thank you so much for being with us,
dwight hopkins, it's a real honour to have you with us.
we heard from anthony reddie last
week
and he recommended you for the series-
the black theology series-
and he mentioned that
you learnt from james cone- that he
was one of your
tutors or professors at one point.
he is of course-
i don't know how you describe him- but
maybe as the the father or the
the godfather of black theology,
he wrote some of the first books on black
theology.
so i wonder if you could just explain
or describe a little bit more about
what you do,
about who you are, about your background-
just to start us off.
- good, good, well first of all thank you
for having me on here ruth. it's a
pleasure and an honour to be
included this side of the pond. and
again shout out, kudos to professor
anthony reddie
who probably uses the biggest, most massive
hyperbole and exaggeration i've met
in many generations! but to return
the kudos, he actually-
now that is professor anthony reddie- is
probably
the world's leading black liberation
theologian on the global scale,
partly because of the books he's
published, but also because he's the
founder and editor of the black theology
international journal,
and that has reached into asia
pacific so that platform and his
own critical voice and
compassionate voice
have all made him in my estimation,
without exaggeration,
the publicly-recognised leading global
black liberation theologian. some of us
may be leading in our context but...
so glad to work on any project that
he's involved in.
and again, thank you.
our family goes back
several generations so we have to start
there.
as all of us know, theology is primarily
autobiography-
all theology is primarily autobiography-
and so
i was born in richmond, virginia-
i'm a baby boomer- but
our hopkins generation in virginia goes
back maybe eight or nine generations, so
we've been here a very long time.
my
father's father's father (my great grandfather)
my mother's
father's father (great grandfather)
were both
enslaved- they were both slaves in
virginia-
and so that was in the 1800s and
then the oral tradition
and the stories, the family stories, go back
to the late 1700s
so our my sense of being rooted in this
country and this land,
and this family, goes very deep, and we
represent a lot of
black americans who have that same
sensibility, particularly from the
southern part of the united states and
maybe those stories don't
reach the public, you know,
storytelling but we go back
way way, and so both great
grandfathers when they came out of
slavery in 1865,
they both bought land and they
couldn't read or write but
they bought land- it says something about me
that all the degrees i have,
how much land do i own? but it's an
amazing story because my story is not-
i don't think it's the exception about
black americans- particularly in the south,
that's our story, that's our story, it's
rooted in this-
several generations, goes back to slavery
and so
they were very much focused on
getting land,
helping local communities, taking care
of families-
that type of narrative, and then their
sons which would eventually be my
grandfathers- both grandfathers- they also
bought land,
and they were businessmen in the
south,
so one generation removed from slavery.
my father's father would have been the
first born out of slavery-
he bought acres and acres of land, he
owned five different businesses and this
is the rural south right?
and late
1890s early 1900s,
my father was born in 1907, so it goes
back and back,
and my mother's father too- he was
first born out of slavery and he bought
acres of land and i spent the summers on
his farm growing up in virginia rural
virginia
and he had two farms he had a commercial
farm- he sold tobacco on the open
market,
and he also had a big farm where all the
grandsons and granddaughters would come
every summer and run around and like
wolves, you know, hanging out, and then my father my mother met and
they moved to the urban area, so that's
a story i think is important in the
mix of stories. there's lots of stories
about
black people, people of african
descent in north america, but there is a
story that
a lot of us, particularly those from the
southern united states, when we get
together we talk
a lot about those stories you know.
and just that story may not come out as
much.
i'm the youngest
in the family- my father, my parents
had eight children- six boys and two
girls- so i'm the sixth son the eighth
child,
and our we grew up- our emphasis was on first
of all family,
second of all education, and third
church-
in that order (laughs), but both my parents
were
deeply involved in the black church,
southern baptist church- small s
southern.
and my father was
an usher in the church and
my mother taught bible study, but my
father was ushering the church
and he also entertained the pastor every
thursday, so every thursday the pastor of
the church would come to his house
and sit there and have coffee, and i was
the youngest so i would just be hanging
around listening,
and i didn't realise until later on how
important that was to have the pastor
come meet with a
layman, a lay person, so all i'm saying
is that both my parents, particularly my father
were involved in the church,
but he taught us a lot about common
sense wisdom
and folk tales and you know rhymes
and riddles
and we sort of grew up with that type of
wisdom in the household, in addition to
and incorporated with and woven in and
out of the black church experience.
i was deeply involved in the black baptist
church you know i was in a baptist
training union, i was in the cub scouts, i
was in the boy scouts,
almost eagle scouts, so i was you know an
all-american
solid kid through the church, so
then my father wanted me to have- so we
all, education like i said: family
education and church, and so he always
made sure we all had a good education,
given the resources he had under
segregation.
and i was the last child, so he
wanted me to have a better education, so
he sent me to a boarding school,
so i went to a boarding school in
massachusetts from the second to the
sixth form- your british audience
probably knows that-
americans have no idea, but it's the 8th
to the 12th grade for us here.
all boys boarding school and um
then from there i went on to harvard
university.
so when i graduated from harvard i was
going to go into graduate school but i
felt that i needed to
to give back at least a year
to inner city urban america, particularly
african-americans and brown people as well.
so i and a classmate of mine, a
schoolmate of mine, we moved to harlem
new york,
and it was the old harlem- this is a
prostitution, you know, we lived,
we just you you're young you can do anything!
we lived in the so-called ghetto right you
know you
wake up in the night, 110 degrees in august,
covered in roaches, there's no
elevator, the lift, is not working-
 so the old
harlem - not the one now. now they have disney
world there on 125th street,
and you know it's not you know that's
their thing more power to them, but i always
want to set the context, because a lot of
folks don't know about
the old harlem. if you read the
autobiography of malcolm x, that's the
harlem we were in-
gangsters and food and music and dancing
and
- kids nowadays they have no idea do they?
with the roaches all over them!
- yeah the old harlem. right so from
harvard to roaches okay
so the one year actually turned to
two to three to four to five,
because each year i kept saying i can't
leave these folks you know i can
help them you know
i know how to go downtown, a lot of
people have never gone downtown you know,
to negotiate
we were involved in you know police
brutality incidents, we were involved in
organised community back then
we were involved in making sure people
got their welfare checks, we were involved
in
domestic violence disputes. i mean we
were the old school
organisers. we didn't appear on
public cable,
we lived there day in and day out.
so one year turned to five, and then the
fifth year,
in the summer, in the beginning of august,
when i was in harlem
my friend- my classmate- knew i had a
deep,
religious and spiritual sensibility and
always had a yearning,
not necessarily to be a pastor
or run a church or anything like that,
in fact we we had left the church
because we thought the church was a
sell-out.
a lot of us in our generation-
african-american young folks.
hence we went to harlem in order to direct
organise.
but anyhow, the fifth summer i was there
in harlem- in the heart of harlem-
my classmate, my schoolmate who came
with me,
he handed me a two and a half page xerox
back to back - we used xerox back
then-
article, and you know i sort of read
it, it said something about
black theology or something, you know,
then i put it away about two weeks later
i took it out.
i still have it and that was 1981,
i still have it- the color is golden
rod,
it was goldenrod paper back-to-back,
and i looked at it abd I was like: this guy
black guy with a big afro,
and it's something about black
theology or seminary and justice,
and the title of the essay is
'the white left must deal with racism'.
that was a title essay.
and i still have it here.
so i thought, 'oh man this is interesting wow'
i said 'let me just call this guy up' you
know, and i called him up,
and we have to set the context,
particularly for academics
in the united states, particularly
professors who teach at research
institutions-
the summer's when you disappear, because that's when you get your three months to
work and you work.
so, you know, this guy's not going to be
there you know... and i called
in the odd thing is he picked up, and he said
'hello this is james cone' i was like 'oh
professor cone, how are you?' he was
actually there,
and he said  'do you have
some time in the next couple days?'
i said 'uh yeah i'll be there day after
tomorrow' he said 'well come on'
and so this is how the spirit
of the universe worked-
i had been living in harlem for like
five years and i was literally
two and a half blocks from union
seminary and never had been
in that seminary, and didn't know it was
a seminary, because back then it was it
was
boarded - not boarded up- but it was
closed and you had to come in round the
back, but there was no front. now it's
beautiful- serene jones is the president,
they've opened up- new doors, beautiful
entry with flags and colours,
but back then- i don't know if in britain
you have this concept of an armoury,
that's where the national guard and all
the military...
they're in all the urban areas, but they
look like closed tombs-
the buildings- two or three blocks around.
and so it looked like the armoury!
so i went up and um so basically i went
up the hill
and i went across teachers' college
[not very easy to approach!] columbia university in the virginia
seminary- two and a half blocks from where
i'd been,
you know, who would have thunk it! and so
we went up to his room
yeah it's amazing, and he was in brown
tower on the sixth floor, i still
remember, i went up there
and we met- his big afro, and so we
talked like four or five hours, just
on and on and on, and so at the end of
about four or five hours,
dr cone said 'well you go
down to the second floor
and talk to bonnie rosborough,
she's in charge of the masters, of
divinity admissions
and you tell her right now that you're
starting in the mdiv program' and i was
like
'okay! did i come here to go to school?' and
that's how what happened- i went
downstairs
on the second floor i talked to the
reverend dr bonnie rosborough,
she admitted me into the mdiv program,
and the rest is history
- wow, so james cone himself was very
approachable...
- i didn't have, because school started
in a month- this is august right?
i didn't have any scholarship, anything, i
had to take out loans, i had to work,
but i went to grad school for...
[delayed response due to delay on the video] oh gosh yeah, in terms of humor and
jokes and
trickster and, you know he has a public
performance you know-
'white people and all'! but you know on a
personal scale yeah he...
[the internet breaks!] we're losing you, we've lost you a bit
are you there? sorry
- i think it's not my end...
i guess you can cut and paste... but dr
cone, as we were saying,
was very personable and very
passionate
and compassionate about his students and
poor people- i mean he helped a lot of
people with loans to buy their
first homes, his
phd students, he helped when- you know-
marital disputes.
a lot of that doesn't, you don't hear
about that unless you knew him as a
doctoral student. i can
testify he helped me in
my early life and other students as well in other parts of the country- in fact, globally,
because he had a lot of
students from asia, africa, pacific islands,
latin america.
so that's what happened. i had never
heard of a seminary.
i thought the article was spelling
cemetery! it was actually seminary.
never been to union, never heard of
seminary. i would have thrown a
rock at a church at that age,
but you know- because there's a whole
generation of black folks who left the
black church
in the 50s and 60s, particularly
60s
when it came to a peak, because a lot of
us felt
that it was not engaged in the
day-to-day survival of
poor people and people who were on the
margins of america- the people who were
promised
opportunities but were denied those
opportunities for whatever reason.
and so a lot of young folks say well
'look, we're going to do our own thing'
and that's actually how the black power
movement arose in 1966,
because that generation of people had
left the church-
not necessarily christianity, but had
left the black church.
as you probably know in the audience-
it's probably a literary audience that's
that's listening to your program- the
black power movement was started by
stokely carmichael,
who was the head of the student
non-violent co-ordinating committee,
so sncc (pronounced snick)
was the youth arm of the martin luther
king movement- old black preachers-
so that's why we're saying black power
came out where people who were
non-violent,
part of the black civil rights movement...
and so 
the fact that stokely
and his generation moved out of you know
civil rights into black power
is an example of the point i'm making, and
those of us who weren't national leaders-
i was in high school, i was in boarding
school
you know and we still were following
things-
a lot of us said 'well you know we're
going to go, we're young people, we're
going to change the world!' so
let's just do our own thing.
now i wanted to clarify - that's my
journey, my relationship to cone- but it's
part
of a larger narrative of how we get to
black liberation theology.
stokely carmichael, who's the chairperson
of student nonviolent coordinating
committee (sncc),
which started off as
the youth wing of the civil rights
movement which we know was led by dr
king and the black preachers- quiet as
it's kept,
rosa parks - a black woman - actually
started it, and the black women
actually started the boycott- that's the
real history!
but we don't we don't want to disparage
the pastors, they did, you know...
king was killed, so he sacrificed.
but we don't want to forget how
important it is that black women were involved.
so the youth wing grew and they were -
not
organisationally but still - part of
the civil rights movement.
in june, on june 16th
1966, in a civil rights march in
mississippi -
specifically greenwood, mississippi, june
16th 1966 -
there was a march co-led by dr king. he
was at the head of the march and next to
him
on his right side was stokely carmichael
who headed up the youth wing,
and a lot of national and
international press were at this march
in mississippi on june 16th 1966.
they asked king - what does he
think? 'so... i still believe in non-violence and
integration', and they talked to carmichael and he
said 'no i don't believe in that'
and then he went on to talk about 'we
need black power '- that's when black power
took off, specifically
on that date, that occasion and that
particular young man.
there was a lot of national and
international press, so it became
globalised in the media of that day
right? not like
twitter.. and a lot of
black people who were professionals and
even everyday people
had to respond to this new development:
what is black power?
is it the armed struggle? is it terrorism?
is it communism? is it radicalism? is it
uncivilised?
who are these young people talking black power?
so what happens to civil rights and king?
and one of the groups of black people
who had to respond to the cry for black
power - that is respond to it and
interpret it -
were a group of black pastors, and
june 16th, black power arrives in the
united states. then on
july 31st 1966,
42 black pastors
signed a black power statement and they
published it in the new york times.
this was unbelievable, so technically
black liberation theology begins
july 31st 1966.
cone writes his first book 'black
theology and black power' in march
1969, but those of us who know black
liberation theology
usa know that cone comes out of a
movement
three years prior to his arrival on the
scene,
and he would say it
too, but of course everybody... he is the
father
of - i guess for younger people now he
would be the godfather of - black
liberation theology.
the original definition -and this is very
important for today's movement in the united
states -
the original definition of black power,
which was
enunciated and shouted on the civil
rights march
july june 16 96 by stokely carmichael,
the head of the youth wing,
was for black workers, rural workers,
to own their own land. that was the
content then, before the intellectuals
like me got in and started writing
hundreds of books.
but the original was a
movement from below, outside of the
church, outside of the academy-
it was for black, rural peasants to own
the land.
so it was an economic movement, and
they also- that is, stokeley
and the young folks, said the black
rural peasants and workers
should occupy all the political offices
where they're a majority population.
this is what black power was in the u.s.
that's before cable news and hopkins
started writing books and cone,
and that has been always been an impulse.
so the question
of economics and politics at a
grassroots level has
has always been the motor of
black people in the united states.
we know that the first permanent arrival of
blacks - i mean folks from west africa - was
august 1619 to virginia, my home state.
from august 1619
to 2020 today there's always been an
economic impulse
a grassroots impulse a grassroots
economic impulse
and political impulse, but a lot of those
people don't have access to
cable news, don't have access to the
major news, and a lot of us
are only teaching part of what's
happening there,
so that's who i am and that's how i fit into
it, i think what moves me is
a certain understanding of black
liberation theology -
again, this is usa. black liberation theology
has three terms in it: black,
liberation and theology. the foundational
term,
the cornerstone is liberation in the
term not black
or theology- liberation means that jesus
christ,
the historical jesus, came to earth - and
again this is the story, we can interpret
whether there's supernaturalism,
but the thrust of it is what we take up -
you know i don't
debate doctrine -
what, did he walk on water? you know, i
don't know - i wasn't there. maybe he
walked the water, you know, i know he may have turned
water into wine - if all your christians
know that story !
i might believe that one. - yeah, definitely! - so,
we think that liberation
for us means that jesus -
the historical jesus and the jesus
stories -
show us two things: one,
if we look at luke chapter four verse 16
and following, this is the only place in
the 66 books of the protestant bible
where jesus says this is the reason i
came to earth.
and in there he says it's to free the poor, to
help the prisoner and to help the widow, to
help the workers,
help the oppressed to be liberated into
the year jubilee. okay if
jesus' story says the primary reason i
have come is for that:
ah!  black liberation theologians, at least
the first generation from the 1960s,
said ah okay! and then the other passage
that a lot of them use and i still use
is
matthew 25 and following- it's the
parable of the story of the sheep and
the goats.
for a lot of us again - of all the 66
books of the protestant bible,
that is the only place where jesus says
these are the criteria to have new
life.
so wow if you know if somebody wants to
have a new life, you don't have to be a
christian...
and we find with the criteria:
visit the prisoner,
food to the hungry, water
for the thirsty, housing for the poor, the
widow,
working people. the purpose of jesus is
that -
it corresponds with the criteria for a new
life or heaven or i would say new life
for people on earth. so what does that
say- that says that
that is the motive for black liberation
theology, so that's the liberation part
of jesus' message, particularly luke
chapter 4, matthew 25,
the theology part says 
that
jesus' story of liberation goes
throughout the history of the
christian tradition, so theology
represents...
throughout the ages, theology is when we
talk about how god relates to humans,
that's all theology is.
theos logos - that is logos is how we
relate to theos.
so theos logos says how do human
beings since jesus
left - wherever he went - how do they debate
and
involve and live out the liberation
message in the human realm -
that's theology. so that's 'liberation theology'.
black is how all that reveals itself in
black culture-
that's what it says: how
does the liberation message of jesus
reveal itself,
express itself, understand itself in
black culture
and black life? theology is
how do black people in their own
tradition relate it to this, so
it's important for at least black
theology liberation usa to understand
that liberation -
the jesus story of liberation of the
poor, the working class
and the people who are materially
suffering. they
judge black culture, black culture does
not judge liberation-
they judge theology - black culture
theology doesn't - so that's very
important, because
what we're - at least the
initial people and those of
the second generation maybe - we were
struggling to create
a new reality where black poor people
could have a fullness of life; that they
could participate in the resources of
this earth.
that we, you know give - whether it's
domestic violence resolution, to owning
their own businesses, to providing
education for their kids,
to correcting bad police
activity: it was a comprehensive...
linking us to more to africa,
appreciating the global movements-
it was all that stuff, you know- having
better preaching, i mean it was a
holistic.
a holistic constructive movement.
the problem was that, as people were
developing
the fullness, or helped to develop the
fullness of life, for poor and working
class
black people, particularly in urban areas,
but there are black bean rule areas too,
then you have instances of white
supremacy and racism blocking that, so
it's important to say that it starts
with a
positive movement to fullness of life;
it doesn't start with
negativity. historically it didn't do that.
that positivity got interrupted. now the
question then is
what's the big debate? start
negative- well this has been a big debate
in black theology since 1960s and 70s
and early 80s.
is black liberation theology
a reaction to white
stuff or
is black liberation theology an
expression of the positive,
energising, spirit-filled, hopeful
future of the jesus story and black
people?
two different things.. and that's how, you know, it
depends on where people spend their
energy. that's been debated in black
liberation theology usa in the first
generation, second generation...
i was part of a second generation - my
little voice -
but it's very important - what's
important is that liberation
is the guiding point in black liberation
theology -
not black and not theology. and two-  it
begins as an
affirmation of the good news that jesus
offers human beings, particularly black
people.
then  the negative stuff
interrupts that,
and then you got to fight, but it's not...
i think a lot of people probably have
never been organisers in the community, so at five years in the urban area in
harlem, and also since i've
been in chicago,
i've been involved, and a lot of people don't
know it, i read all these books and blah
blah blah, but
quietly i've been working with a group
of black men on the south
south side of chicago - i don't know what
it is in britain, but this would be -
you know, now i'm older, i don't go there
at night time. you know?
as a young guy, i did all kinds of things... and i've been working with
some of those folks in the community for
about 14 years or so.
so these are the people who have to- they
don't get up every day saying
'okay i need to get a gun' !
these are people who say 'well, i got to get
my kids..' - they might think can i get my
kids
safely to school? where am i
going to get food? these are, -as a
community organiser,
rooted somewhere in a community with
those people -
that's how i see black liberation
theology. and there's
all kinds of stuff going on right? so
that's just sort of where i come from,
family background,
how i was introduced to black liberation
theology,
but what has moved me as a
community organiser,
as an academic, as a global person - i
created a 14 country network in
asia, africa, latin america, pacific islands,
usa and england,
so i've done global stuff - is that
energy of the good news:
that poor and working-class black people
and poor working class
all people in the usa context - have the
opportunity to have new life!
there's a better world for
for women who are struggling against
domestic violence -
a lot of black churches deal with that. there's a
better world for these young guys in
chicago every weekend who are shooting
and killing each other, you know, 
that's the neighborhood reality that's
which is linked to the protest
downtown ,which you got to have, you know
it's a holistic thing, but you know those
are those people, those single... you know i
think something like 70%
of black families are headed by black
women out of wedlock. it's just, you know,
whatever the reality is: who's going to
deal with that part of the black
community?
that's what black liberation theology... who's
going to deal with
you know the trauma? after this police
brutality and somebody's shot,
there's trauma - it's intergenerational
trauma, it's not just the headlines.
who's gonna deal with that?
this is the jesus story that we're
talking about. now of course,
in big you know fighting and all that,
there's cable news, there's all that, and
those those are periodic, episodic...
but black liberation theology is a
grassroots movement
that was started
by everyday people. there were no
theologians in the first group of people
who wrote the july 31st statement
1966. they were not professors - a lot them, most
of them, didn't have phds. they were just
pastors of churches.
so that's how we had to deal with it.
for my dissertation i interviewed 15
black
liberation theologians in south africa
under apartheid, it was like a
dictatorship when i was there.
i interviewed 15 black liberation
theologians in the united states,
and i interviewed the guys - and they were
all guys -
who weren't the james cones - these
were the guys who proceeded him,
and they were saying 'well, as a
pastor,
i had to
take my car and put a black guy with
molotov cocktails in the trunk of my car-
i guess you say the boot of the car
right in
england - yeah - and i was [inaudible] the
national guard
out of the ghetto - that was my
pastoral duty, so
you don't hear those stories unless you
talk to the people who are not on camera
news you know?
you don't talk to hopkins, you know, you
have a whole series on
the ghetto people, the black people- you
can have - that's your next series, oh my
god, the stories are so...
the survival story, and how they protest,
and how they undermine the system
is incredible. - and your story actually
fits in -
your personal story- fits in well to that
whole story of black theology coming out
of grassroots, because you are
first and foremost, you know, before
becoming a theologian, you were a community
organiser, so
you were already working in the grassroots.
- exactly, precisely, i never... of
course, we all can look at 2020 in hindsight
and frame it, but at the time it was just
a deep passion of service to people who
were
less-off, and i get that particularly -
again,
this is my story, particularly my father,
my grandfathers, my great-grandfathers.
my father
lived to be 95 and,
you know, young people used to come over
to his house - he would sit on the front
porch,
and they would ask - this is in
virginia, rural village virginia, back
under segregation - i was born
legally under segregation, i was born in
saint philip's 'coloured' hospital,
downtown richmond, and my birth
certificate says 'coloured' -
segregation. so they would come by
and he would give them money, they would
go to the store to get groceries for him -
he didn't need any food but he just
wanted to help them, i remember.
there was a boy in the neighborhood -
his mother had left, so my father sent
my two older sisters to go get him and
bring him in the house,
give him a bath, clothe, feed him. i was
like 'wow, this is deep'.
and there were six sons - i thought it was
seven sons, but i found out later that
the seventh son, who used to
spend so much time in our house, was a
friend -
he was adopted like that, so we always
have this service -
service to poor people, service to
people who are less-off than we are.
and thus, when i went to harlem, you know,
looking back, it was a natural development. i had two older brothers
who were involved in the anti-vietnam
war, and the other one was involved in
the black power movement, so he knew
stokely and all of that. so i grew up
around that as well.
then i had older brothers who
were in the navy, right
after the korean war. so again, my father
was born in 1907,
mother was born in 1914. he died in 2002 -
he lived to be 95.
so we have a whole historical suite that
comes
up into the current movement, and it
brings the current movement into a history and a story and a tradition, and
a future! we know that this moment is
going to pass,
but it is a massive movement.
i have not seen anything like this since
the assassination of martin
luther-king. - yeah, wow!
- something is happening. this is a major
shift.
we'll see how long it lasts or what the
deep implications are, but we won't know until 20 or 30 years from now. but something is
happening in america, and
there are lots of people - not all, you
know, there are 44
million african-american citizens in the
united states, there are 360 u.s. citizens
legally (there are
30 million other non, but you know), so it
doesn't represent everybody, but
something is happening, and i have never
ever -
since king, you know - i was in high
school then -
seen anything like this. it's an
exciting time, it's a dangerous time,
it's a sober time, but it's a time of
great opportunity and it looks like a
lot of younger folk are saying
'you know, we're going to do our thing, you
know, we are going to do our thing', so that's
how i framed that.
- i mean, i guess, linked to that,
we could ask one of these questions i've
written down, which is
'what do you hope
from this movement?' because,
what i'd like to ask you as well is
linked to that as well: why do you
think it has suddenly...
because black men have been killed by
police,
you know, intermittently for a while in
the u.s. and even here they
have died in custody and things. why has
this - suddenly - this moment taken off?
it's an amazing thing, it's an incredible
thing,
it's a tragic thing that so many people
had to die before people kind of
woke up and started actually caring, but
why is it? i guess the two questions are:
why do you think this is the
special moment?
why has it happened now? why now? and the
other one is: what what do you hope
for, because you're talking a lot about
hope and how important that is to the
christian story, and that actually we
can't get only
into protesting, but the protesting must
come out of that hope
for a better life and and that
eternal life as as you interpreted it -
this new life.
so if you can remember what my questions
were:
why now? and what do you hope
for?
right i think that a lot of
people in the united states, i think they're quite a number
of african-american people in
communities who...
let me back up. i think a majority of
people in the united states have never
seen someone killed and die on camera.
we've been a country that has been
spared war,
unlike a lot of countries around the
world, you know, we've been...
so americans have the sort of
idealistic hollywood notion -
you know, in american movies, you can
always tell the difference between american movies
and chinese movies-
traditional chinese movies. in american
movies the good guy gets the girl, they
tongue kiss and ride off in the sunset
at the end you know...
and in the chinese movies, the
hero dies.
when i first went to china like 20 years ago,
i was like 'wait, the guy died?! doesn't he get
the girl and they get off to do their...?!'
so all i'm saying is our hollywood
expresses american popular culture,
novels things like that
you know things work out you know we've
never been we've never so we and we
never had war
um the other thing too there's a deep
perception that the constitution works
and bill of rights works and you know
it's freedom and speech and whatnot
so i think a lot of people were just uh
in american culture
could not believe that someone was dying
in front of them
and he's being killed the guy was
murdered mr george i called him mr mr
george floyd was being murdered you know
uh in front of them i think that shook
a lot of people and said you know the
the bets is off the bets are off you
know the rules are
we got to suspend the rules or we got to
change the rules we got to reinterpret
them with everyone's political
perspective but something has to be
done a guy was killed
uh i don't know you know i guess the uk
went through world war ii and
fascism whatever but the united states
has been spared
above all of that you know we have civil
discourse you know even though i have a
lot of people have guns
but the idea of death it i don't know
how to express the words to people
who aren't from the united states to see
somebody killed except for the guys and
gals who went to war
you know vietnam world war ii et cetera
but most american citizens we were
watching
we once we saw the guy die he was killed
we saw a dead body
and the hero didn't get up you know so i
think carter was just a
visual and violent interruption of the
american story the american narrative
that marriage
expectation even its most brutal sense
and it was caught on live
tv video that is gosh was it live
i thought it was sorry it was not live
it was uh i'm sorry
three-dimensional um yeah it was a
little long video yeah a video right
eight eight i guess it was well it was
actually a lot of us it's more than
eight eight he was on his
back they were actually three altogether
i don't know if you've seen the other
angle
there's an angle from the back so there
was at least
one other guy on his back as well so the
first guy was on his neck the other guys
so there's another video from the back
you can see them
um it was a horrific brutal
it disrupted what it means to be human
being it just at the fundamental primal
level you just don't kill somebody you
know
and then the people who are taping says
hey get out he can't breathe you get all
of this
and it's just oh it's sad breaks my
heart you know it um
you know he his mother my understanding
his mother died like three years ago
but uh have you heard the video he says
mama
sophia if this is true his mother died
three years ago what does you know
so this happens when he when people see
death coming
and we experienced that the guy is
calling for his mama and she died three
years ago that
and he said somebody tell my children i
love him and it's like what is going on
he dies and his tongue is hanging out
yeah this is for particularly from the
us context we have
never we've seen in hollywood but we
have never seen anything like this
and i think a lot of people said this is
the straw that broke the camel's back
this is it and so people
who had all kinds of grievances whether
it was the
police uh instance of police brutality
or whether it's housing or whether it's
curriculum in the schools or whether
statues or whether
everything just erupted like a volcano
um you know and then the black glass so
again black lives movement as an
organization because we can talk about
differentiating what is black lives
matter in the us context is
different levels globally may be framed
one way
but if we say there's the insta the
organization black lives matter
international foundation which was
formed by three black women on the west
coast
they had set up an apparatus under the
obama administration
a lot of people don't want to talk about
it but a lot of the black the killing of
black men was under eight years of
administration the black lives movement
did not wasn't found in under the trump
administration
inside the obama administration i just
think that's i just like to look at
everything
it's tragic i'm not running for office
so i don't worry about votes um
so anyway so the other thing was there
was an apparatus there was a structure
there was an awesome name black lives
matter
pithy catchy so they're nice they had a
nice logo
and all of that slogan and they had an
organization infrastructure
and that was able to uh name and frame
and help organize a movement that
erupted like a volcano
that um then two you have to also talk
about the president united states
uh you know president donald trump for
those who
hate trump those who support biden
and those who were looking for a
convenient target
then you also had for historical reason
there's a present united states
that can also focus it for a lot of
people you know
wouldn't been able to do that if it was
obama was president would be difficult
to focus it because the people said well
you can't
he's a black person but i think too so
historic history had
pulled together a lot of factors from
the white house
to seeing somebody die and murdered on
video to a
apparatus that was intact to a really
pithy slogan black lives matter you know
it's just
and also the fact that the founders were
three black women and i know one is
uh is self-identified a lesbian sister
so you've got that dimension of
multiplicity intersectionality and women
and
all these stuff i think just came
together it never came together like
that in the history
the united states it was not like that
in king in 68 when he was assassinated
uh it was not like that in the 1920s and
30s
uh with the harlem renaissance and also
a lot of people want to talk about the
communist party of
cp communist party usa led a lot of
black
struggles in the 30s um you know seeing
going i mean
well i'm not into communism personally
but just looking at the history of
movements and how they compare to the
factors that came together today
my humble opinion i have never seen so
many factors
come together you know history will
judge
the movement you know we're in accord in
the mix of it you know
and uh the revolutionary spirit or
counter revelation
the other thing is you have to remember
i one i found the liberation of the
jesus story
okay that's where i go i love black
americans so that's another thing too is
i'm concerned about the people on the
ground so when i see a statue pulled
down
my question is okay how is that helping
the that black woman who's got three
kids
on the south side of chicago that i knew
you know like that so that's just put it
out there
that's my energy is that and um
so you know there's
there are a lot of things going on today
but those are some of the factors i
think uh
i'm hopeful that um
when all is said and done that the
billions of money that's being given to
the overall black lives movement will
trickle down
to those people you may not for example
wall street company silicon silicon
valley companies
uh high net worth individuals
corporations foundations have given
three billion would it be to the black
lives matter
black lives matter blm that's a lot of
money that's a lot of money yeah
that's something that was small before
actually you know yeah
and my thing is like hey whatever
happens you know
hopefully it'll get to those people that
i that i think
the black black liberation theology
about that's all i'm not
i like i said i'm i'm a really optimist
i always believe that glasses have
full you know i don't spill a lot of
energy
on evil i spent a lot of energy on hope
and building
maybe because i was community organized
my father was like that my mother was
like so
um i just hope that some of that three
billion dollars gets to
infrastructure we have food deserts you
know
we would have to sometimes you know go
to the store for some of these old
retired black women
you know in urban areas they can't get
there they don't have cars right
um or they were afraid to come out of
the house okay
uh so can we get some uber over there
can we build some supermarkets can we
can we take some of these youth on
vacations with three billion dollars can
we get scholarships for
first kids can we help those mothers can
we have professionals coming today with
domestic violence
you know um which is intensified given
the shutdown
with the you know corvette 19. these are
the issues of those people
in the community that i'm concerned
about you know let's get part of the
three billion dollars to those
what about mr george floyd's family see
that's the other thing
i want to focus on the family take care
of them
fortunately i have some of the nba
players have given like 100 million
i mean they get they really take care of
his kids but but i still want i'm still
concerned about that you know the
intergenerational trauma his daughter
i'm more into that you know how are we
gonna do then her friends you know
what's happening there they're they're
not in the headlines anymore
you know what kind of maybe i'm too much
of a
i don't know maybe my old buddy or young
so i i'm thinking about that get some of
that i want to know where i'm going to
trace that three billion
to the south side of chicago and then
how do we use that particular to
restructure
inform the police community
relationships you know like that
all that types of things housing um so
some of us are actually
still quite as kept working on some
housing projects
and uh you know some things now we
actually probably i don't want to
condemn it by
talking about it prematurely but thus
some folk are still concerned about that
you know uh so i'm hopeful
that the people who are everyday people
uh will have a better life and
again this hope is rooted in a history
uh if we look at the movements in the
united states
it has been the everyday people who
powered those movements and dr king was
brilliant
he always recognized those people you
know he said a pilot
always has a ground crew you know so he
he always recognized that he was not
interested in being in the limelight he
never made any money but he and coretta
scott k used to argue his wife
um so it's the it's the ground crew
that powers history yeah i studied
the liberation movements the colonial
movements in in throughout
africa asia and latin america and
particularly the whole canada africa in
the 60s
when you read all those books of kenneth
county the first prime minister
uh uh the old you know nelson mandela
when he was in jail the books he wrote
uh julius nyeri not tanzania the first
prime minister
uh kwame and karuna can go on and on
they all started with the
division of what they call a new one
they started with the new connecticut
they linked that to the real peasants
the urban and then the professionals
like that so i really learned from
people who actually made revolution
actually built countries and it
resonated deeply with me and i've always
carried that with me
uh in my heart when i look at what's
happening today
so i'm hopeful about the poor people the
working people black folk
they power history and they will
ultimately try out
in building this new community uh it's
gonna be very painful everything is
painful right anything that's worked
that's gonna be painful
um but it seems to me that would be the
best one of the best
testimonies to the senseless brutal
elimination of mr george floyd if on
that you know like the phoenix
phoenix arrives out of ashes if working
people on the south sides of chicago
you know those and i use it as a symbol
uh
if they have a if they have a better
life if the blood of mr george fourth
floor could
could you know water the soil the new
lives that come from poor working-class
black people i would be very i'm very
very hopeful for that
and i don't to me it's
inter-generational it's not just a mo
it's inter-generational but what we do
now impacts you know you know there's a
whole big election's coming
and when you talk about this
intergenerational trauma
and you started at the beginning as well
about talking about your family
i think you said that your great great
grandfather or your great grand
great great grandfather was in slavery i
think anyway it just brings it home
people think it's ages ago it's not ages
ago
it's late 19th century you know you're
talking
1860s still with slavery i mean it's
it's it's madness really that it's so
close
people feel like the second world war is
close but that's
not even that much later you know people
have this interdent generation of trauma
from the things that are happening now
but also from
probably from historical things you know
that that have happened
absolutely absolutely that was just a
statement rather than a question
it's important because it's not that's
why i want to frame
the current movement at least in the u.s
context
in a generational framing that goes back
to 1619
so our story is there quietus is kept
the first group of enslaved africans
brought to the so-called new world
was in florida they were catholics
brought them and they were
spanish-speaking
but they didn't the colony didn't last
so roma
black woman catholic liberation would
always correct us from home so after the
framework was 1690
herman yeah so yeah we're we're thinking
about that
um that is why um quite a number of
black
people today in the united states keep
referring to slavery
now whether it's right or wrong you know
people all you know i didn't sell
that's because it's just excuse me
it's a recent memory like i said it
would be my my um
it's my great grandparents not great
great okay
but yeah yeah i just want to add years
to you
they have a saying in a lot of the black
churches is that you know
everybody want to go to heaven and see
jesus and then my father who loved the
church
and others but the old they would people
had a good sense of humor who loved
jesus
they said yeah everybody talk about
heaven but they're not ready to go
so i'm talking about the jesus story but
i'm not ready to go meet him right now
so
um yeah so that's i think you wrote a
brilliant point about intergenerational
trauma
because for a lot of black folks um
it's it's it's independent of my great
grandparents not my great great by great
camper you know uh
yeah and we grew up with these stories
you know i can tell you but what if you
know how you
mail how do you ride a horse you know
how do they
skin a pig and i got all these graduate
degrees and
i can tell you you know uh you know how
pete got married i can tell you
how do you make do who doing voodoo
to get a man to love you
what type of uh actually right actually
my father knew all that my mother choose
but
but no it's it's part of the stories
that we don't like we didn't learn in
school
we learned them at home we learned about
christmas we learned july 4th
gatherings we learned thanksgiving
church revivals
back in the day some of it's still
around but you know
everything changed and i'm not people
say oh professor hopkins you're right
about the 60s
first of all i don't want to go back i'm
not that type of girl you know the
we were much better in the 60s no i
think every generation of black people
all young people have the right to
determine their own destiny
any old gray hair try to tell them to go
back
this this is a christian story right so
i better watch my language
they should just say leave me alone and
let us do our thing so that's my first
that's what i love that's why i love
education
because young people are fired up and
ready to go
and my role is to if there is a role
it's really a facilitator to help people
claim their own voice
and to create their own story
recognizing previous stories that's why
i stayed i love teaching i haven't
retired don't plant it because i just
enjoy
seeing young people do that you know
it's just it's amazing you know
that's the future that's the hope with
the young we can't we can't keep holding
on and
you know it used to be this way or don't
do this uh i just enjoy
people young folks in motion and that's
what's going on today
i used to work with students in
university as well so
i can definitely appreciate the the
energy and
you know that the need for change that
they have this urgent need for change
and that things are not right
you know it's very it's very much things
to learn from younger people as much as
there are things to learn from older
people
oh yeah yeah now could you
professor or dwight as you prefer
um could you tell us a little bit about
your books and which
maybe maybe just give us an idea of
which ones you think people could start
with if they wanted to read some of them
because
anthony tells me you've written quite a
few
so the master
hyperbole
there are two books i would recommend
and they're actually written for a mass
audience beyond the academy
one is called black theology essays on
gender
perspectives the second one is called
black theology
essays on global perspectives so they
have the same name except for one it has
gender
and one has global and it it's a review
of all my
thinking and development on gender and
on globalization
uh so some are articles a couple of
speeches i gave so it's much more
geared toward uh
a non-academic non-specialized audience
like that and then and i write an
introduction in both
which tells for the first time my own
family story so you'll
i didn't know that you know he knows how
to he knows how to shoot a deer okay
professor hopkins so i talk a little bit
about you know my father and my
family and stuff like that so get a
little little taste of the
fool me in there and the introductions
as well
great brilliant thank you that's really
helpful because i think it's always
it's always good for people to start
somewhere that's you know
and then discover more than somewhere
that's like someone
can pursue it further yeah you know how
much white folk like to
feel like we're doing something by
joining a book club you know
no reading is important you know it's
just
at some point you know philosophers have
interpreted the world sometimes we have
to also change it
so but reading is very important look
you know
obviously it's important in my life well
educating ourselves is important and
then and then of course doing the
grassroots stuff as well you know
is that feeding in isn't it it's that
liberation theology cycle isn't it of
learning
from what you experience and
experiencing and then it feeds into your
learning etc
absolutely absolutely that's exactly
it's very you can come
be my co-teacher that's exactly my whole
10 weeks and
30 seconds exactly that's that's well
i've got a bit of liberation
obviously i think it's really inspiring
stuff so
and it's fed into so many different
different branches now you know
when sometimes when you speak speak of
just liberation theology on its own you
think of kind of south american kind of
gustavo gutierrez and
this kind of thing and and it's kind of
focused on
poverty and liberation of the poor but
then it's become
well maybe it's not become maybe that's
me doing wrong history actually yeah i
feel like biology goes back further
actually
but has kind of got drawn into the
liberation theology thing that came out
of the 60s 70s that
got labelled that i think and black
theology kind of got
was already probably a thing and it got
kind of
amalgamated into it maybe but there's
some kind of theology queer theology you
know you've got all these different
branches now haven't you so
yeah no it's awesome right now i do so
so just to clarify
so um gustavo gutierrez's first
spanish edition of his book a theology
liberation
was published in 1971 that was the first
book
in latin america then the english
translation was
orbis books 1973. okay so just
but what's important for us to realize
is that liberation theology
arose simultaneously all over the world
from sri lanka
to south korea to the united states
all over the world what's happened is
that
there were in the there was a generation
ahead of me uh
particularly a couple of white scholars
who whose mission
was to link to equate liberation
theology with latin america
it never liberates theology for latin
never historically was equipped they
were equated
a couple of reasons was how can i say
that first of all when we read gustavo
gutierrez's um
book and i was just on a zone with him
last week actually and still
he's a and we've done panels together
before um he says i'm developing a
liberation theology
for the latin american context so the
father in that region
says in his text so that's one two
liberation theology there were books on
liberation theology that preceded
this book and it's not to compete but
james cohen's first book
was march 69. chapter two of the book
says liberation theology
okay his second book 1970 again one year
before gustavo gutierrez book is
this is a black theology liberation
that's the title of the book
so then there's a third book
on black political theology that jay
diotis roberts who is also
a first generation black pastor
liberation academic his came up
and then gustavus came up the next year
so the black
church was publishing on liberation
theology so that's the usa
i can go down to i can go i mean i teach
this
sri lanka 1967 66
south korea and go on and on south
africa
oh you know
i can go i teach this stuff you know
travel
so it was just and i think and first of
all when i was younger i used to really
get excited about it because
folk were saying that that people in
asia couldn't do liberation theology the
people in south africa
and it was only but again it was to my
understanding
it was more north actually he was a
friend of mine i should i don't want
he's dead now it was a white
theologian who wrote lots of books he
wanted to make liberation theology of
latin america
so there was a movement in the united
states the spirit of liberation
of black it can't be housed they can't
be contained in one region it can't be
contained in black liberation throughout
the united states because we've got
queer we've got
just you know ableism it can't be
contained
so too globally came to complain to
latin america uh
and the other thing i want to share too
is that the first generation of
liberation theologians globally
created an international organization
called etwa
is the acronym economic uh ecumenical
association of third world theologians
and that's when all the first generation
james comey was in it
gonzalez was in it the boss brothers
were in there balasuria from sri lanka
simon mamela from from pretoria south
africa i mean all these people i
interview when i was a little shorty
because i like to go talk to real people
before they die
they were all in it and they debated in
fact the
organization was created by a black
priest from africa that's the other
thing
so the first global international
liberation
theology network which was the house for
the global development
was initiated by an african you know
and then i as i when i and so i was
always a young person being pulled into
stuff so after i graduated
i they they let me in what did they do
and i was the chair of international the
international theological commission
for all the theology was that's that's
the heartbeat right
i said the committee we produced the
book you know i edited the book
so i just want to clarify that you know
it just
liberation theology arose everywhere in
the world yeah one of the beautiful
things that the thinkers and pastors and
priests and policy makers in latin
america have done is that they
are focused on publishing and i just so
respect and i'm impressed by how they
have continually i just sat on a
dissertation
um committee of a student at the
university chicago
uh brilliant he's like a fourth
generation
and um they're still publishing so i
think part of it too is that they have
claimed their voice in that region and
they're going to publish it and so when
one
a person or group of folks claim their
voice and publish
then it people think that that is the
only way
but i think you you introduced a very
comment i don't know if you were
i'm sure you were aware of it yeah it
has manifested in all kinds of ways i
mean
what you just said right it's manifested
a good example is when i was at union
theological seminary
and i started there in the mdi program
in 1981 and graduated phd in 1988
um we had
pioneers and black liberation theology
we had okay so we had four
african-american men on the faculty
one african-american woman on the
faculty you know
half popular half half the fact were
white women um
we had the founder of black liberation
thousand faculty we had the founder of
black theology and marxism on the
faculty cornell west we have the founder
of black church studies on the faculty
james call we have one of the founders
of women's theology she was on the fact
we had the founder of
barista which is black that is latin
america these and we have the founder of
some of the first generals
brilliant let does their
self-identification lesbian theologian
bev harrison
and um phyllis tribble text of tara
terror
yeah this is what i went with 1981 so
liberation theology was just
all around union seminary and it was
just
and it was organically bubbling so for a
lot of us particularly those who
are who at that time was going on on the
limb
who uh you know we openly came out in
support of uh we our turn would be gay
and lesbian back in
this was in 1979. yeah a lot of us were
laughed out
you know it was like man what are you
talking about you know that's a white
man's thing that's from europe you know
that's a white feminist
and we're just like no man we gotta we
said liberation is the narrative we
gotta be consistent
we can't just keep it to black people
you know everybody has to have fullness
of life
i'm head for example i'm
african-american i'm american citizen
i'm married kids you know might be
having a grandkid kind of hoping that
but anyway i love who i am you know i'm
from the south i love my photo i have i
love my father
okay i can love myself also a lot of
people to be there for you know it
doesn't have to be either or you know
and so for some of us particularly you
know second generation who for us would
have been early maybe
in the uk it came you know people
accepted it earlier than we did but for
a lot
that was um not so much in the 80s
though
yeah well this was 79 and then i moved
it so we
so as a community organizer um began to
see
some black folk who were also gay and
lesbian on the ground right
then they said well that's the reality
and then formally went in the academy in
81.
but you know liberation theology was
manifested all kinds of ways that union
did it it was just an amazing
and we had people come from all over
asia after latin america to teach for a
year
so um again that's when i was talking
the beginning that in
black liberation theology the key for
me and a lot of us was the liberation
part
and that's important because the
liberation is this is the way we
self-critique
our the movement our movements also make
it personal
so when we were organizing in harlem for
five years and what we were doing quite
is kept
some things on south side of chicago for
14 years or so
what is it that critiques us you know
what is that keeps us honest and
accountable
you know what is that helps deal with
our own internal psychological emotional
and
sexual demons that we have
it has to be the narrative of the
liberation in community
that to me enlivens the black part
you know if there's no self-critique
inside of the movement today
i think there is and i think part of it
now is a little covered over because
pretty much a lot of the movement is
trying to get president trump out of
office
so i mean i'm not at this point in my
life i don't really
it is so whether it's good or bad
history will judge it so
so a lot of self-critique i think has
been pushed back
until november third and maybe there'll
be more discussion and conferences
and from some political scientists
and public leaders perspective they
think that's important
it's important to postpone it so anyway
whether it's postponed now or come out
five years later
i just think that the uh the beauty and
the hope
of this good news that is liberation is
that
it tells poor people it tells
working-class people it tells people
another world is possible that's the
that's the fundamental thing you know
that's what it's so much that's why they
call it good news hello hallelujah
or you know you start dancing whatever
you don't know what to do or just read a
book
about it if that's the good news in
another world's possible and i'm
concerned about whether
that how we get that message
materialized
institutionalize and structures material
structures on earth
because whether it's domestic violence
the things we don't want to talk about
right or whether it's cancer or whether
it's obesity or whether it's police
brutality or whether it's
homelessness job you know whatever
have to force go to military whatever
the structures of the
we've got to say look we have got to
take care of the people who don't have
the resources
in their lives some folks says it needs
to be reparations
some folks feel that you know you need
to have more fathers in the house i mean
see to me i'm not i'm running for office
okay i'm concerned about
those communities because that's usually
the debate right well if you think
that there needs to be more falls in the
house and you support trump if you think
that there needs to be uh
more reparations just poured by it i'm
not you know i'm not i'm just
those people will come and go you know i
got here when dwight eisenhower was the
president
okay
we thought watergate we thought fascism
was coming with richard nixon
people thought fascism was coming i was
there i mean i was never a big leader
but i was around
then you know vietnam you know nepal
then you know
uh bush one reagan you know people who
then of course people who think the
other way thought that uh
thought muslims were taking over the
country when obama was uh president
so i've been you know we've been and
this too shall pass
but what's hopeful for me again is that
young people are
moving now in this moment so i'm
concerned about how do we link the
the the jaw and the beauty and the
efferessence that's the part of life the
young energy bring you know they really
take risk and
with sort of the sober long-term vision
so they will see the vision beyond the
moment and i'm
i work in those spheres i get paid my
day job to do that in the
classroom and then my other stuff i do
is outside the collection that's what
the nexus i'm working on
and um i think it's it's amazing again
i've never seen anything
like this there were 320 cities that
went on fire
after king was assassinated in america
april 4th
1968 in a church of garden
in memphis tennessee was when king was
assassinated april 4 68
and that summer of 68 it was about 320
american cities burning
you know and it was like oh my god it's
the apocalypse and people saying you
know there's a revolution
there's a lot of cement what they
because a lot of people say okay they
kill
they'll say well they killed malcolm x
so he was you know
but they killed the peace the drum major
piece that's why people just went crazy
and i have never experienced anything
like this
except for when mr george floyd was
killed today and
people are still in motion um i think we
need a combination of both
uh public voices and also
behind the scenes structural voices they
have to go together
uh and again i i think a lot of it today
this is my humble opinion
is uh it's it's going towards the
re-election of uh
re-election it's going toward the
election of uh oh i hope that wasn't a
slip
no no it's no oh the
black lives matter oh no no they're not
gonna do no they're there
in fact that's that was one of the
statements that one of the leaders said
in an interview she said yeah she said
the black lives matter movement
is this is set to is is in motion to to
elect
uh joe biden that's it that's a very
again i'm not running for office so i'm
not left right
but it seems to me that okay if that's
the movement
leaders and this movement is huge as you
well know right
um how do we take that and link it again
to those
the south sides of chicago that's what i
yeah
and some people have said well we don't
defund the police others have said that
make up zones you know free zones of the
people and i'm using a
gentle description um
then okay if that's the program then how
again how does what impact does it have
of those local communities
that's the thing does it empower them
does it not i'm not in those local zones
in portland and seattle
i'm not part of the leadership of black
lives matter i'm not part of the local
leadership
uh so i don't know the inside workings
you know because cable news is always
going to portray
left right and center exaggerated
because that's what media does except
for independent media like your series
of course
but the larger mainstream media that's
what they could pay for it's in hey
that's their job i get paid to teach uh
but i'm always concerned about the me
like you're immediate that level of
media or i'm concerned about what's
what's happening in the neighborhood
clubs i'm i'm i'm trying to understand
you know what's happening those the
so-called gangs of these black youths
from age
age ten eight nine to ten yeah in
chicago i know
that's another thing we don't want to
talk about we got to also talk about the
violence
you know every weekend in chicago we
have shootings i've been here like 25
years this stunt just started
it's from friday to monday we have
shootings
you know again my criteria is the
liberation story and those families
those women who are saying it's like 70
or something ah
it's like it's probably from about
every weekend 12 to 65 people shot
every weekend and then maybe you know
two
to seven killed you know uh
i don't want that that's so my heart is
for so those are children who are being
shot
those are sons those are daughters you
know sisters and brothers
so i'm not for violence i definitely
don't support this weekend killing
within the black community
because i see that it's impacting their
lives you know these folks would be
going to university or they could have
imagined a new discovery for how to cure
cancer or
how to bring supermarkets to the
community how to help their
grandparents you know so i'm not into
attacking them all you know these gang
bangers you know i'm not into that
my children i'm not into it you know
nine generations of hopkins family we
that's not our thing we don't roll right
but still i have deep sympathy because i
see
human beings who have the possibility to
benefit from the liberation struggle
liberation story of jesus
another world is possible so at some
point maybe after
uh november 3rd depending on who becomes
president
um the movement the leaders of this
movement efferes
movement there's some excesses but every
movement has excesses
maybe we can also attend to that more
too
uh use some of that three billion
usd dollars for that use some of this
awesome access to global publicity and
there's a national global movement
i still want to help those folks you
know i don't want those
65 people shot that is a lot
you know on a weekend yeah
every weekend in chicago and we could go
on and on i don't want to speak with
other people's
and i'm not brain blind i am not blaming
the mayors or the police
so let me just be very clear for people
who have been it's not i'm more
concerned
we're going to do it okay we can whether
you vote left right or center
and that's you know it's the right of
every human being to express their voice
anywhere that's my humble thing um but
i'm saying what
what's the program for them is is that
normal
maybe i'm crazy or so you know but it
happens every weekend and now
for whatever reason it's happening in
the weekdays
you know like on monday in the daytime i
think was maybe like
15 or something in chicago over shot it
usually ended around monday morning like
midnight you know or one a.m
so something is you know maybe it's the
excess of the times and it'll play
itself up
but my heart is touched by that there's
probably a lot of factors isn't it
poverty included you know and
lack of hope hope is an important thing
a lot of people maybe
you know in poorer communities just lack
hope for their lives you know
you end up being in this kind of gangs
and things
yeah but i have to say too that there
are some churches
there are some women's groups and there
are some mothers groups
and i know south side chicago i don't
want to name them because first of all
i won't get the names right i don't want
to leave anybody out but to your point
your brilliant point about the hope
piece
there's hope it's just the cable news
they're doing their thing
their thing is to get the rate in the
united states context their goal
is to get paid it's a capital society
what you do that is get the ratings up
way to get the ratings up is
is sensationalism because it grabs the
heartstrings you want to follow the
story like a
soap opera every week that's the purpose
of cable cable news united states
majority not all is not to tell the news
that's not the purpose of
the cable news um so
they're doing their thing hey right on
to you as we used to say the six is
power to your sister
but there are also these folks on the
ground the south sides of chicago who
are hopeful to your
point about hope that don't get cable
news there are people who are
organizing homeschooling for black kids
you know because of shutdown there are
people who are
still doing boy scouts there's people
who are trying to reach out
provide community development some of
these like so-called gang bangers which
is not their
little little shorties were formed in
fact there were interviews of them when
we were doing it
because i'm older i don't do it anymore
you know what they said
some of these guys it wasn't all the
black men young
in chicago but they were saying well
look all y'all black professors y'all
moved out
he said hey man press hobbies you should
universe chicago with obama you out
there with the white people this is how
they talk
not on cable and you let the y'all gone
you're not there we don't have any jobs
school is born
police always pulling us over so we
think we're going to do own family so
this is
i don't support it i don't support gangs
or any type of effect so numbers but
trying to understand
who are these human beings you know who
walk this earth and for whatever reason
feel an appropriate outlet is to come
together and start shooting everybody
you know um to me that story too has to
go along with the police issues
because um i'm not interested in someone
coming into anybody's community
and shooting and killing them and i'm
interested in innocent people
inside of community being killed you
know and it really you know i have a
passion for young people
as you know i just can't i just see
human beings dying i see young people
kill yeah i just
and we have to we have to intervene and
we have to intervene holistic approach
doesn't it
to these kinds of yeah you know not just
the police although it would be
wonderful to to sort a lot of those
police
problems out and and and the greater
kind of racism in society
yeah issues and i think that
the larger picture that you're you know
portraying you know is
there are movements and mechanism in
place to deal with that
that's what's being we're seeing you
know and it's obviously do you defund or
redirect or do you have citizens
patrols or do you have citizens police
patrols do you have take the guns away
let
all that's being discussed so that
that's being discussed and it's being
sorted out i just try to figure out how
to also bring
other parts of the picture into the
story and that's all like that
i don't want to think holistically i
think isn't it about people's lives like
you say it's about people in the end
it's about people's lives isn't it it's
not about
it's not even about just the economy as
a kind of vague
concept like a lot of people talk it
even when you're talking about things
like the economy
or whatever you're talking about
people's lives and how
you know that's the first and foremost
thing i think it's actually
i i love the way you talked about those
two passages um was it matthew
about his own mission um
and i i was talking last week to anthony
about
this ridiculous theologian
i shouldn't be disrespectful but very
conservative theologian who
is white um in the uk and he kind of
tweets these kind of awful views about
liberation theology and kind of just
dismisses
everything um as kind of identity
politics and whatnot
and and yet what what you've said is
that it shows the exact opposite for me
it shows that actually it's the absolute
heart of the gospel liberation theology
it is theology
you know and that's why it didn't come
out of gustavo coutinho's it didn't come
out of one place
it came out of so many different places
because it's gee
it's the gospel of course it did because
it's that's
that is the story that's our story
so you know for somebody to kind of
dismiss that as if they've got some kind
of
pure um theology over here when actually
it's just a white
man theology you know whatever
may i ask no you don't have to give me
the name but man what is his
what is his alternative well i think he
thinks that there's some kind of um
objective theology that we should all be
doing or something
um his name is john milbank you cannot
know his name he he
he's he's a professor i think he's a
professor or a doctor in any way he's a
he's a tutor at university but he's very
and he's a theologian but he's
he's got become more and more extreme in
his kind of
things he's saying basically and
upsetting a lot of people and
yeah dismissing everything that is
liberation theology
and it's it's it sucks at a lot of
people um
that are doing great work because they
care about people you know
liberation theology is about people
isn't it it's about caring about
people's lives
so i'll have to uh yeah
i want comments since it's in the uk but
you can see it's wow me slightly
upcoming
uh i think we better we better end there
but um
i didn't have that many more questions
anyway and i think you answered
pretty much all of them anyway in what
you've answered when i've asked you the
other questions
but i i feel like maybe we should wrap
it up because i don't i want people to
listen to the whole of this
interview and and and not kind of go oh
it's it's long um so i'm gonna i'm gonna
wrap it up here but it was really really
lovely to speak to you thank you so much
for coming
um on to zoom
there we go product placement all right
chicago yeah it's been a thank you thank
you ruth
and also thank you again to anthony
reddy uh for the work he's done
and really appreciate what he and the
other colleagues are doing there
um and i know he understands i think
he's
related to me that he might be the you
know the pilot of the ship or there's a
heck of a lot of ground crew
in your contacts that are on the working
heart so thank you so much
thank you so much thank you okay take
care
okay
