E49 – Black Privilege Part 2 of 2 – Guest Pastor Roy Niedfeldt

praise God for the black grandparents and their parents and the generations of black people who've passed down very specifically their faith in God. If white people have passed down economics, Black people have passed down spirituality, and that's something to be proud of, something to celebrate, and really gives them an advantage.

Hello and welcome to part two of Black Privilege with Pastor Niefeld. Last week we had a great conversation. If you didn't hear that, please stop, go back, listen to that first so you can follow along. It was a great show and you would have missed too much to be able to follow along on what he's talking about now. Now, if you're ready, let's jump into part two.

Matter of fact, I just got off the phone a few days ago with a young African American man who went to Harvard University, which is one of America's obviously top universities at the age of 16, and he had no mom, no dad in his life. Fascinated by his story. And I was like, man, can you tell me how did you do that? Like you're a genius, you know, like, how did you, how did you overcome not having a mom or dad? And he said, you know, everybody needs to figure out a way to boost themselves. And he said, this is going to sound crazy. But I, I talked to myself and I lied to myself. And I don't, I don't personally think that was the right term because I don't think he was lying. But he said, every day, I would tell myself, you're important, you're incredible, you're, you're, you know, you're super special, you know, hold your head up, or I don't, and those probably weren't his exact words, but something along those lines. So. He said every day I would tell myself these things and he said I told myself I was super important and he said until I believed it and all of us and he said it wasn't true. And now it is true. I'm one of the youngest people to go to Harvard. I graduated. I own, I think he owns like 25 businesses. It's insane. He's God, I mean, the guy's just very economically sound. He's very well known, um, within his, uh, friend groups and wherever he goes. And I'm just like, wow, this, this is what most people would consider a massive success. Now, I will say, um, he's, he was missing a little bit on the spirituality part. We talked a lot about that and, um, he's definitely had some, and I'm hoping that He'll encounter Jesus and, and have that relationship with him because that's the most important part. But it was just interesting that the way he didn't get involved with bad things. I said, how did you avoid all the negative influences? Um, how did you avoid all the temptations to be like, life is hard. Let me just... You know, smoke this or pop this pill or start to get involved in this group because who cares who cares in the moment? Life is too stressful. I just need an immediate gratification Of acceptance or a good feeling or whatever And he said no every day. I told myself i'm too important for that. I'm too Special and he said I had to tell myself because I just didn't have anyone there to tell me and I, I believe Jesus is the best. He's the one who, who, who should give us that. He died in our place. He paid for our sins. I mean, you can't have greater love than giving up your life for someone. And what matters when somebody gives up their life for you is how important was that person. And he's the son of God. And so for the son of God to value us, to lay down his life. That should be the greatest morale boost to any human being ever to say, I matter this much. You know, I matter to somebody of this importance, but I think that's huge. And I, my heart breaks because, you know, I do see a lot of African American kids running around and they just, you know, they won't maybe verbalize it like this. But the, the. The thought is, I'm no good, man. I'm just, I'm going to die by the time I'm 25. I've had a few just tell me that, you know, Pastor, I ain't going, I ain't going to make it past 25. And I said, why would you say that? You know, well, you know how it is. You know how these streets are. All my friends are dead. You know, I lose three friends a year or, you know, I'm probably going to get shot or I'm going to, I'm going to die in a car accident or I'm going to die of something. You know, we don't make it long. That just shouldn't be the narrative that we believe. A lot of it is, is simple if we believe it, we start to walk in those directions, and then when somebody presents an opportunity to us to say you could be better, nah, I can't do that. And when somebody presents an opportunity to us that, that goes in line with our beliefs, well, of course we can do it because we believe we can. People aren't going to approach something that they don't believe. And so I believe God just wants everybody. I believe he loves everyone everywhere. There's no one outside of the scope of his love. And he wants African American young people and old people who are waking up and are saying, I don't know, like I got to overcome more. I got to face more difficulties. And, and I would just say shame on the people who don't think they have to face more difficulties. And again, now this is, this is not specific to Every single black person. I hate that we speak in monologues or monolithic terms, but everyone's the same. Like, I don't think Janice's kids are waking up this morning going, man, I got to overcome. I have economic hardship, you know, schools hard for me. Kids don't like me. I think his kids are waking up going, Oh my gosh, every kid at school loves me and wants to meet my dad and thinks I'm the best stuff ever. And there's, there's a lot of African American people who are not suffering. And we have to recognize that too. They've, they've made it out. But a lot of times through a lot of hard work, but to the kids who are growing up in the hood, the kids who are growing up, like, One young man who walked up to me and he said, Pastor, my auntie got stabbed to death last night 30 some times and I just put my head down and almost started crying, and he's like, Oh, no, I'm good. And I kind of looked at him like, I mean, Sure, like you shouldn't be. And he said, nah, bro, you don't understand. He said, every year maybe I lose two. One or two, he said, my first relative that was killed when I was like, I don't remember, three, four or five that I remember, he said, I couldn't sleep for days. I just, it bothered me for a long time. He said, y'all, y'all don't understand. Basically saying white people, y'all don't understand this. He said, this is my life, bro. I'm used to this. He's like, no big deal. And I just kind of, I was just sad and I remember looking at him just being like, well, it should matter. And I understand what you're saying. Like, I hear you not saying I understand. Like, I've been through it, but I'm like, I hear you. And I'm sorry, bro. Like, I'm just sorry you, you go through this and I'm praying for you. And I'm sorry that this is your normal. And my hope is that people like him would, would start to look and say, Okay, I have a harder life. I've grown up in the hood. I, I deal with shootings. I deal with homicides. I deal with overdoses. I deal with, um, parents and people around me in my neighborhood who, who, who fight more often, who, who have harder things. A lot of it stems from economics. If you, at least that's my opinion. If you go back and you look at the results of slavery and the results of oppression, a lot of it pushed on economically and economically led to a lot of the other problems. Okay. That, that came up, and, and that's my opinion, and again, I'm open to being changed on that, but that's my, my thoughts on that. But I'm hoping that that young man can wake up and say, you know what? God loves me, and we have something to be proud of. Yeah, my auntie died. Yeah, I'm going through hardship, but I have something that others don't, like our society believes in the Lord, and we have churches everywhere, and I can plug into that, and I can be proud of that, and I can spread that, and. Another thing that I felt God tell me at one point was that the Black society in America as a whole, again, not saying every individual, is more open to Him moving and more open to revival. They're, they're closer, if, if, if I could use the words, they're, they're like a more ripe piece of fruit for God to use. And I really saw that God could come down on Milwaukee and on a lot of places, really every place, on inner city Black America, and He could just blow it up with this. awesome move of his Holy Spirit and he could cause it to become elevated. And I think that's, I mean, you can tell me what you think, but I think a lot of black people want to be elevated. I think that's the number one desire I hear is we want to be on top. We want, we want the opportunities. We want the privilege. We want the status that we've seen the white community have. And primarily they're talking economically, and I believe God could come down, though, more easily in the Black community, fill them with his spirit, and do great things, so much so that it would be an honor for white people to be allowed and to be able to move into the Black society, where people go, this society is happier, this society is full of more joy, this society is doing better as a whole, like, what do they have? We want it. And they could become jealous of Black society, and I think God would, would be, I know God would love to do that. He loves to take those things which are left and to put them first and black people have been pushed down, you know, to what extent people will argue forever and what's the exact solutions out people argue, but I believe God wants to do it. I believe God wants to exalt them and with that. comes economic success. With that comes morals and, and the overcoming of the, the degradation and the looking down on. With that becomes a booster of all the other things. You know, there's a wonderful Bible verse that pastors quote all the time. It's Matthew 6, 33, and it says, seek first the kingdom of God. And all these things will be added to as well. And I believe that's exactly what God's trying to do. He's not saying, hey, black society who's suffering, seek economic success. And that's what I see a lot of them doing, saying, we want black entrepreneurs. Now, we don't want to stop wanting black entrepreneurs, right? That's a good thing. But they're saying, we want black entrepreneurs. We want black owned businesses. We want black owned, um, this, that, and the other. And those are all positive things. We shouldn't stop that. The Bible doesn't say not to seek those things. It just says, seek first the kingdom of God. Amen. And I think as black people hone in on that and say, God is going to be first, we're going to make God the God of our society, and we're going to seek him as a whole, I believe God will exalt African American people and use them as a light to draw the white people who are really on a downward hill in America, as far as religion goes, to draw them back to God. And in a sense, uh, black people will be first, they'll be the ones who go for it first. That is, that's what they're ripe for. That's what they're close to. And I hope black society goes for that. I definitely agree with everything you're saying, and I do, um, feel like there is a revival going on. I hate to say it out loud, but it does feel like it is happening here in Milwaukee and right here. In Milwaukee, I believe it's going to be a start of something very great, but God is God is moving here, um, very much. And that's why I'm here. doing what I do with this program here and, some other, things that I'm working on. So I like what you said about the, how is it, what's the heart of the issue is that a lot of. People in our, my community, myself included when I was growing up and I still battle those things. And I'm pretty sure the gentleman that you talked to, he still battles it somewhere in his conscience. When you, um, when you're in certain societies or certain pieces, you know, that, that past may rear itself up sometimes, but you do have to, uh, talk to yourself in the way he said, I agree with you. It's not lying. And it's like, when you know, God, he, he is. My commander in chief, and if he died for me, I am of some value. So if people don't understand that, and that's. Actually, what's going on in the book? I wrote a prisoner's part and I talk about it a little bit. Um, how you feel when you don't think you're going to make it to the next day. It's not a, it's all about survival. And when you're thinking about survival, you're not trying to. Learn a book or trying to do math or something. It's more about do I make it to the next day? What's the point of doing something like that? And you may not even live to that point. So it's like a very hopeless situation. And, um, a lot of times when you venture out, it feels like you're Christopher Columbus. I don't know how to describe it. If you feel like I felt like I was Christopher Columbus, that I was going to, um, fall off the edge of the world. When I left my neighborhood, or when I started doing new things, it's always so scary in that you don't have the parents and stuff that will encourage you even when you get into those and when you start being successful, you know, you can have family members that still want. Push you and encourage you. So this is what I see that's going on in our community that people don't value themselves to think that they can do that. They're scared to even voice their dreams. They won't even want to say I'm out loud. Well, it's not it's not even popular because I've heard kids speak up, you know, you can't be on the basketball courts and our community where I live on and probably in most black communities in the inner city and say, hey, you know, I'm going to college. Who's, who's going to be like, Oh man, you the stuff, you know, if you say, Hey bro, I'm shooting, I'm shooting a rap video later today. Um, and nothing, there's nothing wrong with rap videos. Let me say that. I'm just saying that many, many of them are filled with garbage. Okay. But not all of them. Right. And rap is a neutral platform. It can be good or bad. Let me just be clear on that. So if you say, Hey, I'm shooting a rap video later today. Yeah, that's valued. Hey, uh, you know, I'm gonna, I got the new Jordans. Okay, that's valued. Or I'm gonna, you know, whoop you in basketball, you know, that's valued. But a lot of things that should be valued aren't valued. And I don't think my thoughts on that are a lot of people who speak down on that are actually hurting. You know, they're like, Oh, you know, that would be good for that kid to go to college. But I tried to make it, and I didn't, or I didn't even dream of that because it was too difficult for me to dream of that. And, um, I think, I think there's just a lot of pushback, and I can only imagine, and this is something that you've... Based, as you just said, how scary it would be to kind of like launch out and be like, I'm going to leave the hood and I'm going to go to college and you may be doing it with no support. You may not be doing it with any financial backing from parents. You may feel like, well, what if, what if I go to a college, like one of the kids from our neighborhood did, and we strongly, strongly tried to back him and encourage him with everything we could. And he got there and he's like, I'm literally like one of two black people in my college. You know, he went to a small town college, Northern Wisconsin, and he was just like, I'm, I'm scared. I feel out of place. I feel odd. And, um, you know, the only thing I can relate to that is the first time I walked into like an all black church. I remember people just looked at me weird, not in a judgmental way. Like, you know, you're bad. They're just, it's just something different. It's not what you're expecting. You know, if you walk into an all girls meeting and all guys meeting and you're the opposite sex or. You walk into a, you know, a daycare and you're an old guy, people look at you like you're different. You know, not you're bad, just you're different. And so I can only imagine just that those looks as well as the people who will look at an African American and think negative thoughts have got to be intimidating. It's got to be super intimidating. It's very intimidating. Yeah. It takes a lot. And God bless you that you, that you've done it and that you can speak to that. Yeah. And it's, and, um, yes, it's. And not just that, it's like the language is different. So I had to overcome like a, a language difference on, you know, the testing at times they say, you know, stuff different in my community versus there. And we may know what it is, but we don't have the, the, the word, the scientific word for it or how you may say it. And so that being the case, a lot of black people are perceived as being ignorant. When it's not the case, and it's just, they don't know the particular word that's said in that, science or in that class or something, you have to break it to them down differently and that's, a big obstacle as well that people don't understand. I don't believe that bars should be lowered. I just think it should be explained differently so that, when Jesus was at. The well, and he was talking to the woman at the well, he spoke in her language. He, that she would understand. And that's where I think that, um, we need to overcome those sorts of things, those obstacles. And that's why we're getting lost in the communication, I believe. Yeah. Well, and like I said earlier, and I referenced it briefly, I was praying a different time, just, um, I don't remember exactly how, but I saw, like, literally in a, I guess I'll call it a vision, like a great light coming over the inner city of Milwaukee, and I believe God could send it in every inner city, and that was the implication. I just, in my mind, I just saw it coming over Milwaukee. I believe God needs to fill black society to make it as a whole a healthy place without having to leave it. You know, like, right now, a lot of people have to leave inner city culture to, to, Get out of it. There, there is a lot of toxic things that have come in and, and it's sad, you know, there's eight homicides on my block last year, you know, there's, uh, single parenting. The government has, in my opinion, made some terrible laws that have made it better, um, uh, African American families to have a single parent than have two. Now, that's not hating on single parents. I love single parents. We support them, but it is always better to have two incomes. It's always better to have two supporters. Thank you. It's healthier for children to have a father and a mother in the house. And so if possible, um, you know, if, if their relationship stays healthy, parents should pursue that. And that's what Christians believe. And that's fully what I subscribe to. And again, that's not a, that's not a putting down. That's not saying there's not wonderful single mothers. They just have to work harder to be a success. And there's, there's many, many successful ones. Um, But what I think is God wants to actually transform the society itself and to do that economically would Be very difficult. It would it would be very difficult. If you just said we're just going to do it just economically It could take a long time but Think of what would happen if, if a revival started. Like Azusa Street, well, one of the most famous revivals in American history was started by a black preacher named, William Seymour. And, uh, one eyed guy, he lost an eye through something, I'm not sure. Think of what would happen, because in that revival, I'll tell you, it was only in one city. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of people streamed into that city and were touched by God and in in some of these revivals third American history that we know about. I don't know about that one in particular. The crime rate goes to almost zero. You know, the police force in one city I was reading about actually disbanded because they had nothing to do. And what a desirable community to live in where the police are disbanded because in one and another community, I was reading about a great revival in American history. They said the police. Turned into a church choir because they had nothing to do. They said they presented the judge of the city with white gloves because he had no more cases to rule on because people's hearts were filled with joy. And at the root cause of it, a lot of black people are unhappy. And if you're unhappy, you don't have a positive motivation. You know what, why do people pop pills? Why do people smoke? Why do people do anything that we do as people? Why do we go to work to get money so we can be what? Happy or because it will be unhappy if we can't pay our bills, if we can't live in our house, if we can't drive our car, why do we, why do we even do something as simple as brushing our teeth? Because if you don't, you'll get cavities and you'll be unhappy at the cost. You're unhappy at the pain. Why do we eat food? It makes us happy. It's, it's everything we do at our root cause is to make ourselves happier. It's to produce a more positive feeling. And I think. Um, what God was telling me that day when I wrote this article is you have to realize there's a lot of pain and pain is unhappiness and wherever there's a lot of pain, there's going to be a lot of, um, a lot more temptation to act badly because of the pain that's been inflicted and the pain that's come in and then pain leads to more pain, you know, hurt people hurt people. And I think that's as simple as it is. So what yeah. God can do is he can come in and he can heal somebody who's incredibly hurting. He can take a kid who's, you know, 16, 17 years old, who's had 17 family members murdered. He can take a kid whose mom, whose, whose mom, uh, crumbled under the weight and the pressure of her life and became a crack addict or, you know, became a prostitute or just gave up on him, you know, gave him to his grandmother or whatever, you know, just, just some of these common scenarios that unfortunately play out, uh, much more heavily within the black communities. And God can come in and heal all of that in a moment. He can do what psychologists and humans can't do. And as people walk with them, he can fill them with joy. And as you're filled with joy, you act better. When you're happy, you, you love, you know, when you're, when you're full of joy, you can be kind to the person next to you. And I think the greatest thing that we can do is continue to work on economics but to Take advantage. I think black people should take advantage of the, the upper hand that they have, and they should run to the churches. They should talk to their grandmothers and their uncles and their aunties and their parents or whoever's godly among them, and they should pursue godliness. And as they pursue godliness, the Bible says the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, and peace. And if you're full of love, joy, and peace. Thank you very much. I want to live in a community like that, you know, we moved to our community because it was hurting and we wanted to make a difference, but how many white people would love to move into a community where people just love each other or people care for each other? There's a saying in the black community that I've never heard outside of the black community. Um, I'm sure it's out there, but I've never heard it outside of the black community. It takes a village to raise a child. There is this togetherness that's still there. It's not fully there, but it's still there in the black community that is not, again, I've never heard it in the white community. White people sit in their houses all day. They don't talk to their neighbors that much. They do some, um, but they're not There's this unique togetherness, and everyone, there's still a lot of kids that I know who will call their neighbors aunties and grandmas, and I'm like, oh, that's your auntie? And they're like, no, that's not my auntie. I'm like, how'd you call your auntie? Well, I just do. And so there's still this togetherness, and The more love, the more joy, the more peace that, that God pumps into the Black community as they pursue him, the crime and all this stuff that people look down on and that, that makes it an undesirable place to live is going to go away. They're going to become the most desirable people to hire. When, when, when you're looking for an employee, I ran a charity where we specifically tried to pay people more to help ex felons. When you're looking for a good employee, What you're looking for is, is this person going to steal? Are they going to work hard? Are they going to tell the truth? And God is the one who affects those things more than anybody. If I see somebody who loves Jesus with all their heart, I'm like, man, this person's never going to steal from me. This person's never going to lie to me. This person's going to do this for the Lord. And so he makes us into the most desirable employees and as you're a good employee as you're faithful in something Bosses put you over more and as you're over more you become a boss and you begin to rule The problem is is when you when you have a group of people you're trying to hire who's everybody's hurt Everybody's sad. Everybody's suspicious. Everybody's I don't know who's you and and here's a phrase I've heard a lot in the black community. It's a negative phrase. I'm gonna get my own Meaning, I'm looking out for myself and nobody else. And when we feel like that, we squash each other. I'm going to step on you to get to where I need to go. And I don't care who's hurt along the way. I, that ain't my family, that ain't my friend, that ain't my person. the first homicide I was actually ever a witness to on my city block, I stood out there the whole night just watching the whole, thing. I sat up there for four hours, five hours, whatever it was until the medical examiner came. It was a 22 year old, 22 or 23 year old young African American man who was shot by another person. Just a simple argument. And I just stood there and I was just like, wow, this is, this was new for me. This is like, whoa, like I couldn't sleep well that night. Like it just really shook me. And, A lot of people were just like, oh yeah, just another N word that died. That's what a lot of the black people were saying. And I was just like, wow. Like is that, how, is that how the community feels because they're so used to this or whatever. And I walked up to one group of, of young people that I know who I play a lot of basketball with and, and talked to and I was like, Hey bro, like he's dead. And there, the comment from one of them was, that ain't my N word. And just saying that ain't, that ain't my friend. That ain't my friend. What do I care? And that. It's an attitude that comes from pain. It comes from hurt. It comes from, hey, if I do care, it's going to hurt. But if we care with the love of God, it doesn't hurt. The love of God has something unique in it that we can care for painful situations. We can make ourselves involved in a way with his love. And it actually feels good to help. It feels good to care. What that young lady was saying to me was, I don't care, uh, because I don't know them and I'm just going to close my, my emotion off. I'm going to close my compassion off because that's how I'm going to handle this situation and stay healthy. And that's, that's the opposite of what we want to do. And I feel with the help of God, we could. I literally see white people and suburb people, whether white, black, or Spanish, streaming into the black community going, what did they find? How did they do this? How did they go from being looked down on? How did they go from being worse economics to people who move there, say their neighbors are the nicest people in America? You know, instead of saying Southern people have that Southern hospitality or, you know, the East Coast is bad or the Midwestern is, they're a little nicer or whatever we say, you know, some of the common phrases I've heard. What about, man, have you been to the inner city where, where it's mostly Black people? Man, I, I've been trying to buy a house there because the people there are so kind and the people work so hard and they look out for each other and holy cow. And I think that's what a lot of Black politicians have began to try to focus on, but they don't give the right motivation. They want to do it without the Lord. They want to do it without Jesus. They want to say, we got to stick together. We got to raise up our communities. We have to, these are things I hear among black politicians when I talk to them and influencers. And, you know, we have to, uh, you know, uh, it takes the neighborhood to raise a kid, but people are too hurt and they're too suspicious. Well, I would, but my neighbor ain't doing that. But if we start with Jesus, who says, you know, love your enemies that way, if your neighbor isn't doing it, your neighbor's a jerk, your neighbor's a thief, your neighbor's, you know, harassing you. You still love them. Anyways, I believe in a flash, the spirit of God could come down. People say, well, how would that happen? That would take forever. No, look at revivals. Look what God did at Azusa Street. God can come down so heavily over neighborhoods, over cities, that in days, just a mere matter of days, people's hearts are changed and they no longer desire to do evil, but to love one another. And I believe Black society, Black inner city America is more ripe for that than any other group. Well, we're almost done here. The time just went super, super fast. I am so excited. Actually, what God is doing in the black community here in Milwaukee. I do come into agreement with you that God is doing something here. And I thank you so much for coming on the show and everything you said kind of boils down to this will lower the recidivism rate of so many people going to jail is They, most of them feel like there's no other way. So I thank you again. Is there anything else? before we wrap this up, I really enjoy you coming on here to talk about this very, sensitive subject and seeing the actual problems and willing to move in being in the neighborhood to actually know what's going on, to help with a solution. Thank you so much for that. I'm I'll just summarize up. My last statement of this is that people want to make a difference. You have to talk about important subjects and if you talk about something that's important, that means people are going to have feelings. You're going to cause offense. So we can't shy away from offense. We have to be open to change. We have to listen. Sometimes the people disagree with us. But I think these subjects need to be talked about. So to all the listeners, I think these are conversations you need to have. Conversations with your family. Conversations with your friends. Conversations with your family. Dear church members, um, my hope is that we all together are pursuing godliness, and that black people can see they have an advantage. And that they use that advantage to pursue, and push farther into it, and with it will come all the economics and all the morale boost. And, um, God will do something that actually will put them on top. I thank you so much for coming on our program today. Thank you for having me. Oh, it was wonderful. We need to hear this. These are the conversations we need to be having again. There's a lot going on here in Milwaukee, especially in a black community and watch out. You will see us soon. That's the end of my show, everyone, and may you have a week filled with blessings.