark. You know, she's
a Canada and North America people claim to have these
these values of equal citizenship and equity. And she said
in Denmark, and I have a fact checked this, but
she said, you know, on one hand, in one house

(54:42):
you might have somebody who's a janitor or a teacher.
The next house you may have somebody who's a doctor,
and the disparity between those two people will not be
that vast. And there is this value of being able
to be safe at home. And what she said is
she quote a book called the Blue Zones, and she
said Denmark was kind of lifted up as this place

(55:06):
where she saw Native values, Indigenous values of community and
caring and sharing. And they're not being in equity among
what you have or how you operate being operated. So
there are some values that so many of our societies
have clung to that we have allowed colonialism, capitalism, and

(55:28):
if there's anything wrong with capitalism. I'm more, probably more
concerned about colonialism and the stain of racism that it's
left around the world, and the state of inequity. And
it's all been done in the name of Jesus, and
so we have to we have to uproot that and
really reclaim Jesus in terms of who Jesus really is
and what Jesus really meant. Jesus was the radical. He

(55:51):
was not intending to lift up those who already had
wealth and power. He cared about the poor, the least,
people who were marginalized and not recognized in society. That's
the Jesus and the Church has an opportunity to speak
in this moment. But we have to quit being so
concerned about our own institutions and be more concerned about

(56:12):
the impact we can have on the society in which
we live, because that's the real value that we bring,
not how wonderful worship is on Sunday morning, but the
witness and the work that we can do. Aligning ourselves
with community leaders, aligning ourselves with politicians, not to endorse politicians,
but to align ourselves a common cause, as I say,

(56:34):
not common belief. You don't have to believe as I
do theologically for us to agree that people need to eat,
that people need to have a decent education, that people
need to have full access to the vote, we don't
need to have theological arguments in order to agree on
what's good for humanity.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
You know, I want to go in this moment to
Fanny lou Hamer when you said that we can we
can pray until we faint. Yeah, but if we don't
work and do something, it ain't gonna do nothing.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
Yeah, pray with your feet.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Marcus Garvey said, we must give up on the silly
idea that to ask God to do everything while we
do nothing, it is not faith, but it's ludicrous. Doctor
King says, of course that to ask God to do
everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.

(57:34):
I have to come to that in this moment because
it seems to me that somehow the action that we take.
Let me try and say it another way, the rules
are changing. And I thought, with everything that we've been
through in the last two hundred days of the Donald
Trump administration, maybe we would win the House. Maybe maybe

(57:58):
Jesus would intervene in this process through the people in
the form of We've had enough. So why am I
engaging this voting rights struggle at this hour? Because the
rules are changing mm hmm. And the Jesus that I serve,
if these rules change in the middle of the decinial period,

(58:20):
the middle of a decade, something we've never done before,
I'm afraid Jesus may lose. That the intervention I've been
waiting for could be undermined by the rules changes of men. Yes,
and so when you say step up, I mean we
have to give our faith a little bit of a

(58:40):
boost in this period, with some righteous indignation, with some protests,
with some hell no, we won't go right.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
And any of us are are showing up in lots
of places in DC. If you looked at my expense
reports since then curation, you will see I've clocked a
whole lot of time in DC. Even then the press
conference this morning about the quote unquote federal takeover. You know,
I pay attention to that stuff because I'm likely to

(59:13):
be there, you know, the next week or so. But
stepping up is you know, We've prayed on the steps
of Capital right with senators, and we had them read scripture,
and we we did prayer vigils all through Lent in
front of the White House and in the little side
lawn next to the Capitol that's right there near the

(59:35):
Methodist building. Lots of us have been in and out.
But the real thing if people don't show up to
vote and actually make this change, and I think that's
at the heart of some of this apathy. Do we
have to have a black man on the ballot to
get black people out to the ballot? Nine I'm part
of the ninety two percent right of black women who

(59:56):
voted for Kamala But what's the full percentage of black
Black women who voted. The elector at this time was
seventy one percent white, and of that seventy one percent
of white women voted voted for Trump. Voted against their
own interests. Theoretically, poor people who are considered low wealth

(01:00:23):
and low income were among those who did not vote.
William Barber always makes the argument that if those people,
if we can reach the poor to let them know
that they're vote, their franchise matters, and we can get
them to really understand and they're actually more poor white
people in terms of numbers than there are poor people

(01:00:43):
of color. And that's where that dog whistle of racism
and that dog whistle that says they're stepping on your
back on their way up, and so you've got to
take your country back. They don't understand that they have
common cause with us and need to get out and vote.
There is a campaign called Faith United to Save Democracy

(01:01:06):
that comes out of the Skinner Institute, led by Reverend
doctor Barbara william Skinner, trying to get chaplains, clergy and
people to not only get out and register, but to
prepare to be a presence at the polls to ensure
there aren't voter id issues, there aren't voter suppression issues.
So there are some moves that I see the organized
church taking in order to really do some concrete things

(01:01:30):
to boost the whole issue of voting and getting people
to the polls.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Barbara Williams Skinner, boy, that's a blast from the past.
And her husband what a ministry together in retreat helping
ministers think through liberation theology and path for action. I'm
Jesse Jackson Junior. You're listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior
Show on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. Our very special guest
in this hour is none other than Reverend doctor Teresa

(01:02:00):
hort Owens. When we come forward on KBLA, I'm Jesse
Jackson Junior. Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
It is moving Mountain Mondays with Teresa hort Owens the
Faith not to fall on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
Pastor Owens, Reverend, doctor, General, Minister and President, Welcome forward

(01:02:20):
to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Oh thanks for having me. These Mondays are good for
my soul.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
I tell you, Madam President, I do have some soul
wrenching questions here, and one of them is about the
Constitution itself. It seems to me that we keep hearing
in the news, and I think you've talked about it
in previous programs, that we are either in or heading
to a constitutional crisis, and towards that end. I would

(01:02:46):
have more faith in the Constitution if it could deliver
from my children a better public school, public school of
equal high quality, Olympic sized swimming pools, tennis courts, all
of their after school activities right there at the school.
Whatever my son wants to do or wanted to do,
my daughter wanted to do ballet fencing, whatever, the best

(01:03:07):
of math, the best of Latin, French, English, whatever courses
she wanted to take. I really wish that were the
definition of a public school. I wouldn't have to spend
money on a private education because the public school would
have all of these things. And if I could go
to the Constitution and force my state's legislature to build
that for me right here in my neighborhood, I would

(01:03:29):
have faith in the Constitution as an individual. And that's
true of my healthcare. By the way. If I could
turn to my Constitution and say, you know what, I've
got the rickets, I got this, I got that, I
got the rheumatism, I got the rheumatoid something wrong with me.
But I got this thing called the right to healthcare
of equal high quality. And wherever I go in America,

(01:03:50):
this right follows me. And I can get sick in Chicago,
sick in Los Angeles, sick in Baltimore, sick in Atlanta,
sick anywhere, and I'm good to go because the best nurses,
the best doctors are going to be there doing this thing,
providing me with the best possible care on earth under
a single standard, I would have faith in the Constitution.

(01:04:11):
It seems to me that both sides liberal, conservative, Democrat
and Republican have lost faith in something that we agreed on.
Help me here, reverend, help me restore my faith in something.

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
Yeah. I have a little thing around my neck, a
little silver bar that has Philippians one in six. You
talk about confidence, this is I'm confident in this that
the one who began a good work in you will
complete it by the day of Jesus Christ. My confidence
is not in a whole lot other than God right now.

(01:04:47):
But that said, I think these undergrad you know, I
was a government political science major in college and an
Afri America Studies minor, and my dad is a in
too many times as a black studies professor. And the
founding of our nation, as you know, was really the

(01:05:10):
only people who were included, and we the people at
the beginning, were property owners, white male property owners. And
it's it's that understanding of property that has grounded so
much of we of what we take for granted. It's
that it's why we value it. It's it's the secret
to to climbing the latter owning things, being able to

(01:05:34):
amass things and property in real estate and money and investments.
Black people were chattel, that we were property, and we
had to break the definition of property around that in
order to vote for constitutional amendments that both destroyed slavery,

(01:05:54):
but even declared in the fourteenth Amendment that that black
people were citizens and that anybody born in the US
is a citizen to amend it with voting rights acts
and amendments that should have been really not just a
voting rights access legislations. But they gave us the vote

(01:06:14):
but didn't guarantee the protection of the vote in the Constitution.
And I think your point about some of these things
really needing to be codified are really important. We now
tie everything, both healthcare and education to how much property
you have right are in most states the quality of

(01:06:36):
the education is based on the value of your property.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
I have a friend black family that live in Northbrook.
The wife is from Texas. They had previously had their
child in a very conservative Christian school in Northfield. I
used to work out in that area when I was
with IBM. When they move their child to public school,

(01:07:03):
child gets issued a chromebook every semester, like you say,
Olympic sized pool, all kinds of programs, math science, chess club, band,
orchestra choir, and she said, Wow, public schools are just
really great. This is awesome. Public schools are doing more
than the private Christian school I was paying for. I said, no,

(01:07:26):
your property tax base here in Northbrook is providing this
particular public school. If you go down south and look
at Harper High School or other high schools in Englewood
and other parts of the South Side where the property
tax values are not as great. You know, our friend
and pastor, Reverend James Meeks, when he was in the

(01:07:47):
State Senate, helped students at New Trier right come and
visit Harper High School. The kids themselves saw the huge
disparities between what one had and the did not have.
And it's because we have not let go of that
of that idea that property is what determines value and

(01:08:09):
property is what determines access. And we talk about public education,
you know, with white flight from the cities, that's why
we want chartersh schools because we've left our property interests
and those who are left with least resources are at
the mercy of what local school boards and local cities

(01:08:31):
and even states want to do. So I think that
property issue is still insidious in our system.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Madam President, I want to share with you that Reverend
Meeks's experiment between Harper and Nutrier in this moment was
as profound as the Clerk studies and the Doll test.

Speaker 4 (01:08:51):
Yes, I will really need.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Our ministers and our churches to find the equal, high
quality school and take a bus, not this and not vitriolically,
take a bus load of the students in the school
where the least of these are on their best behavior,
and take them to the school for a tour where

(01:09:13):
other students are enjoying in a public school. All of these.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
Things right in a public school.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
And then we need to take the children in this
school and as we bring them south or east or
west or where we live, they need to be on
their best behavior. So when they come and see what
we don't have, not only can they better understand, but
maybe we take both groups of students to dinner and
have a conversation about the structural inadequies, inadequacies in schooling alone,

(01:09:48):
just in schools alone.

Speaker 4 (01:09:49):
In schooling alone, because if that aspect of our children's
lives is not equitable. You were talking about, you know, Loalter,
and I joked, it's like if I have to mop floors.
Our son, Mitchell, was going to be in a private
school because that was the best way that we could
assure his access to certain things that we wanted him

(01:10:11):
to have. Walter and I who both went to public schools,
And you know, I say this to people all the time.
Our ancestors, my grandparents fought for things. They thought we
would be the children of the promise, right, and here
we are still fighting for our kids and grandkids. But
that inequity if it starts in education and what you're
exposed to, what resources you have. You know, I've mentored

(01:10:36):
kids who have and taken them downtown. They've never been downtown,
never seen what downtown looks like, never experienced the whole city.
Don't even know what the resources are like. Exposure and
access to options and opportunity. If that doesn't start to
happen in public schools, then our society is immediately inequitable
and the kids can never really catch up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
You know. I went to a private school that my
parents suggestion in Washington, DC. When my dad was running
for president. He was in Washington more than he was
in Chicago. And then I had my own children and
got elected to Congress in this moment. I went to
six different public schools in Washington, d C. And my
wife and I at that time made the judgment that
our children belonged in a decent private school because of

(01:11:20):
the facilities. Yes, yes, and then well paying for their
private tuition. The rest for me was history, just for
the times what it was. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Welcome
forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. When we come
forward more with Reverend doctor Terry Bard Owens fifteen eighty.

(01:11:41):
Our very special guest in this hour is none other
than the President and General Minister of the Disciples of
Christ in Canada and the United States, Reverend Theesa Hort Owens.
Madam President, Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
Thank you so much, my friend. Always good to be here,
Madam President.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Before we get to our word of hope that you
know is pretty much the last three minutes of the program,
we have about seven minutes. Can you share with us
some of the challenges that a multi racial congregation like
the one that you lead are confronting at this hour?

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
Oh my goodness, you know we are predominantly white denomination
eighty percent black, I mean eighty percent white, ten percent Black,
about seven percent Hispanic, and three percent Asian and Pacific Islander.
And the Asian Pacific Islander community is really the fastest
growing percentage wise. Within that community, there are nineteen different
languages that are spoken. So it's a fascinating church. But

(01:12:37):
we deal with the same kinds of polarization that you
see across the US, and at the heart of some
of the struggle is that people are still yielding the
primacy of their faith to political categories. You know, the

(01:12:58):
whole issue with Christian nationalism. Our church has spoken against
it and opposed it, but we still have people who
simply think, well, I'm a Christian and I love my country,
so therefore, what's wrong with being a Christian nationalist and
don't even begin to question issues of white supremacy, etc.

(01:13:19):
So when you deal in an organization that's still predominantly white,
part of the challenge that we have is getting beyond
our colonial view, right that says, oh, we're so excited
we're welcoming all these people to the table, and still
subliminally thinking this is our table. Right, Oh, we elected

(01:13:41):
a black woman to be our president, and then expecting
that person to simply be a colorized version of what
has gone before of inviting people to the table and
not respecting their culture, their worship style, or even the
variations and how they express their theology. What's the norm
and what's not the norm. So multicultural denominations have to

(01:14:05):
work really hard to move past Western white culture being
the norm. I've seen it in Canada as i've been
here this week. There are I didn't realize that the
Canadian population twenty percent of the population are African immigrants percent,
and yet many of these people still feel unseen. There's

(01:14:27):
great sensitivity to Indigenous culture and indigenous presence in this church,
but it's still white, normative culture. So we've still got
a lot of work to do within churches like mine
that are trying to be multicultural, because we can't just
determine that I'm I have a friend Julia Middleton, who

(01:14:52):
does a lot of work around cultural intelligence in the UK,
and she's done some work in the US as well,
and she says, you are not the benchmark for people.
I love that line. You, the way you see the world,
the way you express yourself, the way you've dressed, what
you value, you are not the benchmark for the whole

(01:15:12):
world the benchmark by which others should be judged. And
in the church, we're still in the US a white
normative church when it comes to predominantly white churches, and
we have to get past that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
I think that's right. We have just a few minutes
before the end of our show. In fact, we have
about five Is there hope? In this hour, we see
the attacks on the voting right tact. We see the
takeover by the federal government of the District of Columbia,
with the threats of moving those takeovers to the people
of Baltimore, to the people of Oakland, California, to other

(01:15:50):
cities within the United States. We see a political party
that many of us identify with polling around twenty six
percent scent favorability ratings. It's as if they're not putting
up the fight. And it's all occurring at a time,
as we've discussed in the last hour, that people are losing,

(01:16:10):
are losing faith in our sense of common belief in something.
In the church, we pick up the same Bible, but
we see two different stories in the body public, in
the body politic. In the public. We pick up the
Constitution and we see the first fifteen presidents weren't very helpful.
Then Abraham Lincoln number sixteen, and so forth and so on.

(01:16:31):
The struggle continued. The basis for agreement, and maybe I
can put it for you this way. Why shouldn't we
all stay at the table?

Speaker 4 (01:16:42):
I think the Bible says hope does not disappoint, and
for someone like me who is a faith leader, there
has to be this confidence in this higher power that
I believe will ultimately prevail. The Bible is full of
stories of people's throughout history who have dealt with a

(01:17:03):
great number of valleys and difficulties, and yet have relied
on the power of whoever they call the Holy to
bring them through. And I think that's the role of
faith leaders. John Lewis always said, don't you know, don't
get discouraged, don't get weary. I'm reminded of the poem
by Langston Hughes the Negro Mother, and it says, life

(01:17:24):
for me ain't been no crystal stairs. So it's at
tax in it and boards, place boards torn up, and
places with no carpet on the floor. So don't you
get weary, don't you quit climbing, because life for me
ain't been no crystal stare, and I think of the
legacy of our ancestors who fought against odds even greater,

(01:17:50):
the terrors of slavery, the terrors of the post reconstruction world,
the KKK days in the early twentieth century, even the
Jews facing holocaust and extinction, the people in Gaza, people
in Ukraine who are dealing with so much. We have
to really hold our heads eye and those of us

(01:18:11):
who could claim faith in a God that's bigger than
all this have to not only stand in that faith,
but act in that faith and really assume some agency.
This is not the time for people of faith to
be apolitical. It's the time for people of faith to
mobilize their communities and help make this society one that

(01:18:34):
reflects the values that we believe in. You could argue
that those who are Christian nationalists have tried to do that,
but I'm talking about values of equity and inclusive love.
Anytime we're exclusive, then I think we're violating the very
law of God.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
You know, I must be candid. You give me hope
to be a faith leader of a multicultural environment cultural
congregation in two different countries, to hold people together who

(01:19:10):
have varying political views and probably politically don't agree on
very much, but come together around the concept of the gospel,
the concept of a sacrificial life of a servant leader,
someone that two thousand years ago, that even to this
day is worth following, yea. And to hold all of

(01:19:32):
that together in the present. To be a woman, to
be an African American woman and look out upon from
the mountaintop or even from the valley, view the division
that exists within the nation, and then to look out
upon a multi cultural throng of people and say, I'm

(01:19:53):
going to preach a gospel that holds everyone together. Now,
it's easy in this environment to preach a god hospel
to everybody who looks just like me, feels like me,
talk like me, like me. But setting up every Sunday
then Monday through Saturday, trying to figure out a new
angle on a new blister in the society has got

(01:20:16):
to be some kind of extraordinary. I just want to
take this opportunity to say that we're so proud of
you and so great your contributor to this program.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):
Thank you. It's a joy to be here every week.
Thanks for the confidence in me to have me here
sharing with you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
I can't wait until next week. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior.
This is the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. You've been listening
to Moving Mountain Mondays. On the Jesse Jackson Junior Show,
we have a pretty amazing week scheduled for you. It's
Tenacious Tuesdays with Barbara Arnwine, Wealthy Wednesdays with reverend S
Todd YERI on Thursdays none other than Johnny Mack and

(01:20:55):
on thought provoking Thursdays that is, and on Friday that
Meat Fridays with Gina Towns. That's what I line up
like this week, and we're looking forward to having a
lot of fun, unless, of course, Donald Trump intervenes with
something crazy that changes the course of our week. I'm
just Tex. We come forward. You're on KVLA Talk fifteen

(01:21:15):
to eighty more tomorrow