1:02BBecause it was made to look like something bad. So we’ve been taught that even as far as religion goes, that was bad. You know, like even in Puerto Rico, they would -- you could buy your slave -- you could buy your freedom by having -- taking a Black baby to a church and getting it baptized. And then they’re like, yeah, I think it was like 25 cents or something you can buy their freedom because they’re no longer, you know, yeah, they’re into a Christian religion.
1:33AIt was one of the justifications for slavery was, um, we’re taking these people from Africa and introducing them to Christianity to save their souls. But I mean, the funny thing is, like, if that was really the case, why did you have to chain them up and bring them all the way over here? But it is, it is, it is in the Bible. It is in the Bible to own slaves. The funny thing about Sam Sharpe’s rebellion, though, because he was a preacher, he was actually motivated to rebel because he read the Bible. And he read the Bible and he realized, well, nowhere in the Bible does God give white people the power to enslave us. So he rebels. And then the response he got was, well, the Bible actually teaches slaves to obey their masters and be obedient.
2:15CExodus 21.
2:16ASo the funny thing is what Sam Sharpe kind of -- that situation reveals is that The slave masters were giving their slaves the Bible and giving it to them for one reason, and some of these slaves were taking this Bible and interpreting it in a different way. Like Exodus stories. Yeah, Exodus stories, the Maccabees, that book in the Bible that was about a slave rebellion. In some parts of the Caribbean, they actually took Maccabees out of the Bible because they didn’t want the slaves reading about a slave rebellion. So they didn’t just give slaves this Bible, but they kind of taught them in a way to make them indoctrinate them and to keep them passive. Even this image of a white Jesus. When you read the Bible, you’re not actually supposed to have engraven images of, you know, any sacred figures. Yet they’ll give you this image of Jesus, make it a white Jesus, even though Jesus would have never been white. Because Jesus was not -- not only was Jesus not born in Europe, if you read the Bible, Jesus nor none of the prophets in the Bible have ever even stepped foot in Europe.
3:12BBut that’s what they teach.
3:16AYeah, they make you think like, you know, everyone in the Bible is white, and you read the Bible, none of that book takes place in Europe. If the real Jesus was to show up, everybody would not recognize him. Yeah, they think he’s Muslim. Not the image that you see that they give you.
3:29CWell, you know, in the Bible it gives a description, and it doesn’t --
3:35ANot a white guy. Yeah, it’s not a white guy.
3:36CNot a white guy, you know, skin like glass and a --
3:38AI mean, the only white people in that story -- Hair of wool or something like that. Yeah, no, I mean, the funny thing is the only white people in the Jesus story would have been the Romans ruled by him.
3:46CYep.
3:47ASo I mean, if you really want to get at the history of it, the white people that you find in the Bible were black people back then.
3:53CHe’s like revolutionary from what I got.
3:56ANo, he had to be.
3:56CHe’s a revolutionary.
3:57ARevolutionary and something. Vampire.
4:01CHe had to be, you know, it’s very much revolutionary. And the way that they give it to us, he’s not some revolutionary guy. He’s like, yo, they’re whooping your ass.
4:11AI got you.
4:12CTurn down the chain. Let them whoop your ass some more. You know, just get up. Go on about your day. But you know, when the Romans soldiers came for him. I thought he disappeared in the crowd. That’s a fugitive move. He disappeared from the soldiers.
4:25ASo, I mean, yeah, you could just read Jesus as a revolutionary.
4:29CYou know, he goes to the tax collector, flips over the table. I mean, come on, this is revolutionary.
4:35BAnd you know what, how passive we are that we can have those statues that now are starting to -- starting to take them down after they’ve been up there for 100 years. of people who, you know, were slave owners. But in, in schools, you know, like in Orlando, you know, we had about 3, 4 years ago, we’ve been struggling. We had press conferences, vigils, everything you could think of trying to get that marker for a person who passed away who was an activist. And they -- the city of Orlando refused. But yet there’s a huge sign. You’ve seen the pictures of it, Stonewall Jackson Boulevard. Right on Seminole. in only like, what, maybe 6, 7 miles coming out of the airport, and a school. And I even had people say, uh, well, Stonewall Jackson wasn’t too bad because, oh yeah, he owned slaves, but at least he let them go to church on Sunday and gave them Bible class.
5:32CSo they can go to the --
5:34BYou know, and if we could -- and it’s still at this day and age, we tolerate that. Where are we? as a people, we can tolerate our children going to a school named after somebody who did something so horrific. I can’t imagine, personally, I can’t imagine in the Jewish community, the Jewish, they would allow their children to go to a school named Hitler Elementary School. I don’t think that would ever happen. And that’s the way it should be. We allow it to happen, and it’s still happening in Orlando where the superintendent is African American. High school.
