Someday We'll All Be Free...Someday

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

 - Ephesians 6:12, ESV

Without having prior knowledge of the murder of Oscar Grant, I saw Fruitvale Station almost two weeks after the Zimmerman verdict.  Watching this film as an African American male who was already distraught about the outcome of the trial, I experienced several emotions as I witnessed director Ryan Coogler’s depiction of the final day of Grant’s life.  There was some joy in seeing how he sought to love his family and friends, as well as how he was willing to help strangers who crossed his path.  I was also enthused by this young man’s attempts to change his life around from a past of crime for himself and for his girlfriend and daughter.  Yet from the very beginning of the film, these emotions were constantly overshadowed by the thought of knowing that Oscar was only progressing towards a murder committed by a white police officer at the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station.  Grant, who was unarmed and under the submission of BART police, was profiled and then executed as a result.  For me, this thought served as a constant reminder that black women and men are never safe from acts of racism invading their everyday lives, including those that are unto death.  Moreover, it helped to solidify what had become even more real with the murder of Trayvon Martin—racism has not left American society no matter how much we have supposedly tried to overcome it.

In Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, the late law professor Derrick Bell argues that racism is, indeed, “a permanent part of the American landscape” (Bell 92).  Although many people—specifically advocates for civil rights—would like to turn to laws and practices as proof that race-based injustice has been eroding in our country, the problem has not gone away (59-60, 93).  In fact, any effort to eradicate or constrain it has often produced a cyclical manifestation of it in another form of oppression according to the work of Bell (97, 98).  Origins of this “racial realist” thought lie in the idea that civil rights advancements in particular have not led black people in general to a place where they can they can experience progression in their social environment, economic conditions and, as we can see in the cases of Oscar and Trayvon, in their inherent constitutional rights such as justice (97-99).

As Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant, expresses after her son’s murderer was found guilty of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, there is still a need for African Americans to “fight for our equal rights in this society” (“!!REACTION…VERDICT!!”; “‘Fruitvale…2013)”).  Moreover, she expresses a dream that echoes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in which she hopes for a day when “a nation of people” would no longer “look at us according to the color or content of our skin” (“!!REACTION...VERDICT!!”; Bell 20, 60-61).  However, what is even more stressed in her address is a need to trust in God as the ultimate judge, especially considering how an earthly judicial system has failed her and other black people before and after her.  Also in this spiritual vein, it is in her closing remarks where Johnson attributes the severity of the battle which claimed her son to be one that is beyond natural operations of this world and one that can be won through Jesus Christ as the “Deliverer” who will bestow upon her people worth and equality in society (“!!REACTION”).  As we can gather, Johnson evokes a meaningful call to action and even utilizes symbols and dreams as a means to maintain faith for better living; however, are these practices what we must do in order to see these hopes come to pass in the present age (23)?  Is it even possible to see them come to pass if racism is an everlasting fragment of American life?     

In Bell’s epilogue he finds that, in a manner like the enslaved ancestors, black people must wrestle within what seems to be a paradox.  They must “fashion a philosophy that both matches the unique dangers we face, and enables us to recognize in those dangers opportunities for committed living and humane service” (Bell 195).  Similar to the claim in which Grant’s mother argues, black people must find a way to maintain a sense of humanity and even faith in the midst of the suffering while also knowing that this suffering is “not the extent of their destiny—or of the destiny of those who would follow them” (195).  This focus leads them to know that this suffering is worth resisting as best as possible (195, 199).  For me, this imperative, however, seems hopeful yet problematic.

Being that racism is considered a permanent social construct by Bell, it almost makes it seem like fighting for one’s place in this world based on the belief that there is a better life for them is almost futile.  Why should one have faith in believing that situations regarding race will get better?  On the other hand, if one is in a constant struggle because of racial constructs, why not find the means to fight for what should belong to him or her and have faith that liberation can come out of the struggle (98)?  Personally, I would like to uphold the latter mindset even though nothing has appeared to rid our social order of racial injustice.  I find myself agreeing with Ms. Johnson in that we are wrestling against principalities and powers that exalt themselves before us and that we can strive to overcome them by means of spiritual and political warfare and through our faith in Jesus Christ as the One who will make things right—even if it is at the very end of it all.  Whether or not this thought should be considered a notion of simply upholding symbols and dreams, if racism is here to stay, it appears that one has to hold the belief that—in the words of Donny Hathaway—“someday we’ll all be free” in order to even work towards its possible demise in our society.  As Bell finds, the destiny of black people is not that they should suffer; therefore, we must have hope and we must find ways out of an effective and realistic philosophy to press towards the release of racism’s grip on the lives of American people.                       

                

“!!REACTION FROM OSCAR GRANT'S MOTHER TO VERDICT!!”  YouTube video, 2:39.  November 4, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watchv=JbfOKPKada4&list=

FLiZGC8opoiGNyMBV7eEvibA.

Bell, Derrick.  Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism.  New York, Basic Books, 1992.

Donny Hathaway.  “Someday We’ll All Be Free.”  By Donny Hathaway and Edward Howard.  Extension of a Man, Rhino R 66887, 1973, 7”.

"Donny Hathaway - Someday We'll All Be Free."  YouTube video, 4:08.  November 4, 2013.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv1B0ejhFVE&list=FLiZGC8opoiGNyMBV7eEvibA.

Fruitvale Station.  Directed by Ryan Coogler. USA, The Weinstein Company, 2013.  Film.

“‘Fruitvale Station’ Oscar Grant's last day, Director Ryan Coogler interview (July 26, 2013).”  YouTube video, 6:59.  November 4, 2013.  http://www.youtube.com/watchv=gpZENHUzSYI&list=

FLiZGC8opoiGNyMBV7eEvibA

Connecting the Cross and the Lynching Tree

And Pilate again said to them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” And they cried out again, “Crucify him.” And Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

- Mark 15:12-15, ESV

“What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog?  Was he a thief?  Was he a killer?  Or just a Negro?”

- James Farmer, Jr., The Great Debaters [2007]

Just as Jesus is crucified in Mark 15 for being who he was, a great number of executed black people in America have also been guilty of the same innocent deed.  However, it is arguable that we as Americans have not been quick to understand that this similarity exists between the Jesus who has been esteemed among us and the black individuals who have been despised.    

In The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James H. Cone finds an unmistakable connection between the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified and the tree on which black bodies have been hanged (Cone xv, 3).  He argues that in America’s act of lynching, citizens should also be able to envision the act which took place on Golgotha, especially if these people are Christians (10, 63).

Similar to the execution of Jesus, the lynching of black people in America was in the hands of a crowd (Cone 4; Mk. 15:12-15, ESV).  As “extra-legal” communal punishment, close to five thousand African Americans were murdered in the “lynching era” that lasted between 1880 and 1940 (3, 30-31).  Yet, as these black men, women, and children were victimized by white supremacists who were more than likely “Christian,” there was an ironic inability to see the act of lynching as one that is just as “barbaric” as the crucifixion that their innocent Savior endured unto death (30-31, 35-36).

Not only did this disconnect between Jesus and lynched black people rest among those who involved themselves in the actual offense.  Cone argues that among American Christians, American theologians failed to articulate the parallelism between the cross and the lynching tree when considering the symbolic and substantial suffering of the former (31, 38, 40-41).  White theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr kept silent for purposes of preservation or out of lack of sympathy (46, 49; 51-52).  Moreover, there were even black ministers who did not communicate the connections between the cross and the lynching tree, thus leaving it to black secular artists and writers to relay what the preacher did not through the works that stemmed from their imaginations (93-94).

Recognizing the shortcomings of people who profess belief in Jesus, Cone appears to assert the need for Christians to stand in the paradox that considers the cross “as the terrible tragedy it was” yet also acknowledges the “liberating joy of eternal salvation” that comes “through faith and repentance” (156).  Moreover, he notes that one must recognize “the message of justice” in the cross that remembers the powerless and the suffering (156-157).  In these practices which remember the cross and find it redemptive, one obtains an imagination that is able to identify how the cross is relevant to a social reality such as lynching, as well as an imagination that can somehow find beauty in such a tragedy through faith and “God’s loving solidarity” with those who suffer (157-158, 162).  Through the ability to imagine in these ways, one is made to understand the significance of the cross to the lynching tree in America (160).  After someone takes up the faithful belief that Jesus became the innocent sufferer on the cross who allowed for salvation to take place for broken people, how does it not become possible to see him as “the ‘first lynchee’ who foreshadowed all the lynched black bodies on American soil” (158)?  How does it not become possible for believers in Jesus to sympathize with the “crucified people” of their time as they would with their Jesus (160)?  How is there not a hope for a liberated future or a sign of transcendent “loving solidarity” in the lynching tree as there is one in the cross (161-162; 89)?  It is important that, as Christians in America, we find the relation between the faith we proclaim in Jesus and the reality of the events of Jesus made known in our own social contexts (158).

In the twenty-first century context that is decades removed from the height of lynching, believers and theologians must still use, recover, and discover imaginations that link the Christian faith to social realities such as modern-day lynching and the practice of lynching in our American history.  In light of the current mass imprisonment of black people, as well as the loss of many lives to both hate and race-based violence within recent years, lynching in America is still alive and well (163).  Much like Martin Luther King, Jr., the interpretive black writers and artists who were immersed in a society of constant lynching, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, we must also rise to combat present-day forms of lynching and social injustice through cross-bearing, creativity, protest, and—perhaps most important—our faith in the One who also suffered the punishment of hanging on a tree (81-82, 93-96, 126, 129-130).    

Cone, James H.  The Cross and the Lynching Tree.  Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2011.

Great Debaters, The.  Directed by Denzel Washington. USA, The Weinstein Company, 2007.  iTunes.

Notes of Another Native Son

If I can take a moment to be transparent, my experience as a black male in America has left me in something like an identity crisis several times in my life.  Growing up, my struggle was oftentimes finding out where and how I fit in among others whom I shared space with, but did not look like.  Even among those of whom I looked like, I sometimes struggled because I wrestled with notions of who I ought to be if I shared this same embodied experience.  Ironically, what was often perceived notions of who I ought to be was more than likely based on ideals projected by the larger society which often stigmatized me or sought to turn me into some type of statistic without getting to know my personal experience.  Oftentimes I turned to creating visual art and, on occasion, writing, to express my emotions, my interests, and who I believed myself to be as I matured into adulthood.  These were the only ways that I could make out an understanding of myself in a society that did not seem to speak to my existence as both human and black.  Ultimately, I found a faith in Jesus Christ that began to speak to the actuality of my being and also ensured me of a victory that has overcome whatever the world may impose upon me (1 John 5:4-5, ESV).  However, even though I walk in this faith, I still sometimes grapple with whether or not someone can understand the particularities that can come from being a black man in America such as those which I have felt.  I believe this is why I have personally found James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son to be a liberating text, for in it he appears to have an answer to some of the challenges that come from being black in America, and he artistically speaks to the specificity that comes from one’s own experience even when he supposedly shares a commonality with the larger society (Baldwin 7).  All in all, Baldwin speaks to me and for me as a darker-hued son in this country.

In Baldwin’s timeless collection of essays featured in Notes of a Native Son, the theme of identity in the African American experience resonates throughout his writings.  Baldwin once states, “Negroes are Americans and their destiny is the country’s destiny.  They have no experience besides their experience on this continent and it is an experience which cannot be rejected, which yet remains to be embraced” (Baldwin 43, emphasis mine).

In America, the black person’s challenge has been to establish—or rather “embrace”—his identity among white people who have sought to protect their own identity (177; 143).  There has been difficulty in accepting the black person as an American because of the chance of endangering white status that is born out of white supremacy.  As “creators of civilization,” white people bent the operation of American society to work in their favor, thus demanding that the black person be seen as something less than a white human, or rather something other than human (176).  Therefore, when the African became the American slave (who also lost a significant sense of heritage in the process and aftermath of enslavement), there began the course of actions (lynching, segregation, laws, codes, etc.) that worked on removing black people from being in possession of any power or agency the white person may have.  Moreover, it would also dismantle any awareness of identity the black person may have (173, 176).  Therefore, as Baldwin references E. Franklin Frazier, the black person was left with no choice but to “find a ‘motive for living under American culture or die’” (173-174).

Appropriation and adjustment apparently become the name of the game for the black individual in America (7, 43).  Behaviors such as these emerge out of the problem in American society which reduces the black person to being thought of as a statistic or social being rather than being recognized as a human being.  Considering the African American male in particular, he exists among other Americans, yet he is relegated to existing in the social realm because he is associated with unjust living conditions, and criminal or inhumane behaviors.  Yet what society fails to realize is that by imposing such a limited identity upon a black man, the imposer loses his or her own identity as well (26).  I find that this loss happens because the black person, too, is American; therefore, “the loss of [American] identity is the price [Americans] pay for [their] annulment of his” (26).  The “native son” knows that he is the “problem”—at least the perceived notion that he is the problem (37-38).  However, he must strive to find within himself the ability to temper and “paradoxically adjust” any anger and hatred within himself that comes from being seen as the “problem” (also known as that infamous “N” word) (38-39, 42-43).  It is by taking up this behavior that he can begin to possess any sense of being a man, being perceived as a man, or even have the ability to maintain survival (39).  It is in this paradoxical adjustment that he can have any sense of being free; yet there must be something more (43).         

One aspect Baldwin seems to argue is that liberation comes from the black man being able to tell his own story which thus gives “flesh and blood” to his “anonymity” in society among other Americans (44-45).  The fact is that the “story of the Negro in America” is indeed the story in which all Americans can relate (25).  Apart from being pulled from his homeland unwillingly, the black person shares in the larger story of Americans because he has taken up this new land as his own and has no immediate loyalties to any other land (30).  However, among Americans he is still isolated, and because of this, he has his own story (which reflects America’s neglect of attention to him) within the larger story (36).  Baldwin points to Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, as a piece of work that is reflective of what can become of a black man within America’s inconsiderate structure even though he is also American (35-36).  In addition, Baldwin looks to his own father whose “blackness” he considered to be his pride and unacknowledged beauty, and also his “cause of much humiliation” and source of his restrictions in life (89).  In Baldwin’s acknowledgement of these stories of African American men among his own experiences in America and abroad, I was left pondering a question which I have considered once before: Why do I only seem to find what appears to be a small amount of written or artistically-developed stories that give face to the American identity of black men (125)?  Recognizing that I am even wrestling with a question like this seems to contribute to the idea that invisibility has been rendered to black men in America.

I may be wrong, underexposed, or ignorant, but even when considering the literary tradition that African American women have developed out of their lived history as a means to create an ethic for themselves, it strikes me that there is somewhat of a lack in this area for African American men.  As Baldwin seems to suggest himself, it appears that significant attention is given to the social problem of blackness in America (which is necessary), but it looks as if “one’s own experience” within the social structure is hardly recognized (6-7).  For reasons such as these, I appreciate James Baldwin for writing on the American experience from the lens of a black man and an inventive writer.  As an African American man and even as a visual artist and a hopeful creative and academic writer, Baldwin encourages me to pursue the possibility of writing and depicting stories of American identity from my embodied perspective.  Much like Baldwin, Wright, and Ralph Ellison, I would like to see an uprising of African-American male writers and scholars who will begin to tell stories of their experiences as native sons and those stories that are relevant to our existence in society in order for us to know our identities as Americans.  As Baldwin finds, the battle for our identity has already been won.  We just need to embrace it and tell it (177, 178-179).

  

Baldwin, James.  Notes of a Native Son.  1955.  Reprint.  Boston: Beacon Press, 2012.

To Be Loved

Shug: "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it."
Celie: "Are you sayin’ it just want to be loved like it say in the Bible?"
Shug: "Yeah, Celie. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler... just tryin’ to be loved."

-          The Color Purple (film) [1985]

Amidst all of the recent craze involving pop star Miley Cyrus and her infatuation with the infamous form of dance known as “twerking,” I was compelled to see what was really going on.  After seeing her MTV Video Music Awards performance to her single “We Can’t Stop” as well as the music video to the same song, I was appalled.  In her music video, she is in the company of three young black women “twerking” when she delivers these lyrics: “To my home girls here with the big butt/shaking it like we at the strip club/remember only God can judge ya/forget the haters ‘cause somebody loves ya” (“Miley Cyrus Lyrics – We Can’t Stop”; Cyrus, "We Can't Stop").  Although she acknowledges a possibility that somebody loves her "home girls," I find myself not being able to disassociate this so-called love from the physical attributes that she visually and verbally highlights.

One of the reasons why I stopped listening to mainstream hip-hop and other genres of music several years ago was because of its tendency to perpetuate the idea of a black woman being no more than—in the words of Bell Biv DeVoe—“a big butt and a smile” to say the least (“Poison”).  I came to an understanding back then that an artist (most often a black male) and an industry capitalized off of projecting images that made women the objects of male fantasy and dominance.  However, I think what disturbed me this time with Miley Cyrus was that it was now a white woman who appeared to objectify black women in this manner.  Although I am sure she is not the first to do something like this, this became one of the first instances that I can recall.  Yet, I do not think this is what troubled me the most.  When I gave more thought to her VMA performance, what began to bother me was that the black women twerking on stage were wearing big stuffed animals on their backs as a part of their stage costumes which, in turn, also gave more attention to their back sides.  Moreover, some women were wearing animal-print pants and were also allowing Miley to smack their behinds while they were bending over.  These costume pieces and behaviors raised concerns as to if these women were seen not just as objects, but as something, shall I say, animalistic ("Miley...2013").  Maybe I am overanalyzing, but I cannot help to see these factors as problematic.

The reason why I consider these factors as problematic in an overall troublesome scenario is because black women have been made into something inhumane throughout history.  Ethicist Katie G. Cannon states the following in her book Black Womanist Ethics: “Black women are the most vulnerable and the most exploited members of the American society.  The structure of the capitalist political economy in which Black people are commodities combined with patriarchal contempt for women has caused the Black woman to experience oppression that knows no ethical or physical bounds” (Cannon 4).  During the era of slavery, the black woman was seen as a “brood sow” and a “work ox” (Cannon 31).  She was neither human nor even female except for when she could be exploited as one (Cannon 31).  A black woman became the subject of rape and sexual misuse by white male slave masters and the means of mass reproduction for black men—both of which contributed to the imposed idea that she was an oversexed creature (36-37).  She was also the target of vindictive treatment by white women who were troubled by their own status as the prized property of white men (Cannon 38-39).  She was also the one who was required to do most of the work on the plantation (Cannon 33).  Even as time moved towards emancipation and beyond, she was still overworked and limited to working unskilled, strenuous labor jobs with minimal pay (Cannon 46).  

Today, black women are still greatly challenged by gender discrimination, prejudice, and poverty (Cannon 66-68).  In order for black women to fight against systems of the world which have sought to keep them completely at a disadvantage, it has been necessary for them to develop their own ethical framework and language (Cannon 75; Smitherman, “Testifyin, Sermonizin, and Signifyin,” 240).  In other words, black women have found the need to speak and write for themselves in order to survive and thrive within a society where its white- and male-based infrastructure is made to keep her impoverished, under male subjection, and radically oppressed (Cannon 4).  She has been striving to find and exercise her voice out of the moral wisdom of her community and her own lived experience (Cannon 4, 5-6).

The ethical framework that has surfaced for black women flows out of the black woman’s literary tradition as a source.  Cannon finds that this tradition is a foundation for black women’s ethics “because the development of the Black woman’s historical and literary legacy is tied up with the origin of Black people in America” (Cannon 77).  Stemming out of black oral tradition and the black woman’s stance as a “participant-observer” in black communal life, black women writers have recorded the fullness of the black experience and the morality that emerges within it (Cannon 84, 87, 89, 90).  Drawing from the lived experiences of black women and the black community in general, writers such as Zora Neale Hurston have been able to convey virtues of “quiet grace” and “unshouted courage”—virtues that allow women to find the true essence of their own being as well as their strengths and convictions even in the midst of suffering (Cannon 104, 125, 133-134, 143-144).  It is in works that have considered the black woman’s narrative as important that black women have been able to find and express their voice and moral meaning.

As Geneva Smiterman asserts, it is vital that African American women “fashion a language, building on and rooted in the African American Experience, that speaks to the head and the heart of African America” (Smitherman, 238).  Let us look to the testimony of Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas in 1991 as a historical example of a need for black women to have their own language to convey their truths for the purpose of understanding their experiences.  It is troublesome that there were black women in particular who sided with Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill in allegations of sexual harassment because he chose to use language that correlated with “blackness” and she chose not to do so (Smitherman 237-238).  The general notion that there was a failure for her testimony to be heard seriously is a problem in itself, and it is not her fault that her word was not acknowledged in full sincerity.  However, there must be further work done in linguistics by black women for black women in order for their stories and struggles to be considered significant among themselves, the African American community, and the larger society (Smitherman 240).  On the other hand, the acknowledgement of the stories and struggles of black women should not only be the concern of black women.

Everyone has a role in making sure the narratives and needs of black women are attended to and that further exploitation, abuse, and neglect of black women does not happen.  Deriving out of Shug Avery’s proclamation in her dialogue with Celie in The Color Purple, it should be a disgrace to God that we bypass a black woman and do not consider her significance.  Just as any human being, she longs to be loved.  She may even seek to find this love through some type of performance or in a cry.  However, we who stand outside of her embodied personhood might continue to not only deny her love but perpetuate abusive and oppressive actions.  We might continue to objectify her and reduce her down to sexualized property or, as Miley would say, “a home girl with the big butt.”  All the while, she is left to rise up out of her overworked, underpaid, objectified, and racialized situation with the aim of “hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick” (Cannon 33, 66-68, 128).  This should not be.

As black women continue to construct a language and an ethic that emerges out of their literary tradition and lived history, I propose that those of us who do not embody their particular experience should support black women in their endeavors to craft narratives and voices and acknowledge them for who they find themselves to truly be.  I believe there needs to be more efforts in place to ensure that black women and their lived experiences are not looked over and abused.  Considering that I initially looked at what has recently transpired in the entertainment world, I particularly see a need for this type of work to take place in realms of media among other arenas.  Perhaps industry insiders and music performers would reconsider the exploitation of black female bodies if they were sensitive to the stories of black women throughout history who have been seen as nothing more than someone’s property.  Perhaps consumers of media and connoisseurs of pop culture would think before endorsing negative images of women if they read a novel by Zora Neale Hurston in their educational formation.  Furthermore, perhaps if employers would become aware of the value of black women as extraordinary human beings, we would no longer seek to subjectively fashion her in all of her excellence into servitude roles in which she is the most needed person in the formation and function of this country (Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe,” 203; Cannon 33-35).  Perhaps by all of us seeking to know a black woman for the person she truly finds herself to be, we can all know that she is of great virtue and that she shares the same ultimate longing as any other being made in the image of God—to be loved.         

Bell Biv DeVoe.  “Poison.”  By Martin Richard Gilks, Miles Stephen Hunt, Robert Jones, Malcolm Roy Treece, and Elliott Straite.  Poison, MCA/Universal R 1645, 1990, compact disc.

Cannon, Katie G.  Black Womanist Ethics.  1988.  Reprint.  Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006.

Color Purple, The.  Directed by Steven Spielberg. 1985.  Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2007.  DVD.

Cyrus, Miley.  “We Can’t Stop.”  YouTube video, 3:34.  September 30, 2013.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrUvu1mlWco.

“Miley Cyrus Lyrics – We Can’t Stop.” A-Z Lyrics Universe.  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mileycyrus/wecantstop.html (accessed September 30, 2013).       

“Miley Cyrus We Can't Stop Blurred Lines Give It 2 U Robin Thick e Video Music Awards 2013.”  YouTube video, 6:20.  September 30, 2013.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5f7nUBGTts.    

Smitherman, Geneva.  “Testifyin, Sermonizin, and Signifyin: Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the African American Verbal Tradition.”  In African American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas, 224-242.  Edited by Geneva Smitherman.  Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Spillers, Hortense.  “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.”  In Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture, 203-229.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

God of the Oppressed Informing Pentecostal Faith

As a Pentecostal Christian believer who comes from both Black Church and multi-ethnic congregational experiences, we testify of a spiritual liberty that comes from salvation in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.  In this freedom in which “Christ has set us free,” we declare that we are no longer bound by the “yoke of slavery” that comes from “desires of the flesh,” and we press to “live by the Spirit” so that we can remain free from desires of entanglement (Galatians 5:1, 16, NRSV).  However, it is seemingly rare (if ever) that I hear anything within my church context on the matter of being liberated from social structures of this world that aim to keep certain folks (arguably even some of us Pentecostal believers) subjected, poor, and enslaved even though narratives in Scripture tell of instances in which people are released from oppressive situations by the hand of God.

James H. Cone contends in God of the Oppressed that God in Jesus Christ is on the side of the poor and heavily afflicted, thus making God a social and political God who not only gives attention to the true, particular experience of African Americans, but seeks to be their Liberator (Cone 15-16, 74-75).  The origin of this ethical principle that Cone proposes is in the truth of Jesus Christ which is found in the dialectical relationship between Scripture and tradition on one hand, and the social context of African Americans on another (100-105).  For Black Theology, Scripture becomes a source out of which this form of theology operates because it tells of Jesus Christ—the person of whom black people have been able to identify with in their struggle for freedom.  In their songs, stories, and sermons, African American people have been able to express the Jesus whom they have found in Scripture but have come to know in reality as the one who has been able to understand their sufferings and be the Redeemer of them as well (28-29, 101-102).  Moreover, they have been able to draw from the Church’s traditional proclamation of faith in Christ, but they have also made an effort to infuse their African culture into their understanding of Western Christianity.  This has been done as a means for blacks to take up an appreciation for Jesus that does not compromise their possibility for liberation.  Within the Christian tradition that has been esteemed as the standard, there is no consideration for the poor, enslaved, and oppressed in relation to the divinity and personhood of Jesus.  Therefore, out of the tradition’s unwillingness to do so comes the problem that hinders liberation (104-105). 

What has presented itself as the metaethical problem has been the universal theological scholarship that has been based around “whiteness” without contemplating the particularities of the black experience, namely the oppression that is present within it (7, 48-49).  Cone recognizes that the Christian tradition adhered to by a white American theologian overlooks matters of color in theological discourse because he or she has not been a victim of oppressive violence and, therefore, has no religious or social context that is relatable to that of black people.  For this reason, a universal theology is valued and the stories and religious experience of black folks are not adhered to within this constructed system of Christian thought (49).  According to Cone, this leaves black Christians questioning how they can “explain [their] faith in God as Liberator of the oppressed,” especially since they have undergone centuries of oppression that cannot be identified by white society (173).

Because the struggle of blacks cannot be identified in the history of white people firsthand, Cone calls for blacks to construct a theology of liberation that cuts loose from white structures and finds its center in Christ’s presence within their struggle (179).  In this effort, the task of theology must be one that recognizes “the significance of the oppressed’s struggle against inhuman powers,” the idea of God taking up the struggle, and the ability to express God in the particular context of the struggle (90-91).  The goal of this imperative is liberation; however, it must be remembered by the black theologians who carry out this task that the salvation that comes from God through Jesus Christ is the primary source for human liberation (127).    

Within the salvific past, present, and future events of Jesus and in the narratives of Scripture, God proves to be the Liberating God of history (51, 120-121).  Knowing that Jesus Christ has and continues to give the oppressed vitality and personhood through his life, death, and resurrection, black people have been able to see Jesus as a real, historical figure who is on their side (108-110).  Moreover, African Americans have been able to appropriate the “historical character of liberation” found in Hebrew Bible and New Testament events to their struggles for freedom and to their understandings of God’s ability to make liberation historically real in their situations (140-141, 120-121).  For example, Black preachers utilizing narratives such as the Israelites being led out of slavery have been used in contexts of black suffering as a way to evoke the hope and the proof that God can deliver blacks out of situations and institutions of oppression (141).  By recognizing the relationship between God in Scripture and God in the realities of history, one can also discover what they should do—just as these preachers begin to do themselves.

The theological question, “Who is God?” should influence the ethical question of, “What must we do?”  When we understand who God is and what God has done for the oppressed in Jesus Christ, we can know what to do to ensure the liberation of people suffering from injustice (180).  In the case of African Americans, knowing what to do can begin by looking to both Scripture and the Black experience relationally (188).  Considering the experience of the oppressed as well as the God who liberates people as evident in Scripture is the adequate way of ensuring that black people in particular do not remain under oppressive ideologies and structures—ideologies and structures that did not take their experience into consideration to begin with, nor the evidence that the God of the Bible is a Liberator (188-189).

Reflecting back on my particular experience in the Pentecostal stream of Christianity, I believe that the knowledge that comes from the African American exploration of these theological and ethical questions is translatable to my tradition.  Just as relating the social experience of black people to Scripture in order to get an understanding on what to do for the purpose of liberation, I would like to see how Pentecostal traditions can adopt this same practice as a means of determining what we must do to see the full liberation of the oppressed come to pass in light of God’s activity in Scripture.  This exploration may not only encourage us to recognize the oppressive social powers that keep people bound along with the spiritual; it may also move believers of Pentecostal faith from places in which they might find themselves socially oppressed.

Cone, James H.  God of the Oppressed.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997.

What can be learned from African spirituality?

In The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse, ethicist Peter J. Paris takes up a task to give a detailed explanation of “the common features implicit in the traditional worldviews of African peoples as foundational for an African and African American moral philosophy”(Paris 19).  In his efforts, he determines that there is an underlying thread of spirituality that forms a social ethic of moral virtue for Africans and African Americans even if both groups may be culturally different (21-22, 129-130, 132, 133, 162).  This spirituality, which is consistent of the interconnected experiential realms of God, community, family, and personhood in African life, provides the foundation of virtue ethics for Africans and African Americans (21-22, 129-130).

The origin of moral virtue within the African and African American experiences can be said to begin with that which is divine and spiritual, for life is given and maintained from this realm (25, 28, 33).  At the root of the relationship between the spiritual being(s) and African peoples, however, is a principle of covenant.  Covenant between the divine and humans considers the idea of sustaining life on the hand of the divine in exchange for devotion from living people (28, 44).  This idea of covenant permeates into the realm of community which primarily seeks harmony within physical and even cosmological relationships with ancestors (51, 56), and into the familial realm which considers all relationships to be reciprocal in respectful accordance to age-based hierarchy (86-87).  Upholding this network of relationship encourages the production of a person who exemplifies character that is reflective of the greater good of their community (88, 109-111).

Posing as some challenges to African spirituality and the moral life that comes from it have been Western notions and practices that have disturbed and questioned structures embedded in African communities and people.  For example, slavery had a dynamic impact on both African territory and the embodied souls of those who were exported out of her bosom (61).  Moreover, the Western focus on individualism has stood as something quite contrary to an African’s ability to find personal identity in community (11, 114-115).  Yet perhaps one of the more significant notions taken up by Westerners revolves around the Christian conversion of slaves without the recognition of Africans as humans or their African religion (28, 36, 62-63).  Although African Americans in particular were able to appropriate Christianity to their own African understanding of spirituality (e.g., developing spirituals and sorrow songs) and their American experience of slavery (e.g., finding theological justification for abolitionist efforts), there was no initial care about their well-being as people or what their own beliefs held (63-67, 29).

Paris’s focus on the components of African spirituality seems to inform me as an African American and as a human being about how important—or rather necessary—it is for these interlocked factors to be in operation in order for a social ethic of moral virtue to be existent.  Without spirituality that is inclusive of the interconnectedness of God, community, family, and personhood, the formation of “morally virtuous” character is impossible for African peoples (129-130, 133, 134).  Formation of virtuous character only becomes possible through the intentional and habitual behaviors within the components of African spirituality (133-134).  By being a part of a community that esteems covenant with the sacred through practices and upholds values for family members, the character of a person has the ability to be developed and understood by those within the community and be deemed as “good” (89-90, 43-44, 134).  Individuals such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. are examples that Paris points to as people who have embodied these behaviors and have thus been viewed as figures of virtues such as beneficence, forgiveness, and justice to name a few (136-156).  For example, Mandela is recognized for his neighborly heart for his people in South Africa and towards his former enemies (139), and King is known for his belief in all people living in “beloved community” (154).  Moreover, Africans and African Americans have been said to promote forgiveness towards oppressors by displaying kindness over hatred (148-149).  Imagine how much our world would be different if we were all transformed by a spirituality that has the ability to yield a virtue such as forgiveness.  Think about what it would mean for everyone to live in a society where they could truly look to their neighbor who is hospitable enough to share her resources regardless of whether or not she has enough for herself.  Moreover in this regard, what might equality and justice for all look like? 

It may not have all the answers to insights such as these that have been mentioned; however, I believe that the spirituality of African peoples has moral virtue within it from which we all can all learn and grow together.  It would be wonderful if we could all challenge ourselves to either be or remain immersed in community that seeks to uphold relationship with God, neighbors, and family as a means to truly know each other and to know our true character.  Emulating the practices from African spirituality may be a critical force in producing moral change in our world.

Paris, Peter J., The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse. 

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.

The Line Runs Deep

The story of John Jones featured in The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois is one that resonates within the core of my young, Black, Southern being.  A “good boy” in the eyes of the white people in his late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century context of Altamaha, Georgia, Black John is not expected to achieve much of anything out of fear that he would become something disgraceful or, one may dare say, “dangerous” (Du Bois 142, 150).  For someone with a courteous personality and skillfulness in labor, having the opportunity to receive an education is a downright waste, and the notion of rising above anything better than servanthood or equal to the norms of whiteness is a falsehood (142, 149-150).  Of Southern charm yet loud, unkempt, joyously green, ill-versed, and inconsistent, he arrives at an institution of learning where he eventually awakens to the “Veil” that he wears as a Black person within a white society and the oppressive ideals that he once received as the norm (144, 142-145).  Returning to his hometown with the intent to educate his people, he is challenged by the operations and principles that continue to keep his people second-class and subservient.  In due course, opposing those principles leads to his demise (146-153).

As a Black male coming up from a twenty-first century rural context, I have found myself to be somewhat like John in my own personal maturity and educational matriculation.  I, too, seem to have possessed the same attributes (well, maybe not the loud one), and I have been partially blind to the veil until becoming (and still becoming) more aware of it through academics.  Looking at my contextual background in comparison to his, I find that not much has changed in the world since his time. 

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Du Bois pronounced that the issue of major concern is “the problem of the color-line” (v, 9).  Of course, this ship did not roll in at the turn of the century.  America was in war over race matters only a few decades before, and the thought of a Black person being some primitive organism that rests somewhere on a spectrum between human and livestock stems from days well before she was washed ashore in a New World (9, 55-56).  Yet for the two centuries which have emerged since the Emancipation Proclamation, the words of Du Bois are still resonant: “The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the [freedpeople have] not yet found freedom in [their] promised land” (4).

For one to possess a “double-consciousness” that comes from being Black in America is a realization that he or she has not yet found full liberty within his or her self and within his or her country (2).  To see self through the beliefs and perceptions of another without the ability to truly see self for whoever self is proves to be a struggle and a problem indeed (2-3, 122).  At this present age, no one should have to find him- or herself willingly accepting “the old attitude of adjustment and submission”—going along to hopefully get along and come up economically while, in the meantime, repressing dignity and human identity (30-31).  By doing this, one remains under oppressive ideologies and practices, denying the fullness of her God-given gifts, talents, and abilities.  As Du Bois understands it to be the case for his context, perhaps this mindset can be intercepted through the work of Black institutions that move beyond the focus of achieving economic status and encourage the development of a person who is capable of turning the tides of the conditions of her people for the better through what she knows and her ability to impart what she knows into others (52-54, 64-66).  Much like how John seeks to bring racial uplift by investing his education in his community, perhaps she can be a remedy to current issues such as a 48-percent high school dropout rate among African American males (“Black Male Graduation Rates”).  Whatever the efforts of racial uplift may be, however, there must also be an owning of deeds by white people for the conditions of African Americans even up until now (p. 113).  Regardless of how docile and civil or well-educated and “dangerous” I may be, the stories of John and a twenty-first century, seventeen-year-old young African-American male in a hoody are a few examples that seemingly teach me that a Black man can easily become a threat to the social order of white privilege and, thus, become easily disposable (Alvarez and Buckley).  If the possibility for ownership of misdeeds ever occurs and it interchanges with Black efforts for racial uplift, there is hope for the improvement of society and, perchance, the eradication of the color-line (113).  Maybe then can the words of Du Bois concerning the nation be a hum of the past.

Alvarez, Lizzette and Cara Buckley. “Zimmerman Is Acquitted in Trayvon Martin Killing.”  The

New York Times, 13 July 2013.  Web.  2 Sept. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/george-zimmerman-verdict-trayvon-martin.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

“Black Male Graduation Rates.” The Urgency of Now: The Schott 50 State Report on Public

Education and Black Males.  http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-graduation-rates .  2 Sept. 2013.  <http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-graduation-rates>.

Du Bois, W. E. B.  The Souls of Black Folk.  1903.  New York: Dover Publications, 1994.