Watch the full interview on TheBlaze TV
Monday night on The Glenn Beck Program, Glenn introduced the audience to a man who delivered some serious truth to the protestors in Ferguson. He's not famous. He's not a pundit. He's not an Al Sharpton or a Ben Carson. He's just an everyday guy named Jonathan Gentry, but he has a message everyone needs to hear.
Watch his message below, and scroll down for more from the interview:
Glenn: That man is Jonathan Gentry, and he is with us now. How are you?
Johnathan: Good. How are you doing, Glenn?
Glenn I am really good. Tell me first of all, before we get into that, who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
Johnathan: I’m just a regular human being, honestly. My mom raised three boys by herself. My mother and father have been divorced for over 25 years, you know, so I always was back and forth with my mother, with my father. You know, I see a lot of the messages. People say oh, this stuck-up black rich kid. I’m by far none of that, and it hurts me because I’ve seen the struggle growing up. I grew up right there where the riots broke out in ‘92, ’91-‘92.
I’ve seen it. I was part of it, and it breaks my heart to see the same continued cycle of how we react, even in the midst of turmoil. Instead of us showing our greatest strength, we specialize in showing our greatest weakness for decades. And I’m in my early 30s, and that’s what we specialize in. Then we wonder why we’re stereotyped. Then we wonder why people don’t see us the same. It’s because of our actions at how we respond to issues that take place in our lives.
Glenn: I mean holy cow, you want to talk about sacred cows, and that video, which I think the full video runs about five minutes, you speak more plainly than most people are willing to speak. I wouldn’t classify you as angry in that, but you were clear.
Johnathan: It was passion. I think people misunderstand anger and passion. You know, my mom raised us. In spite of the struggles I have gone through, in spite of the struggles we have gone through growing up, I could have chose the wrong path. I could’ve chose to steal, kill, murder, purse snatch, do all that, but I stayed focused on my decisions in life. You know, we’re all human. We’re all human beings; however, I had choices to make as a young man.
And like I said, the cycle, especially in our youth, especially in our young generation, I felt God’s spirit when I did that video. It was Him. A man cannot move like that on his own capacity. I didn’t write nothing down. I didn’t have notes. I didn’t have a memorandum. I didn’t have anything. It was just record, flow, go. Like He said, write it down plain on tablet. Make the vision. Spread the blueprint.
Glenn: What was it that prompted you?
Johnathan: It was what I was seeing, how we reacted, like I said, in the midst of turmoil. We’re throwing elbows and angry and pissed off. Where is that line drawn amongst yourself? I’m just saying self-examination, look at yourself. Look at yourself. Timeout with all the racism. Timeout with all the foolishness. Timeout with what’s taking place. Look at yourself right now and tell me, are you happy with you? And I guarantee you you’re going to look in the mirror and say no, because if you look yourself in the mirror and see the self-examination that’s taking place, you will not be happy.
Because if you see around you, you’re tearing up where you live. You’re tearing up your own community, not no one else’s. You’re tearing up yours. So if you can examine yourself, calm down, and examine yourself, you will see that you’re not in a place of happiness, and that’s what I wanted to point out. That’s what I want people to see. People say you hate us blacks. I’m African-American myself. How can I hate?
And the problem is a finite mind cannot understand where I’m coming from. A person who does not understand the things of God will knock me, you know? That’s why I said the deep things of God are spiritually discerned to a carnal man. Neither can he know Him because they are spiritually discerned. So what I’m saying and what I’m bringing is at a level where you can’t understand it if you’re finite and superficial. I’m just telling you to look at yourself and tell me, are you happy? Tell me when you look yourself, not everyone around you, not white, not black, not the police departments, but yourself.
When you look at yourself and see your actions, your actions got you here. Your irresponsibilities have gotten you here, nothing no one else did to you. Stop blaming slavery and segregation for what’s happening now. It is you. It’s not them. It’s not this person. It is you standing in the need of prayer. That’s what I’m trying to represent, and that’s what I am representing, but they’re missing that, a lot of the African-American community. Some are understanding, but a lot miss it.
Glenn Okay, I want to come back to that. When we come back, I want to ask you, is that intentional? Because there is the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons of the world that I think that’s intentional. I know Al Sharpton. I know him. I’ve been with him. That man knows what he’s doing. He knows what he’s doing. Let me get your opinion when we come back.
[break]
Glenn: That is a powerful message that needs to be heard. You talk about the civil rights leaders, and I think you even said you call them what I call them, so-called civil rights leaders. Who are they? Do they know?
Johnathan: I mean, now you have to understand times have changed. Understand again, like I said, racism is there, but it’s not like it was back then. You’re using a method that worked then. You understand? And what I say now to the youth and to the world, to the nation, our leaders today, you cannot be an effective leader reliving your past. You cannot. You cannot be an effective leader of no kind, of no background, of whatever race, reliving your past, because what you’re going to do is rejuvenate and recycle hate, pain, anger into an innocent generation. You understand?
What you went through, you’re recycling it to an innocent generation that has nothing to do what you experienced. And I’m not talking about history. You understand? History is one thing. Recycling anger into God’s children is another. That’s where I come in, and that’s what I’m doing. I am hitting the brakes on these leaders who are recycling anger, pain, into an innocent generation who experienced what you did not.
Glenn: Can I ask you a question? Because I really truly believe…first of all, I grew up in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. When I was growing up, I think there might have been four black people, and they may have come in, I don’t know, you know, for a show or something. I have no idea. I remember the first time I saw an African-American, and my father said to me don’t stare. But I’d never seen anybody. So we didn’t have…where I was growing up, we didn’t have this strife. There wasn’t the strife that we had in the South and everything else growing up.
So maybe I just come from a different place, but I think America has moved on from the 1960s, the 1970s. Racism still exists. When I went down to Birmingham, Alabama, and I did a show down there, I was at a theater, and the general manager said to me…I said look, we start on time? And they said well, not down here. And I said why not? And they said we’re on colored standard time. And everybody just laughed, and my friends and everybody, we’re there, and I sit here, and I was like did I just hear that? I mean, what the hell is that?
I realize, I mean, I expected, you know, Archie Bunker to come back out from behind the curtain there. So it exists, but we’re not the kind of people that we were in Martin Luther King’s time. We made great advancements, and now we’re being dragged—
Johnathan: Back.
Glenn: You just said these guys believe…maybe…maybe they don’t believe it. They believe we’re the same people that we were when Martin Luther King was alive. We’ve grown.
Johnathan: Right, we have, and that’s the sad part, because that’s what’s being pushed. Unfortunately that’s what Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and a lot of these activists, Najee Ali and a lot of these guys on the West Coast, that’s what they’re pushing—these white folks and the police are the KKK. Okay, time out. Hold on. Wait a minute, because you have to understand, with a spiritual mind, I’m filled with God’s spirit, so don’t feed me that nonsense. You understand?
I understand racism still exists. For instance, when all these riots broke out in Ferguson, they burned down their own church, the church Michael Brown’s father attended, and they had the audacity to blame it on the KKK. Did the KKK burn down the AutoZone too? Did they burn down the McDonald’s too? Did they burn down the police cars too? So you guys burned down all the police cars, and you blame the church on the KKK because you knew it was wrong. Because they knew it was wrong, KKK did that. This, oh no.
You burned down all this. What did you do that? Why? You see, it’s the examination of a person’s self, and I’m just holding up that mirror, you know, and what I’m seeing is…go ahead.
Glenn: Okay, so let me ask you this, because the KKK exists. There are real racists.
Johnathan: Of course.
Glenn: There are spooky, spooky people, so when we come back, let me take a quick break and then come back and just ask you so how do we straddle this and say look, we as reasonable people need to say KKK and racists and racist cops, enough, but the good cops, the good people—
Johnathan: Yeah, not all cops are bad.
Glenn: Some are bad. They’re people. Some are bad. Some are good. And what we’re doing is just planting these seeds of hatred. So how do we break through and stop this nonsense of race wars that I think people are intentionally seeding? We’ll be back in just a second.
[break]
Glenn: So, you have received death threats. I mean, I know what my Facebook is like. I can’t imagine what yours is like. Nobody wants to even look at the facts of the case. They’re rioting when the facts of the case are completely upside down. How are we going to solve this? Forget about Ferguson. How are we going to solve the hate problem that is being sown by everyone it seems?
Johnathan: They’re taking sides, and we shouldn’t, Glenn. Honestly, we shouldn’t, because it’s what’s being taught, you know? How can a 15-year-old know that the police and white folks are bad? Who teaches that child that, you know? So it’s what’s being taught into our communities. So my job honestly and what I’m going to continue to do, it’s…God created us all equal. Regardless of what you’re seeing out here, regardless of what the media is pushing, we have all been created equal. And again, I say I do not hate my race. I’m just telling us to take responsibility.
Don’t hold up a sign to the police department saying black lives matter when we’ve been killing each other all year, okay? Either put the sign down or reflect it toward your own community, you understand? Because that’s where the crime rate is. That’s where we’re dying is in our own community.
Now all of a sudden Michael Brown has become the black male who has died. There’s 500,000 that we killed as an African-American community. We need to come to the level of responsibility and accountability where we live. This is not a police problem. This is not a white problem. This is a black problem that we need to address.
The same intensity you’re bringing to the police department and to the nation with your foolishness, take it right back to where you live in your own community. That’s all I’m saying. That’s where we’re going to rise above, when you can take action to yourself and change who you are, imposing to ask someone to change who they are.
Glenn: How do you teach that to a group of people, and I don’t mean this about black people, I mean this about all people, that don’t want to take responsibility? This is the easy way out. Everybody wants the easy way out.
Johnathan: They do. It’s like who doesn’t want to take responsibility? That’s like you waking up not wanting to brush your teeth. You’re just nasty. Why would you not want to change? You understand what I’m saying? Why not take responsibility for what you do? Who doesn’t? You’re going to have to take responsibility for who you are. It’s who God created you to be. You have to take accountability.
Glenn: But society is telling you you don’t have to.
Johnathan: Exactly. That’s the sad part about it, because the hip-hop culture, if you notice, and a lot of the youth listen to the Jay-Z, the Beyoncé, the Kanye West, unfortunately. They listen to them. I mean, they haven’t said nothing, zero, about what’s taking place. They will listen to them, but they said nothing. As a matter fact, the rapper Rick Ross, if I was them, I’d be doing it too. You see that mindset, and they listen to that foolishness, and then they go out there and react.
So they’re being poisoned by the hip-hop culture and the generation itself by this foolishness. Because you have to understand too, Glenn, a man cannot serve two masters. You’re either going to love one or hate the other. You understand what I’m saying? If you’re not loving God, who else are you loving? You understand what I’m saying?
The stuff runs extremely deep spiritually, and a lot of people say I’m not a religious person. It doesn’t matter. Your spirituality is going to have to come into effect somewhere, because if you’re not obeying what God wants you to do and who God is love, you’re serving someone else. You’re giving authority, and you’re bowing down to another system. What is it? What’s causing you to react like this?
Glenn: That’s one of the things you brought up, change, and you talked about—we only have a minute, but you talked about the campaign and change. And I don’t want to get political, but I’ve always asked, change to what? We’re not defining anything. What you’re saying here is, you know, if you’re not serving God, which is love, who are you serving? And nobody wants to think about that. We want change, but change to what? We need definitions on this is the direction, this is specifically where we’re headed.
Johnathan: Politically I could go another direction.
Glenn: Don’t.
Johnathan: I won’t. Spiritually, however, we have to understand we have grasped on to the…people have to understand Grand Theft Auto is a videogame, not a lifestyle. We have adopted that into our communities. That is a videogame. You are acting like a videogame. That is not reality. Come to your senses.
Glenn: Will you come back?
Johnathan: I will.
Glenn: You are great. God bless you.
Johnathan: God bless you too.
Glenn: Thank you. You can find his videos online, and we’ll post some more at TheBlaze.com and GlennBeck.com. Thank you so much.
Johnathan: You’re welcome.
