The UpWords Podcast
Each week, we sit down with scholars, authors, and leaders to explore faith, vocation, culture, and what it means to think and live well. For curious Christians and honest seekers. An initiative of SLBF STUDIO at Upper House in Madison, WI.
The UpWords Podcast
Belonging Is Not Proximity | Rev. Dr. Alex Gee
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This summer, the UpWords Podcast is featuring leaders making a tangible difference in the Madison community. Host Rebecca Cooks sits down with Rev. Dr. Alexander Gee — pastor, author, and founder and CEO of the Center for Black Excellence and Culture — for a wide-ranging, honest conversation recorded not long after the Center's grand opening drew more than 1,500 people through its doors.
They talk about what the Center actually is — part museum, part business incubator, part performing arts venue, part neuroscience research lab — and how it grew out of listening sessions with more than 700 Black Madisonians. From there, the conversation turns to belonging: why Rev. Dr. Gee insists belonging is not the same as proximity, and why he believes American integration, as it actually unfolded, cost Black communities more than it gave — including the story of the 36,000 Black teachers who lost their jobs when schools integrated. They also discuss the Harlem Renaissance and W.E.B. Du Bois, what has kept Rev. Dr. Gee rooted in Madison across four decades, his advice for minorities discerning whether to stay in the city and for white residents who want to be genuine allies, and why he believes the Black church — not the American government — has shaped the moral conscience of the nation. The conversation closes with reflections on the art and music that heal.
GUEST BIO
Rev. Dr. Alexander Gee is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Black Excellence and Culture in Madison, Wisconsin, and the founding lead pastor of Fountain of Life Covenant Church. He also founded the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development and its "Justified Anger" initiative, and he serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Over more than 40 years of ministry and community leadership, he has raised more than $70 million for Madison-area organizations addressing racial disparities, including the $33 million Center for Black Excellence and Culture, which opened debt-free with a grand-opening celebration on May 6, 2026, drawing over 1,500 visitors.
LINKS
- https://www.theblackcenter.org/
- https://africanamericanstudies.wisc.edu/
- https://africanamericanstudies.wisc.edu/2024/05/13/reverend-dr-alex-gee-receives-honorary-doctorate/
- https://nehemiah.org/
- https://nehemiah.org/jacourses/
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Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.
This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.
Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour
Edited by Dave Conour
— Introduction & Welcome
SPEAKER_01What do black people want? We want what every major culture wants. We want what the American culture wants: acceptance, education, health care, wellness, a chance to succeed, not having our progress or excellence being pursued as a DEI endeavor or an affirmative action endeavor. We want to be excellent and brilliant and smart like we've been, without having to justify why we're excellent and smart. And in leadership, so no, we just we just want to belong.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Upwards Podcast, where we explore the intersection of Christian faith in the academy, the church, and the marketplace. This summer, we're featuring leaders from right here in the Madison community, people whose work is making a tangible difference in our city. Today, Rebecca Cooks is joined by Reverend Dr. Alex G, pastor, author, founder, and CEO of the Center for Black Excellence and Culture, and an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Few people have had a greater impact on the civic, cultural, and spiritual life of Madison than Dr. G. Their conversation explores what it truly means to belong, the role of faith in the Black experience, the complicated legacy of integration, and why understanding our history is essential if we're going to build a healthier community together. This is a thoughtful, honest conversation that invites all of us to listen carefully, reflect deeply, and imagine a more hopeful future. Here's Rebecca Cooks and Reverend Dr. Alex G.
— Catching Up: A New Studio and a New Grand Opening
SPEAKER_05Thanks for joining us today. It's great to be here. When was the last time that you were in the space?
SPEAKER_01Because you were noticing some changes, which is probably about three years. I think it was for the Midwest Preaching Conference.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So it was certainly before the current remodeling.
SPEAKER_05Right, with this fancy studio and everything.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful.
SPEAKER_05And you have your own amazing, incredible space now, the Center for Black Excellence and Culture.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. We had an official uh grand opening on May 6th after about 15 months of construction and about six years of fundraising and about seven years of planning, 12 years of forecasting when we acquired the property, but probably 40 years of envisioning.
SPEAKER_05Wow, 40 years in the making.
SPEAKER_0140 years in the making.
SPEAKER_05The line on that day for the grand opening was just down the block. It like it was a long block, too.
SPEAKER_01None of us anticipated that. We had over 1,500 people show up. It had to be one of the coolest grand openings for a community-based nonprofit in the city's history. And it was fantastic. It was a little chilly that day. Thank God it wasn't scorching like, you know, like the uh you know, the few weeks after that. Right. But it was a little chilly, and some people had to get out of line and not stay because they just thought they could, as we had all anticipated, just show up, walk through, and leave. They didn't know that there was a 45-minute wait.
SPEAKER_05Wait, right. It was a surprise for everybody.
SPEAKER_01That was that was uh that was a beautiful day on so many accounts.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Can you just share a little bit if um someone has not been to the center yet? Can you share a little bit about what the center is for, how you're envisioning it?
— What Is the Center for Black Excellence and Culture?
SPEAKER_01You know, there's so much discussion nowadays about belonging. And uh Madison, as well as Wisconsin's losing a lot of its black brain power, spiritual power, intellectuals, because um the state of Wisconsin does not feel very welcoming. And when that's the case, it's not a strong sense of belonging. And so the center is a creation of something that grew out of discussions with about 700 black local community folks. This is pre-COVID. So this is not Zoom, this is butts in seats, people coming to events, listening and giving feedback, and really directed us on things that would make the community feel like belonging. And the focus of the center is not Madison, but it's really statewide. And so it's part museum and cultural center because there's tremendous artwork and homage to um historic black figures. But it's also business space because we have a center for imagination, innovation, and leadership where we help entrepreneurs take ideas from concept to something that's operational with pro bono legal services and finances to invest in our businesses, to event space where we have two lounges in the space for organizations and associates to gather. But it's also performing space because we have a black box. Well, it's it's actually painted white, but it's but it's an experimental theater. Um and then we have a performing arts space that sits about 300 people. It's the largest and newest black-owned theater or auditorium in in Wisconsin. And then on top of all of that, it's very Pan-African in its focus. So African, Caribbean, Afro-Latino, and um African-American cultures come, and even broader than that, because there's there's there's Asian African cultures and Canadian African cultures, but it's a place where we celebrate culture. And it's also a place where we're doing research at the highest level, where we're um hiring neuroscientists to help us measure and um study the impact of cultural space on the black brain and on black wellness, health, and a deeper sense of belonging. So it's a space where that's very cross-cultural, multicultural in terms of the Pan-African diaspora. But there are spaces where art is celebrated. We have a library, we have a senior space. I mentioned the event spaces, so we hold lots of event spaces. So it's really a place that gathers a microcosm of our broader community to celebrate our excellence and the things that helped us survive everything we survived in this country. But it also gives us an opportunity through our performances, through our gallery, through our plays and comics, storytellers and lectures to share our rich Pan-African history with the broader community. So there's space where everyone's welcome, but they get to learn about black culture, black excellence, and black history through our lens. And that's something that's told on our behalf. So it's it's uh, I guess to sum that up, that's a long answer. But but uh, but it's really a place where we're creating um an ecosystem that really celebrates the accomplishments of the black culture and examples of black excellence rather than all of the negative and pejorative things that we tend to talk about, slavery chain shackles. I mean, I'm an I'm an African-American history major as an undergrad. So of course I know that those things are true, but what's left out of those classes were the keys to success. And inside those spaces was a lot of faith that's not often told in the textbooks at a historic and very famous Department of African-American history like the one we have at the University of Wisconsin. So we want to weave that part in as well. So it's a place that holds the community. It allows for mentoring and cross-cultural interaction and business development, storyteller of storytelling development, whether it's through podcasts or singing or plays or comedy, but a place where we get to um bring in our research chops because we know this kind of space is important, which is why we fight for it. But it's never, it's not regularly explained in terms of neuroscience. Um and so we get to explain not only how we deal with but why we do what we do because of the benefit on black wellness.
SPEAKER_05There are so many components that you just listed, right, to to create an ecosystem.
— Building an Ecosystem: What to Say Yes and No To
SPEAKER_05How did you begin to choose the different avenues that you would try to lean into from pro bono law help to helping with business to arts? Andor like what did you say no to, if any?
SPEAKER_01Oh, uh great questions. What we said yes to came largely from the community and listening. That's why the community involvement was so important. And it's one of the things that we push that most of what's built for the black community in a place like Madison is not built by the black community. With the exception of Black Church, but many of us are becoming way more multicultural and multi-ethnic. But it used to be that space where our leaders and public speakers and musicians were developed. Yeah. Since that's not the case so much, the center is picking up part of what the church used to do and what it used to offer. Uh, certainly for a non-church crowd. And then staff is brilliant. And so, and they bring lots of experience from um Lileta, my sister, who's an artist and activist, to Jason, my chief strategy officer, who's a former state representative, to Janine, who has an MBA and she's an entrepreneur, her family owns, you know, a couple of um small businesses. And so when people come in, they have ideas.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they say, what if we, or I saw something on the internet, or I've always dreamed of. And so after after the community spoke into it, the staff spoke into it. So that's how that's how we decided what to say yes to. And then when the community, both philanthropic, scientific, educational, saw that the black community was um coalescing itself, partners stepped up. Like this afternoon, I'm meeting with someone from the Alzheimer's Dementia Research Research Center because they want to understand not only why black people are leading in the development of new of new cases of dementia, and we know why it's basically related to a lot of stress that's due to racial battle fatigue and just the stress of just navigating today's reality as a person of color, specifically as a black person. But we're finding that there's lots of interest because we're gathering people and we're looking at ways of producing wellness rather than looking at why we're dying more readily and speedily than our white counterparts. Right. We I can read 15 journal articles on why black people are dying more speedily or readily than their white counterparts. But I'd be hard-pressed to find a place that says, But here's what they're doing in in Cincinnati, here's what's going on in Des Moines that's helping to close that gap. We want to close that gap and study that. And of course, that gets the interest because we have already, we're already drawing to black people, which is something that major universities cannot, particularly those in cities like Wisconsin, where we said no to a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_05I mean you'd have to.
SPEAKER_01You have to because when people see space, they get excited. And so I have to remind I had to remind people we want to spark innovation and imagination. So we understand we cannot be all things to everyone. No business can, unless you're Amazon.
SPEAKER_05Oh, they're trying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're trying. Yeah, I remember when it was just books. I can't believe it's groceries and everything else now. But we reminded people come to the center and grow your ideas. Like if there's something that we're not doing, we don't want to be a health center because we have great partners that are within walking distance. We don't want to be a huge business hub like the Urban Leagues, a Black Business Hub. Dr. Reuben Anthony is a personal friend of mine. And so we don't want to duplicate what's going on. So anything, now we we train leaders and help people to take ideas and side hustles and turn them into a real um revenue generator, but not sizable small businesses like what Dr. Anthony has. And so I'm aware of what's going on in the community. And so if people were trying to encourage us to do what someone else is doing, we stepped away from that. We're not a political advocacy group, we're not NAACP. So there are a lot of things people wanted us to um put in a community pool, uh, or to put storage bins for people that needed them. Or I think someone wanted another or wanted a laundromat, or they want us to start a school. And we said, well, we have clean care in one city. So we said no to a myriad of things because it competed with the great work what was already going on in our community by our community leaders. That's not our goal. Our goal is to meet the gaps, but to also help people to work more collaboratively, but also reclaim the gift of arts and creativity in helping us really cope. A hundred years ago, during the Northern Migration, when families, my family moved from Missouri and Mississippi to Chicago and to Illinois and to Wisconsin, five, six million black folks migrated. And the way we left the pain of the post-slavery, yet seemingly still present, attitudes and Jim Crow attitudes of the South was to take our song, blues, jazz, gospel, art, dancing, singing, and that fueled our migration north, you know, um, as we moved northward. And that's how we developed the Harlem Renaissance or our cultural centers in Detroit and Chicago, that was really fueled by the pain of the South. And so rather than addressing what's happening in our community through traditional social services, which my other nonprofit from which I've retired, Nehemiah, focuses on that. But the center really looks at how do we take art and creativity and use that as not only fuel, but a healing balm. Because historically that's worked. That's what we're trying to pick back up. I'm sorry, Rebecca. That's such a long answer, but um, but an important response.
SPEAKER_05Yes, absolutely. I mean, you're making my job very easy. I can just ask you one question and I get all of my other questions answered. This is really lovely. You were talking about neuroscientists looking at black belonging specifically.
— Belonging Is Not Proximity
SPEAKER_05Is there something unique about black belonging that you are expecting to see that might be separate than just belonging in general?
SPEAKER_01Someone asked me once, probably out of some frustration, you know, Alex, what what do you want? What do black people want? We want what every major culture wants. We want what the American culture wants: acceptance, education, healthcare, wellness, a chance to succeed. Um, not having our progress or excellence being pursued as a DEI endeavor or an affirmative action endeavor. We want to be excellent and brilliant and smart like we've been, without having to justify why we're excellent and smart in leadership. So no, we just we just want to belong. What's different is what causes us to feel a sense of belonging. And belonging is not proximity. People think that it is. Like I'm sitting in the studio and I'm here as a guest, but I don't belong here. Like I'm not gonna go into the refrigerators, I'm not gonna walk into an office and start looking through computer files because I don't have access, nor do I want it. That comes with responsibility. But when you belong, my daughter's an adult. When she comes home, she can eat what she wants, go where she wants, sleep what she wants, because she belongs as hers. She's invested in those who own it know that not only will it all be bequeathed to her, but in the interim, it's hers as well. She was raised there. So it shapes her identity. When life is hard, and you know, um, she's a librarian, and so when life is hard or just not necessarily because of race, sometimes because of race, but if she just needs a getaway, home is it. She's not gonna wash the dishes, she's still gonna bring her her laundry. Um, you know, those those, you know, that's what happens when, you know, when you when you have a girl's dad and uh and you're the only child, and we've I've waited my whole life to be a dad. So yeah, she can pretty much get whatever she wants. Um but that sense of belonging allows her to see that as a port in storm as opposed to a hotel where you're gonna have to pay to leave, you can't take anything out of it. In a place like Madison, many people can feel that sense of belonging. But what happens is when you really belong, you start thinking about paint color. Like the center belongs to me. It's a nonprofit, so I don't own it, of course. Sure. But it but in as much as it belongs to the board and to the creators, which means I had say so in the furniture color and carpeting color and the size of the rooms and what the offices would look like and what the space would look like. I had a chance to speak into all of that. When we think that ownership or belonging is just proximity, then when you're just through proximity sitting at a bus stop and you start painting the shelter or hanging up paintings or laying down a carpet or using an extension cord and putting an air fryer on the bench, you know, someone from the city is going to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, you can't you can't do this. This is public space. But when you belong, you have say so. I think what people aren't used to is that in our situation, I'm speaking specifically to the black experience. If we're told we belong, then we have thoughts and ideas and suggestions and things to really make it feel like home and belonging. That's typically when the breakdown happens. Well, why can't this just be everyone's sofa? Why does it have to be this color or this style? Or why does that have to be the normative food? Or why does this music not work? This is very mainstream, or and then we have to justify what makes us feel like we're belonging, which by definition makes us not belong. And so we choose things like in the women's center. My sister has leopard print on sofas and on the carpeting, and she had to fight with the architects and the interior designers. They're like, we don't know if we can find, and they just assumed it's gonna be gaudy. And you know, she's an artist, so it's not gonna be gaudy. And she said, Let me tell you something. You all know architecture, but I know black women. When a black woman walks in and sees leopard print, whether she likes it or not, she's gonna know that that space was built for her. And when I'm doing tours and the sisters walk in that space, they gasp because it's beautiful, it's opulent, but it has this sophisticated animal print on sofas and carpets, the very things that the experts fought as they helped us design a space that promotes black belonging, when she pushed to get it, whether it's girls or women, I've heard them gasp. One time we took Nehemiah's staff through it, one participant in our leadership institute actually got down on the floor, just decided to lay down on the carpet. Yeah, I got a picture of it because I just said this is I've got to show this to the architects because Loleda said when sisters walk in, they're going to know when she saw the print, something just spoke to her. So belonging is about speaking into your environment, your curriculum, the artwork, the methodology, the attitudes. And when there's not a readiness to share that, then belonging is just a misnomer. It's reduced to mere proximity. And that means I'm family of the people that live on my cul-de-sac, whether I know them or not. And this we share a zip code, but we don't really share, share a kinship. And we're wanting to really promote that sense of belonging. And we're tired of asking for it. So we said, let's create a space where we get to dictate what that's looked like, what that looks like, and then share our non-black friends and family into the space to say, this is what belonging looks like to us. To which they say, I get it. I get it. Because we didn't think we had to do this because we just assumed we all belong it the same way. No, because the people who design society and buildings and culture and universities not only don't look like us, but they don't think like us and don't care to. And I'm not saying that to be mean, it's just the truth. And so there's been so much peace that's come to us by being able to create that space, to use pain to fuel moving forward, and to use business and faith and culture and performance and intergenerational programming to create a sense of loved belonging, has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my work in ministry from the past 40 years, 45 years I've been in ministry.
SPEAKER_05You also said that you are trying to reclaim a sense of belonging because you feel
— Has Black Belonging in Madison Ever Been Strong?
SPEAKER_05like belonging has been lost or is decreasing. Was there a point where you feel like belonging, particularly for the black community in Madison, was stronger? And if so, what did that look like?
SPEAKER_01No, it's never been.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01And the older I get, the more absolute I become.
SPEAKER_05Never was it.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. Because, but I'm still here because I love Madison for what it can be. And I love it enough to appreciate it with all of its flaws, but also love it enough to not lie on it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Or lie about it. When black people had community in the bush, not far from here, where the Italian, Jewish, and black communities lived, some black families were given to the end of the day to get out of their home as they bulldozed those neighborhoods. That's actually how black families moved from the Camp Randall area to South Madison. Um, Richard Harris writes a book about growing up black in South Madison. I did know that some of them were given a day before their homes were bulldozed. That was probably the closest we had, but it was just a few years before it was bulldozed. And my daughter has no understanding of what the bush is. You know, it's where you can go get great donuts at the Green Bush or go to a badger game where she went to school. But she has no idea the heartache that still triggers the hearts of black folks whose parents um somebody's lost their souls when what felt like belonging was just destroyed. But if it could be taken away that quickly, that easily, that means it was never really a belonging. You can't bulldoze my home. You can't bulldoze my center and my church. Because we own the property, we own the land, we have the deeds, we belong. We have ownership and access. So to a very insightful question, no, but I think our parents and grandparents did, and um some of this is gonna get me in trouble. Um go ahead.
SPEAKER_04Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01There was really a greater sense of belonging to pre integration. We made a huge mistake with integration.
— The Case Against Integration
SPEAKER_01If I could rewind the clock, um, I would have abolished integration.
SPEAKER_05This is gonna get you in trouble. Say more, please.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01Integration as experienced by black Americans means really. Of all that we held as black culture. By integration, what we voted for, what we marched for, what we died for was a chance to be fully black and fully American without losing Tulsa, without losing Harlem, without losing Chicago. When black families moved north, white families moved northern or further east or further west, which meant that the tax base dissipated. So there were fewer resources for fixing streets, street lights, sidewalks, and schools. But the perception is black people cause the destruction of inner cities. Oh, Rebecca, that's like saying trailer parks create tornadoes. Because you see tornadoes in trailer parks. It could be said that they're somehow, and I know that's absurd, but it's equally absurd that black people who pay taxes are destroying neighborhoods when it's not the job of the resident to go and repair streets and street lights and schools. That's the role of government and the use of tax dollars. So when integration happened, we did not bring our culture with us. When we integrated, we didn't realize that I need to belong and to bring our culture, our swag, our ideology would be such an affront that segregated cities would happen. And we could spend our dollars, but we couldn't live in those neighborhoods. My grandfather and my uncles went into the service and they could get a grant to go to college, but they couldn't get loans to live on the west side of Madison. A place like Madison, um, there are parts of it, Nakoma had covenants that if you're of Ethiopian descent, which was just code for black, you couldn't live in that neighborhood. But one of the proponents of that covenant became the president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So when people say there's no connection, there's no systemic stuff, like that's like saying if I ever became the president or the chancellor of the university, I would not bring with me any elements of faith or pastoral care or church and university connections or a sense of black belonging and connect. I'm gonna bring who I am to that role. So has every leader of the campus. That's just humanity. You're gonna bring who you are. So when integration happened, in order to be fully integrated, we believed that we needed to change the way our hair looked, how we carried ourselves, whereas many Jewish communities, Korean American, Japanese American, other communities maintained a strong economic base in their community. They spent money in their communities. And I'm not saying that someone made the black community do that, but because of being oppressed for so long, longer than those other groups, we just wanted to not be lynched and set on fire and destroyed and have our kids raped and beaten. We just acquiesced thinking life would be better. And it just didn't turn out that way because money didn't equal everything out, nor did education. And so with the way we did integration, you couldn't be black American and have a strong Afrocentric identity and strong black businesses. Our black leaders were martyred or assassinated, businesses were infiltrated, leaders were bugged, their homes were bugged by the CIA and FBI. And so when we did grow inside an integrated reality, those who challenged us to think like the dominant culture are like a dominant culture were shut out. And not only were they shut down, fear was put into the hearts of people who would really grow. So integration became proximate and it became economic. I could spend money in neighborhoods I couldn't live in. That was a huge mistake. And when I say I would abandon integration, that's different than living together and being more integrated. But integration as it occurred meant abdicating one's black heritage history. When Dr. Gloria Latson Billings told me once, she's a famed educator right here from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She's a faith leader at her church, Mount Zion Baptist Church. She said to me one day, she says, Alex,
— The Hidden Cost: 36,000 Black Teachers
SPEAKER_01you do know that on the day integration happened for schools, 36,000 black teachers lost their jobs. And I said, Dr. Glory, I never thought of that.
SPEAKER_05Especially the itinerant ones traveling away. Oh, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And many of them, because they couldn't teach in white schools, had graduate degrees. So the chemistry teachers were chemists, the biology teachers were biologists. And so when the Little Rock Nine went to a white school, the teachers and cheerleaders didn't come with them. And then they had white teachers who weren't going to teach history, who weren't going to cheer them on and didn't want them to compete with their children. And so they didn't have the reinforcement of the adult leaders, the administrators, or their classmates. But America said we integrated, we integrated. But we didn't, those those kids were terrorized. And so many of those teachers, you know, Dr. Last and Billings told me became housekeepers. So imagine how demoralizing that was. And so one hand, we're celebrating integration. Nine black kids got to go to a white school, but 36,000 middle class educated black people lost their roles because those schools went out of business once integration started. So I just think for faith community, we need to understand history and that it's not propaganda. And if it's removed, then it can be called propaganda. But if it's left in its social scientific origins, then we understand that it's real, just like Edison and Graham Bell and Ford. But if those things are removed, if history is removed, my grandchildren could think that a cell phone always existed. My daughter has doesn't know how to understand how records work. But Dad, how do you know where to put the needle down and just drop it? It's gonna work. It's gonna, but it hurts.
SPEAKER_05I've been ashamed to ask that question for a long time. I also wonder.
SPEAKER_01And to me, we're like, wait, wait, what do you what do you ask? I don't even understand the question. Because to us, that was just music, the vinyl, you know, you blow it off to make sure it's not dusty. You make sure it's got no fingerprints, you put it on, you just drop it. She's like, but it's going around and I don't know. It's like trying to get into a double dutch rope. Like really. It's like, where do I said the needle moves among the brains? And then her friend was over. She's like, Well, yeah, Mr. G, I don't know how to, I don't get that either. So then I was like, I'm not gonna even talk about A-Track. We're not gonna even talk about it. Um, but the point is, because I've got perspective, I've watched the the the um the evolution of it. But if all that history is removed, you don't know. My daughter's brilliant, but she asked me when she was about, when she was in high school. She saw a typewriter and said, Dad, what is that? I said, okay, girl, you need to stop playing. I'm gonna come up there and take you at your honors class. I said, Dad, I've never seen this. What is it? I said, that's a computer with no electricity.
SPEAKER_05It was foundational for so much.
SPEAKER_01She might, because she doesn't watch the old black and whites. Right. And so she just doesn't didn't know what it is, which is hilarious to me. But the point I'm making is I typed my resume at UW Madison on a typewriter. And the fact that my child doesn't even know what a typewriter is, it shows that if we don't keep his, and if she didn't see the relic, she wouldn't have even known. She would have just thought, we've always had computers, we've always had electric cars, we've always had to take off our shoes at the airport. You know, if you don't, without the history or context, there's no one to say, you know, back in the day, if we don't have that, then the excellence of black folks just sounds like propaganda or our progress just seems like a DEI effort. If people didn't understand that at the turn of the 20th century, we had 2,000 elected folks. In 1900, 200 black elected. We have more black people in Congress in 1900 than we do today. So, but if you don't know that history, you would think we are making progress. Look at us, look at here. So I just think we have a lot of work to do. I promise to be shorter with the future questions.
SPEAKER_05I'm not concerned, only if you would like to be.
SPEAKER_00I'm now if you're enjoying this conversation, we'd love your help in getting it into the hands of more people. One of the easiest ways to support the Upwards Podcast is by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. And if today's discussion has challenged or encouraged you, consider sharing it with a friend, a coworker, or someone from your church. These conversations are meant to spark meaningful dialogue, and your recommendation is one of the best ways to help them reach a wider audience. Now, let's get back to Rebecca's conversation with Alex G.
— Du Bois, the Harlem Renaissance, and Authentic Identity
SPEAKER_05So I mean it sounds like what you're saying with integration is not necessarily the idea of integration, is bad or unhelpful, but how it came about, that there could have been a better way, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01The thought of integration is unconscionable because it was never the intention of anyone designing integration, that poor people, international people, black people would be equal, would live next door, would let their children intermarry. That was never, ever, ever, ever the present. So what we're calling integration is the same as calling O Saint Nick the true reason behind the Christ story. The two are not related in any fashion. We have just become so enamored with the concept. But the concept was damaging because before integration, we had Wall Street, Black Wall Street, Tulsa and Tulsa.
SPEAKER_02Tulsa.
SPEAKER_01I mean, black businesses and hair parlors and libraries and playhouses, and black people were not getting up, going to plays thinking, I wish I could go to Rocky. I wish I could go to a white playhouse. We just didn't want to be terrorized for being black and American. But no one was willing to have the discussion of what that was like. So, no, nothing about integration was ever intended to be helpful other than to illegalize the killing of other folks. But it was never about equality. It was, it was never about that. It was about Lincoln wanted to keep the country together. And during the Cold War, America was being teased. How can you be a moral authority on how the Russians treat the world and you got black citizens who can't even vote? That's what really moved us, and black people pushing for the no, and we use the term integration, but when we said integration, we never meant the loss of culture.
SPEAKER_05But even from the faith side of things, the world looking at the United States, particularly during um the civil rights movement, would feel very distressed or would say, you know, I could maybe get behind the idea of Christ, but the Christians and the interaction of Christians that we're seeing, particularly some Christians, usually white Christians against black Christians, does not compel me towards towards this faith, right? Like Bonhoeffer wrote, like, wow, when community is so important, I'm really distressed by how I'm seeing the African-American community being treated in the southern United States. And this is coming even from the church, right? Right. That absolutely makes sense. Well, maybe as an example or um a case study. So Harlem Renaissance, another time where art, music, the creative side of life is really expanding, especially for black community. How would you look at that in light of integration working or not working? Right. Because one of the leaders of Harlem Renaissance, W.E. B. Du Bois, was really pushing for the fact that no, no, we need to be producing at this elite level. We need to be creative at this level, in part showing that we can do this as well and creating our own identity. Is that integrating? Is that creating our own identity? Is it both? How would you look at that?
SPEAKER_01I think it's accurate. And that's part of the reason why we do we designed the Center for Black Excellence and Culture with the focus on the art that we saw take place in the Harlem Renaissance, the Cotton Club, Apollo, and the other things that happened. So I'm totally in agreement that that was that his his argument, his his thesis had had real merit. But the outsider can't make themselves belong. So by definition, that can't be integration. Because integration must be initiated from the gatekeeper, the homeowner, the person with access. Again, I think what's happening is you're thinking about the concept of people intermingling. But the truth, I mean, do people come to church and become instantly Christian? Like, does being inside of church make you Christian? No. And being in the same neighborhood on the same block does not make you neighbor or family. That's really attitudinal. It's heart, it's theological, it's emotional, it's psychological, but it's not proximity. If that were the case, and everyone who sits at concerts on the square with me on Wednesday nights would mean we enjoy the all the same music, all the same things. We vote all the same way. We spend money all the time, we all make the same money, we all pay the same amount of taxes, we all have the same level of access. And so I think Christianity is built on truth, but yet we hold to a lot of ideals that are not based on truth or scripture, just emotion and sociology. What Du Bois was pushing for is very important. It's sort of thumbing your nose. Let's do this excellently and let's show folks this is who you've been trying to hold down. And he was right. I mean, when our musicians went overseas, what we found was jazz, blues, and gospel were America's first true authentic art form.
SPEAKER_05And very well accepted. For sure. More accepted.
SPEAKER_01But before that, America's art form was taken from Europe. Chamber of music, that wasn't created in America. So we did not really have American, not largely recognizable American musical roots that the world longed for. But when they heard Earth of Kid and Samby Davis Jr. and these artists and singers who were going across overseas, they were still seeing those folks as American, but they were black, but they brought a different sound and a different style, but in a way that it wasn't honored at home. And if integration is integration, you want to listen from your folks. You know, I st you I started off by telling you we listen to the community because we're representing that voice. Integration never happened fully because America never said we are all of these, we are the sum of our total parts. That's what's really kept it from being real. We tried. We have tried.
SPEAKER_05A couple questions, and you can choose which one you answer. Um,
— What Has Kept Rev. Dr. Gee in Madison
SPEAKER_05what has kept you in Madison? You spoke about you you have a hope for this city, which is quite different from, I think, a pretty common narrative of minorities being in Madison for a couple of years and then for various reasons deciding to leave. And it's a large agenda item, if you will, for the minority community in Madison to try to retain leaders in Madison. And you have been one of those voices that's just like, yes, I I am here. This is my place, and I would like to see it grow into the good it could become. Where is this vision coming from? How have you maintained anything like that?
SPEAKER_01It's all calling. I'd rather be a lot of other places. Because of climate.
SPEAKER_05Hey, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um because I like larger cities, I like the cultural mix. I was just in New York City with um one of my best friends a couple weeks ago. And being able to get a hot dog after a comedy show at 1 a.m., you know, or pizza's still up and it's just buzzing like it's farmer's market or something. That or you can go in neighborhoods and just hear distinct languages and foods as if you had stepped into that country or that space. I love that. There's something about that. And it's still not all integrated except that neo that except that New York says this is all of us. So I guess in some ways, New York says, this is what makes New York New York, that it's all of this. But it's really a call. It's it's um my mom came in for college because she believed that it could offer her two children a better life. Then you fast forward 55 years, and her children have used that opportunity or this opportunity to make a better life for a lot of people and not just black people and people of color, but white folks and folks in power and educators and bankers and leaders. A sense that I want to bloom where I've been planted and not find better soil or what what is perceived as better soil. I think the best soil for me is where God wants me to be. Um and I tried to thought about leaving Madison several times because there's so much turnover here. You know, the university is bringing in new people, the capital is bringing in new people, the biotech companies are. Almost every seven years we have a different congregation.
SPEAKER_04Truly, yes.
SPEAKER_01And uh, and so you have to start over again explaining it. And then people come here. Like when I worked here as an advisor years ago, like 40 years ago, I worked here as an advisor, 35. And I had students who came in and would say, I've never spoken to a black person before. We had a good relationship. These are, I mean, I was the pre-pharmacy advisor. They had to talk to me and they wanted to because I knew how to care for marginalized students. What I found was that students coming from white rural communities in Wisconsin felt very marginalized here, although it was a very larger community because they were not the amber Ambercrombie Fitch. Am I saying that name right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Ambercrombie Fitch, you got it.
SPEAKER_01They weren't that crowd. And so when they came to Madison from a community that with their where their graduating class was 36, they felt some of the same isolation that black students did, except you could change, clean up, and then no one would know that you were from that small community. You couldn't do that if you were black. But this was new to them. So what's happening is more people are moving to Madison with fewer experiences, lesser experiences, probably more emboldened to say things, to think things, to promote ideas that they couldn't years ago. So you have the influx of folks who have not truly experienced diversity, people for whom Madison is the big city. And so you have to just keep doing it over and over again. So some of the frustration is that. So I was on family, on vacation with my family a couple weeks ago when Corey Ruiz was shot and killed. And media was reaching out to me. I didn't respond because I stepped away with the family to rest up from always being on call. But just the thought that that's always going to be the reality, you know, thinking about what's the response in it. It's just a lot to think about when I know they weren't calling my white counterparts. They weren't calling my fellow pastors at Dork Creek, Blackhawk, you know, Midvale, where you have it high point. They're not calling them asking those questions. And so I'd love to be in a place where I could just blend into the crowd and just be, oh, that black guy across the street with his briefcase going to his office to do cool things. But I appreciate the call. I grow in the call. It's it's what it means to be a servant of Jesus Christ is that you don't get to pick where you go and you don't have to necessarily like what you do. You have to be faithful. And so I think, if anything, I've been I've been faithful. But you know, I I have days like Joan, I was like, God, please help me. You know, I don't know. Anywhere else. Anywhere, anywhere else. But then I also see the potential here. I mean, with all of these things that I've said, with everything that I've said today, the white community, business, governmental and otherwise, surrounded black leadership when I shared the idea for the Center for Black Excellence and Culture. And so when I challenge a mindset, it doesn't mean that everyone has it. But what I have seen in this community is that people are wanting to get it. And I think that that's what gives me hope. That people support it, not because I was a black leader, and there's a difference. I'm not ignoring my black heritage. But as I articulated what Madison was missing and the impact on the state of Wisconsin and what we're going to become if we don't stop, and the need to along, people responded and gave $32 million because I'm a leader, not because I'm black. I'm black, but not that black. And I don't mean I'm lesser than black, but I mean I'm not black enough to get money just because I'm black. Yes. It made sense to people. And at the moment that things make sense, you start writing out a check. It's not like that's some good blackness right there. I think people say that made sense. He brought scripture into it, he brought theology into it, he brought experience into it. He delivered newspapers, he was a wee blow. His mother went to Wisconsin. His sister, his wife, he did, started. This family has 15 degrees from this campus. How are we going to act like he's just black? He's a badger. He's a Madisonian. He remembers before East Town and West Town opened. Madison Metro used to be, that's where Sears was before we went to East Town. Sears was. My mom bought back the school clothes, right on East Washington. I remember when the theaters were downtown. Like there was no malls. Farmers Market was important down there, but Wolf Kubly and Hersick and the movie theater. Like you went, you went down there for everything.
SPEAKER_05It was a movie theater in this building at one point.
SPEAKER_01I used to go there. I used to go there. I saw my first Spike Lee flick in this building.
SPEAKER_05Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Probably shouldn't have. But I saw my first one here. And Pisons was here. And you know, and Country Seat. I used to get my, I still like corduroys. Got my corduroy jeans in this building. But when I started speaking of the Madison spirit, the Wisconsin idea, I think it helped people to hear it with different ears. But it takes a lot of grit and a lot of commitment and a lot of support from the Holy Spirit to continue saying the Same thing to change a group of leaders and say it into and in a way that people are threatened, but they realize that the threat is not against them, it's against the status quo and this oppressive progressive mentality. And it actually makes me proud to be part of this community because I have seen progress. I I can't get someplace and just say, you know, this town needs an enema, which it probably does. But I mean, but but I see things that are causing it to change, but I don't want to be stuck or owned so that if I see the good, I'm not supposed to challenge the bad. And if I challenge the bad, it means that there's no good. There's a lot of good in the city. I think it's an example for folks to seek the good of the city. That passage didn't say go find a good city. It did not or find a city that's seekable, searchable. Those were exiles. They did not belong and they didn't want to be there. It's like, okay, you're supposed to come get us. You're telling us to let our children marry their children and to plant gardens. I know this is the devil. This is the Old Testament devil. This is the serpent. This is the serpent. I'm not trying to, you know, come out, get thee behind me.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01And so I get, I get the feeling when I talk about that, Jeremiah 29, black people just started laughing. I'm in exile. That's what it feels like. I'm in exile. I'm in exile. But I'm also seeing some of the some of the fruit. And so the balance is not letting yourself become too happy that you can't feel the pain, or so caught up in the pain that you can't see the joy that comes in the morning. And that teetering in itself is exhausting to really keep that balance. Because there are days you think you really get it, and then days you don't. You think like, but like where are we, you know, like where are we going? How are we going to make this happen? But I think the call, I know that the call from God is really to faithfulness and not just fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_05Okay, I'm wondering what advice you have shared or would share on two sides of the spectrum, if you will. What advice you have shared or would share to any minorities in Madison who they're discerning if they have the call here or to be here or not, but recognizing the weight of what that might hold to your point that they don't get to just exist here as a regular person, that they will probably be shouldering some of the burden, some of the burden of their racial identity. How would you advise them as they're in that discerning process? But then also for majority counterparts who are in this city who are listening and would care about this conversation, how might you advise them to approach the minorities that they're seeing, especially in this space, or to uh approach this topic?
— Advice for Minorities and for White Allies
SPEAKER_05It's a really easy question.
SPEAKER_01Great point. I would say for the people of color, I would say get out, see the world. If you can't afford to do that, read. Because what that does is help you to realize you're not a minority. And I'd encourage them to remove that from their from their language because that brings with it this sense that you're less than. That's really what it means. Um the white community is only about 8% of the world's population. And I keep in mind I'm a world citizen and that there are more people who look like me than those who don't. That just shifts me. Going to Africa, going to Asia, going to India. The other thing is, when I've gone to Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, India, it feels no less daunting to be outnumbered there than it is here. So what I find is that, like when I was in grad school, we had to travel. It was very difficult for some of my white counterparts to be in India. It's like, well, I live in Fitchburg. You know, so so being like the only one is not like being on a plane in an airport. It's not like, oh my God, I'm the only black person. I might think that in the theater here or domestic flight to, you know, to, to, um, to, to, to Denver. But overseas, I had an edge because I'm used to not being part of the larger number. So that's so first thing I would say is to not even assume the position of minority because the world perspective, the perspective is so much broader than that. And even if we're fewer in number, the strength and the integrity and the excellence that it took to just survive all of the things that that's hurled upon us. So understand the history. And if we if we want to get down to just like sort of science, if epigenetic trauma is a thing, then so is epigenetic triumph. That there's something baked into us about sticking to it and getting through it, you know, whether it's a Holocaust survivor or the descendants of underground church members, we have to dig into that. And that God is near the brokenhearted and the oppressed and gives us superpowers. And that superpower is the Holy Spirit and it's God's grace and God's gift and favor. And actually, I feel that what I've done with the center gives me a chance to say, honestly, to leaders, this is where my Christian faith comes in. Because this stuff is hard. And people sending you fiery emails and wondering if your wife is safe and your daughter is safe just because you're speaking truth. And some of that feedback is not coming from who we perceive to be skinheads, but fellow Christians who are white, that's very daunting. And that's where my faith comes to. So that gives me a chance to preach. This is why I'm this is why I'm a Christian pastor, because there are days the work doesn't work. The rhetoric doesn't work, but it comes down to calling and Jesus, give me your strength, and in my weakness, you are strong. So that's that's a preaching point for me to the white community. I would say to really be sincere and do the work. When white people, whether they're a Russian or American, want to go to the moon, they did not ask a single black person how to do it. They did not ask a moonite or Martian. How do we come and take a Hubble telescope and take pictures of stuff over there? They figured it out. When they went to get ships to go to Africa and steal people, they figured it out. White people are innovative. White people are white people are brilliant. White people can get stuff done. So no, don't come up to me and ask me how you dismantle something that either you created or was created with you in mind. Read, connect, find, educate yourself. But I can't deal with the pressures of navigating life and then pause and tell someone to do that any more than I would expect a woman who's a rape victim to spend her whole life telling men why they shouldn't rape and why it's not her fault. That would just that would destroy her. Because men, men know how to help sexual assault, stop raping women. That would make a huge difference. It's that simple. Don't objectify. Keep it in your pants. Don't think you have a right. Like, men can figure that out. They don't need a rape victim to say, you know, and I never thought about it. If I didn't objectify her, I wouldn't think that I could just take advantage of her. Like, we know how to do that. And so, or Nehemiah is um a brilliant organization in the community. I'm the chair of their board, I'm the founder of it, but I don't work there anymore. They offer Black History for a New Day that's taught by University of Wisconsin faculty. That is brilliant, brilliant work. You can take it synchronistically or asynchronistically, and they can find a Nehemiah spell like the Old Testament book.org. But educate yourself because what I found is first of all, I designed that before COVID. We have over 6,000 people that have completed it. They, it's changed how they go about their board work, their faith leader work, the chief of police or police officers have gone through and elected officials. Once they know history, they start figuring out solutions without stopping someone and say, tell me how to do this. They figured it out once they understood how we got here. So I would say, educate these, your your African American studies, Chicano studies, Latino studies, Asian American studies, these major cities have departments. You can audit classes, you can read books, you can meet with faculty, they can come into your churches. But please, I would say to white Americans, particularly white Christians, please, please educate yourselves and don't just run on the rhetoric of someone else, because I have found that many folks who had no experience, who educated themselves, became trusted allies of mine. But it's not because I had to carry water for them. Once they found out how they got there, they started figuring out how that's impacted their lives. It made them deeply committed to changing because they didn't want their children to have to deprogram themselves from these same kinds of things. And so I would say, and staying away from a minority majority, because that just bakes in us this uneven scale. And in no mathematical equation will we ever take something that's only 8% of the whole against 92% and call that larger than or greater than. But just even baking that language in still makes us think we've got to come up, we've got to fix it, we've got to do it.
SPEAKER_05In all of your responses, you have given an element of faith, which is wonderful and impressive. Um my question is coming from an earlier statement you made where when people are learning history, for example, African-American history at this um great institution, UW Madison, um, faith isn't always included in that story, or it's not seen as one of the crucial elements that helped the black community get to even a better point where we're at today. What might you really hope that people hear or learn about faith in the story of the black community in general, or specifically in Madison? Yeah. What feels like it's been missed?
SPEAKER_01Great
— Faith, Prayer, and the Black Church's Role in American History
SPEAKER_01question. I will say, in general, history does not talk about faith, but where I learned about, and I have to change my statement a bit and saying that I learned about the role of the black church in civil rights at UW Madison in the in the African-American Studies Department.
SPEAKER_04Right, yes.
SPEAKER_01It was not now, it was not called theology. It just said this is what the church did. But as I got older, I realized wow, the church doesn't tell this story and the academy doesn't tell it very well. It just calls it the church, but doesn't talk about Christ or the role of the Holy Spirit or the transformed heart or that being part of the call or the mission. They just talked about the church like it's a PTO. This group of good black people allowed MLK to come in and speak.
SPEAKER_04I see.
SPEAKER_01I tell my church that's that's multicultural when we celebrate black history. I said if y'all listen to the theme, the songs that came out of social injustice, the messages, the preaching, uh, the story of sustenance was about faith. And so this is about God's visit to folks who were disenfranchised, who knew they couldn't vote, but they believed that when they prayed, God hurt them. And why would slaveholders make it illegal to pray? Like just think about that. It was illegal for slaves to pray because the fear was that they were going to think that they were equal. That there was there was a great sense of faith in prayer. To illegalize it, I think people need to understand. That in itself should make you want to pray, if nothing else, that some people made it, that some people made it illegal. I think what white citizens and Christians could really learn what was, in as much as we call ourselves a Christian nation, um, and we've never acted like it. So I don't, I certainly think God has blessed us and watch over us, but I just think there's a America's not quite yet attained this status of a bride without a wrinkle or a spot or any such thing in her dress. Maybe not for Christ to come back. I uh we're not rapture ready. Um uh we got some things that we gotta we gotta look at, but we keep saying, come on back, Lord. Come on, like, no.
SPEAKER_05We're not rapture ready.
SPEAKER_01I gotta do that. I've never said that before. I gotta use it. We're not rapture ready. Oh, that's a sermon. But what I think people need to understand was that the American government did not shape the church. The church shaped the American government. At any point, the church could have shut slavery down. Look at the big cathedrals in the South and ask, what were the construction companies? Was it ACME construction? Like, who built those and why do they look so similar? The red brick and Professor Dr. Sung Chan Ra talks about slavers tithing slaves to the church to buy it silence. White community needs to understand what role the black church played in our lives and our faith. That's just part of being integrated. But it must, it absolutely, but if it doesn't, it absolutely must understand how it has shaped American Christianity. That's what's really important. Many times I'll talk to my friends and they'll say, you know, I got this friend who doesn't get it. He's a MAGA supporter. I wish you could be there so you could tell him what it's like being black and give the black respect, but I don't know it. I say, you don't need to talk to your friend about the black experience. That's not your job. Talk to your friend about the experience of a white male. You're a white male. Explain what the role America and American Christianity has played in your development, how you see it. That's what you got to work on. Don't tell my story. Because that's not gonna hold water with them. But the flip side of my story is your story. My story exists because your story exists. It's not the flip. Well, why do we have to have a black church? Because in the South, we were made to stand up in the attic where it's like 116 degrees. We always tried to enter the systems, the institutions. But when it was clear we weren't supposed to be there, couldn't take communion together. Right, couldn't take communion together. And if we did, we swore on the elements that we would not seek freedom. We made freedom an act of blasphemy. So when we did, there were a small case where we could, you swore on the body and the blood of Christ that you would not seek freedom. That still breaks my heart because that's not just laws and redlining and educational disparities and SAT and ACTs. Now you're lying on my Jesus. And now you're using the body and blood of Jesus to substantiate slavery. Now you got to stand before him and you got to own up to that. That's not Christianity. And a Christian nation would not have allowed that any more than I would allow my daughter and her friends to sit in my living room while I'm in there having a seance or playing with a Ouija board. We let people bring that up in American Christianity and we let it ride. And because we didn't stop it, that communion table and that worship hour is still some of the most segregated time in the world. And we let that happen because there's a benefit to it. And um, white Christians have got to understand that just like we have to understand our sinful nature in order to repent, if we don't understand what the foundation is of American Christianity, we can't be prophetic and help it get come to light. My challenge is not because I don't need a white church for whipping, you know, whipping posts. I I'm not walking around so angry that I just gotta give white American Christians a piece of my mind. I'm trying to liberate people. Just like I go to prisons and say, you gotta stop doing this if you want to stay out. Because I want them to have a change. God loves you. You got leadership skills, but they were misused by gangs. I don't say those things to be insulting. It's because I want them to turn around. I've got white people in my congregation. I can't have white parishioners who are seven and eight-year-old white kids, white boys, not understanding what their gender and what their ethnicity means to this world. And if they don't learn to steward that through a Christian lens, it means the abdication of more power and the hurting of more people. I'm responsible for doing that. Now, if their parents don't want them to hear that, and I'm not telling eight-year-old kids, look, you're little racist. You better come to you. I'm not doing that. But I'm teaching it in a way, not because I'm trying to hurt or damn people, I'm trying to free people. So when we preach these things, we get called angry. And I'm just trying to be prescriptive so that we really can be salt and light in a way that could win the spiritual war. Because a broken church can't compete with Islam and other forms of religion that's happening here. We talk about Christianity growing, not in prisons, not with black men, Islam. Because they're telling it like it is. And then Christian churches saying, oh, there's neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female. Stuff that we still fight over. Gender issues, race issues, economic issues, national issues, but yet we're quick to say, but the Bible, that's the ideal that in Christ He doesn't see that. But let's not lie and say we don't see it. We see it a lot, which is why we make up these rules.
SPEAKER_05We're on our way to an ideal. We are not sitting there.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. But we got but but we have to understand that we're on the wrong street. We need to understand that we may be going the wrong way, but at least my iPhone will say rerouting, which will give me a chance at the next intersection to turn around. We just can't keep ignoring that and saying I'm going east by driving west. At some point, I've got to listen to the rerouting. I just want people to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit saying reroute, reroute. Yeah, I just have to trust that the Holy Spirit that is telling me to love, love, love, love, is telling somebody else they don't look like me, repent, repent, repent. I just gotta believe that we all got the same Holy Spirit that's telling us the same thing, get right.
SPEAKER_05You mentioned Su Cheng-ra. Uh, he just has many great works and writings, but one in particular, he's got a great book on lament. That is another avenue for helping to handle some of the hardships and history that you've been talking about, especially then to move forward. Right. Right. Okay, my last question for you. Um given that the Center for Black Excellence and Culture is really focusing on art and creation and ideas, because that is something that is healing, it's generative, and it has historically proven itself to be impactful.
— Art, Music, and What Heals
SPEAKER_05What is an element of art, music that is really healing to you, that is motivating to you, whether it's an artist or a style of music or a piece that you've seen recently? What's art that you've engaged that's just really gotcha?
SPEAKER_01I'll answer by saying that that creative piece artistically is a part of it, but there's also a strong business part. So we have a gallery, we also have makerspace, we also have an innovation center where we teach people how to generate revenue through that art. So for us, it's not just the expression of art, but how do we take something like black art that's been consumed but not necessarily invested in? So we're teaching people to not only enjoy art, but let's turn it into a business. Prince argued about this, Michael Jackson argued about others have argued about not having the right or ownership of their art. So for us, it's art, but it's also the ability to own it and to monetize it. But I like lots of style of music and art, but certainly I love the soulfulness of jazz. I when I listened to RB like Marvin Gaye and others, they were really talking about the times, what's going on. I I didn't know that. I just listened to the riff. I liked his voice as a kid, but as I listened to the words, I was thinking, oh, these folks were gutsy, although they were loved. They were just saying it. So I love art that does that, that talks about it. It's like leaving breadcrumbs so that others know how to come out or follow their way home. So I really like that. And it's about storytelling. Preaching is storytelling, but so is comedy. And if you listen to old comedy, like um Dick Gregory used to do comedy, but Richard Pryor, he's known for something else now. But like in his old shows, the things he, his commentary on race relations made you laugh, but it also made you think. So I love art that makes you think. It can make you cry but make you think, make you laugh but make you think.
SPEAKER_05Wow, thank you so much. This is just a wealth of information and history and soul. Like it was beautiful.
SPEAKER_01I enjoy Binker so much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks
— Closing & Credits
SPEAKER_00for joining us for the Upwards Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who values thoughtful conversations about faith, culture, and the common good. Also, consider visiting slbf.org slash studio to find other podcast offerings. That's slbf.org slash studio. Until next time, keep looking upward and living with purpose. Go in peace.