Today, critically-acclaimed gospel artist Kirk Franklin and wife Tammy Collins joined Tamron Hall on her self-titled talk show to publicly discuss the controversial conversation with his oldest son that went viral over the weekend.
Kerrion Franklin shared the audio in which his dad could be heard calling him out of his name on his social media platforms, which instantly made headlines. Though the “Stomp” artist issued an apology on his Instagram, this is the first time he is publicly addressing his relationship with his 33-year-old son and the accusation of parental abuse.
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Kirk opened up about the challenges of he and his son’s relationship and how there were early indications of a need for “deeper help.” He shared his son has been in and out of therapy for more than 20 years, but noted that as he got older “his disrespect became more aggressive.”
“Now that he’s about to be 33 as a grown man the relationship at times can become very agitated and very frustrated…but I’m not going to stop trying to help,” Kirk said. “He’s my son, he’s my firstborn, and I never want him to feel what I felt not having a father…It’s important for me because what if that call is the call that things change.”
Kirk continued to express his love for his son and assured viewers that there has been no physical or parental abuse. When asked about his respect for his son, he explained that while he does respect Kerrion as a grown man, he’s still his father.
“I respect Kerrion. I’m not Kerrion’s equal though. I’m not his equal, I’m his dad,” he said firmly. “And when you talk to me, especially about things that you say that you want from me, I can’t hear you when you are extremely aggressive when we’re communicating, and that’s why a lot of times, Kerrion and I haven’t talked sometimes for a year or two.”
As far as the controversial comments that Kerrion posted on his socials, Kirk agreed that fans had “every right to be disappointed” in his use of violent and explicit language. He even expressed disappointment in himself, but he acknowledged that he’s a human with “a history of a toxic, challenging, turbulent relationship” between himself and his son.
“In that fight, it can become so difficult that my humanity, unfortunately, that day, won,” he said. “And I’m going to keep trying, while still continuing to admit that I am an imperfect man fighting to serve a perfect God.”
Since taking office about three weeks ago, Donald Trump has issued a blizzard of 200+ executive orders. Among them are two key anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) directives that threaten to roll back decades of progress in expanding opportunities for people of color, women and other historically marginalized groups.
The first executive order eliminates DEI enacted under President Biden, who required all federal agencies to create plans to “address unequal barriers to opportunity” and ensure workplace equity. Trump’s order terminates all DEI, DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility), and environmental justice jobs as well as any programs, grants, or contracts related to its implementation, calling them “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”
The second executive order eliminates all DEI orders from previous administrations, including one by President Lyndon Johnson from 1965, which required federal contractors to provide equal opportunity measures. In rolling back the policies, Trump called DEI “immoral” and “illegal” and painted it as a “corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system” that robbed “hardworking Americans”—implicitly white men—“of opportunities because of their race or sex.”
President Trump also warned of “adverse consequences” for those federal workers who fail to report colleagues who refuse to dismantle DEI policies.
While the order is limited to the federal government, it directs federal agencies to find ways, including potential litigation, to pressure the private sector also to abandon its DEI policies. This threatens to accelerate a corporate anti-DEI trend that has already been in the works. Walmart, which back in 2020 announced a $100 million investment in a center for racial equity, announced several days after Trump’s election that it was dropping the center and would no longer use the terms DEI and Latinx in official communications. McDonald’s, Meta and Target have also dropped their DEI initiatives as reported by Axios.
After the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which deemed affirmative action in university admissions unconstitutional, attacks on DEI proliferated, and the term became a right-wing bogeyman blamed for almost anything that goes wrong in any workplace. For example, just one day after the tragic plane and helicopter collision over the Potomac River which claimed 67 lives, Trump baselessly blamed DEI policies for the crash—while the investigation into the crash’s cause had barely begun. Language in President Trump’s executive order also portrays DEI policies as inherently dangerous declaring they “threaten the safety of American men, women and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society.”
These statements seem to suggest that DEI exists in opposition to excellence and hard work—and that providing opportunities to non-white people automatically lowers standards.This is false. DEI requires the same standards for everyone and only hires those who fulfill the requirements of a given job, a point echoed by Everett Kelly, National President of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees “The federal government already hires and promotes exclusively on the basis of merit. The results are clear: a diverse federal workforce that looks like the nation it serves, with the lowest gender and racial pay gaps in the country. We should all be proud of that.”
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Black people make up a larger share of the federal workforce (18.6%) than they do of the civilian workforce (12.8%),according to Pew Research. It’s unclear how many people will be affected by the order. Still, the federal government is the biggest employer in the US and Black people, who have the highest unemployment rates, risk greater job loss as a result.
The vagueness of President Trump’s orders have also left agencies struggling to comply and erasing Black history in the process. For example, the Air Force recently removed the Tuskegee Airmen from their training videos, and it was only reinstated after public outcry.
The anti-DEI trend is part of a larger attack on anti-discrimination efforts, sparked by the push for racial progress after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Now that DEI is under fire, the question is—how do we keep these policies alive?
Despite mounting political pressure, companies like Apple, Costco and JPMorgan Chase remain steadfast in their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, refusing to bow to conservative attacks. Additionally, most Fortune 500 companies have not abandoned their DEI policies.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a non-partisan group that fights “government abuse” primarily through lawsuits, counters President Trump’s claim that DEI or DEIA is illegal, saying, “The executive orders attempt to conflate these lawful efforts with discrimination, weaponizing enforcement to bully institutions into abandoning critical programs.” “However, no court has declared DEIA efforts inherently illegal, and President Trump cannot override decades of legal precedent.” The ACLU supported and launched numerous lawsuits against the rollback of DEI during Trump’s first term and have vowed to do so again.
In the meantime, the Civil Rights Act is still the law of the land, and it remains illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race, gender, and other protected characteristics.