The Writing on the Wall

so by murdering women and children. Children being the future and women being the people with the uteruses that can bear children. This is not a war, in my opinion, because a war is when to countries, to groups. Two tribes are utilizing the same tactics, access and going after one another. That's not what this is and it's not what it's ever been. The Palestinians don't have any guns or rockets, and you can argue, oh, well, what about how are we listening every single day as there are

bombs being dropped on Tel Aviv? No we're not on Jerusalem and any other parts of Israel, Bethlehem, No we're not. Those things are not happening. Life is going on except for where there are occupied spaces where Palestinians live. This is not and has not been, an equal war. This has been about, as Netanyahu's own cabinet members have said, getting rid of Palestinians and committing genocide. This world is

filled with so much fucking evil everywhere. Yesterday I talked to you all about the beating of Next Benedict that resulted in that child's death to traumatic brain injury.

Except we know what is happening. We know that language is critical when working to other and to humanize other groups of people to then be able to justify their obliteration, whether it's in a bathroom in Oklahoma, a church in South Carolina, or the city of Rufa. I don't know how to continue to wrap.

I say this all the time that when I was younger and I was learning about the Holocaust and watching Schindler's List and my high school auditorium, I just kept asking, like my history professors and teachers throughout the years, how could this happen? How do six million people get murdered and the world just go on?

even know the half of the half. Why does America? Why does the world repeat history? Because they don't fucking teach it, not in its visceral, real, raw truth. You learn about George Washington telling little lies and chopping down a cherry tree, not ripping the teeth out of his slaves and putting it in his own fucking mouth.

you will never be free. So what are we talking about these days? How much in humanity, how much depravity we can take in on a regular basis while seemingly trying desperately to hold onto our sanity and our own humanity, because the way that we allow ourselves to become desensitized,

the more brutal this world will become. The other day, was having a conversation and trying to figure out, oh, are we going to cover the shooting after the super Bowl on another show that I do, And folks are like, well, you know, the people that track mass shootings are going to start to think about different ways to track because there are just so many. And since only one person was killed and twenty two injured, I said, what, so now we've moved the needle. It's not enough to have

one death. We must have ten or twenty or thirty or forty or fifty in order for it to be worthy of coverage. So yeah, I took a beat yesterday because I am so tired, Like my body is just physically tired, and I keep thinking, like, what's wrong with me? Am I coming down with something?

who presides over two hundred congregations in Texas. The Ame Church, which boasts membership of three million Black Americans, are calling for the Biden administration not only to issue and push for a cease fire, but they are calling on this

administration to stop funding the destruction of a people. And what they are saying as the base of the Democratic Party, is that black people are seeing what is happening and their allegiance to the Democratic Party, based on it's on wavering support for mass murder, is fraying their ability to

remain in Joe Biden's corner. So today, in my conversation with our friend the Reverend Mark Thompson, host of Make It Plain, we talk about this, and this is a conversation that was recorded earlier, but with this new New York Times piece entitled prominent Black church leader's call for end of USA to Israel, the African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Council says American financial assistance to help Israel fight its war in Gaza supports mass genocide. We're in trouble.

The Democratic Party is in fucking trouble, and I'm starting to see the riding on the wall and it don't look good. So if your body feels some days as heavy as mine does this week, take a beat, rest, recuperate, because we're gonna need every bit of strength to get to November. Coming up next, my conversation with our dear friend,

the Reverend Mark Thompson. Folks, you know that whenever I have the opportunity to welcome back to Woke Fi Daily, my friend the Reverend Mark Thompson, host of Make It Plain and just all around incredible advocate justice warrior, I'm always incredibly honored and pleased.

in Gaza in the worst way. You have been a part of what we have witnessed as a extraordinary push and collaboration of black faith leaders across the country calling for a ceasefire. I want to give you the opportunity to bring us through the timeline that has led thousand plus faith leaders, black faith leaders from across the country to urge President Biden to say cease fire. Talk to us about the initially the ad, the full page ad that was taken out in the New York Times.

First of all, Pastor Michael McBrien and Rever Doctor Barbara William Skinner, Pastor Mike with the Black Church pag Doctor Skinner, who was actually the founder of the annual Congressional Black Caucus prayer Breakfast every year convened close to a thousand, maybe more of us in Black clergy and African American clergy, and not just those who were ordained, but anyone in faith leadership in our communities to sign on to a

full page ad in the New York Times. That was back in November, before Thanksgiving, and so about one thousand signed on, and I think that number had even grown. But the likes of James Forbes and Jeremiah Wright, and Jesse Jackson, and even James Lawson, who was in his nineties. James Lawson was the organizer of the Nashville sitting movement

and the organizer of the Memphis sanitation worker strike. He went to India even before Doctor King did, and he was usually Doctor king advanced person when it came to

setting up nonviolent campaigns. He signed on to this ceasefire, and the ceasefire demanded a release on a release of all the hostages, be they hostages held by the Israeli government or hostages held by Hamas, and it called for an immediate ceasefire that the A Biden administration would abide by that and we had met with several officials in the Biden administration. I'm sure your audience is aware that

within the administration there has been some pushback. There have even been some mutinies, some resignations because there are those with an administration who do not support the administration giving unconditional arms to Israel to carry out what some have even likened to a genocide. That has been the issue, and so there was this full page ad in the

New York Times. We did some media around it, including with Joy Reid, and then what you saw most recently with the New York was the New York Times piece, but just before the New York Times piece the day after DoD King's birthday. We spent a couple of months on it, and I admitted it was one of the hardest things I've ever pulled together. But a group of us were at a retreat and there was a songwriting workshop.

We were with Red Letter Christians in at the Alex Haley Farm, and myself and Bill Ince and Phillip Jobert of a great spiritual gospel group known as Common Hymnal. You all can follow them at Common Hymnal. They just released a single called God of Color. The two of them plus the Reverend doctor Jack Sullivan and Bishop Dwayne Royster just started writing a song and said, well, brothers, why don't we write a song with some with some

relevant meaning and purpose today? And we wrote a Ceasefire song and then we began to produce some music video. I was pretty much the lead and organized as in it. I confess, of all the things I've organized, this is probably the toughest. It's easier for me just to organize folks and to go to jail and to go to jail on myself than it is doing music. Believe in not folks, it really is. I mean, I can roll

out being go to jail, music video, something else. But I don't feel so bad because it took a few months. The Netflix documentary on All the World was released and the song wasn't released for three months after they did the recording, So I don't feel so bad. It didn't take me quite three months. So I'm chilling in a

little bit better than we are the world. But we released the Ceasefire song, the lead singer being Iana Gregory, along with Common Hymnough and a host of some of our friends and activists in the community, from Linda Sarsour to Tamika Mallory, to the Reverend James Forbes again and some of the individuals that were in the New York Times article, Reverend James Lost and Reverend Jeremiah Right. So we did this around January sixteenth, and then in the past what ten days or so, the New York Times

has done a story. So it's got a lot of pick up in trafficking and why did this happen? I don't know many clergy who aren't standing with us, because how can you be a person of faith and not decry the level of violence that is taking place and the disproportionate number of Palestinians and Gossans, particularly young people who are building, who are being killed in this. So that's essentially what we've done. There's a call to prophetic moral authority, a call that we are answering and to

say to the Biden administration, enough is enough. Now, there are some who've gone so far as to say they may not support Joe Biden, for that is not a consensus by everyone because frankly, we know the alternative isn't better. But to be truthful, that's just us. I mean, we can say what we are and are not gonna do, Danielle. We're at a moment where they're those in the electorate we don't know because they're not outfront like us. They're

not talking. And the longer this goes on, I think the Biden administration will be naive or the campaign will be naive to say he's not losing votes every day. He's got to win Michigan. Michigan is in peril electorally for the Biden Harris ticket because of what is going on in Gaza. I believe the Biden administration. I believe them when they say they're trying to work out a solution.

I think they're finally getting it. But when this happened Daniel Moody on October seventh, ye I called several friends and I say, y'all, this is nineteen eighty Jimmy Carter all over again. And folks didn't believe me at first, but you'd be surprised. Just yesterday, I was with some leaders in the Jewish community and they said, brother, you said that. We didn't believe you, but you are absolutely right. Because nettn Y'ahu, Putin and Trump are all working together.

This is more than about what's going on over there. It's also the impact what's going on over here.

win the election. So the future CIA director under Reagan, who would be William Casey, his running mate hw Bush, right, both of them flew in a private plane to Paris in the summer of nineteen eighty, a private plane provided to them by the father of Osama bin Laden because they were all friends. Then Osama bin Laden's father flew Casey and Bush to Paris to meet with the Ayatola and to convince the Ayatola to keep the hostages so that they could win the election. And once they won

the election, they would trade arms with Iron. Hence you know, trading arms for hostages. The whole thing Reagan was investigated for. That was set up in nineteen eighty and that cost car to the election. So when I saw October seventh, I said, wait a minute, got another Democratic president here. You create a world conflict and pull him into it so that it costs him the election. Putin gets what he wants by getting Trump back in, then Yahoo, who is the Trump of Israel, stays in power, and Putin

gets to keep Israel and the United States. If Trump gets back in the United States pulls out of Ukraine. Putin then promises, then Yahoo, you stay out of Ukraine. I win Ukraine. You get all the Gazans out of Gaza, then I will relocate all of the Jews in Ukraine into the newly settled place of Gaza. So these that's the nexus of what's going on. And so that's that's that's what I saw it for and I still see it for that. And the Biden administration is is naive.

I can't believe it this hour. They don't get it. They may not be able to articulate it in the way that I am articulating in it articulating it, but I'm sure they're trying to figure out a way out, and it may be too late.

to bring us to this current place and moment. And I will tell you that while for the last several months, as this conflict has been going on and we have watched now I don't even know what the number is, thirty thousand plus tens of thousands of people, children right be slaughtered relentlessly at the same time that you have the current administration talking once again about the soul of this nation and holding on to democracy in this nation,

and young people, black people, queer people, people of color are asking themselves, wait a minute, what is going on here? And I think for the first time the woll has been pulled from people's eyes about this conflict in Israel and Gaza, in Israel and Palestine, and people are seeing it as not this extraordinarily complicated historical, you know, religious land ownership issue, but they are seeing it very clearly.

Wait a minute, How does this oppressed people have the ability to turn off water, food, access, right to aid in such a manner? And it is through right the courage I think of the South African government and the lawyers that brought the case in front of the ICJ to say no, no, We've seen this before. We've seen and the world has seen this before. So I'm wondering,

you know, how does this administration miss this fact? And people told me when this con when this started on October seventh, they said, foreign affairs never plays into domestic elections. I said, is that right, because I think that you're wrong and your assumption is that people are going to

forget about this. Well, you can't go on any social media platform and avoid the videos and the pictures and the audio and all of the things in real time that are happening unfiltered by mainstream media, right right, right, So how does this administration not see and hear what is going on, particularly again when polls just came out and sixty percent of Americans believe that he is failing in this war? Right now?

younger generation. They are saying not in our names. So there's there's just this this tone deafness. It's almost damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. But I think the most damning is to continue this. I think there's much more to lose in continuing this. And the quicker this administration can get out of this conflict, the better,

the quicker this administration can distance itself. And you know, the story is that Biden said to then Yahoo that this was costly for him politically, he could lose the election. And then Yahoo's response was, I don't give a damn right because this is about him. I think that they're over confident. They think that by telling so they want to say, I'm hearing their argument to the black collector. It is well influence chapter thirty five dollars. So y'all

should vote for us again. That's it. Now, that's good thing that you got the insulin cap. But a lot of the things administration is done, even on the economic level, are not that tangibly felt and are not tangible enough to say, oh my god, lets people get out here and vote. The record number of women appointing to the federal judiciary. That's tangible, but not immediate. You know, people won't really feel that until their number is called or for years to come. So something that's on the news

every day, a literal slaughter. It's going to always overshadow things that are not tactile that you can touch, you know, And I don't know how quick don't I assume the insulin price reduction is kicked in the place, you know, But you know, I don't know that that in and of itself is enough. And you can't trade all these bodies for insulin and then add insult to injury. How on earth of all the luck they have? You know, at one time Jimmy Carter did plan a rescue. Something happened.

The rescue helicopters crashed in each other. Some people even said there might have been some foul play in that. But look at Biden. A drone strike hits a base and it manages to take out of all the people on that base, three black people, two young, beautiful black women. What kind of luck is that for this amission? So that's not endearing either. So so the plan I wouldn't want to be in his position. But first things first,

get out of this conflict. Be be outspoken in terms of how wrong this is, because I'm gona tell you something else. So you alluded to this, Danielle, A lot of young people are dying, a lot of teenagers after that population of a teenage population, So what is that really about? Y'all? Think about this. You kill these teenagers, siblings, parents, relatives, what are you really doing? You are further radicalizing them

to join whatever the next organization will be. It won't be Hermas because Harmas has running its course, financed by bb Netnyahu, ignored by bb Nen Yahu on October. So let's just kind of, you know, look away at this because this is gonna help us. This is to ned in Yahoo were not living, was Giuliani and w Bush. So whatever this new thing is, they're going to try to prop up because Israel and the Massade cannot allow autonomous Palestinian leadership. It has to be controlled Hamads, so

you have Hamas. It doesn't support a two state solution. Then Yahoo doesn't support a two state solutions. So this next group where you're gonna get the recruits from, oh from all the teenagers whose family members you killed because war is an industry. I was talking with a very influential Jewish leader just yesterday and they were, you know, and let me tell you something. To my Jewish friend,

this is complicated. People are conflicted, Families are torn asunder because and that's what is designed to do, cause confusion and conflict even amongst families. And this person was like, well, Mark, what are we gonna do? I said, he ask you a question. Do you understand how war is an industry? So what better way to keep an industry going than the slaughter a bunch of people and leave only teenagers remaining so they can be embittered and radicalized for the

rest of their lives to keep this thing going. So that's really where we are and the Baden administration because I mean, we got to be able to walk to you guns saint time. We got to stop this, but we also can't allow Trump to be reelected. Unfortunately Biden's the only choice, but we got to figure this out.

there's no logic that connects those two things. It won't happen, It cannot happen. It will be impossible.

of this. The entire media is focused on black men and black men not wanting to vote and black men not wanting to vote for Biden, and they find the most uninformed and I don't mean uninformed in terms of ignorance, just people just don't have information information less black men random black men to put on television to make these statements. They don't go and talk to black men who are informed ed or black men that can provide words of leadership,

which is what we need now. Nothing more poiant than this. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter and I were in South Carolina two weeks ago. We were leaving after they had a big thing there rally right before the primary. We're black men, and Cliff Albright is one of the leading black men voter mobilization organizers in the country, if not the leading one. The plane we're waiting to board it lands we're about to board. A couple of people get off the plane who are major mainstream media reporters

working on a story about black men and voting. Hey, with some good see brother, brother, brother, my man. All right, doctor, h what it is? Where you going? Are we about to go in and view some black men about voting? And we looked at each other, Cliff and I. We're black men in South Carolina? Who are you going to talk to? But there's this native I got to go find just any old random black person.

is the very very slippery, slippery slope we're on. And if we don't do something, and let me tell you something else to white women, this is on y'all too. Y'all elected Trump, so don't be looking at us. Y'all got to do your job now. So far, it's been happening every election since the reversal of Row Democrats have won. I think that there's still a way to pull this

out because Trump Trumps still gonna help us. He gonna continue to do crazy stuff between nine November and as we now know, the Appeals Court is another court is ruled that he's not immune from prosecution. So if this boils down to if people look at this to your point about democracy, let's let's crystallize it even more. If this boils down to folks, your vote could determine whether an individual can go back in office and part himself

for all his crimes and become immune to crime. Now that kind of folks can kind of feel that it got so Wait wait wait, I'm not immune the crime. If I get a speeding ticket, I gotta pay the ticket. If I get arrested, I got so. So everybody, even white folks, feel that white folks get arrested. So that may have to be it for black people. If in fact the rumors are true, he's gonna pick either Ben Carson or Tim Scott. Uncle Tim, then Uncle Ben's rights

or Uncle Tim. Then that will mobilize our electric because if this one thing even confused middle of the row, whatever uninformed black folks here, all black folks agree on is nobody likes Uncle Tom, so that may mobilize us. So there's still these variables out there, but that does not excuse the bad administration for making the steps it needs to make to get out of this crazy conflict. This is a lose lose situation for the bad administration.

There's no way this can end. Well, they already and you helping, somebody tell you we allies, y'all't even like each other. Then y'all who can't stand stand you Joe Biden, and you know he's no good, so cut it out, cut it out, cease fire.