good evening welcome to education in our community i am your host reverend robert dale make nine and we are privileged to have as our guest the highly st man distinguish author and with him is his public relation person mr sylvester burroughs we're going to introduce his book to you our audience first i want to be introduced to the book we will allow brother can live up to introduce it if you will hold that book for brother sylvester and the title of your book is mine  controversy or acted in terms of academics also culturally title for your book it has been the subject of much discussion recently i heard the author and egyptologists and psychologists are the now eem akbar say that this word has no value no dignity at all and should never be mentioned we also know that a few years ago the reverend jesse jackson and others and sister oprah winfrey went public in terms of all of our very entertaining years asked in them to refrain from the usage of this word we know that the history of the word was to complete that process of dehumanization of african people so without sharing with the audience any kind tax of your book we will you share with us what was your inspiration for writing this book well first of all as a relates to the word itself it is found in the by the t title the word name herb you know in this word is found in the bible correct and acts chapter thirteen and in verse one it mentions a person there by the name of simon yeah hole is call niger not a niger is of course a corruption of the actual word because there is no in the original language or in the greek or hebrew languages or the ancient languages j is a recent phenomenon as well as the phonetic pronounce the ation of j so  the greek of which the new testament was written the word is in the g e r and it is pronounced name and so it is a word that is found in the bible first of all at a federal level and getting an up close view of the devastation of the pain that exists in the black community and began to ask questions why and it was there that mr s brooks gave me a book and two thousand and seven as i pondered this question that kind of started me on the road to finding the answer to our pain and  we are suffering what it we done to a fenian the most high i raise the question beyond the courts and beyond the personages in politics education and humanists to sions of short look at this word it is my belief that the definition and etymology of the word cannot be defined in the west because it did not have its origin in the west yet it has its roots and africa and it has its roots and the east eastern world where it was not used in a pejorative sense or in a negative sense so that one of the reason i chose the subtitle is that before we can began the healing process of the womb that this word has created in the hands of those who made it put georgia and made it negative made it an epitaph as a weapon we must stripped that definition of his power by restoring this word to the people to home it belongs and once was to define royalty and divinity you step ahead of me i was going to say that one of my colleagues in african studies and around the community college the transition from one wrong t to one of the aggravation do you cover any of that in your book of course i do original usage of the we're of course we do egypt which was a sacred in g r there are no volumes there are no vials and and those ancient f a bit systems so when you look at the word it was in g r and it's the mother of words it's it's it was a it was a title of honor and respect that they used to address the pharaohs and even to the day and ethiopia the time new g of india of the indus valley this word seven thousand years before christ nine thousand years ago this word was not used in a negative way but it was used to designate a very special people who had a very special gift my rose yes come in well i think it's you know the bible also says that you must know yourself know the so and i think this lays a perfect foundation for get of the king tried to intercede in tell them you cannot use that word for the people that you're going to reduce to slavery simply because or memory some of them know that the original meaning of this word was not negative and they would take it to remind them of who they are where you are trying to strip them of their identity actually you're really in forcing their positive identity that is a good time in county any of this in your research for this book exactly because d n a has a unique property to retain memory not only physiological memory so that one looks all resembles his ancestors or her it also carries with it now we're understanding through research that d n a also carries psychological as well as emotional and spiritual memory that are locked in so one of the reasons that you besides  biblical here and not being able to dispense with it on a biblical basis because there's a prohibition of adding or taking from the bible any jot or tittle yeah you destroy the hope but also because it strikes against the very element of our existence because it's into woven in our d n a yeah and one of the reasons it cannot be extracted from our younger generation indigo and generation x millennial babies and those that choose to use it in this hip hop quote unquote culture you cannot remove that to remove that would be removing the essence of who they are and who we are and so you find subsequently  question to demoralize and pseudo speciate and to subjugate a people for the purposes of exploitation of their gifts their talents abilities and resources so that the other group of the dominate group quote unquote so call could press the minority group so in order to do that they use this word as a weapon so i think that this weapon now with this information that we have provided turns the gun in the other direction and not necessarily in the direction of our princes because we as believers we are called up on to maintain a spirit of forgiveness but at least the weapon is turned away from the wall and so i say something very controversial here and i see it was sensitive i say with the understanding that what i'm about to say is controversial and it hurt but i think that white browns yellow and red should all be able to use the word so when i hear rush limbaugh say say that he thinks stead white shoes be able to use the word as well as blacks of blacks are going to use it i say amen to rush limbaugh yes but you use this word now with another etymology and another definition now again you step ahead of me how can we reclaim this word in its original no usage and as it was transformed into the negative bring it back into the positive language is always going through transition change and you think that there is some way we can give this word return this word to the context of its original definition its original meaning i believe just as the children of africa who went through the the devastation the tragedy that hit and occurred in africa the holocaust of you the kidnapping i believe that just as we were kidnapped some of us and brought to the americas i believe that as we see restoration and we seek identity we now have an identity that is false that has been assigned to us and so far as i know we are the only group of people in the world with an assigned identity that is false that has been given to us by another group or another nation of people and we don't question it that's painful i believe that just as we were kidnapped this word was kidnapped just as we were made subject to a new definition when you start thinking in terms of behavior and slavery slavery is not only just chattel slavery slavery can be psychological and emotional as well as spirit and our own are to break the chains and to become free a restoration of this word along with us this word to mean begins the restoration process of restoring us to root  tree without roots without a foundation produces no fruit yet no root no fruit no foundation no friday no trusses no no dwelling place so once the people who have been removed from their identity removed from their culture their history and their heritage they must be restored so this word to answer your question i hope i am must be restored to this ontological meaning so that we as a people to whom it belongs can experience our reason d'etre a very reason for being in the first that's excellent because who are physical chattel slavery bondage than it is from psychological bandage because to leave california and go to new york and go back to the motherland you carry yourself with  you you carry your psyche with you in so you can just be as much but be in as much bundle in africa with the same mentality exe are as you are in mississippi one of the centers of violence due in that period of time and up until recently and so how do we began to change the psyche in reference to this word or the africans  a seminar there and we had a multicultural a congregation that was a little girl their name ariana and she's about seven years of age or so and we talked this and she she experienced something in our school where one of the little classmates of her little occasion girl called her a nigger and she and response after hearing us teach  several nights see to the young girl she said thank you she said i didn't know that you knew i was rolled and i was a queen yeah so right away the word has impact the psyche of this seven year want to make if you know the truth the truth will make you free i heard it at think it's called is somewhere in a good book you and john chapter eight verse thirty two year and notice what is the as in verse thirty three they answered and say and unto him they said we are abraham's children we have not been in bondage stay anywhere immediately true and liberation are tied in marriage together and those two concepts troop and liberation are tied to identity and to it some kind of lineage or history abraham and ancestor so as long as black people do not know th ancestral history and heritage here's what happens any group can superimpose any culture on you they want to well any set of beliefs and values and control your behavior it is only when you know your own culture your own values and beliefs that v n and only then can you become the master of your behavior so the behavioral problems that we have in america education can't fix it in a sense money can't fix it i read this morning from one of the articles about dr kane and dr king  has become the vin official heirs of the movement but the very people from home dr king belong or an african american group or black group i don't like using that word african american because they're countries in africa and the people that are sad that name african american we were something else before we had and so i don't like using that because that seems to me to leave me out there no man's land but he said that dr king would be somewhat upset to think that now every group in america is the beneficiary except the group that he belong to the black group and  that we're using his name to promote all kinds of things now i don't think dr king would have been happy would be happy now if he were here i don't think this is personal i did want to talk about the king and that in january the fifteenth  we acknowledge his date of birth but dowsett want to talk about how we were going to get this information out but before we do that you had no mention the fact is signing people a nun the culture and again in history now we're breaking the chains of psychological slavery not the nine akbar say is that if you want to yes of people to control people you do not need the military all you need to do is to take away their culture and give them an alien culture and you will automatically be able to oppress them from generation to generation so there is some consensus there with your opinion in the phrase black because of his history with the nation of islam the black man but then once he left the nation of the it's law he started his organization the organization of afro american unity and so consequently we adapt at the term at fro america we start being negro we african americans and then there was a cultural difference with other groups and some say they prefer the term black but both for them since chance the williams of with a place of origin and i believe we are approaching the end of a program and so we have to agree to come back we cannot just leave the audience hanging in the middle mr brooks i understand that beginning in this coming semester and married and laney college is this book is going to be used in some of the classes  in african american studies how else can our audience taint access to the information in this book in other words if they want to run out after the show in purchase this book work can they go well i would recommend that they go to markets bookstore and market located leave on thursday night in martin luther king way thirty nine hundred there nine hundred and where we up and and several different show is on the market it is a valid book i haven't read it thoroughly i've gone through in given it a cursory overview i highly recommend it and i want to invite you back again when i'm asked sir and his p r person returns because we did not have an opportunity i have a couple of pages mark that i wanted to ask you questions about and so next time we want to talk about this the fix of the book and so thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule to stop by and share with us on education in our community and so until next time i am the reverend robert  bidding you so long until there