Sorry that's a bad subject line. (edit: definitely a bad one and I keep making it worse every time i try to change it so you get what you get) Not sure how to phrase it properly.

I was thinking about 'getting the black vote' and what works. Thinking how instrumental the church was in organizing back in the day. Then thinking about the oral tradition of preaching and how that relates to addressing the black community. There's probably correlation with all religious leaders but I want to pretend like we're special.

Preachers from the pulpit have always held a position of authority. They don't talk to you. They don't really explain things to you either. They tell you what is fact. Where they are effective is the way they carry their authority, to make you beieve their facts without question.

One of the key ways of doing that is creatively preaching to the choir. In this regard I mean saying the things that folk want to hear and say amen to. Its twisting words around into a digestable form that sounds like what people want to believe either about themselves or others around them. They can hear it, interpreted as fact, and make it their own.

Now I'm not saying there aren't subtlties, because there definitely are, but it goes back to the point that it's not about matters of discussion. The preacher is telling it like it is. Sister Mary in the bible study can discuss it with you further if you need, but that discussion is gonna be the facts which the preacher has presented.

******* coming back around.

Politicians talk to the black community like preachers. There's no discussion, no nuance. It's tell them what they want to hear so they can won it too. But our situation, our issues are so full of nuance that it's the discussion that's needed most. We don't need you to tell us that black lives matter, don't need you to tell us that predatory lending is decimating our communities like a contract crack epidimic.What we need is for you to ask questions and engage the conversation. Even more we need you to come to the table with the stuff we don't know. We don't need promises of what you'll do because we know they are bullshit once you get elected and something else takes priority. Come to the table and say, you know what, these are the banks that actually fucked yall over, and they were able to do it becasue of law x,y and z. We need the insight s we may not have access to, but you do. Tell us which which legislators are bonafide racists. Who's planning what to draw lines that diminish our vote.

Tell us some shit we don't know, we don't need halleluja talking points. BUT those halleluja's work because the feel good in the moment even if they don't address the breadth of the issue. Put it all in a politicians hands even though they've done nothing to show that they will follow through, and if they do that will be enough.

Sorry rambling...

Convo can go any way you want from here .

Like what came first the preacher or the pimp.

I imagine the preacher because I think of Swing Lo Sweet Chariot on the plantation. But then again you gotta know massa wasn't the only pimp on the plantation, and the pimp who was a slave, how much game did that nigga have.

OK now I've ruined a perfectly good thread.


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."