00:00:09.040 - 00:00:20.740

Good morning everyone. Phil Browning Hessel here again. It's nice to see you. Um, forgot to say my pronouns are he, him, uh, last time. Well, I am just delighted to

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introduce Doctor Williams's second Westerfe lecture. I found, um, his first one to be detailed and precise , an imagination for those othered by history. And even an imagination for what might have been at different

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points in history that just got me thinking in new and fresh ways. I found the ending to be a tremendous entry into art. I felt like I was living into the painting that he was describing,

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um, in ways that I've rarely experienced. And then I saw Doctor Williams, you could be exhausted after that and just give up for the day, but I saw him move on to insightful mentorship and

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resourcing of my colleagues and alumni, and I found him to be, uh, generous in engaging with all of you throughout the rest of the day. So, um, again, I'm just find myself

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enriched by the feast that you're bringing, Doctor Williams . So Saint Louis University is lucky to have you as we are as well. Thank you and welcome to the 2nd lecture. Thank you. So.

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Seminary, can you hear me? OK, thank you Austin Seminary thank you um. Mr. President , And I can say that here without cringing, so. So thank you so much um for that

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. Um, To new friends. Those online. Um, it has been really wonderful being with you . In addition to the wonderful time that I've had here with you in person, my niece came and

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visited me yesterday, and I've not seen her in years, in a few years. She's going to Texas State, so she made the half hour drive here hour round trip to spend time with her uncle

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, know it's because you invited me here. So , so thank you, um, for this gathering . We all need this. We all need it . It is a good reminder that no matter the

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storm of evil that is present in this in this society right now in the states, we are not alone. You're not alone. That is a good reminder and spaces like this help us to remember that

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. So, um, What I want to do today, you all. Sat through. And uh a bit of an introduction with chapter one of the one of the current texts that I'm working on.

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I was reading directly from that chapter when I stepped aside to just simply speak to the slides that were being shown. Today, this is um a draft , the conceptual idea of the final chapter. If

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if yesterday I was naming the problem. As I was telling students last night, we think of racism generally speaking. In terms of our feelings about people different than us. And that is, that's led

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to some significant confusion. Around what the problem is that thought of the problem is actually inside of the problem and has us enacting the problem over and over again when it's not about our feelings about other people

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. It is embedded in the way we know human difference in general and that is one of the things that I was getting at yesterday how we understand human difference itself is an argument for hierarchy. It is

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only when we are able to see that. And be and and that we have the ability to think human otherwise. To think about being human in ways that are different than, you know, red,

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yellow, black and white. You follow that? Um, Again talking to students last night, um , we had a really good class last night by the way, um. The introduction to this way

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of thinking initially can be a bit like trying to tell a fish. That you're breathing water. How do you how do you explain this to a fish ? What is water? Mm Um, it is

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only by virtue of looking at the stream from the shore that you get a clearer sense of what you're in sight of. And that's what the, that's what I'm trying to do. As the as Europe

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gave us an idea of human difference. They also set in motion an argument for why colonialism, slavery , capitalism are normal and good that is the argument and that comes from our understanding of human difference so

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that is that I was naming that yesterday today we're going to interact with art. More directly, black art. As a people set on the border between animal and human. Who have realized the world in

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a way that is different than an argument for hierarchy who have who have had to express a sense of themselves of ourselves that is different than the bottom of human life. Um, for people who would say

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that. Um, you know, God sees me . And God is not you. That um uh for people who have it who have times had to work through the meaning of salvation when they couldn't say

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that they own their own bodies, what is the meaning of salvation for a person who doesn't know they own say they don't know their own, they own their own body, um, uh, the meaning

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of salvation for a people who, for whom the political apparatus is dead set against your, your life , your well-being. What does salvation mean there? It's not just in the abstract in the afterlife for

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people who at times had to recognize the meaning of salvation when they didn't know where the next meal is coming from. This is a different way of knowing self in relationship to God. And art, as

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you, as you may, as you may know , um, this is a long preamble, um that. Art I'm doing a bit of, I'm doing this in a bit of a way that 1

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may describe as art theory, art theory when it helps us to understand. It's connection to, uh , it sees art through other disciplines like philosophy. Um, literature. History. That the the our

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expressions of our our existence in the world right now , what we might call philosophy, is represented. And paintings, music. Literature. This is what we're doing here. So, You see, I

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am. I titled this underrepresentation. Because there's a a really good book. Um, named underrepresentation. Um, and the, the, the idea of that book is. I mean it's a double entendre

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, you know there are people groups that are underrepresented , right? But that's not what he's getting at , and forgive me the name of the authors is keeping me right now. Representation is a regime.

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That what I'm talking about is a regime. We are under that regime of representation that gives us a sense of who you are. By visual identification. Uh, the language I use is that indexes somatic

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traits with meaning. It indexes your the, the racial traits with a sense of knowing, a sense of meaning, so that I know about you by a visual representation. That's underrepresentation we're gonna we're getting

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that's not too much of what we're doing, but that that's the reason for the title. I just kinda thought the title was clever, so I had to tell you what I was doing there with it

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anyway, the, um, so today's theme, it's not really a theme, it's the claim that I'm gonna be making. Now give us a concrete example. Um, and then we will talk about

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the infrastructure of the problem itself before naming a bit of an intervention an intervention, um, and I don't actually have the concrete example queued up that I had planned on. I'll just describe that to you

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. It's another one. It's uh it's, it's like the first concrete example that I have here. So what I'm doing. That I'm saying that black art are a scene of ethical thought and practice,

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and ethical practice, not simply entertainment. When you see that gospel choir at the NFL, um, Super Bowl halftime. That it's that it's not simply entertainment, not something held off in a context there

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to be viewed as boy, the people at the black church sing really well. There is a mode of thought that's inside of it. Attention to these arts, black arts can offer us a wellspring of

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meaning for a healthier interpretation of human being. Towards better and say Christian ethics and let's just talk about life together. Better sense of life together recalibrated from the arguments from hier for hierarchy. Today I'll offer

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an engagement with black arts for a glimpse into what emerges for Christian ethics when it's archives could be black art. Oh, that is James Weldon Johnson that's uh that's um Aaron Douglas again from James Weldon Johnson's

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um. God's trombones, this is creation. Creation . If I were to spend a little bit more time. I would say you know the themes of Baroque. Impressionism, realism, cubism and so forth

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. This is a good example of something uniquely black . Otherwise, art. It isn't trafficking in any of those known European themes. He has taken Uh , two dimensional Egyptian cave paintings, scenery paintings,

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West African dn masks. This sense of these this sense of uh of concentric circles and unique types of coloring to create something during the Harlem Renaissance that is uniquely African American. This is a Dan mask.

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The figure is a is Egyptian. All of his work is done in that way. Something uniquely African American. So Um, before I get, 0000 , thank you, yeah, you're, we're right

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there. Let me, I I forget to, I need to read this. Martin Luther King once made the following claim. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment

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of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly . We aren't going to have peace on earth. Until we recognize the interrelated structure. Of all reality . Not individual rational minds thinking things. Who bump

00:13:15.670 - 00:13:30.070

up into and and bump up against one another like billiard balls on a table. In a manner that we would describe as ethical or moral, that bump that encounter with you is then the moment for e

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for ethics, for thinking moral life. What do I owe you? Rather, what if we are not individual but always already interconnected? What affects you affects me indirectly. A different way of thinking,

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human. Black arts are a scene of ethical thought and ethical practice. They are not simply for entertainment , as I've said. So, um, and they demonstrate this is, this is meant to demonstrate

00:14:03.890 - 00:14:24.940

something along those lines. Um, in 1972. Miss Miss Aretha Franklin joined in the assembly of saints gathered at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles for a two day revival of sorts in which she

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would deliver the sermon in song. The timing of the gathering at the beginning of the 70s and the location of the gathering Black Los Angeles. 3 miles from my grandparents' house. In South Central corresponded with

00:14:45.180 - 00:15:05.550

national efforts to manage excess baggage from the 50s and the 60s. That moment of the gathering. At New Temple happened as the United States was struggling with national fallout. From a recent history of civil unrest

00:15:05.010 - 00:15:24.350

related to multiple national crises. Yet the times were not all bad. In particular, the 60s represented some of the nation's brightest. And darkest moments. That was a decade. A full decade of the

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civil rights movement. Which was a broad multi-coalition effort to dismantle the yet standing ideological scaffolding of the pre-bellum United States. In other words, the civil rights work to dismantle the ideological, the ideas that made

00:15:46.280 - 00:16:11.320

slavery a moral good. That Human being. Is a default reference for whites only. It arranged the term in this hegemonic way, that's the ideology, through centuries of practices. That violently sustained status of

00:16:11.320 - 00:16:32.120

liminality and being in citizenship, what I was describing as the the line between human and animal. That liminality. For black people. Between citizenship It was the creation of actually afterwards including the the second class

00:16:32.120 - 00:16:45.710

citizenship that's what the civil rights movement was seeking to dismantle the postbellum category of citizenship for black people is what. Yale legal scholar James Whitman, author of the book Hitler's American Model, describes as second class

00:16:45.710 - 00:17:07.380

citizenship. This category of citizenship is an example of the nation's maintenance of that hegemonic ideological structure. Second class citizenship was possible only because the nation fundamentally refuses to recalibrate the meaning of the meaning of human being

00:17:07.380 - 00:17:25.500

and of citizen after the war to end slavery. We are in that still right now. The refusal to uh to recalibrate citizen and human. The movements for freedom illustrate the need to jettison the hegemony,

00:17:25.530 - 00:17:41.410

recalibrate those terms. This is what the most visible participants of the movement for social justice, the black faith leaders sought to do. Miss Franklin's visit to New Temple happened in the wake of the 60s black

00:17:41.410 - 00:17:56.090

led civil rights movement, the effort to expel cultural evil. Through a non-violent revolution of values. That was meant to redeem the soul of the nation. But the movement had ended by the start of the

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70s. The country had experienced the euphoria of progress against injustice. Comingled With the anguish of setbacks. And high profile assassinations. Most recently, the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The

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most prominent figure of the civil rights movement, metaphorically , that assassination drained all hope from the atmosphere. After King's death, some believed that all efforts to tear down the legal apparatus of whites only society were

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futile. Some believed that the bad guys had won . And the movement for rights. Had ended Catastrophically . It was in that moment of deep anguish and dashed hopes in the context of the violent reassertion of

00:19:00.950 - 00:19:18.480

hegemony. By an intractable racist worldview. That Miss Franklin took her place at the piano. As the preacher in the pulpit at New Temple and began with no introductory remarks. Other than a song. Miss

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Franklin opened the event with a performance that was nothing short of a declaration. It was a pronouncement of an alternative mode of being together. The song she began with was written and released just one year prior

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by Marvin Gaye on his album titled What's Going On . That album was comprised of songs that became major hits in addition to its hits title song What's Going On. It included Inner City Blues. Mercy,

00:19:48.840 - 00:20:03.390

mercy, me, the ecology. What's happening, brother? And God is love. Some of you know those songs. If not all of you. Marvin Gaye was a crooner. And as Michael Eric

00:20:03.390 - 00:20:21.100

Dyson puts it in his puts it, his recordings document the struggle to be at once politically. Aware and erotically enlightened. He was also the son of the sanctified Holy Ghost filled black church. You know

00:20:21.100 - 00:20:36.290

that segment of the black church. As his father was a Pentecostal preacher. And in the wake of the 60s, this particular song of his became popular only when Miss Franklin covered it at the beginning of

00:20:36.290 - 00:20:55.650

her event at New Temple. One year later on what became the best selling gospel album of all time . The song was titled Holy holy. W H O L L Y H O L Y and if

00:20:55.650 - 00:25:26.770

she sings it, she wants you to know that she's saying holy because she pronounces the W. Go ahead. There you go. Southern California choir. Holy, holy. Because we Come together holy holy

00:25:27.990 - 00:25:45.790

. People got to come together because we need the strength, the power, and all the feeling, holy holy. We should believe in each other's dreams . We've got to come together. Because we need

00:25:45.790 - 00:26:06.750

the strength, the power in all of the feelings . Holy holy. We believe in one another. Holy holy. It always gets me this that this always moves me. Holy holy we believe in Jesus

00:26:06.880 - 00:26:18.480

. Jesus left a long time ago, said he would return. He left us a book to believe in it and to believe in in it we've got a lot to learn. Oh, holy holy.

00:26:19.340 - 00:26:42.390

We can conquer hate forever. Yes, we can . Holy, holy. Oh Lord, we can rock the world's foundation. Yes, we can Better believe it Holy holy together and holy holler love across

00:26:42.390 - 00:27:07.600

the nation. Holy holy, we proclaim love. Our salvation. Holy holy. It was a student of mine Who once um in class naming the things that I like in a moment that was after we

00:27:07.600 - 00:27:18.780

had shared a meal in at the beginning of the class and he said so you like fish? uh Aretha Franklin and I thought, do I, how did he pick, oh, I, and I

00:27:18.780 - 00:27:32.230

had to replay to my mind, oh yeah. I guess I do like Aretha Franklin a lot so I just start paying attention to that. The song employs a sacred language of redemption in the sense of

00:27:32.230 - 00:27:48.310

unity, i.e. life together internal to the song is a mode of ethical thought and practice with the challenge to the prevailing understanding of the human. That given us hierarchy, the very title gestures towards the world

00:27:48.310 - 00:28:08.190

it signals as a symbol of the sacred inside of the practice of unity. Holy, holy The revelation of sacred in togetherness. It is the artistic formation of an alternative imagination of being. One can also

00:28:08.190 - 00:28:27.430

interpret the claim of holy holy to reinscribe a demographic of people rendered profane. Holy holy is an intervention into a history of dualisms that is characteristic of the development of the human. holy holy as opposed to

00:28:27.430 - 00:28:45.760

unholy. Immoral and ugly. This also poses a challenge to the prevailing notion of the human that's resulted in hierarchy. The highest point in the social hierarchy can only be understood in relation to the lowest point

00:28:45.570 - 00:29:00.900

. You don't have a high point without the low . And in without the out. Which has led to the need for an undertaking a knowledge under an epistemological under undertaking of creating a binary classification of black

00:29:00.900 - 00:29:15.550

and white people and everybody in between, which in the history of Christian Europe is derived from the Pauline concept of flesh. Excuse me, or the or the sinful nature versus spirit. Which spirit yearns for

00:29:15.550 - 00:29:29.750

God, not the flesh, and these are demographics of people. The history of hierarchy and the development of the human renders these these polls as demographics and the intervention is an artistic formation of an alternative imagination

00:29:29.750 - 00:29:48.560

away from hierarchy. Put differently, holy holy means they are completely holy. Rather than intrinsically immoral. The opposite of of moral. The practice of covering the song in that historical moment also registers another level

00:29:48.560 - 00:30:08.370

of unity. It isn't only Martin Marvin Gaye's song . And it's not only Franklin's either it belongs to the collective performance of hope. The practice of covering is the practice of non-individuation that cuts against the grain

00:30:08.940 - 00:30:27.950

of individualism and segregation. It's against the practices of the human as we've been living it throughout through individuation , atomism and racial hierarchy. The song and the cover are an ethical practice of non-individuation. You,

00:30:27.990 - 00:30:41.060

you follow me? OK. In short, what she offered to the nation in that moment belong, I'm sorry, in that moment to begin the album , that was the beginning of the album, was

00:30:41.060 - 00:31:02.750

a mode of the sacred that black artists have always offered. An intervention It's this genre is what James Cone has described as unity music. It unites the joy, the sorrow, the hope and the despair

00:31:02.970 - 00:31:18.410

, and it moves the people toward the direction of total liberation. It shapes and defines black existence and creates cultural structures for black expression. Black music is unifying music because it confronts the individual with the truth

00:31:18.410 - 00:31:38.560

of black existence and affirms that black being is possible only in a communal context. It is an intervention into the ideology that places obstacles in our efforts towards healthy community. The intervention of black art offers a

00:31:38.560 - 00:31:56.330

glance into a different world. I'm going to jump here a bit because I've spent a lot of time just talking and my time is dwindling quickly. OK , to the infrastructure of the problem. I'm gonna

00:31:56.330 - 00:32:05.660

say about, say a little bit about this, and I look forward to our Q&A. I always do a deeper look into the work of black art offers critical analysis of the critical analysis of the ideological

00:32:05.660 - 00:32:19.450

scaffolding of hegemony. Here I wanna call attention to the work of a scholar who I find really helpful , Sylvia Winter. I'm torturing my students with her right now. Uh, an interdisciplinary cultural theorist who

00:32:19.450 - 00:32:34.160

is well known in the field of black studies. The stakes of Franklin's opening cover are laid out in what she describes as a history of the development of human. In short, that history is not referenced

00:32:34.160 - 00:32:49.820

to, I got 5 minutes. It that history is not referenced to anything biological. It is the history of a development of a concept that needs its other to be visible. Um, What we understand

00:32:49.820 - 00:33:07.190

is human is the product of of location specific histories . I gave you this yesterday so I don't need to rehearse that again. Um, Let's see here . Here is the intervention. What I described yesterday

00:33:07.480 - 00:33:19.410

, the creation of this hierarchy, this is the history she identifies. I don't need to bring you into the weeds. It needs in other something to be legible to itself and the others of Europe are

00:33:19.410 - 00:33:31.630

the races. And they make the hierarchy, the one at the at the apex visible because they're beneath and they're described in such a way, and we know life in that way. This is the the

00:33:31.630 - 00:33:44.470

history that she's pointing to it actually begins in as she describes it in the binary between the priest and the laity in medieval Europe. It has its theological origin. It's set in place in a in a

00:33:44.470 - 00:33:55.330

world in which um the as I described yesterday, the sun orbits a stationary earth. You know, and, and, and the hell is beneath it . So and the the the the understanding of human

00:33:55.330 - 00:34:09.890

being is identified by that by that binary priest and lady, and it be and it moves out into the world. When we in the scientific revolution, we understand that the sun is not orbiting the Earth

00:34:12.290 - 00:34:29.300

. Um, that the earth moves. Then you have the the beginning of the what Foucault describes as the invention of man. Not as uh the invention of man as the political. Um, structure now

00:34:29.300 - 00:34:45.310

running society, not the priests. We have a we have the beginning of people organizing society. General people laity people, but the scaffolding remains in place . How when they move into the age of discovery

00:34:45.680 - 00:35:00.040

into the colonized lands, Europe becomes priest, the rest of the world becomes laity. That's the move . This is the invention of the racialized others. Spirit becomes Europe and everyone else is associated with flesh

00:35:00.670 - 00:35:17.470

, that's the scaffolding that she's describing. Sylvia Winter's theory of human highlights the power of language to form reality. It is here in the interpretation of how we behave and it also describes it makes sense of

00:35:17.470 - 00:35:32.930

how we treat each other too once we have this description of everyone it's created by race. It inscribes our our bodies as I said with with codes for behavior with relational sense with relational meaning. It is

00:35:32.930 - 00:35:47.060

here in the interpretation of how we behave towards one another that we find something particularly informative. This is what we're engaging. This understanding influences the actions we take in pursuit of positive social change, the intervention

00:35:50.540 - 00:36:04.360

. It was also what Du Bois describes. Referencing as a concept of beauty in the production of art , let me say this here as the nugget I want you to walk away with black art must draw

00:36:04.360 - 00:36:23.010

us into the meaning of our daily social lives as an intervention on that hegemonic reality to reinscribe the rules for beauty. That inform notions of morality, decency and humanity. Art is social participation in moral claims

00:36:23.970 - 00:36:40.380

. In his classic lecture titled The Criteria for Negro Art, Du Bois said that the historical depictions of black people given to the world by white authors of this discourse served political and economic purposes. They're criminals

00:36:40.750 - 00:36:59.150

, drug dealers, some of them good people. That is speaking and uh that is that propaganda represented in representation galvanizes the politics. And and and encourages us to behave in certain kinds of ways towards the

00:36:59.150 - 00:37:15.110

people that we assume to be illegal. If those images are all the world has, they serve as one-sided propaganda to a firm hierarchy. In order to address this one-sided use of propaganda, Du Bois argued

00:37:15.350 - 00:37:28.530

that black artists and intellectuals must pick up their paintbrushes . And pins and describe the black people you know . It is the bounding duty of black America to begin this great work of the creation of beauty,

00:37:28.620 - 00:37:40.200

of the preservation of beauty, of the realization of beauty. What have been the tools of of artists in times gone by? They used the truth. Goodness in all aspects of justice, honor, and

00:37:40.200 - 00:37:59.960

right. They are apostles of beauty. Thus, apostles of truth and right. All right. And that is where I will stop now because I've gone over time, but I want to show you.

00:38:00.730 - 00:38:13.320

A couple of things I know I said I stopped but I wanna show you in this intervention. Um , William H. Johnson, Jesus and the Three Marys. I, I show this here as a

00:38:13.320 - 00:38:27.680

contrast to this. Yeah. Now, if I'm upon viewing that. And this what I've done is try to lay out the history that gives us an interpretation of what's going on here. This is not

00:38:27.690 - 00:38:44.930

simply something to hang on the wall. This is a social statement theological theology as social statement as claims for morality. It is in contrast to Carl Block's resurrection Easter morning painted in the 18th century. This

00:38:44.930 - 00:38:59.670

is 1931. This is 18th century. This is , this is, this is the intervention. What's going on here? It's a very famous painting that is mostly adopted by Mormons although their artist wasn't Mormon

00:39:00.730 - 00:39:12.560

. You, you'll see here, I, I oftentimes I show Leonardo Vitruvi uh Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man before this. That it's meant to depict the perfect proportions of the human body. This is proportionately

00:39:12.560 - 00:39:28.300

identified as as as ideal. Um, and the angelic beings kneel, uh, depicted as, you know, perfectly proportioned blonde European females kneeling at the feet of the one risen with all power. Like

00:39:28.300 - 00:39:50.130

a argument for family values. You know, um , and the, the stone typically rolled away, has not been rolled away. It has slammed down on his enemies. That's blood. The violence,

00:39:50.420 - 00:40:12.520

the masculinity. The esteemed patriarchy. In the powerful one. OK And they will celebrate with beautiful little flowers, Easter lilies. What's going on here as the intervention. William H. Johnson shows disproportionate bodies

00:40:14.240 - 00:40:29.050

. Bodies known outside of the Greek aesthetic that gives us the notion of an ideal body. With the proletariat hands, big worker hands, big feet, dark Jesus, he's not bringing people to church,

00:40:29.460 - 00:40:45.340

he's intervening with the with the Mary's not kneeling at his feet in obeisance as good women, but worshiping at his side as they encounter him, they connect with him, not in risen with all power but

00:40:45.340 - 00:41:05.000

hidden the God hidden in the suffering and the shame . This is the connection. We know him in this way. We identify and if God is with him on the cross in that suffering, surely we

00:41:05.000 - 00:41:28.310

are not alone. I'll sat there. Good morning sisters and brothers. Doctor Williams, thank you again immensely for a wonderful lecture this morning. Uh, we've got a couple of questions I wanna get to

00:41:28.310 - 00:41:37.410

you just for the sake of time. Uh, first and foremost, uh, Wendy in Minnesota wants to know the name of the artist from the claim slide that you had earlier. A couple of folks

00:41:37.410 - 00:41:49.580

missed it and wanted to make sure they got back to that one. there was a claim uh piece of artwork that you had earlier. On this, on that one. That's Aaron Douglas. Aaron Douglas

00:41:49.700 - 00:42:00.460

. That's creation. Oh, the. Oh, I see. OK. Perfect. Alright. So we've got a couple of them here, um. My goodness. Uh, what is the role of

00:42:00.460 - 00:42:13.580

dissonance in black art in the alternate way of being human as described in the gospel portrait you had there at the end of your lecture? The dissonance in black art and the alternate way of being human as

00:42:13.580 - 00:42:22.750

described there. OK, let me, let me , I'll answer what I think I hear you saying . The role of distance, the and the alternate way of being, what is the role of distance

00:42:24.160 - 00:42:39.220

? And I'm guessing that means dissonance with reality as it exists now. Um, it's an, it's , it is a. A really powerful way to recognize that what we know is reality is not all

00:42:39.220 - 00:42:54.750

that reality is. That's the first thing. That's the important thing. That what we what we have as reality is just kind of a default understanding of the world. It's one that we operate within without

00:42:54.750 - 00:43:10.230

question, without thinking about it. You only see that your operating system is at work when something's out of place. You know, if for example you were to see, I mean you for football fans

00:43:10.270 - 00:43:20.470

, if you were to see um somebody all of a sudden trying to dribble a basketball on the field , you'd you'd recognize, wait a minute, that's not, that's not the place for that that's not

00:43:20.470 - 00:43:32.240

a place. Why? Because you know the rules for football as the default of the game, much the same way as for some of my students when I used to teach at, well, well,

00:43:32.280 - 00:43:44.820

so for some of my students when they, I had a student once tell me and he signed up for ethics. Why is that professor? Why does he have a black name? That white professor have

00:43:44.820 - 00:44:04.300

a black name. Something's out of place. The world as he came to know it in the academy was for elite white minds only. Um And seeing my name and and seeing my body walk into the

00:44:04.300 - 00:44:16.500

classroom, something was out of place. Now he must think of that space. Differently That's what that's the dissonance. Yes sir, thank you. Um , another question, uh, along racial lines,

00:44:16.510 - 00:44:28.630

uh, how do we overcome a paradigm explaining to the dominant culture to white people that our erasure is violence without losing our minds or focus? What does that work look like for you? Again, how

00:44:28.630 - 00:44:38.750

do we overcome a paradigm of explaining to white folks that our erasure is violence without losing our minds or focus? What does that work look like for you ? You do it without losing your mind by not

00:44:38.750 - 00:44:52.960

doing it as your primary task. That's not what you're supposed to be doing. Your primary task is not to convince people not to hate you. That's not your primary task. That's not my responsibility.

00:44:52.960 - 00:45:07.900

That is never that work can never be done or completed. You spend a time with a people and C time with C people. That's how that works . I speak to the folks who know the problem

00:45:07.830 - 00:45:22.570

. And we encourage one another in the work against the problem. And then those with ears to hear will hear the problem, period. Thank you sir . um, we've got a question from yesterday that

00:45:22.570 - 00:45:34.970

I wanted to make sure we circle back to that's OK. uh, as we think about human, what role does intelligence play and how is how is this concept of artificial intelligence playing a role as another

00:45:34.970 - 00:45:45.920

contrast? I'll say it again. As we think about human, uh, what role does intelligence play ? And how is this concept of artificial intelligence playing a role as another contrast? Yeah, this conversation

00:45:45.920 - 00:46:07.800

about the human does traffic in this in in this parallel conversation about AI. And it's interesting how AI also gets. Uh, picks up this European conversation about human. We're seeing that um and it's an

00:46:07.800 - 00:46:22.750

it's ability or inability to recognize certain people or to classify certain kind of people um when making that that glance I had this when looking at us. I had this conversation with a professor who spends that time

00:46:22.750 - 00:46:34.850

completely. Um, working on AI at Saint Louis University and you know he didn't have much of an answer. The algorithms are put in place by the people who create the AI and those folks who who

00:46:34.850 - 00:46:51.150

create the AI are themselves steeped in this reality. So I mean it's a it's a bit of a like my my daughter who studied astrophysics um in one class she was talking about colonization efforts on other planets

00:46:52.590 - 00:47:09.600

. When we colonize Mars. What will community be like on Mars? Leaving the planet, well, there's no way to get outside of the discourse that sets our realities in place, and it is us

00:47:09.600 - 00:47:30.700

that will be there. Much the same way as the reality we know. Is teaching. AI This is so it's a problem how to intervene on that . That's your job. That's our job is to

00:47:30.700 - 00:47:43.570

do that intervention in the people who are carrying the infection. Thank you very much. We have one final question before Doctor Laura comes up to introduce Doctor Frawley for our next lecture. Uh, how do

00:47:43.570 - 00:47:52.500

the behaviors, nope, read that one already. Merry Christmas. Alrighty. Um, no, we didn't. OK, my coffee hadn't kicked in yet , sorry. How do the behaviors of Discord in

00:47:52.500 - 00:48:06.760

America today reflect. Behaviors of first century Jews and their responses to Jesus's borderless theology. I'll say it again. How do the behaviors of discord in America today reflect the behaviors of first century Jews in their

00:48:06.760 - 00:48:21.170

responses to Jesus's borderless theology. Yeah, Discord today reflect how do we see now um that's an interesting question that puts us in the frame of mind of something I call moral analogy. I, I mean

00:48:21.170 - 00:48:32.460

in ethics we call it moral analogy that is. Um, we're taking a good look at scripture, we say. Um, X is to Jesus like Y is to me. It sounds like algebra,

00:48:32.550 - 00:48:40.540

but I hate math, so it's, it's not , it's not algebra. I should say it wasn't one of my strong suits. My kid picked it up. I don't know how, but, um

00:48:40.550 - 00:48:51.340

, X is to Jesus like Y is to me . If I'm to respond to Y in my context , the way Jesus responded to X, what does it require of me? It means knowing that context

00:48:51.340 - 00:49:02.910

very well. So what's happening there? You don't you have empire. And the boundaries of empire are expanding, but there were no real boundaries of empire in first century Palestine. It was all Roman.

00:49:05.430 - 00:49:19.730

What boundaries were in place? The Gentile And the Jew. What a friend of mine, um, Love Seacrest has described and as a race in antiquity between the ethnos and the Genos, the people who

00:49:19.730 - 00:49:37.850

are chosen and those who are not. How do we see something like that in play today? Between um those who are given the law. And thus have a relationship with God and those who are not

00:49:37.850 - 00:49:46.050

in a relationship with Dei without the law. There's a bit of that that that can be seen is like the the civilized and the and the savage law . I, I use that. I, I

00:49:46.100 - 00:49:55.100

, by the way, somebody in here knows Judaism a whole lot better than me, and I know you could pick me apart for saying that kind of thing. I'm interpreting my friend's book, OK,

00:49:55.140 - 00:50:07.250

so I'm gonna blame her, um, but in , in talking about this in terms of first century , it one might say the people of God and the others. You see this in Acts 15.

00:50:07.380 - 00:50:16.350

How shall we relate to them? What shall we do in um in ministry to them? Can I , should I go and spend time in their houses ? Can I sit down and have a meal with

00:50:16.350 - 00:50:34.120

them? Is that permissible? How do we welcome them? There is that not the territoriality. But the but the the um the gospel um comes along with. It removes the distinctions, you know,

00:50:34.170 - 00:50:45.740

the the story of the of the of Peter having the vision and the sheet coming down and you know what God has called unclean do not call what God has called clean, don't call unclean. So that's

00:50:45.740 - 00:50:53.260

the the nearest that I would say. So Gentile was to Jesus, like who is to me.