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Making Plenty Good Room with Rev. Dr. Andrew Wilkes
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These are times that call on a radical belief in oneself and their community. Back in October just shortly before the US Election, I interviewed Rev. Dr. Andrew Wilkes about his book Plenty Good Room, which invites the Black Church to think beyond electon cycles and go to the root of how it can be a radical force in not just American politics, but the wellbeing of all of us as Earthlings.
Yeah, timely. Unfortunately, because of the recent US Election and regime change, it took me a minute to prepare this episode for you, but it’s here now and ready. Plus, my beloved partner Les Henderson joins me for a moment of reflection on faith and will be joining me in our next few episodes.
Here’s Rev. Dr. Wilkes’s bio
Reverend Andrew Wilkes, Ph.D., is a pastor, political scientist, writer, and contemplative. He is the co-lead, co-founding pastor of the Double Love Experience Church in Brooklyn, New York, and the former Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute, a social change organization founded by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Wilkes is a 2022 inductee into the Martin Luther King Board of Preachers at Morehouse College and a proud alum of Hampton University, Princeton Theological Seminary, CUNY Graduate Center, and the Coro Public Affairs Fellowship. He is the author of Freedom Notes: Reflections on Faith, Justice, and the Possibility of Democracy; co-author of Psalms for Black Lives; and author of Plenty Good Room: Co-Creating an Economy of Enough for All. His writing and voice have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Essence Magazine, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates' PBS Gospel series. Dr. Wilkes is the elated husband of Rev. Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Watch PBS's The Black Church Here
https://www.pbs.org/show/black-church/
Read my recent newsletter spelling out the seven principles of Defying Gentrification (since i forgot to put them in the episode
https://theblackurbanist.com/this-is-my-house-and-in-it-i-get-to-defy-gentrification-my-way-all-day-every-day/
Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast! And merch and crafting classes via www.kristpattern.com
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You can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to Defined Gentrification. I'm your host, Kristen Jeffers, and I'm so excited to finally be able to give you episode nine, like the true episode nine. I know with the... um With my two special episodes, episode order got off. I've been kind of out of order, but today I have um a really radical pastor, radical Black pastor here with us to talk about how the Black church can tap into ah better urbanism and better ways of doing community with people, Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes.
00:00:34
Speaker
And our theme of our episode is faith. We are going through and examining in this season, part of the season, really. I consider this like more of a second season, but of course, when you go to the podcast apps, you may see this episode nine. You may see this as episode one. Either way, just a little introduction for us today. And after our little break, I will talk more about how we are going to dig into these principles of defined gentrification, how we're going to do podcasts for these next few episodes. And then later on in the episode, we will be talking to Reverend Dr. Will. So once again, this is Defined Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers, and I will be right back. So yes, bookshop dot.org, slide um bookshop dot.org. And of course, specifically bookshop dot.org slash shops as Kristen E. Jeffers is of course your resource for
00:01:30
Speaker
all of the books that I recommend on these episodes. Um, plenty good room by Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes, which we'll be talking about later in this episode is in there along with a lot of other great books, both past and present that I've had ah of authors that I've had on the show and some of the authors that I'm going to have on the show this season that are coming up. So bookshop dot.org slash shops as Christie Jeffers to support me directly, um, with bookshop, um, and give to me. And if not me, there's some other great, um, bookshops on there. I want to give, um,
00:02:02
Speaker
Loyalty here in BC. They're there on bookshop dot.org as well as some others But all the money like goes directly back to us besides what goes to the publishers And if you're trying to get off of using that site that starts with an A especially for books of all kinds This is a great place to go. So once again bookshop.org slash shop says Kristin E. Jeffers and now back to the show
00:02:28
Speaker
And so we're back. This is Defying Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers. Thanks for taking the time to be here with me. We are doing this first part of our episode before I bring our guests my guests on um differently this part of the season. So in this part of the episode, it will still be the concept of a street corner, the concept of a hot topic, but we're going to focus that hot topic on one of my principles of Defying Gentrification.
00:02:54
Speaker
So this episode, even though we're also going to be talking primarily about how faith plays into defying gentrification, I do want to pause and do a little bit of an introduction to what I mean by that. So I'm in the description box and in the show notes, I'm linking back to two emails. Number one, the one I did at the tail end of last year, it was effectively my wishes email. Those of you who've been following all the permutations of my work.
00:03:22
Speaker
since 2010 know that one of my traditions of my platform as Kristen Jeffers Media, specifically the part that's the black urbanist and the fine gentrification, is that I make urbanist wishes. And sometimes those urbanist wishes work out exactly as I've planned. Other times, well, well, well,
00:03:49
Speaker
But I don't despair because that's one of the things I've learned. I came back a few weeks later, um earlier this month in January with, after taking a couple of weeks off, logging off of everything, really trying to enjoy the holiday season before we are faced with this moment that we're faced right now.
00:04:10
Speaker
And I wanted to take that time and really think about, okay, is the fine gentrification even gonna be relevant? Is that the movement we need to make? Is that what we need to do? You know, I'm really just, as you see here, like things are a little bit disheveled if you're watching here on me.
00:04:29
Speaker
watching on the feed. you know like i Should I just just hide everything, have my little mess under the blanket, hide myself under a blanket and not say anything? Or do I have something to say for this moment? Well, if you read that email, you will find that I have something to say for this moment. And what I've wanted to do is to reconfigure not just the order of the principles of the fine gentrification that I've touched on way back in November of 2023. I wanted to actually reset, um, start really digging into them. And I've split the care. I've split the care principle up into both self and community care, both are needed and care itself is in the middle for a reason. It is the lynchman. You have to care for yourself and then you care for your community.
00:05:25
Speaker
And then if you are the person, and this is, and once again, let me be my, let me remind you, this defined gentrification is a urbanism centered in my lived experiences as a black Southerner. And even though I'm light skinned down South, we all black. It is, there's, and if anything, there are some folks down there are that are jealous that, you know, I can so through spaces but no we still black here we still go through certain things as black but this this defining gentrification and how I'm choosing to show up in the world honors that there are some things like attractiveness privilege even though I'm non-binary femme presenting and there's things going in a here that aren't present out here that my partner Les who I'm gonna share a few words from as of course that's the other surprise she's gonna be joining us as my co-host this season but let me finish these um principles lined up anyway like we
00:06:32
Speaker
we need We need that care um and as a black person, as a black feminine person, as a black person who does shake the gender binary and who shakes up um those who feel like there should be only one actually sexual orientation, because that's also what's alluded to. There should only be two genders. Then there also should only be one sexual orientation. The two genders do the thing with each other, and they do the thing in a certain way.
00:07:00
Speaker
But we we don't do all of that over here. We're not all about that. Just like um ah those of us you know who are who are descendants of the African enslaved, that um that is a legacy. That is where I draw my blackness from. And I draw from a lot of the faith traditions ah of that. um ah My faith tradition is blended. It's blended across a lot of different practitioners of a lot of different ways of tapping into faith and grounding in the spirit realm. I am an animanist. I do believe that there is a spirit realm and I won't go into too much detail in this, but know that that's why faith is first in this list and know that that's why, you know,
00:07:48
Speaker
This is the order. And yes, I still love cities, even though cities are trying to fail me right now, even though I don't get to use public transit like I want to even know, you know, we we work. This is probably going to be the last time I bring to you the show. Those of you are watching in this apartment. Partly because, you know,
00:08:09
Speaker
It's no secret that I've been going through things. um And yes, I am going to link in the show notes, as well as in the description box, the video that I talked about. And I talked about what I've really been going through. I talked about that just about a couple of weeks ago, everything from the election to my my current community that's surrounding me in DC.
00:08:32
Speaker
they're there but my our professional community has not been there so it's time for some radical changes in the way and the way we like to say it in the black church is like it's time to step out of faith so we about to step out on faith here and that's a good point to um talk about and slice in what less has to say about faith she was happy to um record this while she was on one of her many instacart runs she's been doing lately to keep us from losing faith in the concept of making money. So let's hear from her for a moment. Hi. So I've been asked to reflect on my thoughts around, you know, how faith connects to urbanism.
00:09:11
Speaker
First off, I want to say that in the world of urbanism, because it's so connected to you know the government and you know in various moving pieces, it's so easy, especially when you're doing anything you know in the urbanism field, whether that's planning or transportation or engineering. It's very easy to get caught up in the world because there're you know you have to meet so many deliverables. You have to you know work with so many different types of people at all levels you know in order to achieve um the ultimate you know mission of whatever you know whatever your um your goal your goal and visions are for your respective of your respective companies and organizations um that you're working for. But for me personally, during my time in the space, you know whether I was doing you know community outreach, whether I was you know working for a company or where or even just
00:10:23
Speaker
you know, talking with people on the bus, you know, as a passenger. This is definitely work where we definitely need to reconnect with spirit. um People of all levels um in this industry really needs to connect with spirit doing this work. And even reconnecting with spirit, even you know You may be thinking, well, it's impossible for me to really do that because I have to answer to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, but it's this is way bigger than us. It's way bigger than a deliverable. It's way bigger than maybe someone of importance on the totem pole. This is ultimately you know spirit's work. You may say, well, you know what? I'm atheist.
00:11:16
Speaker
Ultimately, this is you may say I'm atheist. You may say, well, I'm agnostic. You may say, well, I'm Buddhist. But no matter you know and whether you're religious or not, this goes way beyond us. Ultimately, urbanism And I think that along the years, in ah a long time, it a lot of things have gotten kind of misconstrued on what exactly you know it is. And when we're doing this work, it's so important to lead with spirit because
00:11:55
Speaker
you know Because ultimately, it's so many people that depend on us, whether it's for a a road to be fixed, a road to be constructed, for bus routes to be improved or created, for a bridge to be repaired, um for people to be able to afford vehicles. That may not be popular. However, you may say you're anti-car, for instance, but you know, what's the Lyft or Uber that you're getting into, you know, what's the ride share or van share, you know, that you're sharing. Those are vehicles and those are also, um those are also important.
00:12:37
Speaker
um So we have to learn to really and you know really learn to see the bigger picture as far as you know all of this being an ecosystem. you know Whether it's getting on a bus, whether it's um getting in a vehicle, whether it's you know making sure the sidewalks are um are debris free for our for our pedestrians. um Whether it's making sure that people you know have bicycle lanes and bike paths. So it's all an ecosystem. It's not one mode of urbanism being better than the other. you know Whether the plans um that you're working on, whatever planning initiatives you're working on, like, okay, how will this really help the community? Have we gotten the community's input you know on this? So um not to make this super long, but faith is really thinking of humanity and what humanity needs. And I know during personally during my time you know in this space, whether I was you know organizing, whether I was in a community group, whether I was working for a company, personally, I've always tried to lead with spirit, you know no matter
00:13:49
Speaker
who, whether that was a colleague, whether it was, you know, someone, you know, just a citizen, um whether it was someone in ah and an apartment building, no matter who I was talking to, I tried to lead with spirit because ultimately, you know, everyone's concerns are valid. And a lot of times we also get so caught up in, oh, well, this person it doesn't have such and such title or this person lives in neighborhood or this person lives in a a bad area, or this person you know is only making X amount of dollars a year, or this person's unemployed. And so we get caught so caught up in social status, socioeconomics, that a lot of times so we stray away from spirituality. We stray away and we get so focused on the world. So my thoughts around how faith faith
00:14:44
Speaker
your faith and connects with urbanism. And I'm gonna tell everyone, even if you're watching this and you're like, I'm not spiritual, I'm not religious, no matter who you worship or who you don't worship,
00:14:59
Speaker
this is Think of this as an ecosystem. Think of this as just humanity, because that's ultimately you know where we should be rooted at. you know You look at your work as a practice. Your look your your job is the better the environment, especially if you have a role in improving and constructing and building our infrastructure, it's important. So, you know, definitely just keep that in mind, you know, when you're doing your, your day to day work, um that
00:15:35
Speaker
it thisco This gets way bigger than us. It gets way bigger than the company, you know, it get that you're working for. It gets way bigger than, you know, any plans. You want to make sure that you're really looking at this from a holistic point of view and ultimately this is the better serve, you know, our community. It's the better serve. Think about people that, you know, may not um They may not get into the weeds of of this work, but they're they're just trying to commute to and from work. They're trying to commute to and from a family or friend's house. Maybe they're going to a doctor's appointment. Maybe they're on there where they're commuting
00:16:15
Speaker
to incorporate some type of self-care in their life. maybe there're they're just one Maybe they're just on a bike path. Maybe they're walking on a trail. you know we just you know Maybe you know they're on a boat, you know depending on our waterways. you know So when you really think of it that way beyond just a commute or um or thinking of this as a as a fan perspective or thinking of what you think people ought to do.
00:16:43
Speaker
You just got to continue to meet people where they are. And that's also important um and in this. So to sum it all up. you know this this is This is all of us. this get This is way bigger than any of us individually, and this is us as a whole. So definitely just think of the greater community and think of overall humanity. If it helps you out, just even think about you know your friends and family that are just trying to get to and from work, um no matter what it is that they do, no matter what level that they're at, you know no matter what shift they're working, think of it that way.
00:17:21
Speaker
All right, y'all, be good.
00:17:27
Speaker
And so, yeah, that's that's where we are. And that's why, Faith, i wanted to I want to lead with Faith. And on the next ah few episodes, she'll actually be back here on the couch. The Blue Couch is coming with us. and we Wherever we're going, the Blue Couch is coming with us. So she'll be back with me on the Blue Couch to talk more about like life and everything. um and what we're going through and we'll have more announcements. We'll have more things to do and we're doing our best. But one thing I will say is I am speaking up because of faith.
00:18:02
Speaker
I am speaking out because I have faith that in my speaking out, my mouth, as it is open, will be fed, like like proverbially and physically. I will get food. I'm speaking out and everything. like we've we've um We've gone and we're eligible for social services and we've taken advantage of that. We're speaking with our building. like All those things are happening and I have no shame.
00:18:29
Speaker
And as a thing about having faith, there's no shame. And having faith and then cultivating the community, cultivating things ourselves, making things ourselves. Of course, my my crochet is part of that. And I've got my little case here, my iPad case, out so that we can reduce our dependence on a lot of these things. And not only can we reduce our dependence on so many things owned by nefarious people, we can recreate those things Because nefarious people don't have a monopoly on the best of humanity and human life. Let me say that again. The nefarious people do not have a monopoly on the concept of faith, spirituality, and humanity.
00:19:15
Speaker
Keep that in mind. Know that I'm watching you just as much as you're watching me. And to anybody, I'm sorry that if you've read some of my posts and you think it's about you, and i and some of it it isn't about you, but some of you, y'all know who y'all are. Because y'all even well before, years ago, even back in 2018, like I said in ah in the YouTube video, y'all know who you are. And instead of pretending that I can be somebody I'm not, I'm gonna be my 100% self.
00:19:44
Speaker
The southerness, the queerness, the feistiness, the bamaness, as it were, since I'm, you know, I'm here in D.C. and there's those distinctions, those black in black community class distinctions show up. All those things are here.
00:19:59
Speaker
But I am owning them. I am owning myself. I am owning who I am and I am proud of who I am. And so that is why faith is up top and thinking about faith, especially as husbandman as I've been preparing this episode and this video and this, you know, this audio, if you're like just listening, that's what's gotten me through.
00:20:23
Speaker
With that, we have ah our other principles, cultivation, of course, the CARES, access, infrastructure, and convenience. And I actually, if you've been following along throughout the last year, convenience has moved to the bottom. Because, I mean, if I don't like myself, I'm not going outside.
00:20:45
Speaker
that's that's that's facts so it don't matter what's convenient what's convenient for me is my bed if i don't like myself and i don't want to come out of bed so I've realized that I need to be faithful. I need to cultivate things for myself, you know my my garments, my this making this media platform, making my own media platform, even though I'm not able to be on other people's media platforms as much as I would like, even though I have an active fear of reaching out to other media platforms. I realized that I still is the same internet.
00:21:18
Speaker
um There I am in support groups that are helping me through those fears to have that faith that putting out my words, putting out my pitches, putting out myself is going to be valuable. And I also have faith that I will find the right new home. And in fact, I think I might know what that is, but you're going to have to keep listening and watching from us to reveal what that is. So with that, we're going to take a break.
00:21:46
Speaker
We're going to come back right after the break. We will be talking with Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes. Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes is the co-pastor of Double Love Experience with his wife, um Reverend Dr. Gabby Wilkes. You may have seen them on the ah Black church documentary that um Dr. Henry Louis Gates did for PBS, which I'm putting all of that in the show notes because you should watch the whole thing. If you want to understand the roots of Black urbanism for real, for real,
00:22:15
Speaker
go to our house of spirit, go to what drives our brains and what has held us together with all other institutions, especially in these areas, in these colonized spaces, both on our original continent where the colonization has happened, as well as here in the States. Now, the black church documentary focuses on the experience in the United States, but there's of course other documentaries that talk about how faith has manifested in how black folks, um people of the African diaspora,
00:22:44
Speaker
show up in the world. Anyway, with with that, that's that's them. he has written now Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes is with us today and he has written a book, Cleaning Good Room, that touches on black Christian socialism and it challenges our church buildings to not just get comfortable in having land,
00:23:02
Speaker
the buildings, a media platform, and to not get comfortable just telling anybody that they that telling certain churches and people that don't belong in the church to get back to our roots of our radical tradition. Now of course not every church is on board with Dr. Martin Luther King's vision, um not every just like some there was criticisms of even that of Malcolm X, even in his movement and in his faith practice, but ultimately as a nearly 40 year old millennial in these times where my rights and my existence as a person in this so-called country on this piece of the land of Turtle Island is challenged
00:23:51
Speaker
this, I really hope that you'll get something out of this conversation. And another note is, I've got my nice blue snowball right now, but I've had a lot of technical issues is why this episode, even though I recorded this interview in October, just before, like a few days before we voted. In fact, I think I've recorded the episode one day, a couple of days later, I went and voted um in my cute little Rainbow wig at the library. I'll put that up here for you um for those of you who are watching for your entertainment Then I pumped out my it was Halloween day and I went and I kind of um but played a little trick on my hair stylist, but I came in with my wig, but you know and then yeah, we voted and Here we are
00:24:34
Speaker
And one other thing, but I say all that to say about the technical issues, the audio on this part of the episode is a little scratchy, but I'm here. And one other thing, well, actually I'll say that to after. um So we're gonna take a break, sell some books. We'll be talking with Reverend Dr. Wilkes.
00:24:51
Speaker
And then after that com part of the conversation, we will come back and close out our episode today and preview our next one. Once again, this is de Defined Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers, and I am speaking now with Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes.
00:25:05
Speaker
peter
00:25:07
Speaker
Welcome back y'all to the Defining Centrification Podcast. This is a really exciting episode ah and I have with me today Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes who is the author of Plenty Good Room. Thank you Reverend Dr. Wilkes for joining me today on this podcast. Absolutely, a pleasure to be here.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yes and so I would like to talk about going back there's so much in this book and in the prior segment I tease why folks should consider picking up this book but one of the things I love to do with episode guest is to take it back like before you found your call to ministry before like what what influenced you what were sort of your first touch points to I would say like city planning urbanism
00:26:01
Speaker
community need development. Was it something that you found was instilled by your parents? Was this part of your church community? was and and i'll I'll share a little bit of my story, but I want to hear like what but what those what those influences are because as many people know, if you listen to anything or read anything, I start from the beginning as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Well, I appreciate the the question. and And again, such a joy to be on ah the podcast. um A few influences come to mind. um One, I talk about in Playing a Good Room how ah the first protest civic engagement event ever went to was ah actually in like the parking lot of a grocery store that the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta put on. Reverend Dr. Barbara King. um
00:26:53
Speaker
was the person who convened it. And though memory has taken away my sense of what we talked about, that was my first um recollection of quasi public space being used for democratic purposes and calling for more justice and more equity. ah So that's one kind of key input. um ah Another that helped to shape my sense of city planning and what local governments and organized communities can do. ah When I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. ah Before I had gray hair many moons ago, um I did what's called a field placement ah for about a year and a half in the office of then Mayor Cory Booker. And so while a lot of my colleagues were doing their field placements and congregations,
00:27:41
Speaker
I was doing mine in local government, working on housing issues, um working with community centers and thinking through how green jobs can potentially come online. And so those two experiences, ah organizing with churches and parking lots and being in local government in Newark, New Jersey, gave me a sense of what might be possible in terms of justice and equity exceeds direct service, exceeds charitable initiatives, and requires engaging policy structures, systems, um regulations, and and all that good stuff.
00:28:15
Speaker
Sure. like So ah one of the things like I was really struck by, because I am my work. Now, my my journey in and out, I also was raised national Baptist. So, you know. Yeah, yeah. But of course, I'm a queer woman. So therere there're complication there are There are all the dissonance that should not exist, but nevertheless, from their side desk, yeah.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yes, but there's always been, I've always seen the work that I'm doing, whether it's being on a podcast like this, writing The Black Urbanist, being in the community. I have a calling, like, I watched my dad, like,
00:28:57
Speaker
fix not just all the lights at like Ebony's about this in Greensboro but fix so many people's congregations pretty much a lot of black Greensboro like so it was even though he wasn't in a pulpit necessarily He was using his gift as a licensed electrician to help so many people and that implanted on me. Then of course, you know, my mom was a school teacher, and made sure I was reading everything, including my Bible and everything else in between. Sure. the public affairs program and i was like okay We as Black Southerners, we have a different experience. It's not to say that we don't have public housing. We definitely do. And there's been all sorts of complications with it in the that past 11 years since I was in my grad program. But we also have land access. um Later on in this season, I'm going to be talking with Bria Baker about her wonderful book, Rooted. But of course,
00:30:07
Speaker
larry This has been like a calling and I thought that was such a wonderful thing to portray that you can be called outside of a pulpit to do this work. Like I feel like some of our elders presented that to us so but didn't you feel like that some of the things obviously you felt like it was time to put this together in a book and that we had to like be clear about it like what was sort of the catalyst to say okay this is the time um but other than obviously you know obviously time and prayer and study like you know i'm not so far removed like
00:30:50
Speaker
Since we talked about this being a ministerial calling, what was it? Was it the onset of seeing COVID-19 affect our communities? Was it, say, the 2016 presidential election? Was it the Great Recession? What was sort of that nudge that this needs to be even more a part of your ministry, other than what you've already done, which people will see in the bio and which I'll talk a little bit about later in the episode.
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciate the question. So I come to this work at at this stage as um a co-pastor of a church. I co-founded with my wife, Reverend Dr. Davi Kucheluks, a trained political scientist. ah When I went to seminary, actually it was on the edges of the Great Recession. And so I saw this juxtaposition of the federal government bailing out banks while black homeowners in southwest Atlanta, which is where I grew up, not receiving even an adequate response, just sub-optimism. It's one thing to try and you don't really get where you want to go, but it it wasn't really an A plus for for effort. And so the juxtaposition of intervention for banks
00:32:02
Speaker
next to none for black homeowners. They ended up being foreclosed in a substantial way, ah both in Atlanta as well as um New York, right? And ultimately based those kinds of experiences over time just kind of stuck with me. And um being involved in what I would call ah chris the the kind of radical wing of the Black social gospel, which is there are not too many folks running around that are Black Christian socialists in a generous way. Yes.
00:32:34
Speaker
that it just kind of felt like it was time to to release this. and And the name, Plenty Good Room, draws from two different senses. One is a sense of hospitality and welcome, whosoever will ought to have a space in the faith community, ethically oriented, sense of belonging. but But also, I argue that there's an anti-scarcity conviction that's the best of Black church traditions.
00:32:59
Speaker
How do we get from a text that says the earth is the Lord's and the food is thereof to a place where we're reinforcing the austerity politics of your Ronald Reagan's and across the pond your Margaret Thatcher's. And so, yes yes in many ways, the Great Recession kind of planted some of that, ah but things like COVID-19, the pandemic, and also just a sense of inner urge, which is both cultivated over time. And and I would say, as some of that fact, I felt I am still good good in church, but the Holy their Ghost telling me now is the time. Yes. I probably know the answer. It's probably going to be an option of the spirit.
00:33:44
Speaker
I was listening so some of you may not know I haven't talked a lot about it to my listeners but like I grew up in a National Baptist Church with one parent who left a United Methodist congregation and one parent who left an AME congregation but First, it's the Black Southern Church. We're on the circuit. We're in the country. We're making that rotation. So there are definitely going to be, in addition to the book title being a reference to a colloquial term we use in the Black church, especially in the South, US s South, we're also going to use certain other terms. But this is probably going to be a conversation for, like, if you know, you know. Because I really did, and I was really excited to have a Black church-focused conversation around these things.
00:34:29
Speaker
because so much nothing wrong with the fact that in our generation and honestly really our parents generation our parents generation for many of us now some folks are fortunate whether it's their grandparents like you're the first to go to university and the first and graduating from HBCUs and having that legacy. For me and my family, it was I'm technically, I i like to say I'm like 1.5 because my dad did community college, almost went to A and&T. My mom went to Bennett.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yes, yes. And I am in an Aggie and Bell household. Yeah, they sent me to NC State, which is what you know, if you know, you know, we have a pretty robust um black alumni network. We have D9 presence. We have like gospel choir, all these things.
00:35:21
Speaker
And one of the things they instilled in us was this sense of place in the sense of our blackness, the Sankofa principle. So I brought all of like my black church upbringing to this predominantly white institution in 2004.
00:35:38
Speaker
as like a second generation as my grandparents who weren't able to finish like one of them was stopped in the seventh grade and went to world war two another one went back and got her community college so she could and ah basically to be the first cafeteria manager uh black cafeteria manager in alamance county which was still a big deal in like the 80s Yeah, so there is this pride, because it was my mom going to Bennett, my uncle going to NC State, and I followed him there. So it was <unk> definitely a blue line. of and I didn't just go over there by myself, but just... but we now I feel like in the black church take it for granted that we have these resources and I would love for you to talk a little bit more and we'll get back to the book but I would love for you to share a little bit more about when when I was a documentary I saw during like the height of the pandemic when y'all decided to just take an alleyway and create a worship service and yeah
00:36:45
Speaker
create that experience and you even though we live in a world of mega churches, of big buildings, of you know projection screens, of you know the the church experience looks more like the television show Greenleaf than you know sitting on a street corner in the kind of the two or three gathered mode of things. yeah Take us back to like creating that space and place and creating a model that we don't often see, at least not in this modern, wealthier Black church.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, really great question. So and in 2018, my wife and I co-founded Double Up Experience Church. And we did a series of preview services. And so in 2019, in the fourth quarter, that's when we moved from quarterly services to weekly services, four months into that, the pandemic hit. And so that through us for a bit of a regrouping moment. We found our footing again and um we're now actually coming up on our sixth anniversary so incredibly excited about that. The outdoor um service that you're mentioning is something that we actually do with the Hancock Community Garden Park and we're thrilled to have um PBS, join us for the Black Church documentary that Dr. Henry Louis Gates is doing. And they kind of featured Double Up Experience Church, which we describe as a Jesus movement for Black lives. and And for us, a part of what that means is the church not viewing itself as a
00:38:14
Speaker
um monocentric resource for a community impact and justice work, but but really a kind of a polycentric model, meaning that the church is one anchor institution, and there are other anchor institutions, and institution like parks, like the Bed-Stuy Restoration Plaza, which is where we're currently worshiping, which happens to be the nation's, by some accounts, first community development corporation. And so a lot of the stuff that churches usually do in terms of social services, in terms of legal representation in terms of connected with electives. We're currently like in the hub of a community hub. And so whether it's the community garden park or working at Restoration Plaza, we're trying to really be a love and justice congregation instead of some of the majoring in the minor that churches lamentably have developed something of a reputation for. um And so we're not the only ones, but we're glad to be a part of a vanguard of folks trying to make a ah difference in this way. So as far as like the mechanics of that, did you have to kind of, have y'all had to call yourselves in a way to this particular form of ministry to be able to operate in this way? Or do you have the backing of like a mainstream or like black mainstream denomination at this point?
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, so Double Love Experience is a part of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, ah which is um Dr. King's denomination. Dr. King grew up in the NBC, but broke off in the PMBC because everybody in NBC wasn't necessarily with the civil rights and racial justice push. without and others said this is not only important civically and politically, but for those who ah happen to to be Christians in a specific generous Black church tradition, civil rights and racial justice are constitutive rather than add-ons for faith commitment.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, and I wanted to kind of set the tone for that because for many, I'm hearing in this question from listeners that are like, okay, that's great that you're doing that. You know, of course there's like history of so many black folks saying, okay, church, the church is standard. It doesn't fit me. It's not going in a direction that I believe is conducive to deliberation of black lives. And honestly, anybody's lives, like it's not looking like. go that i go there Yeah, yeah it's not it's not looking biblical in a lot of ways. like We like to talk about what is and isn't biblical, but here we are. And one of the things that has broken my heart about watching right us amass so many resources as a black church
00:40:57
Speaker
and then have to debate people constantly, especially in this election season that, oh, well, why would you, why do you still care about what the black church thinks? Why do we even organize? Like I want to kind of shout out one of my colleagues in Greensboro, April Parker, who's really put a lot of effort in making sure people remember that the black church was an organizing tool historically in Greensboro. Of course, we've had um obviously beloved community center, faith community church, the pulpit forum,
00:41:25
Speaker
You know, we've had this history continue. And of course, we're Greensboro. So, of course, like you're going to win it, I'm from Greensboro, and I hope that somebody will still be doing what we started to do. Disruptive activism and sit-ins and so forth. But I think what this book is given an opportunity for, it's like, I wish I was in a position to mail it to every congregation, especially every black congregation, including my home congregations that are still more on that conservative end. Now, they they're in smaller buildings. They definitely, they're still doing the fish fries. They're still making sure everybody's okay. But then there's smaller congregations, right?
00:42:11
Speaker
Whereas, you know, you have some of the other congregations, larger congregations in Greensboro and here in PG County, we're on base where it's like, oh, you go here and you have to go in this building. And you have to put some of your identities at the door, because the only way in is through our current federal government apparatus. It's almost like, to be honest, I'll flat out say it. I feel like it's become an idol. Like I feel like we've lost our creativity, at least here and at least in this region to be able to think through a lot of what you're talking about in the book. And that's why I was just so excited. I was like, okay, we have to have this conversation.
00:42:57
Speaker
Because we have so many assets. We have so many organizers. We have so many teachers and nurturers. So many folks are taking their kids to church because they want like a structure. They want to kind of show them what it's like to have a moral structure. And then of course, you know, one of the other things I love about seeing it on the documentary is y'all got the older music. Like I don't know.
00:43:23
Speaker
I am a millennial and I am at that press and nothing against some of our other worship teams that have a different sound but I like the variety just like I have a variety anyway I like that variety and I think there was a there was a book and I was probably dropping them had shown us because they're escaping me but there is a book I know it was a sister who wrote a book about the sonics of black lives and to me like just our just like we have our hair shops as a site of being able to be purely black in a society that doesn't want us to be there to me the black church
00:44:05
Speaker
is one of those place and so talk about how you see that like i know kind of my theory base is like yeah we we have to we have this building we have we've built this ah somewhat say and summar i will' say completely say because of course we've seen so many warbos attack even though within the last 15 years on the Black church, everything from what happened at Emmanuel AME to just other, you know, lack of support, people um losing their assets, gentrification, um and people being kind of not on the side of, oh, well, we have a good sweetheart deal with whatever city we're in where we're avoiding gentrification, but they're trying to take our building, they're charging us property tax.
00:44:52
Speaker
So talk to me about how you have seen the institution as part of like a street front as a community. like You kind of touched on it a little bit, but I would love for you to talk a little bit more about how you see your the the institution and your institution in particular as part of right the holisticness of the community. Yeah, I really appreciate that that question. um when When you were talking about um music and and and churches, it it reminds me of a really great book. ah I think her first monograph by Melissa Harris Perry called Barbershop Bible yeah E.T. um And so in that work of political science, Paris kind of drawing together the fact that so much of Black politics is not only about who are we going to elect from the president, the mayor, the governor, school board, what have you, ah but there are also these everyday sites of liberation. Sometimes that's barbershops,
00:45:49
Speaker
beauty salons ah over questions of faith. Certainly at the cookout is another deliberative sort of space and that very much resonates in some ways with my own kind of formation of bringing in kind of current environs. In terms of the church as an institution,
00:46:05
Speaker
I think a part of what um we see in terms of how I think the best of Black churches work to create what I call a a people's economy. um A number of churches have credit unions which create non predatory financial institutions where folks can have access to funds that they may need to take care of basic household expenses and to support loved ones in a time of need and to ah provide something other than check cashing and predatory loans and banks that ah prey on you P-R-E-Y rather than pray in the more positive sense that you get where you're trying to go. And so churches have also historically been, um particularly in places like Philadelphia,
00:46:52
Speaker
the site of emergence for ah burying the sick and the free African society which preceded the foundation of the AME Church ah also helped to provide a kind of a neutral insurance, a kind of sort of shared risk, shared benefit sort of ah approach. And so I think that kind of public finance for the common good tradition, albeit at a small scale, is what churches have done in a really rich way. And some of that, because it's not simply an attempt to advance the common good in a post-racial sense, but advance the common good through public or community finance, and when it disrupts white supremacy, we've seen your Emmanuel AMEs be under attack. But we've also seen just a couple of years ago, um Metropolitan AME Church, yeah see yeah right where the proud boys saw them sang Black Lives Matter, they pulled down their flag and um were brought to court because sometimes you got to settle matters through ah judicial institutions and they were awarded a million dollar settlement ah because of some of the damage that they endured. And so I say all that to say that the church, when it is at its best and the public interest um creating conditions where neighbors can love one another, it is a threat, I would argue too.
00:48:11
Speaker
ah the social organization of racial capitalism. It is a threat ah to white supremacy, and it is a proponent, I argue, for reparative democracy.
00:48:23
Speaker
participatory democracy and for economic democracy. And and those strands of democracy, Kristin, I want to say that that requires a deeper register of beloved community talk than simply copying and pasting whatever the Democratic Party says, which unfortunately is sometimes what you see from from the Black church.
00:48:50
Speaker
You're going out out of touch, Kristin. I can't quite hear you.
00:48:57
Speaker
Can you hear me now? I can. Okay, I'm gonna switch microphones and let everybody know sound went out a little bit. Okay. But yes, so what I wanted to talk about is we you were talking about how sometimes we can create institutions. Sometimes we have to go into the institutions. Of course, we're in this historical election season and there's excitement and there's like, there's, and it's so hard because of course, you know, for my grandparents,
00:49:29
Speaker
they would have never fathomed to be able to vote twice. Now, all of them have passed on. we lost my I lost my last grandparent in 2020. And honestly, if COVID hadn't happened, she might still be here in time to cast this vote, and she would have been able to vote for a black man and a black woman for the president of this so-called country and empire.
00:49:51
Speaker
ah yeah i um I've got like a two-part question. And we have the first part is, what How would you in our parlance rebuke some of these congregations that will probably read your chapter on unions and even though they are effectively operating corporations with this understanding that you have to give a certain amount on Sunday, you have to give a certain amount, you effectively have to pay
00:50:24
Speaker
and ah And the way their tithing structure is set up is feeling like you're paying to go to a positive black space instead of just giving your time or giving your space or thinking about, OK, you're a credit union. OK, you use some of that tithing to provide the senior housing. The senior housing is free or it's very, very low cost. But it's based on what the person actually has versus yeah So many of our churches that are market rate that have full on H.R. teams, nothing wrong with that because you need you do need like some accountability. But what do you say to these churches that want to operate more as corporations and that will sit and read this account, even though by all means they're going to like see you as a black, straight, Reverend, Reverend doctor, well regarded.
00:51:22
Speaker
You know, you and your wife being well now I know some congregations can't get over the fact that it's you and your wife and your wife is in ministry. So we're going to put them to the side. They might not even touch the book, but say the ones that do touch the book and they're OK with everything until you're saying, hey, you know, we need to unionize. We don't need to be creating these like um weird financial structures. We don't need to mirror in our parlance the world.
00:51:48
Speaker
and how we operate. what What have you been saying to some of those questions you may have been getting from ministerial colleagues that are with you on a lot of, of yeah, pro-black space, you know be part of our black community, but wait, so we're supposed to do all the economic piece as well? In this day and time, how am I supposed to manage property, people's personalities? How am I supposed to finance my church in this model?
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, but really great question. um And would approach in a couple of ways. One, at the Georgia serving as the board president for the Labor Religion Coalition in New York State, and through that capacity we've been ah supporters of the New York State wing of the Poor People's Campaign, which was one of the principal ah acts that not only um Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped to ah establish and get going, but also Marin Wright Edelman was really um the kind of genesis and the brains of kind of getting the Poor People's Campaign moving. And so the economic justice and equity piece
00:52:57
Speaker
um I argue it's not a um distraction or side dish, but it's really the main course of what ah Black social Christianity is is all about. um I acknowledge that there are some um operational distinctions between a congregation like Double Up, which is ah is us on the smaller end of of congregations, and folks who may see um as in a church that um I used to serve as the megachurch in New York, tens of thousands of folks that that are coming through. Even in that context, I think there is, and for megachurches and congregations across the country.
00:53:36
Speaker
is to, at at minimum, um argue for and to have advocacy positions that support um paying people, families, sustaining wages, ah to make sure that um city governments, town governments, state governments are investing in things like worker co-op supporting legal protections for folks so that there's not ah wage theft that is happening or harassment happening in the workplace. What happens in the workplace is just as important and should be just as um sacred a space as what happens um and set aside spaces on on Sunday. And the the other things I would note that I i tried to include, I was
00:54:18
Speaker
with some folks for ah the Alliance of Baptists ah denomination that is a mixture of white and and black congregations. And a part of what I was lifting up there is ah that churches essentially um are following a Christ who ah but became, ah or are so goes the confession, God becomes human as a day laborer.
00:54:41
Speaker
as someone who's unhoused and has nowhere to to lay ahead, as someone who invites folks to walk off the job, essentially, yeah and form a labor union. And so this Common Purse, this day laboring unhoused Christ, is the one who is the guide, who is the bottle. And then um Jesus' talk that Christology ought to radicalize congregations to recover some of what we may have lost along the way. So so rather than than rebuking, I try to think of it as an encouragement that calls folk into the best of our traditions.
00:55:18
Speaker
No, and honestly, that's good because, of course, we're having so many wonderful conversations in mental health spaces. Number one, that we should be going to therapy. That is still part of that is still a divine practice to take time and sit with someone who is trained and who wants to help you understand how to think. And also the revolution that we're having in our homes, raising our children.
00:55:48
Speaker
many of us because that's what we were taught spankings like all these things happen but now we are looking at that in its proper context we're looking at the generational trauma and how some of those practices of you know tough parenting led back to our times of enslavement as when we were brought over here and then of course everything else of this fear of We have to do things a certain way. Just like I was talking about earlier in the show about.
00:56:20
Speaker
feeling like we have to do, we have to work a certain way and we have to show up a certain way. And that's where I get to like the other part of my question, because as we're getting into, I probably will release this within the time period where people will still be voting, but okay still, even if we're after November 5th, like one of the things I've been evaluating, especially with our movement folks and with especially principal struggle is thinking about, okay,
00:56:50
Speaker
Are we equipped right now to gently overthrow like are our version of like Pharaoh's King right now? do we Do we have enough critical mass? like we Now we're of like mine where, say, something bad happens.
00:57:09
Speaker
You know, we're we're thinking about how we're going to organize, just like we did with covid, just like I'm watching folks in Asheville and, of course, folks that I'm connected to in North Carolina mobilize and get people resources and, you know, people, you know, ah somebody is still somebody ah on one hill still got lights and somebody doesn't like they're yeah offering their shower. Like there's so much of that that I think is ingrained and people are ready for that kind of service.
00:57:39
Speaker
and mutual aid and looking out for each other. yeah But I do worry sometimes that some folks in their critique forget that they're trapped in rhetoric and in some cases that they do that their escape plans are a little further along and some of those escape plans are not like holding in everybody. Like this isn't necessarily like a book question, but this is mainly like a, as a, you know, a rooted community focus, like pastor and person who's like, okay, if the worst happens to my community, like talk to me a little bit. And obviously we don't want to put all of our cars on the table, our movement elders and they're like, don't tell everybody everything. but
00:58:24
Speaker
Just in general Kind of giving some advice to people on things. They want to make sure they have an order Just in case the worst happens as you know, I live um I'm in that catchment area. I know we're getting right the fences are already going up I know we won't have Metro service It's not my favorite like thing to think about not having mobility But I lived through January 6 and we were living a little further out like in Prince George's County. So it's like okay, um How, how would you practically prepare for a time period such as this, that we, when we need to make some real changes, we need to not just focus or push the democratic party, but what if we like end up in a situation because people say, okay, I don't even want to trust in them no more, you know,
00:59:15
Speaker
But here we are with Project 2025. Here we are with folks marching the streets, taking their own matters in their hands. What have been some of the things that you've been doing to prepare for that as somebody who is a community minded, like spatially minded pastor?
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, really really great question. And I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. what While it I think it's the case that, um you know, divisions of incrementalist means tested approaches to um equity, which is generally what the Democratic Party gives are are not great. Project 2025 and what the GOP p is giving is a thousand times worse. yeah And so then,
01:00:02
Speaker
needs it to to be named directly. to tick To your broader question about what does it look like to be prepared in worst case scenarios, I think you really struck an excellent analogy in naming that we've seen aspects of this and natural disasters that really called us to make sure that we have ah contact information for folks so that we can can check up on them in ways that are not ah restricted only to email, only to phone, or only to ah one particular medium. um Having encrypted communication is is something that can can be helpful. um I think it's and important to have a sense of
01:00:43
Speaker
and And many others have have made these these points, how one can access food and having systems of ah whether it's community fridges, whether it's having community supported agriculture and other forms of gardening. Folk got to eat. If you can't eat, you can't really live.
01:01:01
Speaker
on a sustainable basis, right? So so those are and important things, um but also making sure that people have the medicine that they need, that they have um the capacity, particularly if they're homebound, have someone to check up on them just for companionship and company. And so I think disasters of a natural source give us a glimpse of what we may need to be prepared to do if we encounter civic and political disasters. And no one has blueprints and crystal balls for this. But we do have reference points. And though history doesn't repeat, it rhymes. And so we can stitch together our reference points and try to create paths of freedom and sustainability, and also collective self-governance. While I don't think we have to be beholden to the state necessarily, I think it's worth noting that um activities once done by the state can be done at a smaller scale by communities until such time that they can be
01:02:01
Speaker
um but done at a larger scale. And I think one example of this, it's not a clean example, um but I'll share it for the purposes of the same communication. The Black Panthers and St. Augustine Episcopal Church are doing free breakfast programs that also become the template for feeding programs in public schools. And so those who wonder, well, what did we get from the Panthers? What are their continuing legacy? If your kid is eating, that's a part of the Panthers legacy. yeah And so it's important they weren't doing that necessarily with the theory of change of of having the state take on those efforts. yeah But it was working so powerfully that it also became something that municipal governments, county governments took on. So I think there's a practical ground between making sure folks have what they need and demanding
01:02:52
Speaker
not just a portion of what we need, but demanding all that we deserve, all that we desire, and continuing to push on a systemic front even as we do what we can um individually. and and And for a congregation like ours that often is venerating with other folks who are who are doing ah that that kind of work. And then I think I wanted to end the um podcast with sort of this question.
01:03:20
Speaker
and it may come up a little bit shady because this is more of thinking about how our Southern upbringing, cause there's been a lot of debate within our black community. A lot of people are realizing the concept of as goes the South. So does everybody else. And not just the U S South, but really the global South as it were. shi Do you feel like, um, and feel free to kind of expand on this since it's kind of the last question, but, and I think it would be a good way to end this, like,
01:03:54
Speaker
I know for me, I've had to realize as I've been, I've lived out of state, out of home. Everybody is still in North Carolina for the most part. ah Now I do have one, a little chunk, a couple cousins that preceded me up here to DC, but it's been nine years for me. And I went to- Man, almost 10. Congratulations to you. Yes, yes, I know. and I find myself looking back, kind of that Sankofa principle, like it's been a Sankofa season for me, looking back and thinking about, yes, yeah. And thinking about, okay, how do we impress on people that maybe they shouldn't be ashamed of their roots, that
01:04:40
Speaker
you know how it if you have that legacy that there's there's probably some lessons in that. Yeah. How have you navigated that? Like, as you when when as you've left the South and as you've worked and obviously you've rooted yourself, you've built a community outside of the South. How do you see some of your Southern upbringing not, you know, as influencing how you've built that community? And of course, you you have, you know,
01:05:13
Speaker
It's not like it goes away, but I have noticed, and I myself, admittedly have been working on, okay, how do I plug into this community? How do I bring some of that energy there? And yes, of course, we're we're in the DMV, so we're fighting over whether we're the South or not.
01:05:31
Speaker
so yeah yeah there's that out there Among other things, for for statehood yeah yes as well. yeah yeah yeah um Excellent question. um I see you growing up in the South and Atlanta in particular ah as an incredible um blessing and heirloom, which I steward and hold close. ah The best of Atlanta um helped instill a sense of my my home church's slogan was, living the love, loving the serve. And I think of it as serving to try to make a ah transformative difference. So that that's one piece. um Dr. Kang is from Atlanta, America's most famous yeah democratic socialist, among other things, and anti-imperial socialist, I should note, because some who hold to the moniker of democratic socialist,
01:06:23
Speaker
um don't necessarily want to see reparations in a global sort of sense. And so I'm quite comfortable with excessive debt service from the International Monetary Fund and from the World Bank creating neocolonial conditions for folks in South America and many nations yeah yeah on the continent. And so I, in very real sense, value your expansion of the frame from not only the South of the US, but the South was in the the global South. That very much resonates. and And in some ways, I hold that as a part of the heirloom and the tradition. But also that the sense that um
01:07:04
Speaker
I would would note in a slightly different direction, I think a part of what Atlanta has helped me to appreciate is the role of story, ah song and culture and creating and inspiring and sustaining social change. Atlanta has been um a kind of um cauldron and hotbed for so much of the best of what we've seen of soul, R and&B, rap music, is is ah the the trap as well. I don't want to leave that out coming from the South.
01:07:39
Speaker
And that's that's key because sometimes in movement spaces and just to see church spaces, you miss the opportunity for inspiration because if sermons and points of connection are solely about justice stuff, which sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, And you miss the praise and worship and you miss the inspiration or like what is a direct action and movement space without chance and without songs and without art on campus. So at Atlanta very much gave me that sense of the Black Arts Movement was a thing I grew up on the you know maybe 10-ish or so years afterwards growing up in 85.
01:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so very much yeah yeah you fit very much an appreciation just to kind of maybe try to tie a bow on it. um What I carry with me from Atlanta and from the South by extension is deep practicing and respect for the premise that religion, and I'm riffing on Eric f from here, doesn't have to be authoritarian religion. Religion can be humanitarian religion. And if so, um we can have an appreciation and motivation ah for how all of God's people can steward power
01:08:52
Speaker
can share resources together and can make of a world to entranced by austerity and scarcity, a world instead organized on the basis of sufficiency and plenty good room for all.
01:09:05
Speaker
That's, that's excellent. Like I, and this is kind of this season, I'm going to be highlighting a lot of my fellow Southern millennial thinkers, black thinkers like yourself. I still, I definitely, ah yeah we might pop up one Sunday because you know. And likewise, let us know, you know, we're right here by Riverside. So, of course, you know, we I i do communicate with Reverend Mia. I owe them a visit. There's so many. There's so many. Dear friend of yeah of mine and Gary's. Yeah. Yeah. Like, i'm you know, i'm I'm making my plans. And of course, um my partner, bless she
01:09:46
Speaker
Both of us have thought about seminary. So who knows? we We might be colleagues in another way, but Reverend Dr. Wilkes, it has been a pleasure. Let us not be strangers. um And of course, everybody else listening, we're going to take a little break. We're going to talk a little bit more about the book. And then, of course, we'll wrap up there. So once again, thanks for listening to Defying Gentrification. And of course, Reverend Dr. Wilkes, thanks for coming by. I enjoyed to stop by.
01:10:16
Speaker
Of course, people are probably tired of me at this point typing up my bookshop.org store, but it's serious. It's real. It works. And I am, of course, part of this. I wouldn't be the person I am today without books. I was nurtured to like write books early and very, very soon.
01:10:37
Speaker
I will have a book with an ISBN on the site. I won't just be selling books. I will have books. But in the meantime, bookshop.org slash shop slash Christine Jeffress. If you purchase from my bookstore, it'll help me get to that goal sooner. It will keep this podcast on a regular schedule. And you can say that you are supporting despite what is going on in this raggedy, so-called country. You can say that you have supported a queer person, a black person, a dynamically disabled, chronically ill person. as well as somebody who is like middle-class-ish. I mean, we got a few things, but that that kind of keeps me, keeps the witness going. Anyway, bookshop.org slash shop slash Christina Jeffers. And now let's end this show.
01:11:22
Speaker
Hey y'all, we are finally at the end of this show. It has taken us a mighty long time to get to the end of the show. getting you this story and this thoughts around making plenty good room and infusing faith in your practices. And one thing I will say, part of the reason it's taken a while is because of course we in America have been going through it. Honestly, ah men a lot of us have been going through it for a very long time and this is nothing new. But what I will say to is this, we,
01:12:00
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we cannot be legislated out of existence. Now they might try to hold us down. They might try to like can constrain us. And of course, those of you who are watching and monitoring how these products are being pushed out of stores and these companies don't want to help us, but you know what we can do? We can help each other.
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And so what my hope is with this Defying Gentrification, um at least for this calendar year, we're going to be kind of on a monthly schedule um for Defying Gentrification. Clearly, I have already, ah I'm recognizing, oh, it's already February 1. But what a perfect day to record and finalize this and have this up in your podcast players. Of course, I'm from Greensboro.
01:12:51
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February 1 means something. And speaking of Greensboro, Greensboro, you might be seeing more of me. Maryland, you definitely going to see more of me. That's that's our game plan. And in the show notes, I've provided some ways that you can help us with that ultimate goal to get situated, to um release ourselves from this crisis of faith. And yes, to continue to get keep this podcast up and running, because once again, this is a ah podcast hosted, produced, and well, in source and and researched and all of that is by me. Les will be joining me for episodes this season. We'll also be having similar guests like Reverend Dr. Andrew Wilkes, who once again, thanks for coming through. We needed that word. Like I needed that conversation for myself. And that's what this season is really going to focus on. It's going to focus on me returning more to elements of myself and my abundance.
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Um, the the the new defined gentrification framework that we're going to go through in this part of the season, you can consider this like a season two, but I'm going to number it in the podcast apps. They'll be numbered in consecutive order. That's what we're going to be talking about because we're going to need tools because revolution starts in the body. And so much of what's being opposed is people's bodies showing up in places where people want them to be controlled. So.
01:14:18
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Don't let as much as possible. Don't let them control you as much as possible. Control, like honor yourself and do fun things. And that's another thing. I'm going to be doing a lot more work with Chris Pattern. So you'll actually see more Chris Pattern stuff pop up in your YouTube feeds, on social media, all of those things that are all those platforms because, you know,
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a person, a feminine person would love to rock some more fits that they made considering that, you know, supplies, clothes all of that going up as of today. So until next time, you know, do everything you can. Personally, let's start with ourselves to defy gentrification. Don't beat yourself up if you can't do it immediately because the ultimate goal is to come together collectively and in gentrification all other injustices and wrongs here on this Warner that we have.