Racism And Reconciliation Part 1

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God assigned role. Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy.

Welcome to Man Talk Radio. I'm Will Hardy, the black guy. And I'm Roy Jones, the white guy.

And we are two brothers from different mothers, but the same father. Amen. Amen. And Roy, we got a guest here today that some may recognize him from his show, Bridging the Gap. Minister Kennedy is here. He's in the house with us today, and we're going to be talking about a very senseless subject. Everybody on the news have seen what has happened out there with George Floyd, and everybody has had their opinion about, you know, what should be done in order to bring about some type of reconciliation. So we want to talk about that today because it's a topic that needs to be discussed.

And if it's discussed, it should be discussed in a church because this is where things like this should be talked about because we are the arms, legs, eyes, of Christ while we are here in this body. Amen. Well, Dwayne, it's good to have you here with us. Hey, it's a blessing. It's a blessing to be here.

I'm honored to be here. You know, I'll be following you guys around. You guys are handling your business. I love what you guys are doing with men's ministry.

And that's one of the first ministries that I start out was with men's ministry. So I just appreciate you guys and the love that you have for the Lord and for others, you know, it shows in what you do. You know, so I appreciate you. I'm gonna try to make the breakfast that coming up. I was gonna say, yeah, your BSF's not meeting right now, is it? So that's awesome.

That's tomorrow morning. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I have a party. See, I got a AT&T guy is coming to our studio.

We built a studio over here. So he's coming there. So I got to be there at eight o'clock. So I'm gonna try to figure it out.

I'm gonna try to figure it out. But, you know, I got to call him too. Amen. Well, usually it's like most repair guys, you got a window between eight and 12.

And that's what it is. Eight, 12. You know, and I don't want to miss him.

We missed him for like two weeks straight. So just about better. It's gonna be eight o'clock. Well, hey, it's so good to get this thing started. I mean, it's been very difficult two months, I guess, which is just another highlight in in the challenges we're going through as a country and of course, across the world. You know, with racism, as you were talking before the show, Dwayne, it certainly just is not just between black and white. It's between multiple races.

It's some within the same race and just different economic groups that cause the separation and a lot of things going on. So we're just excited to get started. And hey, folks, we're we know this is going to be a little uncomfortable for if you're listening could be a little bit uncomfortable for all of us because you know, we we haven't pre rehearsed this thing. We haven't talked ahead of time. We said, Hey, let's get together and get this thing started. So we're basically coming to you live with this conversation. So you're hearing it as it's being discussed.

And if it's if it's hard for you, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, then you should be uncomfortable. Really? Exactly.

Because, you know, we want to step out of the comfort zone. That's right. And let me lead off by saying this. We the three of us are all followers of Christ. We love each other's brothers in Christ, because we've known each other for several years now.

And that's all that matters. So if any earthly parts of those conversations come in as brothers in Christ, we'll hold each other in check. Hey, is this what God wants us to do?

Is this where we need to be as a society? And those are that's the good part about being followers of Christ. You can have the difficult conversations. But at the end of the day, you know, you love each other. Truth is sweet. The truth is sweet. But it can be bitter. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Honey to the mouth, but going down bitter in the stomach. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So when when listeners when you see what you're seeing, that's happening in the news and happening now around the world. It's not just America, it's around the world. It's in London. It's in Spain.

It's in Belgium. All of these protests. Now has spread around the world. And so when we look at this, we say, what, what is the issue? That's what's going on in the mind right now. What is the issue that is being faced with America and what we have seen on the news in reference because Roy just three or four weeks ago, we were talking about So, you know, it's like this turnaround. And I remember you had asked me during that conversation, you know, what, what was it or how was I feeling? And one of the things I said was, here it goes again. Well, here it goes again.

So so now we we are sort of we sort of like went full circle. Are we talking about the death of a black man? Are we talking or African American men? Are we talking about the fact that a police officer or ex police officer involved?

I want to make sure that we're clear to the list. When I say here it goes again. Or is it just the death of a man? I believe it's it's overall, you know, it's the over all arching effect of when people see number one, constantly on the news. It's a police brutality. And we got I got brought some things with me that we're going to talk about in reference to how brutality of the police or violence of the police department can be diminished. Based on these statistics that we're going to talk about later. But when you when you see and we were talking about this earlier, a policeman with his neck on the back of an individual. okay we saw that happen we saw in South Carolina where a man who was basically running away from the policeman shot him in the back we see what Ahmad Aubrey so we see when Michael Brown up there in and was it Missouri so we have all of these examples so when we take each example of what we've seen and we say what if that individual who was on the other side of that fence when that man was running away in South Carolina what if the video wasn't recorded what would have been the end result right so see so see so so the the telephone camera has actually changed the mentality of how things are projected to the media and the truth eventually is coming out so yeah so when I when I say that that's that's what I mean I mean that the whole the whole scope it's not just one specific item within the scope it's the whole scope right so when this started there over the last couple weeks I went pull statistics actually my youngest son and I were having a conversation about it because I was troubled by what continues to go on between whites and blacks and and just in the breakdown in relationships right because it's we're never going to get any better we've talked about especially if we as the body of Christ can't do it right Lord knows that the world's not going to get right so statistically he said that do you have you looked at the numbers and to to this point there in 2019 there were 260 or 270 black American men or black men in America that were killed by police officers and in the same year in them off maybe off you know there's 360 some white men killed by police officers so the point being that's only get to a holistic view is that there's 600 men that were killed granted you know and we know it's it's it's more publicized to your wording earlier it was on the media about the black men that are being that have been killed but we haven't seen any about any of the white men that have been killed wrongfully right or with the excessive force and and let's be real clear we're not being down on any of our police officers we support you we love you we know you have a very difficult job absolutely we want to put that clause out there as well mm-hmm it's like any profession or like any any company or any family there's always some people that are out there doing some things I had dinner with the police officer before we got here tonight and we've had him on the show for we're gonna have him here in a few weeks he said Roy did you realize that that guy had 18 18 complaints on him prior to this incident this particular officer had not been dealt with mm-hmm so there was a breakdown in the process right in fact he said he should have never even got in he wouldn't have made it through most psychological exams which which I thought was interesting so because of the the fact he's had this many occurrences over 19 years mm-hmm well Aaron has not had he's been 19 years that's well how many complaints have you had for excessive force Aaron's a big man so he's 6 4 and he said zero mm-hmm so I think let's just want to throw that out there as part of our conversation when you say here go again I'm just wondering what that what that meant so and trust me you know my heart I'm broken-hearted by all of this but I think it's important for our listeners to know it's not just one side to Dwayne's comment earlier it is it happens on both sides of the fence mm-hmm right let's get minister candidate in here what do you see here as the issue wow you know there's so much on the table and and you know I have a lot to say but but I will start I will start right here you know with the camera set up the phone camera mm-hmm because that exposed it without that we nobody would know anything yeah so so you have to go before the camera and just realize how many events was never wasn't wasn't the publicized right so this is this is not this is not a 50 year old thing this is a 400 year thing mm-hmm you know what you what you actually have this whole problem it's a boiling point everything gets to a boiling point you know and and it's boiling now mm-hmm the key principle is that we before it was just it was just African Americans protesting you know we have the world I mean they it was a hundred thousand some people in New Zealand are protesting walking down talking about black lives man I mean you know so what I'm saying is that it's more publicized now so change is going to come change is being made but the thing about about the it's an individual thing because you have to you know the oppressed mm-hmm if the oppressed is the only one talking about the oppression mm-hmm it's never going to change you have to have the oppressor get to a place where you know this is wrong mm-hmm you know and it's wrong now I think what you have now you have a lot of people that are empathizing not just sympathize but empathizing with our culture mm-hmm because you know imagine your kids you know somebody just take your kid from you mm-hmm I mean so we have this is a 400 year problem and it's get to a boiling point but far as the police I'm gonna tell you that's a key principle right there I couldn't be a police no because because I will be one of the guys I'm not gonna take no L's I'm not gonna take a loss you know I'm saying so I'm coming in to the situation with my mind like you know I'm not I'm not ready to go down so so some people can't be police some people shouldn't be police right and that's where the mental that they have to check these people like you pointed out that statistic that's that's that's some deep stuff these people have to be you know I think everything needs to go right now where we are right now it has to go to some type of police reform they have to when the foundation is just is messed up you got to tear the whole foundation down and rebuild it and that's what we that's where it is right that's where it should be going right now so it's a lot of stuff going on well I don't disagree with you doing I think what we have to be cognizant of is when you take a whatever the ratio is right that's statistics don't lie the numbers of occurrences I think we need to talk about that when we come back so we understand the scope of it there are some bad folks out there we all agree on both sides bad folks that are on the civilian side bad folks that are on the that aren't doing the job right as a police officer we'll be back here in just a moment thank you very much taw CMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month they have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town the meeting location is at their gracious post church first Christian Church in Kernersville 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville they have a hard start at 7 o'clock and a hard stop at 8 o'clock first time visitors eat for free join your hosts will Hardy and Roy Jones jr. a black guy and a white guy affordable chiropractic in high point as you might tell from their name affordable chiropractic even for the cash patient dr. Jeff Ricky has been caring for patients in high point for 34 years physical therapy such as ultrasound and spinal decompression for disc conditions such as herniation comprehensive care for auto accident injury patients with no out-of-pocket expense remember affordable chiropractic on West Lexington Avenue and high point call three three six eight eight five one nine eight seven people welcome back folks we're we're getting used to our intro back from the break so it's good to have you back with so as we were talking about before we went to the break Dwayne we were talking about statistically speaking right so I guess it's like anything you have to you have to take the total number of incidents against the total population or the total number of occurrences that go on within whatever profession is in this case the total number of incidents that police officers do their job day in day out no issues they love on people they try to coach people even when they're getting spat on they're getting that the right word spat upon and just all those things they still do it right every day so we have these situations where things have gone wrong either because the person shouldn't have been in the job to begin with or they've just gotten so complacent with life because of all they see every day and then and then of course let's not forget what was it like three years ago that officers were being killed and shot at random I mean mate I think it's inside three years wasn't it so I couldn't imagine putting on my uniform every day and not first not knowing what if somebody's gonna shoot at me or just kill me walk up to the car and execute me or if I'm gonna be shot getting out of my car or going into a domestic situation so very very difficult job very difficult there has to be some type of of training and response and staying up with these people because police see some of the horrific thing I mean they see terrible things through that their career and you know it's on and on and on and they see it day in and day out you know eight hours shit I mean they see some some horrible things and you know what happened effects them yeah it does it desensitized them and it actually makes you very callous and so and I think the same thing happens to people growing up and that's one thing we need to talk to back to what our whole drive is as an organization is getting men to take their proper and God-assigned roles and we know and there's one of things I want to talk about what role does the lack of father play in in these situations where people are getting into trouble I mean if you're if you're getting into trouble and you're getting arrested there's some there's some basis behind getting arrested right if you're breaking the law and you get arrested let's let's separate the in the inappropriate behavior of the police officer let's get to the core issue I would like to throw that out as a discussion point if you're not getting in trouble you're not having an encounter with the police officer generally speaking now there are those racial profiling situation we see where somebody gets stopped because of color skin we've talked about that's that's back to wrong that's back to training that's back to loving on people instead of expecting the worst so that just throw that out there's a question well before you before we we dive into that I want to go back to something that was stated earlier is that all policemen are not like the police that we saw with the neck on the back of the neck on the back of the guy on the ground all police are like that and see what that is is it's stereotypical is what it is it's a stereotype if you wear the uniform you automatically evil and that's not the case exactly right you know you you you if you African American you play basketball and eat watermelon see that's a stereotype you know an Asian individual all of them know martial arts see these stereotypical ideologies is what break down the system of really concrete thinking the way we should go into a discussion when we start talking about this you know so we can't look at the small part and say judge the whole the whole is like the small agree with you will that's good good good summary and see when we put that out there then we say okay that's out there now so when we talk we're not talking about the whole we're talking about just those individuals who go against the things that they were trained to do right right now since we all started talking about the police officer and again hold your thought thought there because I got some this is a lot of shows you get to go wherever you want to go absolutely so I got this off of a website called campaign zero it's called eight can't wait dot org and it's it's actually a website that President Obama recommended people go to and see if their particular cities are listed and how they're listed as far as category and so they said on this website that if police policies if they do these things then the police policy and the police violence as a result of this policy would go down 72% which I thought was like wow just blown away but apparently this this organization keeps the statistics and number one was they need to bar chokeholds that was number one bar chokeholds number two was require an officer to de-escalate a situation that's a big one right there absolutely well okay I see I see right now that Roy is all geared up on this thing no well the de-escalation yeah so the number three was require a warning before shooting this is a right off the website now I'm reading and then it says exhaust number four was exhaust all other means before shooting number five was their duty to intervene now this one was a big one in just what we what we just saw their duty to intervene intervene in what in reference to the amount of force of someone else that is being used which one else is exactly with which means which means that when the individual had his neck on George Floyd two officers should have said get off of this guy yeah that's what that's intervening that's what the officer had dinner with was referred to as well mm-hmm and then it was banned shooting and moving vehicles that was that was on the website and then require the use of force continuum now what force continuum is and it's it's like a broad definition but force continuum and of course Aaron probably speak better to this when we have him on it says that an officer is required to use the amount of force necessary based on the resistance that is being given to him in reference to our arrests so again that's broad see it and you can go a whole lot of places but again they are trained in areas like this of course sir yeah and then the last one was require a comprehensive report and see the officers there in Atlanta they're the six that got fired what they did they turned off their body cam so again so now you won't have a comprehensive report based on video you got one word against another word so but yeah going back to that de-escalation I'm just sitting here thinking I know all of us probably sitting around this table have been in situations where stuff started to get escalated yeah one person doesn't de-escalate a situation they can attempt to if the other person is listening and will react accordingly can de-escalate it but how many times do officers get out there whether it's a domestic doesn't matter what color the skin is they get into a domestic situation and half the times when you see they go to answer a domestic call fight between a husband and a wife guess who ends up getting attacked yeah the woman turns on the husband or the man turns on the husband depending on who's originally made the call it's generally the one that made the call that's coming back after the officer so that's just a small example of de-escalation it doesn't work you know that needs to be multiple so situations like we're dealing with right now when there's hundreds of people if not thousands of people that are tearing up stuff and blowing up stores and burning them down and I mean and then only they're in their own neighborhoods too and some of these people aren't even in those neighborhoods they're just showing up how do you de-escalate that and that's where some of the police officers have been accused of not of not doing anything and watching stuff happen well at some point when the numbers out outweigh your numbers of riot control I would assume that they have no choice but the kind of just they can't de-escalate it's my point so and so I guess that's a great theoretical step well no no it's not it's not theoretical in the sense is what they're saying here is the officer should do this we're not saying it's going to work we're saying that as part of your training you should go in there and attempt to de-escalate we're so we're weak and we can give examples we can give examples as to all of what why something like this won't work but that's what we have to do they have to go in and attempt it we're not saying it's going well no in the officer I had dinner with spoke very much to that about when he approached situation fact even commented on what he would have done he told his co-workers said if it'd been you out of broke your jaw because you would have been off and that's just the heart of this and I think if we were to survey a hundred police officers we'd probably get 98% would respond the same they are taught to de-escalate they're taught to go in and manage things they're not supposed to get emotional and I think that's the biggest thing you know they are trained to take control of any environment that they're coming to yeah and I think that's that's like a pro and a pro and a kind you know I mean I tell my kids all the time it's if you do something nice for someone is you can get better results than being being me mean yeah you know but then you know I take my head off to the police officers and I tell you this because I couldn't do it I couldn't do it I definitely be you know in cuffs and I'm saying I'm for real you know because I'm not going to you just ain't good you know I can't do it another with you but but I was uh I remember I just bought a car it was nighttime I bought a car and I was driving had some friends with me and I pulled up and and the cops pulled me over because the stuff it had on the plate to have one of them liquor the the drinking drinking plates on there and so I didn't know nothing about that so I just should give them my information and all that stuff and the guy was like oh man you know what you pretty nice man I you know we just we talked and he said I'm gonna let you go but then the sirens was blaring and then Robocop pulled up one all up on a cold you jumped out of the car slammed the door fixing his pants and he walked and when he was walking to me he bumped me like bumped me almost like bumped me into the car and I'm just like man oh that night I got locked up because of Robocop the other cop was you know we talked I showed him all my credentials he was like okay yeah yeah yeah but the thing about it right before the cop said when Robocop pulled up he said hey man I'm sorry mm-hmm so he knew what was gonna happen before I knew oh yeah the other police officer apologize as soon as the guy rolled in yeah so he knows given yeah ugly yeah well there you were stereotyped you were in a new car with a group of your friends your stereotype so I mean that's exactly what we've talked about doesn't need to be happening so de-escalation is part of their training it just doesn't always work because we know the human nature on the other side it's gonna have the fight with them no matter what at times so hey Wow where did the first where did the first half-hour go so hey come back join us next week we'll pick this conversation back up Dwayne's gonna stay with us and we'll look forward to having him back so God bless all you folks and we hope you're enjoying the show as we wrap up today's show be assured that TAW CMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes communities churches and work environments check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future thank you for joining us on man talk today visit us at www.tawcmm.com men walking the talk