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To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified “Revolutionary Optimism” as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Revolutionary Optimism is itself an infectious, contagious, self-created way of living and connecting with others on the path of love. Once you commit yourself as a Revolutionary Optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, #unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace, always keeping love at the center.
Voiceover - 00:00:03:
Welcome to Revolutionary Optimism. Living at this time in history, we are challenged with a convergence of crises that is affecting our daily lives. Issues like economic hardship, a teetering democracy, and the worsening climate emergency have left many Americans feeling more despair than ever. To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian, and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified Revolutionary Optimism as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Once you commit yourself as a revolutionary optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, hashtag unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace. On this podcast, Dr. Paul Zeitz is working to provide you with perspectives from leaders fighting for equity, justice, and peace on their strategies, insights, and tools for overcoming adversity and driving forward revolutionary transformation with unbridled optimism and real-world pragmatism. In this episode, Dr. Paul Zeitz is talking with Lisa Sharon Harper, a renowned author, speaker, and activist whose work centers on the intersection of faith and justice. Through her influential books, The Very Good Gospel, How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right, and Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World--and How to Repair It All, and her role as founder of Freedom Road, Lisa inspires audiences worldwide to engage in the pursuit of racial reconciliation and gender equality. Her dynamic leadership and impassioned advocacy serve as a beacon of hope, challenging us to confront injustice and strive for a more equitable world. Here's your host, Dr. Paul Zeitz.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:01:41:
Hey, Lisa, thank you so much for joining the podcast. It's such an honor to have you here. We're so grateful.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:01:48:
It's really awesome to be here, Paul. I am excited for this project of yours, for this book. Absolutely honored that you took time to interview me and that I get to be even a small part of it. So thanks for having me on.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:02:04:
Oh, awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. We're launching Revolutionary Optimism on May 1st. It's available on Amazon and soon in independent bookstores. And yeah, it was a labor of love working on this book. But one of the most fun parts was like creating Step 5. Which is called Imagineering. And you got to share your story there. So I'd love to offer my listeners your view of your journey. You know, what is your journey on racial equity and liberation theology? And, you know, we can go on from there after you give us a little bit of an intro.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:02:42:
Well, I mean, I think that, I mean, I come to this space of justice doing, justice building from the faith world. And I came from, honestly, I did a pilgrimage back in 2003 that absolutely changed my life. And so I think that pilgrimage is one of the most powerful, transformative experiences that we could possibly engage in our lifetime. Even more so than just moving to a place and like living there. Because on a pilgrimage, you have, you are guided through the story of a people and connected with the right people to talk to, God willing, on that journey. So I took a pilgrimage through the stories of the Cherokee Trail of Tears and the African experience in America. It was a one-month pilgrimage in a bus with like 25 other people and got to the end of that summer. And was really challenged because my faith construct had an idea of of the gospel, of the good news, right? For me, Jesus is big and all that stuff. And so the gospel was that Jesus had died to pay the penalty for my sins, right? But that didn't work when I put that, when I imagined myself putting that. That's good news to my third great-grandmother, who was enslaved. And likely a breeder, likely somebody who was forced to breed money for her master. Hello. And I imagine myself going up to her, Leah Ballard, and saying, great, great, great grandma Leah, I have good news for you. Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:04:27:
It doesn't work, right?
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:04:28:
It doesn't work. It doesn't work. So that led me to like a year of depression because, you know, as a Christian whose life was centered around this idea of the gospel, because I was in ministry at the time, you know, I just thought, well, gosh, if my third great-grandmother would not receive this as good news, then what am I doing here, right? So that led me to 13 years of exploring this biblical concept of shalom. And it's that biblical concept of shalom, right, from the Hebrew tradition.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:05:02:
You probably know a lot more about it than I do. I've not studied it for 13 years.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:05:06:
Well, let me tell you.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:05:07:
I look forward, yeah. So share your wisdom now and always.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:05:11:
Well, I mean, I'll tell you, it actually has a lot to do with the work that you're doing, this revolutionary love, this unified revolution, because when you go to the first page of the whole Bible. And that's where you get Genesis 1. And in Genesis 1, it is this epic Hebrew poem. And it repeats the word good seven times. And on the last time, it says very good. In fact, the words there are tov for good and me'od is very, right? So tov me'od. On the last day, you know, God looks around and says, yo, this is very good. This is tov me'od.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:05:47:
Not bad, right?
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:05:49:
Right? Not bad. But the thing is, is that those words that word Tov does not get this. This changed everything for me. It does not, is not referring to the thing itself. That Tov is not saying, that's a really good walrus I just made. Or really beautiful, even a beautiful cloud. What it's saying, Tov lives between things.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:06:19:
Space between.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:06:20:
The space between. It's the connectivity. It's the thing that it is the goodness that God referred to on that last day was saying that all things were radically connected. That's what God declared was very good.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:06:37:
That's revelatory. Yes. Thank you for sharing.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:06:40:
Wasn't it? I mean, it was for me. So that, my friend, is what led me eventually about, let's see, that happened in 2003 when I started to have that inkling of what this was. I wrote the book, The Very Good Gospel, in 2016, and that was about three years after Ferguson. So Ferguson, well, no, no, no, I'm sorry. That was two years after Ferguson. Ferguson was 2014. And in Ferguson, that's where the story that I shared with you in the book took place, right? And why? So why did I go to Ferguson? Because I knew that we needed to be reconnected. We were fragmented. We were being held apart from each other, actually, by different forces in our society. And it was so clear when we began to see the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. That's when I decided I'm going. And I was invited to go by PICO. It's formerly PICO now, now known as Faith in Action. And at the same time, I was a member, not a member, I was working for Sojourners at the time, a faith-rooted organization that's based in D.C. And they sent me, and my sense at the time, and it ended up being true, was that my call was to create a bridge. I was going to help create a bridge between the multi-ethnic church community in greater St. Louis and the Black, wasn't even called the Black Lives Matter movement at the time, it was called the Hands Up, Don't Shoot movement, but between that movement and the multi-ethnic church movement. And that's really what we did. And so the story that I shared with you came about one month after the death of Michael Brown. The people who had been on the ground during that first month after his death, who were marching in circles on Florissant Avenue and meeting in churches near Canfield Avenue, you know, where he was assassinated, really, where he was murdered by that police officer. They all came back. People came back a month later and organized a march. And that march started at a church and went just a couple of blocks away, maybe even just one block, but it was not far to the Ferguson Police Department. And our ask, our demand was simply to talk with the police department head. Can we just have a conversation? Can we have a conversation? I'm not sure if it was the commissioner or the sheriff or whatever, but it was the head, the guy in charge. And he did not make himself available. But the action had a twofold opportunity for repentance. Why? Because the goal is reconnection. And the fundamental belief is that even they, even these officers who have been firing on protesters and clergy who were protesting, by the way, a lot of clergy out there. Getting fired on by rubber bullets and such. Even they are human. Meaning they have the ability to repent. They have the ability to have soft hearts. They have the ability to have empathy. They have the ability to turn from their ways. And so we gave them an opportunity. We did it in two waves. The first wave was non-clergy. I was in that group. And the non-clergy approached the police, and we shared with them stories that we had heard while marching over the course of that last week, or if we were from the community, which many of us were, the stories we know of young people who have had interactions with the Ferguson Police Department. And just ask them to listen. Listening is the first step of reconnection. Listening. And then the next wave was the wave of clergy. And they went forward, and they went to the same officers that we went to who were all standing in a line with their batons out and their guns, you know, on their sides. And they offered them the opportunity to repent. To confess? To confess, in fact, the language that we use to confess. Their complicity with an unjust system. And to repent, to vow to repent, and to vow to move within their department for departmental repentance. And none of them, none of them confessed or repented, but one of, actually a couple of them wept. One out loud, wet. And do you know that the following month or whenever, maybe in the not too distant future from there, the FBI report came out about the Ferguson Police Department and some of the officers that we were talking to that day. Were actually exposed in that report as having sent between them incredibly racist emails. And with intent to use the black community within Ferguson in order to really to keep the lights on in City Hall there in Ferguson. They were using the traffic tickets that they would give out for people just, you know, basically walking while black, driving while black in order to get more money for the city. So they could have repented, but they didn't. But that action still stands in my mind as one of the most holy moments in my whole life, because it was a moment, a moment of direct confrontation with the powers. In a way that offered them an opportunity to change, to turn.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:12:40:
Yeah.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:12:41:
And it changed us.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:12:42:
Thank you for sharing that. That is so powerful. It's like. Hearing you share it now is really touching my heart. I personally just returned from a civil rights learning pilgrimage with a living legacy project to Alabama. Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma. Your experience in Ferguson is a link to the legacy of faith-initiated folks that saw the interconnection, that saw that we could. And it was healable.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:13:12:
Yes.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:13:13:
And, you know, loving your, Martin Luther King taught, love your enemy.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:13:16:
That's right.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:13:17:
And befriend your enemy. And like you're saying, that's a healing opportunity. This is like, we're not trying to prove right or wrong. We're trying to join forces on healing, unifying for healing and repentance. And, you know, it might be hard to be confronted on the street and repent right there. I mean, you know, people need their own safe space. But, you know, I certainly think that you created a, you know, an opportunity for a wake-up call. For them to deal with. If they were crying there, that shows that it worked right away. So that was one of your big moments. But in the book, we go fast forward where you and I met in 20 after George Floyd was murdered. There was the birthing of national movements on radical reparations and radical truth telling. You played a big role in that. And we had another moment where it was an auspicious moment. So can you give us your I know you have your book Fortune right over your shoulder. I want you to picture book and because that was linked to that.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:14:18:
Yes, that's right.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:14:18:
Remember, you were rolling it out and you use that as an opportunity for movement building. And it was like, I got to be part of it and experience it and witness it. And your leadership was deeply inspiring. So can you share that story for a bit? And then I do want to get on to Israel and Palestine.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:14:37:
Oh, absolutely. Well, I'm loving this convo. So, you know, so Dr. Paul, one of the things that I was so grateful for your participation and your openness back in early 2022 when Fortune came out, they really couldn't have happened in a lot of ways. We couldn't have, you know, used this as a movement building opportunity had the leaders of the movement, particularly the movements around truth telling and reparation, not said yes. And you were one of those key people who said yes. So thank you for that. What we did was we leveraged the launch of the book Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World--and How to Repair It All, which traces 10 generations of my own family's story 10. Going back to 1682, having interfaced with the very first race laws. The second, well, the first race laws in Maryland, which were the second race laws ever on this land. And those race laws forever changed the course of my family's story. And in the book, we talk about, at the end of the book, the last part of the book is essays on what it will take to repair what has been broken by these constructs called race. And the first one is truth-telling, which you are deeply, you were part of the Truth Commission movement and TRHT movement. And then there's the reparations, which is the second thing that's necessary for repair. And so you had connection, thank God, with the reparations movement. So I started to talk with these movement leaders about how can we leverage the book? I'd like to leverage the book for the betterment of the movement. And I was made aware that there was a division within the movement at that time. There was a sense of which is going to go first in Congress and kind of jockeying in that way and people not really listening, quite honestly, to each other. More just like, we're kind of talking past each other, right? Like just trying to get that first spot. Thankfully, you and others organized a possibility.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:16:46:
Let's shout out the others because it's like it was Marcus.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:16:49:
Yeah, Marcus Hunter.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:16:50:
Who we've had on the podcast. Gail Christopher was involved. Kenneth Henry was very involved.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:16:56:
Oh, my goodness.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:16:57:
Greeson Heath. Greeson's also been on the podcast. Ron Daniels was involved.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:01:
Yes.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:02:
There were a lot of players who we appreciate and we respect. And then I just think it's important to shout out these people.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:10:
Oh, absolutely.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:10:
And Adam Taylor and Terrence McKinley from the face side. So it was a confluence moment of sorts that you were able to create that confluence. So over to you, sorry.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:22:
I'm not sure I created it, but I certainly was grateful for it. I mean, it was pretty amazing. And so, you know, really, it was just a series.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:28:
You catalyzed it.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:29:
Okay.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:30:
I think you catalyzed it, yeah.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:31:
Okay.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:32:
We had been working in this system together for 18 months.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:35:
Wow.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:36:
And it was a tense time, honestly.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:39:
Wow.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:40:
And many of us wanted repair and connection.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:42:
Yeah.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:43:
And you came in with this fortune and we're like, yes, let's go, Lisa. You understood. And magic happens. So go for it.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:17:51:
I honestly think it was really just about applying the principles of the book. And I just remember us having several different Zoom calls. Where we listened. I mean, it really was. It was just, let's just listen to each other. And I remember the one with you and Kenneth. And then I remember the one with me and Ron, and one with me, Ron, and Dr. Christopher. I mean, and that was actually, we ended up making that into a podcast conversation. And it was just incredible. So the outcome of that was that we got 85 events over the course of that one month where people, especially people of faith, were talking about the question of reparations. So reparations just kind of went, whew, through the roof in terms of the public conversation. It was like, thank you, God. Yes, that was the goal. That was our goal during this time. But it wasn't enough just to have that. We also had the opportunity to talk with the White House. So the White House actually got us a meeting, well, the White House, a friend. A friend and colleague in the White House got us a meeting with the lead policymakers at the White House in order to push for the possibility of having reparations on the docket for that year. And especially as we were looking at the State of the Union coming up at the end of February that year in 2022, we were asking them to mention it, mention the word, and they didn't. They ended up not mentioning it. But that's, you know what? They listened, they were moved, and I'm sure there were other political things they were responding. But that did not hinder our movement, and that's what really mattered. So we were able to do a press conference where all of us came together in person and also on Zoom. And so we had Representative Sheila Lee Jackson and Barbara Lee or Jackson Lee and Barbara Lee,
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:19:45:
Jackson Lee.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:19:46:
Yeah, Jackson Lee. And it was just incredible. And it was a powerful time to unify. And to begin to create a unified message where we begin to understand truth and reparation are not in competition with each other. Reparation requires truth-telling and truth-seeking and truth-listening, as I talk about in my book. But truth-seeking and listening and telling cannot end there. In order for it to have its full fruit, there must be reparation and repair.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:20:21:
Beautiful. I want to share a quote that you shared with me, and it's in the book, about our experience. You described it as your experience at the White House Zoom call, and I was honored and blessed to be part of that. It was like the best Zoom call I ever experienced. Something was going on. And you described it as such. It felt like God was showing up and uniting us, connecting us, showing the connectedness between all of us within the meeting. It affirmed a deep sense in my soul that love is the tie that binds us all together. Whoa. Lisa, you're a prophetess. And when you said those words, it spoke as my experience. And I couldn't put it in words so eloquently. It was such a moving moment of possibility. We listened to Biden during his campaign, and he said he wanted to heal the soul of America. And he launched a racial equity executive order on day one. And we and the reparations movement were offering executive orders to establish a reparations study commission and moving forward with a truth, racial healing, and transformation commission. They had that in their inboxes in January of 2021, because we had discussed this with them extensively during the transition. And it's four years later, or three and a half years later, and no progress on any of that. And I do think that... Justice-hearted and love-centered activists and Americans have to, you know, we have to hold our leaders accountable for doing the right thing and being bold and courageous about it. And we're just not seeing that from Congress or the White House, from the Democratic or the Republican Party. It's gone nowhere over these four years. I mean, it's gone somewhere. Our movement's building. And just quickly to say, there's an equity march on June 15th in Washington, D.C. And as you've heard on my prior episode with Marcus Hunter, we're inviting people all over the country to have local equity marches. This is a time to rise and show that we stand in solidarity for racial equity and healing and repair and repentance, as Lisa has so envisioned as an imagineer extraordinaire, may it manifest. And that's what imagineering is, having the vision like you shared with us and manifesting it. And this means we have to rise. So this episode will come out. It'll be six weeks until the Equity March. So please, folks, get your plane tickets, get your bus tickets, mobilize and come to Washington on June 15th for the Equity March.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:23:04:
Fabulous.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:23:04:
Sorry, I had to do that commercial.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:23:06:
No, you have to.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:23:07:
Yeah. So Lisa, we had such experiences during that time. And then the world's moved on. And then I think it was in February, I went up to Philadelphia to participate in the Pilgrimage for Peace. I don't know if you can see that over my shoulder. And we were in the Bethel Church there right off of Independence Hall. I'm from Philadelphia. So I have a deep connection to that history there. But I had never been in that church. It was a stellar kickoff event. And then I bumped into you on the march from the Bethel Church to Independence Hall, and it gave me a lot of joy. And I wanted to just thank you for also to acknowledge, for your journey of awakening and awareness, and then like acting on it. Like the thing that distinguishes you is you went to Ferguson, you acted on your vision, and you took a stand. And same again, when you launched Fortune, and the role that you played as a catalyst for unifying, that was like, you acted, you took action. And it was beautiful, graceful, loving, centered. I just want you to hear that from me. And you're having a big influence, a big impact on me and everyone around you. So thank you for your leadership, honestly.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:24:31:
I'm very, very honored. That means a lot to me, especially coming from someone like you, who's also incredibly active. I mean, very much out there and in it, in the work.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:24:43:
And we're together. That's the beauty. Honestly, if I didn't get to connect with people like you, I would lose. You know, hope, honestly. So the Israel-Palestine issue is an issue that is troubling to all of us living on the planet at this time. No one, I think, is happy about what's going on. I was born a Jew and I am certified as a trained, ordained Shir HaShurim rabbi, which is a Song of Songs rabbi. So I've been studying sacred texts from that path. And that's really the path of love. And now it's like you are a leader in like implementing Exodus liberation theology, manifesting that in the world. I'm looking at what's going on in Israel-Palestine right now and wondering... Who's the Pharaoh and who's the oppressed? So can you give us your analysis, if you will, or spiritual analysis or, you know, gospel, very, very good gospel. You know, how is black liberation, you know, the moment that we're in here in the United States, that movement for black liberation, which. We've made progress, but we're not there. We have a lot more to do. So like delivering on that. And how does that relate to the struggle that we're facing with Israel-Palestine? I would love to hear your view on all this.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:26:01:
It is directly connected.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:26:03:
Really? How?
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:26:04:
It is directly connected.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:26:06:
Now, a lot of people don't see that. Please, I want you to understand. Please go slow here. Some of my listeners may not. See that connection. People do not, we were not taught that in school.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:26:18:
I know. I know. And that is intentional. The only way to keep the powers in place, or let's put it this way, the best way to keep the powers in place is to create a narrative where the powers can be invisible. Where you don't see them and you don't know that they're working. But recently there has been a rise in consciousness around the question of colonization. In the mid 20th century, we had an era of decolonization among many, many, many, many, like hundreds of countries that have been colonized, particularly around by European powers, especially England. I mean, England felt it. Have you ever seen an episode of The Crown?
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:27:01:
Yeah.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:27:01:
You know that they felt it, right? Because they're always talking about it, right? n The Crown.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:27:05:
Well, the current royal family was still living off of that money.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:27:09:
Hello. Right. Exactly. I mean, look, they went to Jamaica and they got like really surprised. Like this is not this is not a past issue. We are still living really under the the realm or the the age of colonization. But now we're entering the end of it. This is really right now we're in an era of decolonization. And I think that one of the last things to be decolonized is our minds.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:27:36:
Quote that one, the last thing to decolonize-
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:27:38:
Is our minds.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:27:39:
That's beautiful.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:27:40:
Is the way that we've been taught to think and see the world. And one of the things that we've been taught to think and see, when we think about the world and see the world, we've been taught to see it as it is right and good. And the natural created order for white men to rule, period. That's just reality, right? That goes all the way back to Plato. It literally goes back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato, his dualism, Aristotle's hierarchies of human belonging. He called the barbarians savages. Aristotle said that if you have been conquered, then you have proven that you were created to be a slave. Like, that's what Aristotle said, right? So this is, when we talk, when we teach in high school, when we teach Western civil, actually, we only teach Western civilization. We don't teach African civilization or, you know, Southern, you know, none of that. Indigenous, we don't do that. I mean, if you go to a special school, maybe you get it. But most, especially not in public education, we don't do that. Why don't we do that? Because we are, we have crafted a world in our minds where at the center of the world is white men. Where white men get to, and I know you're like hiding. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's don't do that. It's I'm not, there's no shame here. This is just, in fact, nobody who's listening to this podcast did this. This is just, we all woke up where we're born into this. This is just how it is. But I think that, like I said, the last thing to decolonize is our minds. And I think we're in an age of decolonization. And the reason why is because the demographics are shifting in the world. The demographic has already shifted globally. Globally, the West is a vast minority. The majority world is people of color globally. And In the United States, this is really coming to a major head because in the US, we have a situation where within less than 20 years, we are going to have a majority people of color nation, less than one generation, less than. And that is freaking white men out. And white women, too, who have benefited, who have had a kind of a contract where some of them go along with it, and they benefit from, like, they get the leftovers of the power that white men have, right? As long as they know their place. Them in a place they get, they get to play along, right. But they can't have the top spot. Um, great example of that is Hillary Clinton, right? So I mean, just men were like, no, we're not having a woman. And they figured every reason in the book not to elect her. So the thing that is interesting to me around Gaza is that for 75 years, we've had a narrative that has been uncontested. It's a narrative that at its baseline assumes that colonization is okay. At its baseline, it assumes that the taking of land of a particular people is fine. And it has also assumed, because of the history in Eastern Europe of the pogroms and, of course, the Holocaust and Nazism and America's shameful history, Europe's shameful history around exclusion of Jewish people around the time of the Holocaust, sending them back to Europe to be exterminated. Like insects, even the use of the word extermination is an anti-Semitic word, right? So because, what it does is it places people in the category of insects. Come on, somebody. So when you have a history that is formed out of this story and you live within that story, and you give carte blanche to the nation that is formed, the state that is formed out of that story. Then what you end up doing is you end up having a situation like we have right now, where no matter who becomes the leader of that state, and now we have Netanyahu, who is himself. I mean, he's like the equivalent, I believe. He is a fascist leader. He is not somebody who, you know. Days, weeks before, four weeks, for months before October 7th, his own people were trying to force him from office because he was explicitly trying to dismantle democracy inside of Israel. Israel itself, I don't believe, is a problem. The problem is when we give carte blanche to the government of Israel to do whatever it will do with the weapons that we are given it without any conditions. That assumes, when you have that kind of relationship, what you're doing is you are assuming. Inherent Wellness. Inherent within the government and governance. In other words, that nation can do no wrong. And that means that you are in another way, you are dehumanizing that nation. Israel, people of Jewish descent were dehumanized during the Holocaust. But Israel as a nation is being dehumanized in another way. It's been deified. It's been deified. It's been put on the level of God, as in it can do no wrong.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:33:33:
Acting with impunity.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:33:34:
It acts with impunity. It has been, right? So when you are deified.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:33:40:
I hadn't thought about as deifying it. That's an interesting...
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:33:44:
It has to become human.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:33:45:
I would say that's interesting. The Zionist movement has deified the state of Israel. They've conflated the state of Israel with the philosophy of Zionism. And some of us think that Zionism could be peaceful coexistence, not oppression. Or we don't even have to use the word Zionism. Maybe that experiment failed and we have to find a new way of living and working together. I want to connect the dots here between the Black liberation and the Palestinian liberation. We've touched on colonialism. And in my book, in Unifying, I was really moved by Elizabeth Wilkerson's work on caste. She, like, I had like a realization, you know, while I was writing the book. Reading her books. Seeing her movie, The Origin. And really what it is, is that throughout human history, caste systems evolve through shape-shifting from generation to generation. Creating and recreating oppressive power structures. To protect the greedy at the expense of the many. The good news is that Wilkerson imagines a world without caste. She says... We are all invested in the well-being of our entire species. She says it's time to free ourselves so that everyone can be free. And it's what you said. It's like we have to free our minds. Our minds are living in a... In a kind of narrative reality. That is like, let's put it over here. And look at it objectively, turn the volume down, because it gives me a headache, makes me anxious, makes me hopeless. And like, then we're over here. With a new reality where we have evolved into putting love at the center of our social, economic, and political systems. We do regenerative economics. We do repair and reparations, radical reparations and radical truth-telling at scale. And we do this quickly. So that's where I'm not saying this is going to happen over decades and decades. We have to move fast now because I believe humanity is at a crossroads. Between repeat, and we're on it. We have violent revolutions and destruction and suffering underway. That will just continue to intensify and accelerate under fascism in Israel-Palestine. We have a fascist threat here. I've heard a member of Congress this week calling the MAGA movement fascist. I hadn't heard that before, overtly calling them out for their racist, fascist approach. We have to stop that now. We can't wait. This is spreading globally, fascism. So it's like we're in a moment of opportunity. So how do you see this moment? How do you see the year ahead? How do you see the next 18 months? Do you feel the trembling of a peaceful revolution? And how is that manifesting in your world?
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:36:38:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, well, you know, honestly, going back to this question of the connection between the black struggle and the struggle that we're seeing right now in Golden Gaza. To be clear, colonization is the taking of someone's land and resources for the exclusive benefit of that colonizing nation. And that is what happened when people of African descent were stolen from Africa, taken from Africa. Our bodies were exploited for the sole benefit of white men in America. Right. And then you have the same thing that's happening or has happened in Gaza. And in the West Bank and in Palestine. And so it's the same power. It's the same thing. It's the same idea that has given us our two fates. And so we are fighting the same power. In Gaza, we actually see something much worse even than what we have experienced in the African-American experience, believe it or not. They have experienced something that indigenous people in America experienced, which is settler colonization. It's that much more insidious. Whereas colonization just acquires land and extracts the land and the resources, exploits the land for the benefit of the colonizer. Settler colonization says, we cannot live with you on this land. It needs to erase the people who are on the land. And so that is what we are witnessing in Gaza. And that's why I have been so deeply moved to, been activated to move people of faith into action. So, over the last several months, you ask, where am I finding tremors of hope? Throughout the Lenten season, more than 200 cities across the country decided that they were going to, people of faith in these 200 cities, not the country, across the world, across the globe, including every continent, including Antarctica, decided that they were going to do what we called Gaza ceasefire pilgrimages. And that meant that they were walking. And the length of Gaza during the Lenten season, 25 miles, between 20 to 25 miles, depending on how you measure it. We did 20 miles in Philadelphia. We did four miles per day during Holy Week. And we had about 200 people participate in that Gaza ceasefire pilgrimage from start to finish. And 25 clergy and activists who, through a prayerful act of non-violent disobedience. We're arrested on Good Friday and said at Lockheed Martin, said if you're going to send bombs to incinerate children in our name, we're using tax dyers. You're going to have to go through us to do it. And so we knelt down and we, we prayed the Lord's prayer and it wasn't only Christians who did it. Actually, we, we sang and we prayed and we were arrested and it wasn't, we were not the only one. So, what I see is I see a new movement of people whose minds are being decolonized, whose bodies are being activated, especially through this question of what we're seeing in Israel. And I don't think it's anything special about Israel or Gaza. I think it's because at this moment, it's the clearest manifestation of the core issue of colonization. And that is what is galvanizing people to say no more.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:40:16:
Yeah, so I thank you for that. And settler colonization is a distinct. Practice of colonization or thread of, or, you know, pathway for colonization. Very important distinction. Thank you for that. And the way I'm seeing it is that it's, these are the shape-shifted caste systems. You know, we as Jews experienced it with Nazi Germany and gays and other minority groups were, it was white on white.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:40:42:
That's right. That's our shared struggle.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:40:44:
They learned from the history in the United States. They went back to, they went down to Jim Crow in the United States to learn. They just took it to extermination.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:40:53:
Yes, they did.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:40:54:
India has it with people of all dark skin and it's the, it's the hierarchical caste system there. This thing shape-shifts over and over and over again. Yes. So it's the white power structure, the European Jews that run Israel linked to the American military industrial complex and AIPAC, which funds all this policy. The entire U.S. Government policy is written at AIPAC, both in Congress, and in the White House and the State Department and the UN, all this is AIPAC driven. And I'm part of a movement of principled faith leaders, Jews and non-Jews who are saying, we say, every soul, every person is a divine spark. Like let's live under that premise and then, you know, operate from that perspective. And then everything shifts. We're equal at that. We are equal. And let's build a world where, that is the reality and we can live into that right away. I don't want to wait anymore. We can't wait because this is also linked to extractive capitalism. That's a shape-shifted caste system. That's creating the climate emergency. So these are interrelated, the oppression of women and all that's going on around that. The oppression of LGBTQ people, the death penalty was approved by the Supreme Court in Uganda for LGBTQ people.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:42:14:
Yes.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:42:15:
It's all the same. It's caste.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:42:17:
Yes.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:42:18:
You know, and we, we, the majority of humanity, 80, 85%, I believe doesn't want to operate that way.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:42:25:
Yeah. And let me just say real quick that when you look at this through a, through a faith lens, especially the, the Abrahamic traditions, you go back to that very first page of the Bible. The reason why that is, it is so egregious that we could have a caste system at all is that every single human being, according to the first page of the whole Bible is created in the image of God, is created in the image of God. And that means, according to that text, that every single person is created with the call of God and the capacity to exercise agency in the world. And there is nothing, nothing that, that hinders agency faster and more effectively than poverty and oppression. So wherever we see poverty and oppression, we're actually looking at a war against, against the, the, the, the flourishing of the image of God on earth. It becomes a war against God, not just against human beings.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:43:28:
Mm. Wow. So thank you, Lisa. I appreciate you. Your wisdom and your insights have really transform me. I've learned so much from you just on this podcast and through our journey in the past. And I'm so excited about all that is coming forward for us together and our building movements to bring peace forward. So thank you for your leadership and have a great week.
Lisa Sharon Harper - 00:43:54:
Peace to you too. Thanks for having me on, Paul.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:44:04:
Thank you for listening in with my conversation with Lisa Sharon Harper, undoubtedly an amazing Revolutionary Optimist. She truly is the epitome of an imagineer, someone who has bold visions connected to her spirit and her faith. That she then translates into manifesting through books, through teaching, through advocacy and campaigning. And she is a kind of fearless leader who's willing to do direct action, to get arrested, to face police forces. And to stand true to peaceful, love-centered nonviolence as the most effective way to bring about revolutionary transformation in the spirit of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Lisa's a modern manifestation of Martin Luther King's love politics in action in this time that we're living in. Thank you, Lisa, for your leadership, and I hope we can all learn from Lisa and live up to the ideals that she espouses. Thanks, everyone. Have a great week.
Voiceover - 00:45:12:
Are you ready to be part of the revolution? To learn more about Revolutionary Optimism and to get your copy of Revolutionary Optimism, Seven Steps for Living as a Love-Centered Activist, please visit revolutionaryoptimism.com. To get to know Dr. Paul Zeitz, please visit drpaulzeitz.org. And to explore building movements, please visit unifymovements.org. If you like this show, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Revolutionary Optimism, transforming the world one episode at a time.