My good friend Jemar Tisby recently wrote an excellent article for The Witness BCC about the latest controversy to surround Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK and Pastor Mike Todd. In his article, Jemar offers a poignant response to “Spittlegate” and casts vision for the church as it should be. I hope that you will take […]
Editor’s Note: This article contains a full and graphic description of the indecent at hand. Reader discretion is advised. A spitty situation As much as some churchgoers may like to attend a congregation with a well-known preacher, they probably don’t want him to end up in a story on TMZ. For members of Transformation Church […]
By now, you’ve probably encountered the infamous video of Pastor Mike Todd of Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK. No, not that one, the other one. No, no, no, even more recent than that. There you go, THAT one. I could sit here and break down bar for bar what made Pastor Todd’s sermon illustration so […]
We are embroiled in one of the most tumultuous periods of our recent collective memory. This is largely due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has taken the lives of nearly a million people in the United States. To many, this has simultaneously been a time of national reckoning with another deadly “virus”: systemic racism. The American Medical Association (AMA) has rightly deemed racism “a public health […]
On October 29, Netflix released Colin in Black & White. The series centers around Colin Kaepernick’s high school years and tackles a variety of issues involving race, history, and his life as a teenager trying to find his way in the world. One of the prevailing themes is Colin trying to find his true calling. […]
Brown skin, you know I love your Brown skin. I can’t tell where yours begins. I can’t tell where mine ends. -India Arie A new day begins Breathe The exhaustion of thousands of stressors pull me (us) in every direction. I have waited this long to explicitly think about my maleness out loud, to […]
In this episode, Tyler and Jemar are joined by artist, creative, and writer Sho Baraka! Sho just released He Saw That It Was Good, a collection of essays on the topics of work and creation. The conversation begins by discussing this book and how important it is for this moment. But…the dialogue took a turn. […]
“Dreadlocks are dirty.” Her frosty white words fell upon my melanated skin as they flurried across my 7th-grade classroom. Every student was oblivious to the squall except me. I sat quietly imagining my aunt, whose dreadlocks were so beautifully styled, unashamedly cultured, and so unapologetically black. This was one of the countless instances that left […]
I am not here to debate abortion. In fact, I’m not even going to share my own complex views on this issue because what I think really doesn’t matter. Instead, I’m here to talk about the weaponization of Black women’s bodies in the abortion discussion. The morning after the 2016 election, I sat in my […]
It feels like yesterday (It just happened in March. What is time anymore?!) that we were minding our own business trying to navigate the ever-changing nature of this pandemic and people who didn’t want to wear their masks and…I digress…when social media lit up with a video from Kirk Franklin’s son, Kerrion Franklin. The video […]
Comedian and actress Mo’Nique recently posted an Instagram saying she was in an airport in ATL when she saw sistas with bonnets, scarves, slippers and blankets wrapped around them. She felt that what she saw was somehow robbing us of our pride. I’m here to reshape the narrative and tell y’all this couldn’t be further […]
The Black church is at the center of emancipatory events like Juneteenth. In her book On Juneteenth, Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Annette Gordon-Reed wrote, “Black Texans were determined, despite the early intimidating anger of Whites, to celebrate what was initially called Emancipation Day. Most of the first celebrations were in churches.” These first celebrations reveal […]
In junior high and high school whenever the teacher would assign a group project, typically only a couple of people in the group really did the work. The rest of the group found ways to extricate themselves from actually contributing to the project and simply celebrated when a good grade came back. Now that Juneteenth […]
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker By now, I am sure you have heard that Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open [Please take some time to research her full background before coming to strong opinions on her…some of the loudest voices have […]
Buckle up! We have the incredible Dr. Anthea Butler with us today to talk about her new book White Evangelical Racism. Dr. Butler joins Tyler and Jemar to talk about the importance of understanding social and political power, the popularity of a multi-ethnic approach to racial reconciliation, and so much more. This is not one […]
In November 2020, the American Psychological Association reported that depression and anxiety were at an all-time high last year because of the pandemic. I don’t know how it was for y’all, but 2020 seemed to reveal issues that had long been hidden and to resurrect problems that we thought were dead. For me, the past […]
“Meditate and learn to be alone without being lonely…Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in other people…A few minutes every hour, a half-hour every day, a day a month, a week a year-in dedicated silence-is a goal to pursue.” Marian Wright […]
About ten years ago, I went through a period of grief following the deaths of two friends. Grieving is never an easy process, but what made it even harder for me was that all of my closest friends were also grieving these same losses. The people I normally turned to for support were struggling too. […]
This Behind the Mic was too good not to share! Tyler and Jemar talk about the cost of reconstruction after #LeaveLOUD, give a candid look at our democracy, and costly soul care in this moment. In 2018, the New York Times published an article tiled: A Quiet Exodus: Why Black Worshipers Are Leaving White Evangelical […]
Let me keep it buck: church hurt sucks. And when you #LeaveLOUD, church hurt often comes with a side of racial trauma. A lot of us who have left toxic white churches have attempted to put on a brave front. We have mustered what was left of our dignity and worked to distance ourselves from […]
