Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep958: A Black Man’s Interaction with the KKK: Daryl Davis

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Daryl Davis is a legendary musician and activist. As a musician, Daryl is considered to be one of the greatest Blues & Boogie Woogie and Blues and Rock’n’Roll pianists of all time, having played with The Legendary Blues Band (formerly the Muddy Waters band) and Chuck Berry.  As a race relations expert, Daryl has received acclaim for his book, Klan-Destine Relationships and his documentary Accidental Courtesy from many respected sources including CNN, NBC, Good Morning America, TLC, NPR, The Washington Post, and many others. He is also the recipient of numerous awards including the Elliott-Black Award, the MLK Award and the Bridge Builder Award among many others. https://www.daryldavis.com –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Our Website | Theologyintheraw.com Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. The Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference is just a couple days away. So I imagine if you're going to attend live, you have already bought your tickets and your plane flight, and I will see you in a couple days. If you have not yet registered for the online option and you still want to, there's unlimited seating on the internet. So you can go to theology.com and check out the way to register for the conference. It's only 50 bucks for virtual pass. So I would take to theology.com and check out the way to register for the conference. It's only 50 bucks for virtual pass. So I would take advantage of that if you're interested in watching from your living room. Okay, where do I start? My guest today, Daryl Davis, he's an American

R&B and blues musician, activist, author, actor, band leader. He has played with legends such as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, and Bruce Hornsby. He's an amazing musician. And some of that comes out in this conversation. We talk a bit about music, but I am most interested, well, I'm interested in his amazing music ability. You can Google around and see him just tickle the ivory like none other. Incredible musician. He's probably been most, I guess, known more recently for his interaction with the Ku Klux Klan. He has built many, many friendships with Klan members, many friendships with clan members and those friendships often lead the clan member out of the clan and when they do they give him their hoods and robes and memorabilia and flags and buttons and whatever else they have that represents their former clan membership he has a stash of

over 50 or 60 different robes and hoods from Klan members who through relationship with Daryl Davis, they ended up leaving the Klan. It's unbelievable. He's featured in the documentary Accidental Courtesy. As of this recording, it's available to rent for like 99 cents on Apple TV. I've seen it. It's unbelievable. And yeah, I'm so blown away at his ability as a black man to do this with the KKK. of the conversation, of getting to know people across, obviously, across some pretty horrendous divides. And if he can do what he does, I'm hopeful for the church to get over the deep-seated polarization that is breaking the church apart in America. So please welcome to the show, the one and only, the legendary Daryl Davis. Okay, I'm here with Daryl Davis. And I just, man, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show.

I've been a huge fan from afar and you've been an inspiration in the work that I do. And I know we're a little limited on time. So why don't we just jump in, tell us a little bit about who you are for those who might not know. And then I would love to hear from that first encounter when you decided to befriend a member of the KKK and that launched you on an interesting and very controversial journey. And man, let's start there. Who is Daryl Davis? Well, Daryl Davis is soon to be a 64-year-old man, like next week. Congratulations. So anyway, I was the child of parents in the U.S. Foreign

Service. So I grew up around the world as an American embassy brat, starting at the age of three. In 1961, I was born in 1958, we began traveling around the world. And, you know, you live in different countries for a couple years, you come back home here to the States, and you're here for a few months, maybe a year, if you request it, and then back overseas again. So every couple of years I was living in different countries. And, you know, I did first, I did kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fifth grade, seventh grade, overseas. I lived in Africa, I lived in Europe, I visited many countries on other continents. Today, I'm a professional musician. I got my degree in music from college. And once again, I'm traveling around the world, either performing or giving lectures. I've played in all 50 states. And I'm giving you

this because what it says is that I've traveled a lot. I've been to 61 countries on six continents. I've performed in all 50 states. All that is to say that I've been exposed to a multitude of skin colors, ethnicities, cultures, religions, ideologies, etc. And a lot of that has impacted me and influenced me into who I've become today. It does not make me, by any means, a better human being than anybody else. It just simply gives me a better perspective of humanity, if you will, to have been exposed to all these different people and all these different, you know, religions and ideologies, et cetera. What I have gleaned from that is this, no matter how far I've gone from our own country, whether it's right next door to Canada or to Mexico, or whether it's

halfway around the globe, no matter how different the people may be that I meet who don't look like me, they don't speak my language, they don't worship as I do, I've always concluded, Preston, that we all are human beings. And we all want these five core values in our lives. Everybody wants to be loved. Everybody wants to be respected. We all want to be heard. We all want to be treated fairly, and every one of us wants the same thing, basically,

for our family as anybody else wants for their family. And if we can learn to apply those five core values or any of those values, when we find ourselves in an adversarial situation or a society or culture with which we're unfamiliar, it doesn't have to be racial. It could be anything controversial, abortion, nuclear weapons, global warming, the current war in russia and the ukraine the last presidential election you know whatever you're on one side somebody else is on the other side apply those values and i'll guarantee the navigation will be much more smooth and much more positive and so that's how i look at people um you know, when I encounter someone, like you mentioned the Ku Klux Klan,

when I encounter a white supremacist, a KKK person, or a neo-Nazi, or, you know, the racist next door, whatever, I apply those values. I may not agree with that ideology. And when I say respect, I'm not saying that I respect what the person is saying, but I'm respecting their right to say it, whether it's, you know, my opinion or not. People have a right to express their opinion. So I'll listen. And as a result, that gets reciprocated back to me and people are willing to listen to me.

Because, you know, when you come on offensively, people's walls go up. They're ready to defend, their ears are plugged to anything that does not align with what they believe. But you'll find if you listen to somebody, no matter how vehement they may get, you know, and you don't attack them or whatever, you sit there and listen to them, you'll find they're giving you information about what you can turn back on them and combat them with. And then when they finish exhausting all their vitriol, they're like, how come this guy didn't push back? What's he got to say? And they feel compelled to listen to you. So now the wall

is down and the ears are open. So that's your opportunity to plant a seed. And when you plant that seed, you don't go on the attack and attack them. You simply defend your belief and say, you know, explain to them where you're coming from. And when they go home, they have to think about that. And in that period of time where things are calm, the rationale begins to set in rather than the emotion that they have when they view you because you're Jewish or because you're black or because you're gay or because you're white or because you're whatever it is they don't like.

You know? And that's when they have that cognitive dissonance where they think, you know, what that guy said made sense. Oh, but he's black. But what he said was true. Oh, but he's black um but what he said was true oh but he's black so then they got to decide do i do i follow the truth because i know it's true and disregard his skin color and now change my ideological perception or do i consider his skin color even though i know what he said is truth, but keep on living a lie.

Everything you said, I've been reading recently in cognitive psychologists, and everything you said has been proven by psychology. If you come on the offensive, there's a mechanism that the walls go up, and they hunker down, and like a scared cat, they defend, they fend, and no real dialogue can happen. But I'm going to ask you the question, have you learned this just through experience over the years? Because you sound like a cognitive psychologist, but I want to guess that you didn't get this from reading books. You got this from doing it and making mistakes and doing this and doing that. And we're going to get to some of the unbelievable changes of mind people have had.

Boots on the ground is what I learned from. Yeah. Can you take us back to that first encounter when you had reached out and had a friendly conversation with a member of the KKK? Do you remember that first time? Oh, I do very well. The first time I had a friendly one, yes, absolutely. I was playing in a band, in an all-white band, a country band, and I was the only Black guy in the band, and usually the only Black guy where we would play. And we played a

club in a town called Frederick, Maryland, about an hour and 20 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. And it was called the Silver Dollar Lounge. And it was an all-white lounge. No signs, no, you know, indications, you know, no blacks allowed, you know, whites only, nothing like that. But it had that reputation. And so you knew, you know, if you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is served, it's not always a good

combination, right? So anyway, here I am in this Silver Dollar Lounge and, you know, the band had played there before, my first time. And on the break, a white gentleman came up to me and put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me. And he says, you know, I've never seen a Black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. And I was not offended, but I was rather surprised that he did not know the Black origin of Jerry Lee's style, because he was a bit older than me, you know, at least 15, 18 years. And I began to explain it to him that, you know, that style, I learned it from the same place Jerry Lee Lewis did from black blues and boogie woogie piano players that's where you know rockabilly

and rock and roll evolved and he didn't believe that either but I said look you know I know Jerry Lee Lewis he's a friend of mine I've known him for a long time and he's told me himself you know where his influences were the guy didn't believe that either. But he was so fascinated that he wanted to buy me a drink and come back to his table. I went back to his table, had a cranberry juice. And he takes his glass and clinks my glass and cheers me. And then he says, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man. I'm thinking to myself, what on earth is this guy? You know, where's he been?

And because, you know, we all speak from our experiences, right? That's all we know. And my experience was I'd been all over the world. I had sat down at that point in time with thousands, I'm not kidding, thousands of white people or anybody else and had a meal, a beverage, a conversation. How is it that this guy, who was at least a decade and a half, maybe two decades older than me, had never done that? So innocently, I just said, I said, why? Well, it turns out, you know, he reveals he's a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And I started laughing at him because I didn't believe him. I thought he was pulling my leg because, you know, I know a lot about the Klan. And that's not, you know, that's not how they operate. They

don't come up and hug a black guy and praise their talent and want to buy him a drink and hang out. It doesn't work that way. So, you know, this guy's, you know, joking with me and I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet and flips through and hands me his Klan membership card. And I'm like, whoa, this is for real. You know, I stopped laughing because it was no longer funny. And I gave it back to him. And, you know, we talked. You know, we had a good conversation.

He was very friendly. He was very fascinated with me. But I can tell you something. It was the music, the music that brought us together. Because I know for a fact that this would happen later on. If I had come into that bar, not as a musician, let's just say I came there to dance. I would have had to fight my way out. I would have had to fight my way out.

Okay. But music is what brought these two opposites together. And he became a fan. He gave me his phone number, wanted me to call him whenever I was to play at the bar. He wanted to bring his friends, meaning Klansmen and Klanswomen, to see this Black guy play like Jerry Lee. And so, you know, he'd come. I'd call him. He'd come.

He'd bring Klansmen and Klanswomen. They'd come, not in robes and hoods, but in regular clothes. And they'd watch me play. They'd dance to our music. Some of them I would meet, some of them did not want to meet me. Then when I'd head towards the table, they'd get up and move, which was okay by me. But let me just give you a hypothetical with music, what it can do. Let's say that I'm off this Friday night, And so I don't, you know, I'm not going to be the entertainer. Maybe I want to go out and be entertained.

Maybe I want to dance instead of making music so everybody else can dance. So I go down to a local club and maybe there's a DJ, maybe there's a live band. Either way, there's music and I want to dance.

So I go to the club and a song is playing that I like. I want to dance to it, dance for a bunch of people on there. What do I do? I look around to see if I see a single lady who's unattached or whatever that I can dance with. And I see some lady sitting at the bar. I don't know her, but she's tapping her hand on the bar and beat to the music. So obviously she likes that song. I don't know her, but I'll walk over and say, Hey, you know, would you like to dance? She's like, yeah.

And so she pops off her bar stool. We walk onto the dance floor. Now, if it's a slow song, we're like this, you know, turning around on the floor slowly. If it's a fast song, you know, we're apart shaking or whatever. And I don't even know this person, but I'm dancing with it. Right. And so when the song is over, I escorted back to the barstool. So, hey, thanks for the dance. You know, my name is Daryl. She says, my name is whatever. And I said, so, you know, what do you do? And she says, I'm the vice president for marketing for Microsoft East Coast or something.

Man, she's like making like, you know, half a million dollars a year. And she says, so, so, Daryl, what do you do? And I say, I'm a I'm a cashier at Burger King. I mean, you know, something like that. Right. What am I making like nine,000 a year or something? Where would two people at opposite ends of that spectrum come this close? Music, okay? What would make a Klansman get out of his seat and come catch up with me when I'm taking my break walking off the stage to tell me how much he enjoyed

my playing and want to buy me how much you enjoyed my playing and want to buy me a drink. Music, you know? Music is, I mean, it's a cliche, but it's so true. Music is the universal language. Everybody likes music, whether you're a white supremacist, black supremacist, whatever you are. You know, we all like music.

And this is what we need to do. We need to look for commonalities. Because if you talk to your worst enemy for five minutes, you're going to find something in common. You start here at opposite ends. Your enemy is here. You talk for five minutes. You find something in common.

That gap begins to close. And I'll turn that on silent. find something in common, that gap begins to close. So you find something in common, you keep on talking, the gap closes even more. Now you're in a relationship with that person. You know, it may not be best friends, but it's a cordial relationship, you know, from going from enemies to a cordial relationship. You keep on talking, you find more in common, the gap closes even more. And now you're friendly, you're in a friendship, even though you may not agree on certain things, you friendship. And when you get about here, you've found so many commonalities that the trivial things that you have in contrast, such as skin color,

or whether you go to a mosque, a temple, a church, or a synagogue, begin to matter less and less. And then people begin wondering, why did I dislike that person? I mean, he wants the same thing I want. You know, he listened to me. I listened to him.

He treated me fairly. All these, you know, values begin to come out. And that's when they begin to shed that and begin to open their minds. You know, here is where we get most of our education, usually from three sources. where we get most of our education, usually from three sources. We get both of our education from our parents, because, you know, we spend most of our formative years with our parents, of course, raising us. We get it in schools, because we're in schools, you know, seven, eight hours a day. And we get it from our religious institutions, our churches, our synagogues, our temples, our mosques, you know, wherever.

Because we view those leaders as knowledgeable and they're passing on this information to us. You know, if we're believers in gods or even in other deities, we have something that we go to. Or atheists, you know, they get there from their, you know, atheists, whatever, atheism. But let's talk a little bit about responsibilities and religious institutions.

Most religions, and I'll speak from Christianity because that's what I am, but I know it exists in Judaism and Mormonism and, you know, other religions. We have a form of Sunday school where when we're little kids, we go to Sunday school, usually down in the basement of whatever building it is. And our Sunday school teacher teaches us that we're all God's children. God made a rainbow of different colors. And he loves us all. It's a pretty rainbow, right?

And that's what we believe. Because we're little kids and this adult lady or man is telling us this. And so that's what we grew up believing. And then when we reach puberty, adolescence, whatever, we get kicked out of Sunday school to the upstairs. And now we're in the larger congregation with our parents and other adults, right? Here's the problem. The minister, the reverend, the priest, the rabbi, the whatever you want to call the clergy of your particular religion, they stopped teaching that Sunday school lesson. Not all of them, but a lot of them stopped teaching. You know, they no longer say, hey, we're all a rainbow. We're all God's children. God loves us all. You know, they stopped that. Because what would happen if some of them were to say, okay, all you Catholics, it's okay if you go out and marry a Jewish person or all you Jews, you know, you can go out and marry a Protestant, whatever,

or all you white people, it's okay if you marry Black people. Half the congregation would get up and walk out, or they would get that guy fired, you know. One, you know, one thing's for certain, they would not be putting their money in the collection plate when it comes around, right? Because you don't pay for what you don't want to hear. And that, yeah, because when somebody gives a sermon, you try to get somebody who's very charismatic, who can, with the congregation, because when that collection plate comes around, you want that money in there. You know, if somebody just, you know, gives a, you know, a ho-hum sermon, you're half fallen asleep, you know, the plate comes around, you put your customary dollar in there or whatever. But if this guy or woman or whoever is saying something that really connects. I mean, you really feel what that message said. Wow, man, you know, man, man, you know, he really told it today. Now here's 20 bucks, you know, all that kind of, you know, the more you appreciate, the more money

you're going to put in there. And the church, and I use church generically as a religious institution, whatever it is, synagogue, whatever, they thrive on money, you know, because that's what it takes to make it go around, to make it operate. So the more money you bring in from donations, collections, and Christians are supposed to give 10% of their earnings as tithes, you know, to the church, that's who you want in that pulpit in order to make your church thrive. All right? So if you're going to get up there and start talking some kind of controversial stuff, what do you mean my daughter can marry a black guy

or my Jewish person can marry a Gentile or whatever? No, man, get rid of this dude. You know, because people, human beings are creatures of habit, not creatures of change. You know, we don't like that apple cart being upset. And so they stopped teaching that Sunday school lesson. And then here's what happens. So now the kid who learned, you know, the rainbow and everybody's equal down at Sunday school, now they're up here.

And now they're in high school. And let's say it's 12th grade it's time to go to the um to this to the senior prom and um let's just say hypothetically it's a little uh catholic kid and um his mother says, you know, so who are you taking to the prom? I want to buy her a corsage and get it all right. He says, well, I'm taking, you know, Mary Goldberg. You know, Mary's a nice girl, but what about Kelly McDonald? You know? Well, yeah, Kelly's nice too but I really want to go with Mary Goldberg.

Well, don't you think you should go with a nice Catholic girl? And yeah, mom, I mean, that's fine but I mean, I thought we were all God's children. I mean, we're all equal, right? Yes, we are, but the but comes out, all right? And but is a man-made word, okay? But it's not a God word.

God didn't say da-da-da-da-da-da, but, no. You know, whatever is in the Bible, there are no exceptions. He was perfect from the word go. It's man who interjects the but in there. And so that's the problem because the priest, the rabbi, the minister, the reverend, the pastor, whatever you call them, imam, did not continue the Sunday school lesson. And that's what needs to be done. In other words, what they did was

they put money over morality. And that's the problem. Okay. We need our clergy to step up to the plate and continue that Sunday school lesson. Because now you've got these kids confused. You know, you're teaching them one thing in Sunday school. Now, how come that's not taught in Sunday school? That, you know, you need to go out with the same religion that you are or the same color that you are. Because it's not important in Sunday school because you're not trying to make money in Sunday school.

Those four and five-year-olds don't have any money to put in your collection plate. But the people upstairs in the congregation do. So you want to teach, you want to project to them what they want to hear. That way they give you their money. And I'm not saying it's a pawn game, but a lot of it is, you know, and I don't want to paint, you know, religions across the board, you know, with a broad brush. No, there are a lot of, plenty of people out there who do teach embracing humanity regardless of color, background, et cetera, ethnicity, whatever. But there are so many that don't.

That's why we have so many divisions. You know, you got, let me put it this way. Okay, so you know that there have been black Baptist churches and white Baptist churches. Wait a minute. I thought we all were Baptists. You know, we both are reading the King James Bible, right? Why is there that division? Because back in the day, Black Baptists could not go to the white Baptist church.

You know? And even today, there's still kind of a fine line, even though, you know, they go there now. So let's say I belong to the Black Baptist Church down the street. And I've been going there for 30, 40 years. And right at the other end of the block is the White Baptist Church. Never been there. So one Sunday, I decide, hey, you know what? I'm going to go check out, you know, the other Baptist service.

You know, we all are Baptists, you know, so go to that church. God loves everybody. So I go to the white Baptist church. There are two ushers standing at the door. Hey, welcome. How are you doing today? Here's a program, blah, blah, blah. And I say, hey, you know, I belong to the black Baptist church right down the block there.

Is it okay if I come here? Of course it is. Give me a big hug. You know, we all are brothers in Christ, you know? Oh, cool, cool. So you look at me and you accept me as your brother in Christ? Yeah, of course. Give me another hug, you know? I said, okay, but would you accept me as your brother-in-law? I said, okay, but would you accept me as your brother-in-law? That might be a little different story, right? Which is, you know, religiously speaking, your bond in Christ runs deeper than your biological.

You know, Jesus says, who are my brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers? It's all of you who are my disciples. So that is ironic, you know. And in the last couple of years, there's so much division within the church. Oftentimes over stuff that shouldn't, I mean, like politics or who voted for this person or who's wearing masks or who's not wearing, who's gotten vaccinated, just stuff that's like, are we really dividing over these things? And this is why, I mean, one of the reasons why i got so turned on to your work because i'm like here if a black man can build relationships with several members of the clan and to the point to where they're giving

you their robes like how many how many uniforms i don't know which column but robes and hoods do you have i have i have probably between 57 and 65 that's unbelievable that yeah but i've got i've got tons of other stuff i've got hundreds of items you know flags uh patches caps you know i mean this is i i don't i can't imagine a more polarized opposite to you know to people coming together on some level. I mean, we can't go through all 60, 70, 80, 100 stories, but are there a couple that stand out that even you were like, man, I don't see any change happening here? Yeah. Okay. So since we're talking on the topic of religion, and we can move over to that as well, but I'll give you an example of something that happened one time.

I was talking with this Klansman, and he was what's known as a Klud, a Grand Klud. Klud means chaplain in Klan terminology. And so I was saying to him, and the Klan, as you know, claims to be a Christian organization. That's why they use the cross. So I said, I said, well, listen, why, you know, if you're a Christian organization, why do you, you know, burn the cross? And he says, well, you know, there are two occasions upon which we set the cross aflame. And I knew that. One's a cross burning and one's a cross lighting.

The cross burning is when they take a five or ten foot cross, stick it in your yard, set it on fire. That means it's a threat. It's a warning. We know who you are. We know what you are. Cease and desist. Move out. Or next time we come, we'd be in business.

So it's a threat intimidation. When they have a rally, they have like a 20 or 30 foot cross, you know, that'd be in business. So it's a threat intimidation. When they have a rally, they have like a 20 or 30 foot cross, you know, that's wrapped in burlap, soaked in what they call a clan cologne, which is actually diesel fuel kerosene. And they parade around it and set it on fire. And, you know, and there's a big light.

That's called a cross lighting when it's done in a ceremonial kind of style at a rally. So I said, well, I know the difference. I said, but my question is, why are you setting the cross aflame? You know, why are you destroying the symbol of Jesus Christ? And he says, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. We use fire for two reasons. One is a purifier. He says, did your mother, I mean, did you ever get a splinter in your finger when you were a kid? I said, yeah. He goes, did your mother take a needle, stick it in the flame and then dig it out? I said, yeah. He says, okay, well, she was purifying the tip of the needle by putting it into the fire. So we use fire symbolically to represent the purity

of the white race, whatever. Okay. And what's your next reason? He says, well, because we are a Christian organization and we're lighting the way for Jesus Christ. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, hold on a second. I said, you must have a different Jesus Christ than I have. Oh, no, Daryl. There's only one Jesus Christ. I said, no, there are two. He says, no, there's one. I said, no, there are two. He goes, well, what is your Jesus Christ black or something? I said, no, there are two. He says, no, there's one. I said, no, there are two. He goes, well, what is your Jesus Christ black or something? I said, well, no, he's not black. I said, but he's not white either. I said, I have been to Damascus, Syria. I've been in that area. And that's allegedly where he appeared. I said, he appeared as one of those people.

And the people that I saw over there were olive complected. And so if anything, he's olive complected, you know, and I've been all around the world. And in any place that has Christianity, their pictures of Jesus Christ look like them. If you're in Ethiopia, Jesus Christ is a black person. You know, you know, if you're in the Middle East, he's olive complected. You know, over here, of course, you know, he's a white guy with, you know, brown hair and blue eyes or blonde hair and blue eyes, however they all complected. Over here, of course, he's a white guy with brown hair and blue eyes or blonde hair and blue eyes, however they want to depict him. So he appears as one

of whoever. Anyway, he says, so you're saying he's all complected. I said, yeah. He said, well, what's your point? I said, my point is you said that you set the cross on fire because you're lighting the way for Jesus Christ. He goes, that's right.

He says, you know, if you were a Christian, you would know. Jesus Christ is coming back. I said, I do know that. But here's the difference. This is why there are two Jesus Christ. You have to light the way for your Jesus Christ. My Jesus Christ lights the way for me. Who are you to light the way for Jesus Christ? And then he got

very, very quiet, you know, and he paused and then he changed the subject because he'd never heard that argument before. All he'd ever heard was, you know, we light the cross because we're lighting the way for Jesus Christ. He's coming back, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, he didn't change his mind that day but within a few months he changed his mind on the whole clan ideology because he realized he'd been brainwashed who is he to light the way for jesus christ the bible says jesus christ is the light you know but he'd heard this so many times he'd been inundated with it that it became his reality, you know? And he'd never thought about it the other way.

And now I opened up his mind. So, again, he had that cognitive dissonance where, wow, you know, what this guy said was, you know, it made sense. But am I supposed to believe a black guy? You know, that kind of thing. we leave a black guy, you know, that kind of thing. So in the documentary, one of the more intense scenes was when you sat down with some Black Lives Matter activists, two young guys, and then an older guy. And they felt like, you know, you're a sellout.

You're having these conversations. That's great. But you're actually still empowering this terrorist organization, and you're no better than them. And then the older guy got angry, yelled, yelled, yelled, and then didn't give you – and you just sat there and I saw you listening. I can imagine your emotions. I was fired up. I was like, come on, let him talk. And you said, hey, you're just going to leave and not let me talk? How do you respond?

Because you get – I would imagine, you get criticized probably from all kinds of people. I've been called every name but my own. How do you respond to that? Like when other fellow Black people think that what you're doing is actually not. Well, you know, the scene that you- Platforming these evil ideas or however they might frame it.

Well, you know, the scene that you... Platforming these evil ideas or however they might frame it. Well, you know, here's the thing. I realize that these people have not had the wealth of experience that I've had traveling, being exposed to different cultures. So their view is very monolithic. All right. exposed to different cultures. So their view is very monolithic. All right. All they know about white people is based upon how they've been treated by certain white people. And so that becomes their, you know, one's perception is one's reality. So if, you know, if you were bitten, let's say, well,

I'll give my mother, for example. I was never allowed to have a dog when I was a kid. I had one for one day, but it had to go because my mom was terrified of dogs. When she was a little girl, she was bitten. You know, they had dogs at home. My grandfather was a hunter and he she was bitten. They had dogs at home. My grandfather was a hunter, and he had hunting dogs or whatever. And when my mom was a little girl, one of these hunting dogs bit her. And she developed a phobia of all dogs, you know, so even as an adult. So when I came

along, I loved dogs, but I could not have one because of my mom's phobia. You know, that's how much it affected her. You know, and there are people who, you know, maybe they like dogs, but as a kid, maybe they were bitten by a bulldog. So, you know, they're like all other dogs, but they don't like bulldogs because of that one bulldog, you know, whatever. So what these people have to understand, and it goes to white people too or anybody, you can't paint an entire group of people with a broad brush.

For example, back in the 1940s and 1950s, there were a lot of Black people in this country who moved to France because they were being treated as equals in France. to France because they were being treated as equals in France. Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Memphis Slim, a lot of notable black people even moved there. Some of them even gave up their American citizenship and took on a French citizenship because it wasn't, there was no discrimination. And those people over there were whiter than the people over here. You know, there was no mixing and stuff like that. A lot of white people are mixed up with black people, too.

It's like a lot of black people are mixed up with white people from slavery times. All right. So, you know, they don't see that. They don't see that there is a difference in white people. You know, this racism thing was at the time was indigenous here, not necessarily in some other countries. Other countries had their own problems. I'd say Ireland, the Catholics and the Protestants. You know, we get along over here, Catholics and Protestants. It's no big deal over there. They're at war, you know. In Israel, it's the Jews and the Palestinians. In Lebanon, it's the Muslims and

the Christians, you know. And we don't understand that because we get along religiously over here, but we don't get along color-wise, you know, that kind of thing. So when you don't have that exposure, your perception becomes your reality. So they could not understand how I could sit down with somebody because I've sat down with white people all over the world. I know we can get along. I also know that racism is a learned behavior. And what can be learned can also be unlearned. It may take a little bit of time, but it can be done. And so that's what I bring vicariously to the situation.

Now, with those particular people that you saw in the documentary, you only saw eight minutes. That went on for about an hour. Of course, we could not include the entire hour in the movie. And it almost got to the point of physical violence. That's why I stayed at my chair. Not that I was afraid to defend myself or anything like that. I knew that if I stood up,

then that would be a sign of aggression. We're ready to fight. And I would have to clean house. I would have to hurt people because I'm not going to allow myself to be attacked. I am going to defend myself. So I just, I'm going to sit here, you know, let them get all their vitriol out. Well, a year later, almost a year later, they reached out to me and said, hey, you know, we've seen you on TV. We've seen some articles, blah, later, almost a year later, they reached out to me and said, hey, we've seen you on TV. We've seen some articles, blah, blah, blah. We understand what you're doing. We don't agree with everything, but we understand.

Maybe we can do some things together. Can we get together and talk? Really? Yeah. So we got together in Baltimore. We had dinner together. We talked. And we arranged to do some things together.

And we started doing that. And then one of them, the older guy that you pointed out, you know, he was coming around and then he fell off the wagon and reverted back to the way he was in the documentary. So, you know, it's like an alcoholic, you know, sometimes, you know, they get on the wagon and then sometimes they fall off. You know, it can happen. But so, you know, there are detractors, there are people who support me. But I understand because they've not had that exposure, that broad exposure, you know, which ties into my favorite quote of all time. My favorite quote of all time is called the travel quote by Mark Twain. quote of all time is called the travel quote by,

by Mark Twain. And Mark Twain said, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness. And many of our people need it sorely on these accounts, broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one

little corner of the earth, all one's lifetime. And that is so true. Yeah. Look at the travel quote Mark Lane. I'm going to tweet that right after I get done with it. When I listen,

at least in the documentary, and I love that you point out that we have snippets and there's a narrative being built and everything, but is it wrong for me? I hesitate even saying this, but I just want to be honest. when the BLM activists were talking, they didn't sound group and one of the klansmen said i grew up in an all-black neighborhood and i was beat up all the time and all of a sudden i did a lot by a bunch of and it's like that doesn't excuse anything but it's

like there is at least a story behind where he got to where he was and the same with the activists there's trayvon martin there's you know the baltimore um was trayvon in baltimore there's a michael brown i mean all these shootings and it's like i understand they're almost angered towards you it's like look at what is being done to our people and it's a but it it just sounds almost similar i mean to yeah it's exactly similar it's exactly similar and that's one of the reasons why i wanted to have some of that in the documentary, because, you know, nobody has a monopoly on racism and it's wrong wherever it's coming from, whether it's this side or that side or some other side. Okay. It all needs to be addressed because it's wrong. And it also shows because remember, um, I went back howard university to show people where i went to school

and black people they're supporting hey man i saw you on that you know hugging me they got it you know they got it so you know because a lot of people who who don't who are not around a lot of black people for one thing they think we all think alike we all look alike we all know each other you know the whole thing all that kind of crazy stuff. Now, I mean, now, yes, I mean, granted, at a time, there was a time when we all did know each other pretty much, you know, within a certain city or something. And, but, you know, but we all did not look alike, you know. Why did we all know each other? Because we all had to go to the same school, you know, we couldn't go to the white schools. And there was usually only one black school and maybe one restaurant where black could eat. So, of course, we would run into each other all the time. So back then, yes, we probably all did know each other within that city. Unlike white people, because you went to that school and another white person went to that school, etc. We didn't have all that. another white person went to that school, et cetera.

We didn't have all that. Today, of course, we do. So we don't know each other anymore. But I have my share of Black supporters. I have my share of Black detractors. But again, you know, they have not had the experiences that I have. It doesn't make me a better person. It just gives me a broader experience than someone else has had.

So I realize that. And that's why I don't fly off the handle, you know, I'm trying to bring that to them vicariously. But here's two interesting things. One, you know, they criticize me saying, you know, it's not our job to teach white people how to treat us. You know? Well, it's not anybody's job except the person's parents teach their kids how to treat other people, right? So yes, that's true. However, when you have been mistreated

for 400 years and you're still being mistreated, maybe it's time for you to change your mind and start teaching people how to treat you. So, you know, if you continue to do the same thing the exact same way, you're going to get the exact same result. So maybe you need to think outside the box. And that's what I'm doing. And any time you go against the status quo, you're going to get pushback. Because, like I said, people are creatures of habit, not creatures of change. Look at Copernicus, the astronomer, all right? Up until then, up until him or whatever, there may have been a few more before him, but

he was the main one. People believed that we lived in a geocentric model of the universe, which means that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around the earth, right? And he was scorned, he was criticized, he was ridiculed. A hundred years later, another astronomer named Galileo took on Copernicus's theory and developed it even more and said, yes, we are not living in a geocentric model of the universe. We are not the center. We live in a heliocentric model, which means the sun is the center of the universe. And Earth is no different than any of those other planets out there. They all revolve around the sun. People told him he was a heretic. Galileo was arrested for committing heresy against the Catholic Church. Okay, he was arrested for saying stuff like that.

Guess what? He was proven right. Okay, now another guy who i have no respect for but he was right also in one regard um people told him if he were to sail over there to the horizon he was going to fall off the edge of the earth because the earth was flat yeah right he said no the earth is round and that was uh christopher columbus and he proved it all right uh i don't have any respect for him because he was a murderer, a rapist, and a pillager, but that's what he was. The Klansman didn't like it when you brought that up. He did just say

facts, and he was like, no, this is my hero. But you know why? Because, see, he was opposed to MLK Day. All right? And look at it.

Okay, so you see a lot of things, you know, were left out of the movie because it's only about 94 minutes long. But think about this for a second. There's only one American man, one American man who has a holiday all to himself. And guess what? That man is a Black man, Martin Luther King. No other American man has a holiday all to himself. That's why it took so long for this country to approve MLK Day. They didn't want a black man to have a holiday all to himself. Now, there used to be two American men who had a holiday, each one all to himself. You're younger than I am,

but maybe you might remember it. There used to be George Washington Day and there used to be Abraham Lincoln Day. Two separate holidays, two white guys, Americans. We each had a holiday all to themselves. But the government figured we had too many holidays. So they took those two days, combined them into one day called President's Day. Right.

Okay. So now you've got two guys on the same day, Washington and Lincoln. Right. There's only one American man who has a holiday all to himself. He's a black guy. Wait, Columbus, or is that not? Columbus is not American. Columbus is not American. right? There's only one American man who has a holiday all to himself and he's a black guy named King. Wait, Columbus, or is that not? Columbus is not American. Columbus is not American.

Okay? Okay. But now see, check this out. Christian from Columbus. Okay? Now, we know that he was a rapist, a pillager, and a murderer. His whole crew, the Nino, the Pinto, and the Santa Maria, they did all this all across the seas and the ocean to come into this new land.

But yet we honor this person every October. All right? Martin Luther King never raped anybody. He never pillaged any town. He never murdered anybody. But yet all he did was try to bring people together and yet we resisted giving this man a holiday oh you know daryl i want to respect your time i have one more question i want to ask but do you have to go or no i i can do it and you know and that's question we can consider this part one because we can definitely do a part two. I would be tickled pink as my mom used to say. This is a little bit of a change.

Well, not really. It's kind of related to everything you're saying. But this whole idea of platforming ideas you disagree with. And this is something on my podcast, I've got a range of guests. And for the most part, people listen to it because they like that. But after every, I release a podcast every Monday and every Thursday. And so every Tuesday and every Friday, there's always a loud minority of, I can't believe you platform that voice.

I'm like, I just don't even, the podcast in my mindset is I'm having a conversation with a neighbor, hit and record. If you want to listen, great. If you don't want to listen, change your channel. You know, it's not, this isn't a sermon. This isn't, this is just, I want to have conversations with a diversity of interesting people. But some people like, no, no, you, you, there's lots of people listening and you're giving a platform to bad ideas. And I, I think that mindset is, can be, I think it can be really dangerous personally, because all it does is foster this echo chamber.

It goes against what you said in the Mark Twain quote is we end up hunkering down and only surround ourselves with safe people who have all the same ideas, which I think is dangerous for society, let alone the church. But I don't know. I guess that's my running start. dangerous for society, let alone the church. But I don't know. I guess that's my running star. Can you speak to the whole idea of people concerned about platforming ideas they find to be dangerous? Because I've heard you talk about this and I thought it was brilliant. Well, yes. You know, I'm on the board of advisors for a group called MINDS, M-I-N-D-S,

MINDS.com. And we've just recently come out with a paper called The Censorship Effect, you know, that talks about, it gives all these facts about deplatforming people and, you know, and the negative effects, you know, that it has. Just like you said, it creates an echo chamber where we simply surround ourselves with things that we agree with and we find other people who agree with us and that supports us, whether it's true or not true, it's one's perception. But, you know, somebody, I can't recall now who said it, but there's a

quote, something to, I'm going to paraphrase it. The mass promulgation of a lie does not make it any more the truth than the mass disbelief of the truth makes it a lie. Right? So, you know, if 50 million people believe something

that's not true, it doesn't make it a lie any more so than if 50 million people, you know, believe what somebody purports to be true, doesn't make that a lie either or vice versa. It's important that we hear other opinions, because otherwise we're always going to be behind the eight ball. Look at this country, for example. We are just now, well, I say just now, within the last couple of decades here. So looking at holistic treatments for cancer, for other maladies, maladies. maladies, maladies.

For example, just in the last, what, maybe 20, 25 years, insurance companies have begun to cover acupuncture before the... Now, we're not going to cover that. Stick a needle in somebody's foot and it fixes a pain in their neck. No, you know, we're not going to cover that.

It's ridiculous. Well, guess what? That's Western culture thinking. Acupuncture has been used in the east in china for 2 000 years would it still be be used 2 000 years later if it wasn't working now all of a sudden we're covering it in insurance you know so i mean let's you know let's try to catch up you know um a lot of people are leaving this country to get treatments for certain things in France or in Mexico, you know,

because they're not approved over here or, you know, they're not being funded over here. We need to have a 360 look at things. And that's how we advance. You know, I've said before in many lectures, and I've said here, we are, I have a problem with saying we are the greatest country in the world.

Not because I don't love my country, not because I'm not patriotic. But my problem is this, that maybe we are the greatest technologically, because we Americans built the technology to put somebody on the moon. And while Neil Armstrong was up there walking around the moon, talking about one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind, we were able to talk to Neil Armstrong via satellite radio phone, live, live, all the way from Earth to the moon. We invented that technology. You, me, everybody out here listening to your podcast, everybody has email. Everybody has a cell phone. You type a few words, type a few numbers, hit send. You're talking to people in the state right next door or all the way across the country

or over in Europe, Africa, China, Australia, wherever, right? We invented that technology. How is it that we as Americans can talk to people as far away as the moon, anywhere on the surface of this planet, but yet so many of us have difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door to us because of a different skin color us because of a different skin color, because of a different religion, a different persuasion, a different whatever. It seems to me that before we can call ourselves the greatest, maybe our ideology needs to catch up to our technology. And once we get them both up there, then we can truly brag because our technology

is moving light years faster than our ideology. You know, we're stuck back in 19th century ideological, you know, values. And we're already in the 21st century and we're concerned about the color of somebody's skin or whether I want to hire a female or not for this position because, you know, she's probably not as smart as a male. I mean, ridiculous stuff. You know, that's why I say our ideology needs to move a little faster, like our technology is moving. You know, listen, we talk about third world countries. I know a lot of, I've been to a lot of third world, I've lived in third world countries.

A lot of third world countries have female presidents, female prime ministers. How come we never had one? You know, they're more concerned about the qualifications of the individual leading the country. We're more concerned about the gender and color of the person leading our country and their religion you remember well you know you don't remember because you have to say you're a lot younger than i am not that i'm old you understand but you know when um when john f kennedy was running for president catholic yeah

oh man you know you know and even even recently when Mitt Romney was running, oh, Mormon, you know, you know, come on, we want somebody who's going to run our country. That's what we want. So maybe we're the third world country, ideologically, where people in third world countries, you know, they've gotten beyond that. You know, we got a female president, we got a female prime minister, we got this, that, and the other. You know, maybe we need to look at some of that and catch up. We live in

space age times, but there's still so many of us thinking with stone age minds and that's got to stop. Daryl, that's a great word to end on. I think, you know, over the time, I know you probably have a lot of, maybe some gigs to go play at. Thank you so much for what you do.

And I would love to have another conversation. Absolutely. Just let me know and we'll set it up. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Take care.

Likewise. Thank you. Take care. We'll see right back. Thank you.