The Shape of a Circle | Everyday Discipleship
The Shape of a Circle | Everyday Discipleship
172. Compassion & Justice
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This week on The Shape of the Circle, Cami and Brian sit down with Troy Cotton to move past the Sunday school answers and get into the "26-part formula" of systemic reality. Using the prophet Amos as a guide, the team wrestles with the gap between righteousness (equity) and justice (the action required to restore it). From the streets of Milwaukee to the suburbs of Muskego, we’re pulling no punches on why some schools feel like state-of-the-art launchpads while others—literally converted from old jails—still feel like prisons to the kids inside them.
Troy shares the raw, unfiltered reality of "competing with the government," where the system often incentivizes singleness over marriage and punishes promotions with the loss of vital benefits. We explore the heavy conversations about image and safety that "SPF-50" families rarely have to navigate, ultimately looking for the Way of the Cross in a segregated world. This episode is an invitation to stop yelling across the fence and start feeling the "weight of the other side" through a Holy Spirit moment of true compassion.
All right, welcome back to the Shape of the Circle Podcast. I'm Cami and Brian, and today we have Troy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we're excited to be here. See Hands and Troy Cadden. Hands and Troy.
SPEAKER_02:And we are on or in the middle of a series on the practice of compassion. And so we've been talking about um studying the minor prophets, and we've been talking about kind of how does that relate to today in our in our social issues and how do we address things in in today's culture? And so why don't we start with Brian? You give us a little synopsis of Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, we're the book of Amos uh is is the starting point and where it spins really well is into systems. What what what are the systems of justice in our world or the elements of the systems that create the lack thereof? And uh man, it's it's hard to ask a pastor to redo his whole sermon in 60 seconds. Yep. Uh but the gist of it, like if you're gonna pick one chapter, read chapter five. It's just where God via the voice of Amos just goes uncorked of I I meant for this holy nation, this holy people to look out for each other. And I gave you so many versions in writing in the old testament of this is what it meant to love your neighbor as yourself. This should be your social system. And not only didn't they not follow it, uh those in power abuse the power. Um in ways that I can't find super direct parallels for. Like uh you know, if someone was a widow and therefore hard to retain ownership in her name of land, they would find a way to get the land out of the widow's hands and increase their estate, increase increase their income, so on and so forth. Um and then the legal system wouldn't support her trying to just take my stuff. Uh and that was happening to orphans, it was happening to immigrants, and uh all all sorts of different versions of it. Um and just normal ordinary people. Uh the the middle class were just stuck, the lower class were getting poorer, and the rich were getting richer. So that's the summary of Amos. And then we tried to take it over into our world of there's uh systems that create racism, there's systems that create sexism, and there's systems that create breakdowns in family. And if there's any where I try to take a step further in people's understanding is because usually we we kind of get bent out of shape, I think, depending on your background or quite frankly your your your race, you're listening for certain triggers and saying Yeah, but this part's not my fault, and that part is your fault, so I'm upset now. And try to get it out of the simple A plus B equals C instead treat it more like A plus B plus D E F G elemental P Q R S P like all those things combined. Let's let's look at each little part in our systems uh that's create the end product. Let's treat it as complicated as it is. And uh man, you you can go from yeah, I won't even get into what those those letters are. Maybe we will in the course of this talk, but I try to get it out of a two-part formula to more like a twenty-six part formula.
SPEAKER_02:And I think um I listened uh this morning to your sermon and then walked away feeling like, okay, I have a good understanding of what they were saying about righteousness. But that word justice, I think you did you did you did define it. But I would love to like go maybe a little bit further, um, because I I think so often um in our culture today, justice is like tit for tat, right? Like it's like, well, they did this, so this is how they should be held accountable. And so, like, what is the true definition of justice and what are we looking for when we talk about justice?
SPEAKER_07:Okay, real quick, do the the Hebrew version of it. Um Righteousness, at least in the Old Testament, and the word that's being used in Amos was the same thing as equity. It should be equal, regardless of your background, where you're where you're coming from. Um, to Americanize it, there should be some inalienable rights for for all people. Justice then was get up and do something about it. Like, what are you going to do to restore it to rights? What are you gonna do to get to create more equity in this world? Now I ask your question. Yeah. And maybe and ask it to Troy, please.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, Troy, you're in the hat seat. Uh I think I think when people hear the word justice today, it's very much like, well, we have to do justice. We have to hold people accountable to their actions. And there gets to be uh a little bit of, like I said, that tit for tat. Um but almost to the side of like there should I and this is the maybe the the further I went, further than I'm going that I didn't get Brian, but like almost that, like, this is how I feel, and it's still me versus them, and I deserve this, and they deserve that. And so, like, how do we parse out justice in a way that's biblical and in a way that is Jesus focused?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think we have to definitely try to change the image of what justice looks like. Um, growing up in Anders City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, um, I understood that um in order to get try to get equal justice, um, it's certain type of image that I should not have. Um, you're talking about not walking down the street with a hoodie or not looking guilty, um, or making sure that you're talking the proper way, or don't go in this neighborhood, right? It's like certain things that you couldn't do or you shouldn't do in order to not put yourself in that situation because you know once you are in that situation, you won't get the equal uh justice that everybody else gets. So um it's kind of like stay back um the way that I grew up, excuse me, um, in order to uh make sure that I don't put that myself in that situation. Um, overall, I believe the conversation that we're having is um is a conversation that needs to be had all over the world. Um, because at the end of the day, um justice does have a color, um, and it depends on who you are, what color you are, um, depends on what kind of justice you're gonna get in the situation that you are in.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_07:So if uh if if we could be as frank as possible, uh and if if you haven't met Troy and you haven't met us, uh the Brian and Cammy on the podcast are uh we we call us uh SPF 50. Like you got pretty white over here. Uh Troy, I don't think you've ever touched uh sun sunscreen in your life. Never to give you your natural repellent.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, absolutely. Mississippi Black.
SPEAKER_07:Let's just try to put it on the table. Like when you hear the word justice, you as a black person feel white people are wrong, not not righteous, not equitable. So use the the Hebrew definition here. Um what justice would you be looking for a white person to do something about it? And then uh Cami uh Frankly, what do you think white people think about black people? Like it's not right. It's not equitable that black people act like this, and therefore what I'd like them to do about it justly is is blank. This could need to be edited out if uh uh but you know, we we try to do this. Uh let's let's let's see what's really going on in everyone's heads.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I believe on on uh my end, it's just having the real conversation that is a difference, right? We we try to walk around and say, hey, we are equal, we're not. Um I can look at uh North Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Um, as soon as you get past 60th Street, um on North Avenue, you walk into Walatosa. You can tell the difference uh between walking Walatosa as soon as you hit 60th Street, right? There's a difference. They're different in quality, there's different uh in the streets, it's black, it's um the streets don't have no um potholes, uh nice restaurants, all that is different. And when we step into that particular city, you could tell there's a difference in policemen um that makes sure that um their city is safe, right? When we walk around, it's like, okay, what are you doing over here at nine o'clock p.m.? Right? It's just a difference. So I want us to acknowledge the difference, right? Instead of just walking around and saying, hey, no, because uh it was a bug, a burglar uh a year ago, right? And we just want to make sure our our city is safe. No, you're following me around because I'm African-American. I look, I look like you should be fear, you should have fear because I'm around. Um also I believe that we can play a part in that as well. I'm all I'm big on accountability. Um, as African Americans, we have to do better as far as our image in the news and also in our own community. The Bible says, love your neighbor as yourself. Are we really loving our neighbor as African Americans? Are we taking care of ourselves? Are we really uh make sure safety is in our own neighborhood? Are we taking care of our schools? Are we taking care of our kids? Right? I always say this, um, and it still um stays true today. Um, we grew up saying, hey, we gotta be uh either an NBA player or NFL to make it out of the neighborhood that we lived in. But we have to get out. Once we get out, we don't come back. We come back trying to support financially, but we don't live in the neighborhood that we grew up in. That's a problem. But I had some uh white friends, guess what? They still in the house that they lived in when they were six years old. We want to move because of um the safety issues in our community. So we have to do better in order for somebody else to treat us better.
SPEAKER_07:You wanna jump in or should I build on Troy first?
SPEAKER_02:Go ahead. I have thoughts for myself, but I don't have thoughts for him.
SPEAKER_07:This is just me going from my personal perspective, but the the the two issues of equity that bother me most is education and homeownership. I do not like that Milwaukee is more than 50% rental occupied. Like no wonder neighborhoods do that. Renters don't care about their home like a homeowner would. Therefore you don't care about your neighborhood. Like other homeowners would. The quickest way to flip a neighborhood. And any other's education. Your zip code should not determine the quality. You just mess with kids at that point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Well what I want to know is like just on those two that hit my heart pretty hard. Do you feel like that's a is it a white people issue? Is it is it a people in power issue? Is it a majority issue? Do you do you have any sense of blame for the other side, the other race? Or is it no, it's it's just a colorless system that that needs to be fixed. Is is this a race issue?
SPEAKER_01:Uh is a people in power issue. Um the school, the same school that my dad went to at elementary, they haven't updated that school at all. We don't have any air conditioning or heating um in our schools today. Our kids are basically in prison. Um, the school haven't got any updates or anything like that. Our school system is telling our kids this is where you belong. You belong in prison, you belong in jail. Rufus King High School used to be a jail um before they created it into a school. Literally? Yes. And guess what? It still looks like a prison. When you go to the gym, when you go to the gym, um the the stands, the people that sit in there, they upstairs. The court is downstairs. That's where the guards used to be. Right? So everything is created uh for us to feel like we're in prison. There is there's cages and things like that on the windows. You can't break the windows, right? We don't have uh windows in the bathrooms, right? You can't uh a girl can't go in there and say, hey, do I look good, or whatever the case may be, because they're afraid that people will break the glass and use it for weapons. That is a prison. Our books are old, right? The way that we smell. Um, I tell my kids all the time, like, um, when you step into a place, you should feel like you at a better place than you were at home. School should be that place. Instead of I feel like I just want to go home. I don't want to go to school, right? If you if it look like a jail cell, I'm gonna act like an animal, I'm gonna act like it's a jail. And I'm gonna do the things that um is conducive to the environment that I am in. Um, so I I can't stand the school system. I do not like it. I do not like um the attention that's put on it. Um, from the reels, from the memes to uh the videos that goes out of what's going on in the schools. Um I worked in the um MPS school system with the Boys and Girls Club for 10 years, and I can honestly say um that those kids just need love. It's absolutely no education going on in the school system.
SPEAKER_07:And by contrast, uh for your sake, but more for listeners like uh Mosquego High School has had two successful referendums in the last 10 years. It's expanded the arts program, it's uh created some amazing gadgets and tech for the STEM program so that any kid who wants an employable skill upon graduation from high school, they now have it. Um state of the art car lifts that you know so that autos can uh kids can learn that. And uh 60 yards of indoor turf. We can now practice inside so we don't have to get hot on a on a summer day. Um or start playing in spring. So like that's and it's it's I mean the the tough part is it's not a hate issue, it's not a discrimination issue. It's just that our school district can put in front of the the taxpayers of the city would you like to improve your schools so that it therefore improves the value of your home and therefore increases your wealth in the long run. Yes. And the because of the geographical location, people have the opportunity to say yes. I'm I'm guessing Rufus King and its area, like it's why bother with the proposal because people aren't in a position to say yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and we proposed the same thing. I mean, we were the top uh four team in the nation when I was playing at Rufus King. We had a lot to celebrate. We had a lot of people come to our games. It's one of the top schools in the uh city of Milwaukee. Like everybody got to take a test in order to get to Rufus King, right? Like it's the top one, but still, we felt like we was in prison. Yeah, we felt like, hey, this is not a school that I want to grow up in or I want to be in or I want my kids to be in. Like I want to go to Monami Falls, or I want to go here, I want to go to Nicolai, I want to go to these different types of schools. I want to have open lunch. I want to have different things instead of uh a cheeseburger or um a grilled cheese, right? I want nachos, I want different options for lunch, right? So far that we only have one vending machine. Like I want to be able to experience different things in high school, and then I just transfer into the home area. Yeah, right now I go home, we're renting, um, I gotta go upstairs with the groceries. It's just a bad thing. My dad had to work two jobs in order to provide for us. So I hardly saw my dad, right? He worked third shift at Masterlock and then he worked for the school system to be a basketball coach. So he had to do that in order to provide for me. So where do I get a family? Where do I have a dad? When I'm done with school, I'm done with practice, my dad is ready, he's ready to go to work, or he got to take a nap. My mom is out working as well. All that to rent out a space is just too much, and a kid don't experience family at that particular time.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and maybe the, you know, going back to the systemic issues, right? Like now you've been raised in that home, and we've heard stories of you doing the same thing, right? When your kids were younger, and like that, because that's what you knew. That's that's how we provide, that's how we make ends meet. Working two jobs or two jobs and and not, you know, and sleeping the three hours that you get a day, like, and not spend and and nothing. I'm not criticizing. No, that was a couple years ago, right?
SPEAKER_07:Yes, just a hardworking guy who uh was cutting into sleep.
SPEAKER_02:So how do you like that's I think that's where my heart goes is like how do we how do you address those kinds of things that are like ingrained beyond the outside? It's now in the home and it's ingrained in in generational how how kids are growing up, what they're seeing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um, I think how we fix that is to have equality and job opportunities as well for African Americans, especially as men, to go after jobs, especially in skill sets. We go back to the school system, right? Uh when my dad was going to school, they actually had uh trade schools, right? Where you're actually learning a trade. You're learning something in school, right? Uh Bradley Tech, they was known for it was a technical school. You go there because you want to learn tech. Um, I think uh for Wood Chop was Marshall. They took all that out of MPS schools. So now we just get educated. We don't have a trade. So once you graduate, I don't know what to do with my life.
SPEAKER_07:Mosquego swinging the other way. It's all it's all trades, it's like community college.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:You know, by senior year, if we don't have classes that match what your career choice is gonna be, yeah, just leave school early and go start that job.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we used to have that when my dad was growing up. He's 63 now. So it's like, where did that go? Also, now when I graduate, I'm good at a lot of things, I'm not great at nothing. So that's why I gotta get several jobs because my skill set is not to the place where I can get the income I need in order to provide for my family. So I can work at Walmart or I can I can fix cars, but I I'm learning on the go. Right? I I really don't have a trade. It's not nothing that I'm really great at, and I have to learn that. And by learning that, I also know that in the um in the system itself um is promoting singleness for the women. Like that's what the system is for for uh assistant living. Like, hey, I would make sure that the man cannot be in the household because once he comes in the households, since Wisconsin's a maritor state, um, your incomes come together. You're no longer in that system as far as getting assistance from the government. So now men feel like he have to work three jobs in order to provide for his wife and his kids. And that's the situation I was in. My wife Courtina, she was a single mom, great living, um, only had to pay$500 uh for rent because she was getting food stamps, she was great, right? I told her I would need three years to marry her because there's no way making I'm making$30,000 a year I can help you when you're getting about$50 from the government. There's no way. I I just can't, right? So um there's multiple factors.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So it you you're touching on two of the three assumptive white people complaining. I'm not representing all people or not even saying that this is what I'm saying or game is saying. Um but it's just in a in a general standpoint, if a white person is like uncomfortable with black people talking about justice, because here's the part of the equation, the part of the system that I would like to see black people do better. Could be true. It could be looking to hide an excuse. I d I don't know. Like let's let's try to get the emotions out of it for a second. Number one is the hard work. You want better, work harder. That's how it works for everything. That's that's how the world works. Yet you're explaining your household and the household you came from before it um it was not a dual income family, it was a triple income family. Yes between the two married people trying to again. Yes. I feel like that speaks a lot to you, and and yet you still felt that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Number two Um combination of uh welfare, government support um non uh dual dual parent raising kids like Y'all oughta stay married and raise a family. Um why don't you? And I'd you kind of explained it, but I'd like you to go a little bit further because like um I've I've heard you I've heard you you talk talk around this of man, our we should be trying harder. Like people in our community should be getting married more often. And at the same time you've got the realities of why they don't. Yeah. So I want you to say a little more on that, but let me give you the the third one that it all trickles down to. Is I'm guessing the schools are doing their job. Who's not doing their job is the pa the parents. If a kid's had a supportive environment if every kid in the city had a supportive environment to go home to every night, then they'd go to school and learn, and the teachers wouldn't be doing classroom management, they'd be educating, and their schools would be as good as ours in the suburbs.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Frank right now. So comment a little more on the welfare system and take it over into education. Uh to what extent is it the parents' job uh or the school's job?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's it's systematically set up uh for men not to be in the household. Um, I know several single moms because my wife owns a daycare, so we have about 60 kids where literally a man cannot step into the household because systematically, if you have a man in a household, that means that I gotta add his income into your taxes, and therefore you would lose your benefits. That's a fact. So now we have a lot of single moms that want to find love, that really want to do it the right way, want to get married, want to uh seek Jesus, but at the same time, I don't want to lose my benefits. On top of that, I don't want to even get a promotion at my job. I have the skill set, I believe that I can do it, but the once I go up in income, I lose my benefits.
SPEAKER_02:Which the benefits, just to be clear, the benefits are outweighing what even what the promotion would be or what his income would be if he came into the house. Yes, like what they're getting from the state is is more uh but still probably not enough, right? Like they're still doing food stamps and and still making ends meet, paycheck to paycheck, but like it is outweighing what those other solutions would be.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. You get for so for child care for a four-year-old, you're getting fourteen hundred dollars, right? That's what you have to pay if you take that promotion, and plus you you lose your food stamps. So you lose both if you take this promotion. So what do I do? I just say, hey, I don't want it right now, I don't want to get married, I don't want a promotion. I'm gonna stay here at$20,000 a year, stay in this apartment because I don't want better, because the system is telling me don't get married and don't get a promotion.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and I from white single moms out here in the suburbs, I know enough of the system of their offer the$5,000 a year promotion. Um, but it really has to be a ten or twelve thousand dollar promotion to make it worth it. Make it worth it, or even to break even. Maybe happy breaking even, there'd be the dignity of at least I'm working somewhere. But the thought that the promotion is a step backward for my family, I can't do that to my family. That is a brokenness in the system. We have to incentivize increased steps to independence, not you better stay this dependent, or else we're gonna allocate your funds to someone else.
SPEAKER_02:And to kind of put it into what maybe we would relate to in the suburbs is like going to another job that's higher, right? It's a promotion in job duties, but it's a pay cut. Yeah, right. Like that's the same idea.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and also as a man, you gotta understand, and I was in that same situation. Hey, now that I get married, let me work at the boys and girls club and work at Pick and Save. So now you got an absent father in the household because I'm trying to work more to try to compete with the government.
SPEAKER_07:Now you're more absent.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm competing with the government, saying that hey, I have to provide, but in order for me to provide, I have to be absent more. And now I'm tired, now I'm unhealthy. Right now I'm hollering at my wife when she's not allowing me to get sleep. Now we can't go on dates, now I can't spend time with my daughter, I can't go to her recital, I can't do these different things because I am trying to work hard, but I'm competing with an enemy that's fighting me every single day, and that's the government. That's the that's the enemy that we have as African-American men.
SPEAKER_07:Any more on the what's the source of the education issue? Is it the is it the schools or is it the homes?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I think it's a little bit of both. I would tell you this: I am not an educator. Um, I don't even like uh school that much, but I was hired as a fifth-grade teacher because I have impact in the school district. That's saying a lot. My background wasn't in education, but they hired me as a fifth grade teacher at a Lutheran school because I can control the kids. That's what's going on in the MPS system. Not an educator is in the classroom, but somebody that the kids respect. I can't teach math. I don't like math, I don't like English, I don't want to read, right? But I'm in the classroom. I have a job, and my job is to educate these kids, and I'm not an educator. I think that's a problem.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a huge problem. And I and that's I'm talking about myself. I'm not talking about anybody else. I'm talking about me, Troy Cotton Jr. is not an educator, but yet I was um I was sought after. They was like, you you'd be great here. I'm like, how would I be great? Like, I don't, I'm not an educator. It needs someone else to actually want to do this. But because you have the attention of the kids and you can keep a classroom quiet for eight hours, I think you'll be good for the job. And that's the issue.
SPEAKER_07:Where else do you want to go with this, Kenny?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. Wow. This is so good. This is so good. I think um, you know, early on you asked me my experience or my take. It's it's really interesting for me, and we were kind of joking about this before we started the podcast. I grew up in Green Bay, where the only black people are football players or or basketball players, you know, like we have at the college or at the Packers, right? And so for me growing up, like actually, if I saw a black person, I was like, oh, they're someone big. Like they mean something. Like, so I I did not grow up with this like uh distaste, if you will. Like I wasn't afraid, it was actually more of an admiration.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, they were the celebrities.
SPEAKER_02:However, I then came down and went to college at UWM. And my second weekend here, my friend and I took the bus downtown and we had no idea how the bus system worked. So we ended up in a not great neighborhood. Um, and got to the end of the line, and the bus driver goes, You girls need to sit on the floor. I do not feel safe having you two white girls. And that that interest that was just like a switch for me to now I am scared. And um so I don't know that I have much else to say, but I think there is this regional thing that goes on too. You know, like Milwaukee, there is an issue of it's what the second most segregated city in in the nation. Yes. Um there is this like us versus them, and and breaking through that is feels impossible.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and I just want to say that that is not righteous, that is not equitable. Two white chicks from a college campus should not feel unsafe where just because their bus code moved bus moved to a different code. Right. That's unjust. Something should be done about that too.
SPEAKER_02:Right, that's true. But it was the first time that I ever had an inkling that that should be unsafe. That to be in a black neighborhood as a white person, I should not feel safe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that and that happened to me on the first day that I went to Wisconsin Green Bay uh when I got an elevator and it was an older white woman, and she immediately moved to the other side of the elevator and moved her purse on the opposite side of me. Um, I didn't know what that meant as a freshman. Um I didn't know what that meant until I went uh to my coach. I was like, just let you know, like something weird just happened on the elevator. And then he expressed to me, he's like, because the image of you scares people. Either they watch the movie or they watch in the news. Either way, you are an image of something bad is about to happen. And that happens a lot to African Americans. My daughter, literally, I'm glad that we're having this conversation. She works um at Walgreens, my 19-year-old, at West Bend, Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_05:Right?
SPEAKER_01:So she got drived 40 minutes to go to work. She decided to put tinted windows on her car that we bought her, uh, where you cannot see inside the car. She got pulled over twice so far in that city. She doesn't get pulled over in Milwaukee. But when she goes over to West Bend, she gets pulled over. Right. The reason why she gets pulled over, I had to let her know image is everything. We got to have these conversations with our children. Right. What I feel like as white people, you don't have to have those conversations with your children. Hey, just make sure that you get hands on the wheel and you do what you say. We actually have to be fearful of where we're going and how we look in order to get to where we want to go.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I was trying to bring bring us to a capstone at some point. Like I think what's what what's hard is bo um No one feels heard. So everyone gets louder and defends against a little bit that's getting through from the other side, let me amplify my side louder. And I think that's that's where we gotta follow the way the way of Jesus. The the way of the cross. Of I am I'm willing to sacrifice myself to bring down walls of sin, to create forgiveness, to open new ways of freedom. And I I don't think any of us get there without starting to feel the pain of the other side. To to experience compassion, the proverbial put put yourself in someone else's shoes is really all that I think Jesus is asking for. But let Jesus speak that into you. Don't just try to imagine, make it a Holy Spirit moment, make it a prayerful God, I'm I'm open for you to reveal what I can't see. But also with the intent of let me feel the righteousness. What what's equitable here? And and just how much that breaks your heart. But then then God, I'm I'm willing to do something about it. I'm tired of the cliches and I'm tired of other people yelling at me what I'm supposed to do. But if God, if you would give me one step of justice, I would take it. I would want to make a better world. And even if it costs me something along the way, that's gonna cost your son a heck of a lot to come reach me.
SPEAKER_02:And I would say, really practically speaking, I think what we're doing here today, this is it, right? Like there's a lot of noise out there, there's a lot of information, and and like we said last week, the idea of like get make yourself informed, like learn all the things. Well, until you sit down with someone and really hear hear them open-handedly, without your judgments, without your preconceived notions, it it is hard to have compassion. And so once once the Holy Spirit tugs on that place, find ways to have those conversations, I think, is is really beneficial.
SPEAKER_07:For all the how thoroughly we offended everyone since this podcast. I don't know, so it's so good. Sometimes I think the shortest distance between two lines is is the way you gotta go. So Troy, thanks for letting us be very, very frank. Absolutely. Um I always appreciate your honesty coming this direction too. And uh I just hope everyone out else out there gets that trusted interracial relationship where you don't have to beat around the bush, you don't have to take the long way around um direct verbiage. So if that made you extremely uncomfortable uh today, uh our apologies, but I think it is healthier in the parents. Absolutely.