The 8 Minute 46 Seconds Knee That Broke the Camel's Back

Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. What we are experiencing has been a long time accumulating, a longtime coming. Could this be the 8 minute 46 seconds knee that finally breaks the camel's back?

I am not black, but I know of the thousand racist cuts. I learned first from the writings of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neal Hurston, and James Baldwin. I learned firsthand in my high school days from the police officer who jammed me with his billy club against a wall for sitting next to a black girl in a restaurant booth.

I learned from blues, jazz, R&B, and gospel, reading between the lines, the grit and moan of the sound beautiful like a pearl formed around the pain.

I learned from pioneering gospel singers I was privileged to have known. James Hill of the Fairfield Four tearing up as he remembered as a child witnessing his father rousted and roughed up by the local police. Ira Tucker of the mighty Dixie Hummingbirds, on tour backed out of a store at gunpoint because he wanted to buy some candy. JoJo Wallace of the Sensational Nightingales, the group frequently pulled over for being black in too fancy a car.

And Rev. J. M. Gates, black preacher from Atlanta, who in 1929 created and recorded "Straining at a Gnat and Swallowing a Camel." Almost a hundred years ago speaking words that in no uncertain terms testified to the ugliness of racism. The title is one of those obtuse biblical metaphors. It means to your detriment making a big deal out of something that ought to be nothing. Making a gnat into a camel. Making skin color into racism.

What you hear in this video is the true voice of Rev. Gates and his congregation from that 1929 recording. Yes, purists, we've - myself, Chris Younken, and friends - added the underpinning of a new instrumental track, the idea to create a sonic package that might get more ears listening than might have otherwise.

Like Rev. Gates says, "We haven't got long to live in this world, so why strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!" Let's keep the momentum going so that what has been his timeless message will have finally run out of time.

You can follow the words here...

"STRAINING AT A GNAT AND SWALLOWING A CAMEL"

I want to speak to you people on this subject:
Since we have a mixed congregation
Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
We are living in an age...where we haven’t got time
Straining at a gnat...and swallowing a camel.
Our lives is so much like a gnat...Until we can’t tell... what time we’re gonna die
Why, they tell me that in the morning...
At six o’clock...A gnat is unhatched in an egg
And at nine o’clock...he’s a baby gnat
At twelve o’clock he’s a young man...And at three o’clock he’s an old man
And at six o’clock he died of old age
Cause people...we haven’t got long...to live in this world
So why strain at a gnat and swallow a camel?

You people...that signed away the whole world...and lose your soul
You strainin’ at a gnat and swallowin’ a camel
You! You negro-haters
You that can’t sit with him on the street car...
You that can’t eat...at the same table...with him
You...I’m talking about you...you that can’t sit in your own automobile with him
Aahh...but I’ll tell you what you can do.
You can eat what they cook...You can sleep in their bed
You can let them drive your car...While you sit in the rear...
And he handle your life in his hands
You’re straining...at a gnat...and swallowin’ a camel.
Hmmm! You’re straining at a gnat and swallowin’ a camel
You can’t drink...with him...But you can buy what he has to drink
When I say what he has to drink, I’m talkin’ about what you thinkin’ about
Aahh, I saw...where the government spendin’ twenty million dollars
Stop men from drinkin’ what they makin’
Aaahhh...I tell you...They strainin’ at a gnat....and swallowin’ a camel.
Who makes the law...
I’m talkin’ ‘bout...so many men become cold blooded murderers
And left this country for the widows...
I remind thee...of going to the war.
It’s a rich man’s war...but a poor man’s fight.
Strainin’ at a gnat and swallowin’ a camel
I’m talkin’ to you.
Strainin’ at a gnat...and swallowin’ a camel....