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.
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.
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.
“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.
