Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. We are so lucky and fortunate
Speaker 1: that we are able to spend some time with our
Speaker 1: next guest. He's back with us. Bishop T. D. Jake's
Speaker 1: chairman of the T. D. Jake's Foundation. He's the pastor
Speaker 1: of the Potter's House. That's a nondenominational American church down
Speaker 1: in Dallas. He's an author, he's an entrepreneur, he's an educator.
Speaker 1: He was nice enough to spend some time with us
Speaker 1: earlier this year. Back then we were talking about education.
Speaker 1: Bishop Jake's. I don't think any of us could have
Speaker 1: anticipated what would happen between us seeing you then and
Speaker 1: talking to you now. First of all, how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing him? At all? This I'm doing
Speaker 1: real of course, Lilliam. They're eating a storm down here
Speaker 1: in Texas. But yeah, that's probably been doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: And thanks for having me back when I'm really honored. Well,
Speaker 1: tell us about that a little bit if you, if
Speaker 1: you don't mind. We've been, you know, talking to so
Speaker 1: many guests around the world, around the country, though in
Speaker 1: particular about what they're seeing, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: the virus. Tell us about the impact that's having on
Speaker 1: the communities that you're so familiar with. Well, I can
Speaker 1: put it this way. In the last two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks, I haven't had a day go by that
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten called it somebody done. Uh So, being
Speaker 1: a pastor, you can get a front row seed at
Speaker 1: at the at the final services. And uh so it
Speaker 1: is disastrous right now. The numbers are really high. The
Speaker 1: death rates are escalating again, lack of brown communities are
Speaker 1: disproportionately hit and so that trauma from that hits very strongly.
Speaker 1: Are my clergy because there are people that we know
Speaker 1: or related to people that we know, And I literally
Speaker 1: haven't had a day go by that I haven't gotten
Speaker 1: a phone call like that. And so I don't I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a tough question to answer, I know, but
Speaker 1: what do you say to people that, Bishop James, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're having these conversations every day. Is what is your
Speaker 1: message to to them, especially given exactly what you said
Speaker 1: that disproportionality here, that this is affecting uh you know,
Speaker 1: black and brown people at a much much higher rate
Speaker 1: that that is just inarguable at this moment. I think
Speaker 1: that we cannot rely on our elected officials to make
Speaker 1: the determinations for our health and well being. Given that
Speaker 1: we're disproportionately affecting, we have to be disproportionately careful. And
Speaker 1: I've been telling people just too distance the sales, uh
Speaker 1: to use common sense to avoid close gatherings and celebrations.
Speaker 1: We have a tendency to think that if we know
Speaker 1: people well, they ought to be safe to be around.
Speaker 1: But that's not true right now, and it's a new normal,
Speaker 1: and it's requiring a discipline that we're not used to,
Speaker 1: but it's necessary in order to keep a well being up.
Speaker 1: And then I've had several people that have contracted and recovered,
Speaker 1: so you know, on the good side of it, we
Speaker 1: are seeing some recoveries and some success stories. But I
Speaker 1: think it is a great deal of apprehension and faces
Speaker 1: right now as it relates to the blondness of the
Speaker 1: follow of this particular pandemic. I do wonder too, how
Speaker 1: you see it Bishop Jake's, especially since you know Jason
Speaker 1: and I talk. You know, we're in eighteen nineteen weeks
Speaker 1: of lockdown. Essentially for the most part, we have been
Speaker 1: at home almost exclusively. Um as our offices have yet
Speaker 1: to really reopen here in New York City. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a slow move back. But I do wonder are you
Speaker 1: a little angry that you know, if there was a
Speaker 1: lot that we've learned through what happened with the virus
Speaker 1: on the East Coast that we could not or should
Speaker 1: should have been smarter as a nation, especially when we know,
Speaker 1: as you said, those communities that are disproportionately affected. You
Speaker 1: know that we could have been smarter in slowing the impact,
Speaker 1: reducing the impact that we're now seeing play out in
Speaker 1: Texas and other areas, certainly there in the South and
Speaker 1: out in the West. I have survived a lot of
Speaker 1: capacitih exablems to involve with Katrina and and a lot
Speaker 1: of things. It's hard in real time speed to to
Speaker 1: really aim at and who their fault and where the
Speaker 1: place anger? Yes, I'm a little angry. So exactly where
Speaker 1: all the place of anger? I think is another issue.
Speaker 1: We would have loved have had stronger national leadership on
Speaker 1: this issue, and even on the statewide level. I think
Speaker 1: we could have opened up a lot slower than we did.
Speaker 1: But but I couldn't control that. And so in a
Speaker 1: situation where we can't control the outcomes of the political
Speaker 1: terrain that we're tracing right now. We have to leave
Speaker 1: the CEO of us and make the kinds of the
Speaker 1: seasons that are strong and wise for yourself, even as
Speaker 1: it relates to children going back to school, You your
Speaker 1: parents are gonna have to step in and make final
Speaker 1: decisions because right now there's so many mixed messages nobody
Speaker 1: knows exactly what to do. So Bishop Jake's I'm so
Speaker 1: glad we're getting to talk to you, and and it's overdue,
Speaker 1: in part because you were one of the first folks
Speaker 1: I thought of, you know, as we started to go
Speaker 1: through these last couple of months, and when we saw
Speaker 1: what happened in Minneapolis and and we saw what that
Speaker 1: triggered nationally, you were one of the voices that that
Speaker 1: I want to hear from around all this because I
Speaker 1: want to understand how you view what has happened since
Speaker 1: the killing of George Floyd, the reaction within your community
Speaker 1: and also the reaction in the broader community across America.
Speaker 1: You talked to so many people, you know, both in
Speaker 1: your congregation, but also national leaders, corporate leaders as well,
Speaker 1: and I wonder what you make of this time we're
Speaker 1: living in. Uh. It's like reliving a nightmare from the sixties,
Speaker 1: being my all the sixties that NFL this too, and
Speaker 1: so you know, it's it's the movie I don't want
Speaker 1: to see again. But it's happening in real town and speed.
Speaker 1: The good side of it is more and more people
Speaker 1: of that are not of color r king up this issue,
Speaker 1: and that's a very hardening, encouraging thing to see. UH.
Speaker 1: There has been some progress made, I call them cosmetic
Speaker 1: changes in terms of statues being removed. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about violently so, but legally so. And I'm also hardened
Speaker 1: by the pag that there have been UH CEO that
Speaker 1: incorporations who have worked hard to correct some of the
Speaker 1: situations that existed, UH as it relates to the Confederate
Speaker 1: flag and and and and ge Baba served and things
Speaker 1: like that. But those are all cosmetic changes. Are nice,
Speaker 1: they're important, but they're cosmetic changes. The cancer that we
Speaker 1: still have still exist. UH. And I think that we
Speaker 1: have to work very hard, UH to to witholve some
Speaker 1: of the issues in the criminal justice system. We have
Speaker 1: to work very hard to get a national database set
Speaker 1: up for police officers who have had problem problems and
Speaker 1: other precincts, so that we don't make the mistake of
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church and moved them from precincted re see
Speaker 1: like they moved them from Paris to Paris. If we
Speaker 1: listen in history, we would learn quickly that we have
Speaker 1: to do things differently than what we've done before. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's a lot to be done
Speaker 1: in terms of the way the laws are as it
Speaker 1: relates to immunity right now for police officers, and how
Speaker 1: we correct that sort of thing that's a deeper cancer
Speaker 1: issue that needs to be corrected. We have to look
Speaker 1: at our communities as well, at job opportunities and training
Speaker 1: and retraining people to create opportunities. Well, that is something
Speaker 1: Jason and I've had a lot of conversations around Bishop
Speaker 1: Jake's about that ultimately, these inequalities they start really early
Speaker 1: on for individuals. It's a poverty issue, you know, and
Speaker 1: that we've got to figure out how to change that
Speaker 1: in our system so that everyone truly has the same
Speaker 1: access to opportunity. And that means you know, from the
Speaker 1: minute you're born, and so how do we how do
Speaker 1: we really change that? We keep talking en up better education. Well,
Speaker 1: we've spent a lot of money on education, yet here
Speaker 1: we are, so how do we really tackle that that
Speaker 1: problem that starts from in many cases, from the minute
Speaker 1: somebody is born, and it depends on where you're born,
Speaker 1: in the color of your skin. We we've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of money on education, and we've made some in
Speaker 1: rows in terms of education, but we've got people that
Speaker 1: are educated flipping Hamburgers right now. We've got to create
Speaker 1: opportunities and we've got to hold our corporations accountable to
Speaker 1: UH diversity and inclusion on every level, not just entry
Speaker 1: level positions. We need people in high ranking positions that
Speaker 1: are as diverse of our country is. We need that
Speaker 1: in our government. We need that everywhere so that when
Speaker 1: we sit down at the table to make decisions and
Speaker 1: the people who are making decisions look like the people
Speaker 1: who are going to have to live with those decisions.
Speaker 1: And that's just a wide way of leadership and government
Speaker 1: and going forward. I think we also have to look
Speaker 1: at how our studies are constructed, because they were not
Speaker 1: constructed in a way to provide commerce into UH. Certain
Speaker 1: areas and certain sectors are designed in such a way
Speaker 1: the highway is constructed in such a way that business
Speaker 1: does it creates down into those that it's been proven statistically,
Speaker 1: the low income housing group together does not work, and
Speaker 1: yet we continue down that path rather than mixed income housing.
Speaker 1: And I think some of it is an economic issues.
Speaker 1: Some of it is an education issue. But you can
Speaker 1: be educated and you can be wealthy, and you can
Speaker 1: still be shot down by uh police brutality. So it's
Speaker 1: not all education and it's not all economics. It's it's
Speaker 1: really a total reform of our system. And I think
Speaker 1: it's starting to happen. Uh, it just needs to continue
Speaker 1: to happen. And I'm worried that the conversation gets sade
Speaker 1: tracked by the vigilantes who take the message into their
Speaker 1: own hands and misrepresent the heart of what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do in our country. Well, and Bishop Jakes, I
Speaker 1: do want to take you back a little bit to
Speaker 1: some of those conversations you're having with corporate leaders, because
Speaker 1: the vast, vast majority of them are clearly white guys,
Speaker 1: and and that does seem to be, you know, part
Speaker 1: of the issue that that you and others, and we've
Speaker 1: had many people in the show talk about that, how
Speaker 1: do we sort of affect change, whether it's in the
Speaker 1: boardroom or at the top executive levels. Are you having
Speaker 1: those conversations, What advice are you giving companies to start
Speaker 1: to make that tangible change in leadership levels. They have
Speaker 1: to be intentional about it. I mean, slavery was intentional,
Speaker 1: Jim Crow was intentional. Inclusion has to be intentional. It
Speaker 1: has to be intentional, it has to be comprehensive, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's not just going to happen organically. We have to
Speaker 1: be intentional and go out and recruit and recognize that
Speaker 1: our companies do not reflect our country. And they have
Speaker 1: to be very, very intentional about that. And I think
Speaker 1: where they are having difficulties working together to find people,
Speaker 1: they have to work with other organizations, churches in a
Speaker 1: CP people who are on ground level zero, with black
Speaker 1: and brown people who do have degrees and qualifications and
Speaker 1: are finding it very difficult to climb the corporate ladder.
Speaker 1: Those things, I think have to happen. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: we have to have something for that blue collar workers
Speaker 1: from the industrial as technology, we lost a lot of
Speaker 1: middle middle income people in our communities and we have
Speaker 1: not rehabilitated that. Let them be fix we need roads,
Speaker 1: we need a new infrastructure in our city. There's so
Speaker 1: many and all over the country, there are so many
Speaker 1: blue collar jobs that need to be done that are
Speaker 1: underfunded that we're not getting taken care of, that we
Speaker 1: really could fix this problem without being intuitious. We have
Speaker 1: legitimate needs that need to be taken care of that
Speaker 1: would create upward mobility for all people who may not
Speaker 1: be degreed but need to be gainfully employed. So where
Speaker 1: would you start, Oh, gosh, I think everybody has to
Speaker 1: start where they are. I think it has to be
Speaker 1: a comprehensive effort. I slove my it is legislation. Some
Speaker 1: of it here is CEO sitting down and talking outside
Speaker 1: of their own circles. For a while, I have been saying,
Speaker 1: and that's why I started our foundation, so that we
Speaker 1: could have conversations and so that we could be a
Speaker 1: conduit to connect corporations with qualified people, whether their entry
Speaker 1: level people returning cittices, or whether they are upwards, upwardly
Speaker 1: mobile into higher aelons and organizations. We have access to
Speaker 1: all of those people out of the thirty million or
Speaker 1: so people that interact with us on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Between social media and television. We want to
Speaker 1: be a bridge to help those things to come to pass.
Speaker 1: That's why we just did our Steam program during the summer.
Speaker 1: We had five thousand young people to sign up for
Speaker 1: our Steam program and was wildly to successful. We're going
Speaker 1: to be partnered with Microsoft and Texas Instruments to get
Speaker 1: that done. We're going to go further with that program.
Speaker 1: We're adding a dynamic for UH Police with the Ballas
Speaker 1: Least Department to work with our Steam program. The Ballast
Speaker 1: Ethnony Orchestra is working with us. If this is a
Speaker 1: time for collaboration, where what I'm saying is we need
Speaker 1: to collaborate UH with the multi pronged appoch that includes
Speaker 1: faith leaders because faith leaders are the gateway to our community,
Speaker 1: but they also need to include CEOs, elected officials and
Speaker 1: community leaders. And I think if the four groups sit
Speaker 1: down at the table, we can lift it up to
Speaker 1: the level of plans lard. So, Bishop Jake's before we
Speaker 1: let you go on out about a minute left, what
Speaker 1: do we do as individuals just regular old people, you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to do the right thing and be better
Speaker 1: amid all this. I think we have to have the
Speaker 1: courage to talk to people who are different than us
Speaker 1: and who don't see the world the way we do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that everybody can do. I
Speaker 1: think we have to hold our elected officials accountable too,
Speaker 1: that they have an agenda that includes underserved communities and
Speaker 1: we have to make that a priority in this election.
Speaker 1: In anybody who doesn't have a strong agenda and a
Speaker 1: feasible plan in place that addresses this issue, we should
Speaker 1: not consider them an eligible candidate. There are other issues
Speaker 1: to the bits also has to be on the table
Speaker 1: as well. But what we can start doing is not
Speaker 1: allowing the news to tell us about each other, but
Speaker 1: actually have conversations with people from different walks of life
Speaker 1: and become involved on a one on one basis. Well,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate you spending some time with us, a
Speaker 1: real pleasure for us. Thank you so much. Bishop T. D. Jakes,
Speaker 1: Chairman of the T. D. Jake's Foundation. Johnius on the
Speaker 1: phone from Dallas always learned something from him.