03/01/2026
Since preaching “I Am Black and Beautiful” and critiquing the so-called State of the Union, my church has received nonstop calls from angry white men.
Most calls were blatantly racist and included epithets, calling me a n***er or a monkey. Some threatened physical harm and even death. One coward even threatened to “put a bullet” in my head.
Others left messages demanding that I call them back so they can “debate” whether Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump are racist.
Let’s be clear.
The caucacity is not just in the racism. The caucacity is in the assumption. The assumption that I owe them a return call. The assumption that I must defend my lived experience to men who have never lived it. The assumption that from their privileged perch of whiteness, they are the final authority on what is or isn’t racist.
You have never experienced racism a day in your life, yet you want to host a symposium about it on my church phone line?
That is white supremacy. Not just in ideology, but in posture.
Calling a Black church, demanding intellectual labor, demanding debate, demanding access, because you were “triggered” by the affirmation of Black humanity, is peak entitlement.
I am a free Black man.
I am not accountable to random white men who think my pulpit is their debate club.
I do not owe you a callback. I do not owe you a classroom. And I certainly do not owe you an explanation for affirming that Black people are created in the image of God.
If “Black and Beautiful” unsettles you, interrogate why. But do not call my church expecting to be centered.
Your discomfort is not my assignment.
Talbert Swan
