Bishop Talbert Swan

He darn sure wasn’t white

They Want to Put Us Back on the Plantation Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter didn’t misspeak. He said the quiet part out loud. While defending the dismantling of Black political power in Alabama through racist gerrymandering, he openly declared that he hopes the Supreme Court overturns the 14th Amendment, the amendment that granted citizenship to formerly enslaved Black people after slavery. Let that sink in. An elected official in 2026 is publicly expressing hope that the constitutional amendment recognizing Black people as citizens of this country will be overturned. And some people still want to pretend America isn’t racist. This is what Make America Great Again has always meant to the extremists driving it: rolling back the gains of Reconstruction, gutting voting rights, erasing Black history, dismantling civil rights protections, purging Black people from positions of power, and returning America to a racial hierarchy where whiteness is protected and Black existence is controlled. I have said many times on my radio program that Black people in America are only a couple of laws away from the plantation. Some people called that hyperbole. It wasn’t hyperbole. It was historical awareness. Because Black progress in America has always been conditional in the minds of white supremacists. Every gain we made had to be forced through protest, bloodshed, organizing, litigation, and sacrifice, and every gain has always faced backlash from people who never accepted our humanity in the first place. The 14th Amendment is the foundation upon which modern civil rights protections stand. Birthright citizenship. Equal protection. Due process. Voting rights rulings. School desegregation. Anti-discrimination law. All of it flows from the legal recognition that Black people are fully citizens and fully human under the Constitution. And now powerful Republicans are openly fantasizing about undoing it. I have absolutely no confidence that this racist Supreme Court will protect Black citizenship, Black voting rights, or Black humanity if given the opportunity to weaken them. This Court has already gutted the Voting Rights Act, enabled racial gerrymandering, weakened affirmative action, and signaled hostility toward every major civil rights protection won through the blood of our ancestors. So Black people need to stop treating this like politics as usual. This is not a game. This is not partisan disagreement. This is a fight over whether this country will continue moving toward democracy or openly embrace apartheid-style white nationalism. Our ancestors fought too hard, bled too much, marched too long, and died too young for us to sit comfortably while people in power openly discuss stripping away the very amendment that recognized our citizenship. If this nation is determined to drag us backward, then we must be just as determined to resist. We must organize, educate, mobilize, vote, protest, litigate, build institutions, protect our communities, and prepare ourselves spiritually, politically, and economically for what is clearly coming. Because they are not hiding it anymore. They are trying to put us back on the plantation.

NEW: MAGA evangelical leaders gather in Mar-a-Lago to bless and dedicate a gold statue dedicate to Donald Trump.

The same white evangelical movement that condemns Black churches for preaching liberation, affirming Black humanity, teaching Black history, or celebrating Black culture as so-called racial idolatry just stood around a literal golden idol of Donald Trump while a Black preacher prayed over it. You cannot make this hypocrisy up. Mark Burns is the same Trump surrogate who was publicly exposed by CNN’s Victor Blackwell for lying about multiple parts of his biography. He falsely claimed military service in the Army Reserve when records showed he did not. He falsely claimed to have earned a degree from North Greenville University that he never completed. He falsely claimed membership in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., then stumbled through excuses when confronted on national television. Burns later admitted he lied about his background. (Hip-Hop Wired) Yet this same man now stands before a golden statue of Trump conducting a dedication ceremony alongside MAGA evangelicals who claim to defend Christianity while openly practicing political idolatry. This is Exodus 32 in real time. MAGA is a racist movement that wraps itself in the cross while bowing at the feet of a demagogue. It calls Black liberation theology idolatrous while literally praying over a golden image. It condemns Black pastors for speaking against racism, voter suppression, police violence, and white supremacy but has no problem exalting Trump like a messianic figure. This is not Christianity. This is white evangelical nationalism dressed up in religion. And Black preachers who participate in it are not prophets, they are puppets.

America is a racist, white supremacist nation. Always has been! twitter.com/i/spaces/1DGLd…

Black maga didn’t just cast a vote. They cast a vote against their own people. They voted for the purging of Black leadership from high-ranking government positions. They voted for Black women to lose federal jobs and opportunities their ancestors fought to open. They voted for the criminalization and mass targeting of Black and Brown immigrants. They voted for the dismantling of the Department of Education while our children are already under attack educationally. They voted for the rollback of civil rights protections and the continued gutting of the Voting Rights Act. They voted for maps designed to dilute Black voting power and eliminate congressional districts represented by Black voices. They voted for the erasure of Black history, as though our struggle and contributions are something to be hidden in shame. They voted for a political culture that excuses corruption, cruelty, racism, authoritarianism, and the protection of pedophiles and predators. They voted for white supremacy, white domination, and Black subjugation and dehumanization. And the tragedy is this: our ancestors marched, bled, prayed, fought, were beaten, jailed, and murdered to move us forward, while some among us willingly voted to drag us backward toward the very Jim Crow systems they struggled to destroy. History will remember that in a moment when Black people were under coordinated attack politically, economically, educationally, and socially, some people still chose proximity to whiteness over solidarity with their own community. We must never let them forget what they did. They should never be invited back to the cookout again. They should be shunned, excommunicated, shut out, canceled, ostracized, dismissed, and shamed.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. But the real question is this: What exactly should America be praying for? A nation where racism is no longer whispered but openly normalized
 A nation erasing Black history while pretending truth is dangerous
 A nation targeting marginalized communities while wrapping cruelty in patriotism and religion
 A nation flirting with fascism, authoritarianism, and the dismantling of democracy itself
 A nation redrawing congressional maps to dilute and erase Black political representation, dragging us backward toward the days of Jim Crow America does not merely need ceremonial prayer. America needs repentance. It needs moral courage. It needs justice. Because prayer without truth is performance, and prayer without justice is hypocrisy.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told America a truth that many still refuse to confront, “the vast majority of White Americans are racists, either consciously or subconsciously.” Nearly 60 years later, America is proving him right all over again. The same nation that now sanitizes King into a harmless dreamer is actively working to erase the very civil rights gains he bled and died for. Voting rights are under attack. DEI is being dismantled. Black history is being erased from classrooms. Books are being banned. Protest is being criminalized. And the clock is being turned backward toward the very era many now call “great.” They love the quotes about peace and unity, but reject the King who condemned white moderates, systemic racism, economic injustice, militarism, and white supremacy. They celebrate the man while betraying the movement. Dr. King wasn’t killed because he preached love. He was killed because he challenged America’s racism, hypocrisy, and power structures. And nearly six decades later, those same structures are fighting to survive by dragging this country back to a time Black people were expected to know their place.

Gerrymandering has always been a tool of white political power in America. Don’t fall for the false narrative that the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana vs Callais was about stopping discrimination against white voters. Sadly, we have Black preachers out here justifying the weakening of the Voting Rights Act and parroting these white supremacist talking points.  The very word ‘gerrymandering’ comes from an 1812 scheme designed by white politicians to manipulate district lines for political advantage. In the South, after Reconstruction and especially after Black people gained voting protections through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, white lawmakers weaponized the practice to dilute Black political power, fracture Black communities into majority-white districts, and preserve white control even when Black citizens made up large portions of the population. That is the actual history. White politicians drew maps to make sure Black votes carried less weight. They packed Black voters into a handful of districts or split them apart across multiple districts so Black communities could not elect candidates of their choice. Gerrymandering worked hand in hand with literacy tests, poll taxes, racial terror, voter intimidation, and Jim Crow segregation. Which is why the Louisiana v. Callais decision matters. The case exists because Louisiana’s congressional map minimized Black representation in a state where Black people make up nearly one-third of the population. The issue was not Black people trying to “take white seats.” The issue was whether Black voters would have a fair opportunity to elect representation proportionate to their population and protected under the Voting Rights Act. MAGA Black preachers pushing a white supremacist revisionist narrative that Black people were somehow “gerrymandering white people out of seats” is historically ignorant and politically embarrassing. It is house knee grow energy on steroids. For most of American history, Black people were not even allowed full participation in the democratic process, much less control over district maps. The same people who ignored or defended decades of racial gerrymandering against Black communities are suddenly pretending to care about fairness only when Black voters begin challenging white political monopoly. That is not principle. That is propaganda dressed up as patriotism. And too many people are repeating it without knowing the history or deliberately lying about it.

This is what it looks like when racism puts on a suit and calls itself leadership. Donald Trump, wielding the power of the presidency, used language that has historically been used to criminalize and dehumanize Black men, and aimed it at Hakeem Jeffries, a duly elected member of Congress. Calling a Black man a thug is not accidental. It is intentional. It is coded. It is rooted in a long, ugly tradition of justifying discrimination, violence, and exclusion. And it is coming from the same man who incited a mob, celebrated brutality, and now wants to pretend he is the moral authority on law and order. Let’s deal in facts. One man has been convicted of 34 felonies. One man has openly praised violence and encouraged it against protesters. One man tear-gassed peaceful citizens for a photo op. One man talks about using the machinery of government to punish his enemies. That is not leadership. That is authoritarianism dressed up in a flag. So the question isn’t who is the thug. The record answers that clearly. What we are witnessing is not strength. It is insecurity. It is the desperation of a man who cannot win on ideas, so he defaults to insults rooted in race and division. It is the oldest playbook in American politics, and it is as tired as it is dangerous. This moment demands clarity. The presidency is not a platform for racial slurs disguised as political critique. It is not a stage for grievance and vengeance. And it certainly is not a shield for behavior that would disqualify anyone else from public trust. If this is what leadership looks like, then the nation is not being led. It is being dragged backward. History is watching. And it is not confused about who is diminishing the office, degrading the discourse, and dishonoring the country.

Hey @TheFederalist1 I SAID WHAT I SAID! Before I take it back, I’ll add more to it! 

Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. The question is not whether the church will pray, but what the church will pray for. Will you pray for comfort, or for conviction? Will you pray for power, or for justice? Will you pray for your preferences, or for God’s righteousness? Because prayer, in Scripture, was never a performance. It was a confrontation. When Amos cried out, he didn’t ask God to bless a corrupt nation, he said let justice roll down like waters. When Isaiah spoke, he rebuked a people who prayed loudly but oppressed the vulnerable quietly. When Jesus Christ taught us to pray, he did not say protect our power, he said Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So what will you be praying for? What God will you be praying to? The God of the Bible or the god of white Christian nationalism?  Will you pray while ignoring the racial animus that poisons this nation? Will you bow your head while Black history is erased and truth is rewritten? Will you lift your hands while civil rights are dismantled piece by piece? Will you say amen while those who abuse children are protected and survivors are silenced? Will you whisper prayers for peace while justifying genocide and cheering war? Will you call on God while defending a president who glorifies violence and celebrates the death of his enemies? Or will you finally pray like the prophets prayed? Pray against racism, not around it. Pray against fascism, not in silence about it. Pray against authoritarianism, not in partnership with it. Pray for the oppressed, not just for the powerful. Pray for truth, even when it disrupts your comfort. Pray for justice, even when it costs you something. Because the God you claim to serve is not impressed with empty rituals wrapped in patriotic language. God is not moved by prayers that ignore injustice and protect oppression. God does not bless hypocrisy dressed up as holiness. The question is not whether America will have a National Day of Prayer, the question is whether the church will have the courage to pray prayers that God will actually hear.

White people are out here white peopleing. The ink isn’t even dry on the Supreme Court’s decision, and their response is exactly what history warned us about. The moment protections were weakened, the rush to redraw maps and dilute Black voting power exposed the truth, these laws were never “outdated,” they were inconvenient to those who have always feared the Black vote. This is not new behavior, it’s a continuation. The same impulse that needed to be restrained in 1965 is alive and active in 2026, just dressed in legal language instead of white hoods. Every attempt to undermine our vote proves why the Voting Rights Act was necessary in the first place, and why the fight to protect it is far from over.

MLK gave his life so Black Americans could have the right to vote. White people quoting MLK to justify gutting the VRA is diabolical.

White Americans in 2026 are every bit as racist as their predecessors were 1n 1960. They love quoting Martin Luther King Jr. when it’s safe, sanitized, and stripped of its sting. They post his lines about unity, peace, dreams, and being judged by the content of your character, while ignoring that the fact that King was arrested, surveilled, hated, and ultimately killed for confronting the very systems they now defend. They celebrate his words but reject his work. Because the same movement that marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, facing clubs, tear gas, and bloodshed, forced this nation to pass the Voting Rights Act. And now, as that very law is being dismantled piece by piece, the same people quoting King are applauding the rollback. They praise the man while betraying the mission. They honor the quote while opposing the cause. They invoke Selma but side with the forces that made Selma necessary. The racism didn’t disappear, it just learned how to dress itself in court opinions and talking points. In 2026 it’s no different in substance than it was in the 1960s. The hypocrisy is as clear as ever. They don’t want King the agitator, they want King the ornament. We must now summon the strength of our ancestors, lean on the God of our weary years, and continue the fight they started, because quitting was never an option, and freedom has never been given, only won.

Let’s put this dishonest “double standard” argument to rest once and for all. Blackface is not harmless imitation, it is rooted in a long, ugly history of minstrel shows where white performers caricatured Black people as lazy, ignorant, criminal, and subhuman to justify slavery, segregation, and systemic oppression. It wasn’t just offensive, it was a tool used to normalize white supremacy and shape how Black people were treated in real life. There is no equivalent history where Black people used “white face” to dominate, dehumanize, or oppress white people. There is no history of laws, policies, or violence reinforced by caricatures of white inferiority. So no, a white person adorning Blackface it is not the same as a Black comedian cosplaying a white woman. That’s not a double standard, that’s the difference between oppression and satire, between punching down and punching up, between racism and comedy. Calling that hypocrisy isn’t insight, it’s gaslighting. You don’t get to ignore history, erase power dynamics, and then pretend the two are equal. Miss me with the false equivalence.

Erika Kirk stood before the world and declared forgiveness for Tyler Robinson, the young white MAGA man who murdered her husband Charlie, but she wants to lynch Druski, a Black man, for making a skit. Make it make sense.

Let’s call this what it is, it’s not just hypocrisy, it’s moral fraud. Franklin Graham had no problem demonizing Barack Obama, a faithful husband, scandal-free, disciplined, educated, Black man, the very embodiment of the “bootstraps” gospel white evangelicals preach about, as some kind of threat, even suggesting that he was antichrist. Yet, the same Graham bows in reverence to Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist, convicted felon, unrepentant racist, porn star banging, pathological liar, with a trail of infidelity, exploitation, documented racism, and associations with convicted child sex traffickers, and has the caucasity to call him “raised up by God.” That’s not discernment, that’s deception, dishonesty, and disregard for the sacred text he claims to believe. The standard didn’t change, the subject did. Obama’s integrity was dismissed because he was Black. Trump’s corruption is sanctified because he is white and politically useful. Graham isn’t applying scripture, he’s weaponizing it. He ignores sin when it serves power, then quotes the Bible to justify the very wickedness it condemns. That’s not Christianity, that’s idolatry of whiteness, wrapped in religious language and draped in a flag.  This is hypocrisy at its highest level: Calling evil good when it benefits you, and calling good evil when it threatens your power. And then having the audacity to say God said it.