Little Black Boy Lost: Imitating Identity

Last week, I interviewed a very important person to speak to the formation of the Black male identity – my nine year old nephew. Though he is certainly not a Black man yet, his little brain is already forming around what he thinks a Black man should be. The interview went as follows:

Me: Nephew, do you know anything about Trayvon Martin?

Nephew: Yeah, I know who that is.

Me: Well, what happened to him?

Nephew: He got killed.

Me: How did he die, Nephew?

Nephew: Well, Trayvon wasn’t doing nothing but Zimmerman said it was self-defense. Trayvon only had some skittles and tea though.

Me: So, if Trayvon wasn’t doing anything, why did Zimmerman kill him?

Nephew: Because. He’s racist.

Me: What does racist mean?

Nephew: That means he don’t like Black people.

Me: Well, why are people racist?

Nephew: Because Black people are different than them.

Me: How many best friends do you have?

Nephew: I have 3. CJ, DJ, and Terrance.

Me: Are they Black?

Nephew: Yeah, they’re all Black.

Me: Do you have White friends too?

Nephew: Yeah, I do. At school, I do.

Me: Well, are you different from them?

Nephew: No. It’s not like that – it’s just that I do different things than them.

Me: Oh, okay – so we are different because we DO different things. So, what did Trayvon do that was different?

Nephew: It’s because he had on a hoodie.

Me: So, if Zimmerman had seen any other person, like a White person or someone that wasn’t Black, wearing a hoodie would he have shot them?

Nephew: No.

It is interesting to hear what my Nephew said. It is even more interesting to read between the lines of his very pre-adolescent mind. While my Nephew may not know what the word stereotype means, he seems to already know the basic premise of what it is. He assesses that racism is based on Black people being different yet appropriates the difference is tied to our actions. What is more, intriguing and also problematic, is that he rightly stated that any other person doing the same thing that Trayvon Martin did (i.e. wearing a hoodie) would not have been shot and killed. My Nephew realizes that certain bad things happen to Black boys who wear hoodies – but he seems to think that the hatred found in racism is tied to the hoodie and not the wearer. His beautiful innocence has not allowed him to connect the dots yet. But what happens when he does? When he realizes that the very being of Blackness may trump the things he does. What happens when he begins to modify his behavior because of his being? Who will he become as a Black man if stereotypes already infiltrate his pre-pubescent pores?

In the laws of physics, one refers to a frame of reference as a method to represent and measure properties of objects such as their position and orientation[1]. In a layperson perspective, a frame of reference provides one with a context, or basis, in which one can then make proper comparisons and conjectures about an observed object. In the laws of White men, a stereotype is swiftly elevated and permeated as a frame of reference by which all subsequent perceptions of Black men are achieved. From his frame of reference, rooted in White, male normativity, the White man can comfortably suggest the Black man’s position of perpetual inferiority and his orientation of engendered criminality. And, while the White man may rest, the Black man must wrestle – with who he is and who society has created him to be.  James Baldwin, in Notes of a Native Son, goes to great lengths to accurately describe this ethical tap dance all Black men must tirelessly perform.

The black man insists, by whatever means he finds at his disposal, that the white man cease to regard him as an exotic rarity and recognize him as a human being. This is a very charged and difficult moment, for there is a great deal of will power involved in the white man’s naïveté…the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him thus to preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors[2].

And, this is where an American society’s frame of reference becomes the fiercely entangled framework where many a Black boy is heuristically lost and even more Black men are heavy laden with futile resistance begat by lifetimes of foundational reinforcement.

                Beyond the recent inquiry of my less than a decade old Nephew, I polled five more opinions of Black men, ages 22 to 35, from different walks of life. A junior high vice principal. An industrial engineer. A medical doctor/surgeon. And two fellow divinity school students. Out of these five men, all five men admitted to being a cognizant participant in what they called the game. The game is the White man’s world, which laid out like a chess board, must be navigated with cunning strategy and ingenuity by any Black man seeking to successfully provide, protect, and procreate for himself and his family. Baldwin affirms this Black-man-code, stating:

I knew very well what Americans saw when they looked at me and this allowed me to play endless and sinister variations on the role which they had assigned me; since I knew that it was, for them, of the utmost importance that they never be confronted with that, in their own personalities, made this role so necessary and gratifying to them, I knew that they could never call my hand or, indeed, afford to know what I was doing, so that I moved into every crucial situation with the deadly and rather desperate advantages of bitterly accumulated perception, of pride and contempt. This is an awful sword and shield to carry through the world, the discovery that, in the game I was playing, I did myself a violence of which the world, at its most ferocious, would scarcely have been capable[3]…

It is not that I was not aware of this game – as a Black woman, I must know it and engage in it as well – yet, I was keenly unaware of its stakes before talking to my male counterparts. I asked them how continuing to play this game and modify their behavior, based on stereotypes, to keep the White man comfortable was helping the Black man’s cause. They all, in a rather matter of fact manner, educated me in spelling out each of their individual causes to feed their families. In other words, half a century ago, Black men were united together fighting for the common goal of freedom and equality and they were willing to lose their lives or go to jail to achieve it. But, today, in 2013 there is no real unified effort within the Black community that would serve as the impetus for outright defiance of society’s rules because the cost would ultimately be the loss of his job and his livelihood. It seems clear to them that working subversively within the structures of the White man’s proscription is the best solution to gaining access to position where he would be powerful enough to effect change for other Black men and women.

            Maybe this is where political correctness within the Black community stems from - a desire to change, but never offend, the world from the inside out, rather than the outside in. But is this even attainable? It seems feasible. Obey the rules. Play the game. Work your way up. Once at the top, make decisions to uplift others who look like you. Yet, I must argue the truth stated by Audre Lorde which says, "...the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change[4]." In this effort to overcome racism and, simultaneously, understand his true self, the Black man is left with the perilous task which indicates he must come over who the White master's intended him to be and stand under the weight of a society that would rather he bow down.

It was his necessity, in the words of E. Franklin Frazier, to find a ‘motive for living under American culture or die.’ The identity of the American Negro comes out of this extreme situation, and the evolution of this extreme anxiety in the minds and the lives of his masters[5].

Therefore, it is the moral obligation of the Black man to divorce himself from the facade of imitation of identity and, instead, completely marry himself to the ferocious inspiration to identity.  This means that he must allow each of his experiences, whether bad or good, to work in and through him both restoratively and retroactively. For without willingness to undergo journey, there can be no rupture in the disk of a crooked, American vertebrae.

                James Baldwin, perhaps prophetically, speaks very candidly about an incident he had involving a White female waitress after being chased by an angry mob of White people. He ducked into a restaurant, only to be met with another refusal to be waited on because he was Black. He describes this instance as one in which he was ready to kill this woman to assuage the rage burning him inside:

…I had been ready to commit murder. I saw nothing very clearly but I did see this: that my life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart[6].

Baldwin introduces rage as if it is another person who might be living inside of him, and, possibly, inside of every Black man. I think immediately to Aaron Alexis, the Black man who is also the recent Navy Yard shooter. Alexis claims to hold “the delusional belief that he was being controlled or influenced by extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves[7].” With mass shootings on the rise world-wide, observing the past 30 years of occurrences, approximately 67.5 percent included White male shooters. In addition, there is a strong correlation of mental health issues plaguing those responsible for mass shootings with approximately 63 percent having a history of a mental illness[8]. Yet, the Office of Minority Health has published some harrowing data about the demographics of African Americans, confirming that Black people living below the poverty level are three times more likely to report psychological distress, Black men and women are 20 percent more likely to report having serious psychological distress than White people, and the death rate from suicide for Black men was almost four times that of Black women in 2009[9]. I do not know Aaron Alexis. I have only ever seen him on the news or in the newspapers. But reading Notes of a Native Son begs me to ask if Mr. Alexis even knew himself? James Baldwin discusses his father’s death and is saddened because his Dad never knew that he was beautiful – he just knew that he was Black. Do Black men, who allow rage to engulf them, know who they really are or that they are lovely and beautiful, not lewd nor beastly. It is unfair to judge Aaron Alexis without knowing him, his identity, or his humanity. In the words of Baldwin, “thou knowest this man’s fall; but thou knowest not his wrassling[10].” I am forced to admit that just as my own brother could have been Trayvon Martin. He could have just as easily been Aaron Alexis.

An old hymn says, “There are some things I do not know. There are some places I may not go.” One thing my Dad always taught me was to never venture into a place you cannot handle. I do not know that I have ever really stopped to consider the peculiar, particularity the Black man finds himself smashed in limbo between; and, I don’t know if this is a place that I would want to handle.

At the root of the American Negro problem is the necessity of the American white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself… the white man’s motive was the protection of his identity; the black man was motivated by the need to establish his identity[11].

I would be interested to engage and research Black men (and women as well) who have lived, are living, or have a predisposition to mental illnesses. I have never flown into a rage or wanted to murder anyone or anything (besides insects and rodents), but there is a very present reality that the weight of the world can trigger an imbalance in the mind that the Black community has not been open enough to talk about nor treat effectively. I fear our Black men are becoming the disposable by-product of constricted demands and constant setbacks.

                As for me, I plan to translate what I have learned from the prolific James Baldwin into a personal space that includes the Black men who are in the sphere of my influence. It occurs to me that I have fallen victim to aiding and abetting the mass assassination of the Black man’s morale – maybe not intentionally, but rather ignorantly of how my voice, my desires, and my actions could be further alienating or beating my Black counterparts. It is my hope to affirm you and, to this end, I write this letter to all my sons, nephews, brothers, fathers, husbands, and friends:

Dear Black boy/man,

I realize that every day, when you leave home, you put on your armor.

To protect you. Shield you. And, perhaps, even keep you warm. The world is cold – you know this firsthand.

I know that America never meant to be your friend; and because of that, you have a hard time knowing how and when to trust, live, and be.

When you return home, I do not want you to feel as though it is necessary to leave those guards up. Those guards that you must employ while navigating the game in a White man’s land.

Instead, let down your guards. Your sarcastic tone. And your well-used defense mechanisms.

Here, at home, you are safe to cry. You are safe to laugh. You are safe to be scared, from time to time.

You may enter into my prayer closet with me. And pray to a God who understands you.

You can leave all your pieces, your pawns, your rooks, and your bishops, in the car.

Here, at home, we are the King and Queen, who answer to no one but the Divine.

I will never overlook you. Look through you. Or look upon you with hatred.

I will ever look to you.  Look for you. And look like you, fearfully and wonderfully made.

I will love you. I will challenge you. And, I will push you for better.

I will harness all the freedom I can muster. And liberate you from the outside world, if only just for a little while.

Most of all. Maybe…no certainly, I will carve out a space for you to simply be you. Black man. Forever powerful. Eternally beautiful. Into Paradise, everlasting.

Gratefully yours,

SRH

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[1] “Frame of reference,” September 16, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_of_reference

[2] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 169.

[3] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 147.

[4] Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Sister Outsider, (Crossing Press, Berkeley: 1984), 112.

[5] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 173.

[6] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 99.

[7] Greg Botelho, Joe Sterling, “FBI: Navy Yard shooter ‘delusional,’ said ‘low frequency attacks’ drove him to kill,” September 26, 2013. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/us/washington-navy-yard-investigation/index.html

[8] Philip Bump, “There Will Be Another Mass Shooting: This Is What the Data Tells Us About It,” September 17, 2013. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/there-will-be-another-mass-shooting/69508/

[9] “Mental Health and African Americans,” The Office of Minority Health. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?lvl=3&lvlID=9&ID=6474

[10] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 107.

[11] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. Revised ed. (Beacon Press, Boston: 2012), 176.

Treasure in Jars of Clay: The Unconquerable Soul of Black Women

Definition of Limit:

1.)    [noun] a point or level beyond which something does not or may not extend or pass.

2.)    [noun] a restriction on the size or amount of something permissible or possible.

3.)    [verb] set or serve as a limit to.

4.)    [math] a point or value that a sequence, function, or sum of a series can be made to approach progressively, until it is as close to the point or value as desired.

In noun and verb form, the concept of the word limit can be described briefly as a boundary meant to keep something contained. In Calculus, when a mathematical function cannot be solved directly, a limit is used to describe its solution. The limit simply refers to a place the function approaches. In some instances, a function approaches infinity – therefore, the equation is limitless. In other instances, limits can be found at a definite location bounding the function to a specific number. In others, the limit is deemed DNE, or does not exist. In a hierarchical viewpoint, the functions that are limitless seem undeservingly lucky. The functions that have a confined limit seem depressingly sad. And the functions that have limits that DNE seem defiantly indestructible. This is how one must view the plight of a Black woman in America. She sees the limitless nature of the White male institution – and he is undeservingly lucky. Wherever he wills to go, whoever he wills to be, whatever he wills to do, he is able to perform it with no sign of censure. She sees the confines of all other races and genders and she is saddened. She knows that a White woman’s world is more privileged than that of herself and her Black counterpart. But she is more deeply effected with the knowledge that she is on the bottom of the proverbial totem pole; for just under the White man is the White woman. Under her is the Black man. Lastly, under him is the Black woman. She is triangulated by ‘isms – by racism, by sexism, and by classism. Despite this reality of the limitations placed on her, ones that attempt to minimalize her personhood and forge a template of who she can be, she is expected to live and move and have her being as the caretaker of Black culture and the nurturer of Black traditions while never making her White and Black constituents uncomfortable at her presence.

The Black woman’s moral situation, as Katie G. Cannon refers to it in her work Black Womanist Ethics, is a result of several factors. The institution of slavery had already stripped her of her family, diminished her to the role of ‘brood-sow,’ violently assaulted her physically and sexually, and relegated her to not only working in the field with other Black males but also working as a domestic inside the houses of her White owner. In the antebellum period, she then became further imperiled to subhuman treatment.

The theme of objectification inherent in the domestic servitude of the Black woman continued to permeate her life. Bereft of formal education and advanced skills, the Black woman as a domestic worker was usually at the white employer’s mercy. Her employment arrangements had few, if any, demands that white people were obligated to meet… Sexual harassment became the women under slavery. As a vestige of slavery, white male heads of households assumed the sexual accessibility of the female domestic worker[1].

The Black woman, even after slavery had ended, was left in a hopeless, barren place – in which she was still forced to live and bring forth life. She was never wanted, but always needed. She was a child violently reprimanded when she spoke for herself, yet she was a woman when a man wanted to violate her body with his sex. She fought to live while living to fight. The weight of the Black woman’s burden had cast an imprint upon her that left an ungodly mark on her body and disfigured her to the root of her soul.

How does one live when given a death sentence? Is there any hope of living within the lifetime limits placed upon a life that cannot even be classified as one’s own? Can there be any navigation between the wiles of triple discrimination – racism, sexism, and classism – by the Black woman? It is the Black woman’s prerogative to answer these existential questions compliantly in the negative. Then, she could learn to merely exist in a world that despises her and never say a mumbling word. However, that would essentially feature the Black woman as a major role in her own dramatic demise. Yet, if she dares to answer these questions defiantly in the affirmative, then she must piece together her own format for how to transcend a proscribed life of limitation. It is that Black woman’s supreme goal to successfully find a function in her life that affirms that the limit society has tried to force upon her simply does not exist, or DNE. It is her duty to see to it that she makes a name and a way of life for herself despite of her diverse trials. Though “[she is] afflicted in every way, but not crushed; [she is] perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed[2]. She must find the unmitigated gall to live life in the folds of an anyway mindset, not dependent on submission to the status quo.

For this Black woman, she who is bludgeoned yet unbowed, she must construct an ethic that would empower her in the midst of struggle, energize her despite the truth of lack, and ennoble her with an inner truth that no man could put asunder. Yet, an authentic self-actualization that exists above and outside the White man’s gaze is more than a protracted process. Frankly, without a methodology or model, the possibility for success is grim. In Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Mister strips main character Celie of her beloved sister Nettie. Celie has birthed two children, fathered by her own step-father, who are swiftly taken away from her. Her mother dead, Nettie is the only symbol of love and sanity that Celie has ever known. As she comes to the realization that she must let Nettie go, Celie screams out, “write! Write!” Nettie answers, “nothin’ but death can keep me from it!” Alice Walker points to the life-saving value found in the power of a Black woman’s pen.

Black women have used their creativity to carve out “living space” within the intricate web of multilayered oppression. From the beginning, they had to contend with the ethical ambiguity of racism, sexism and other sources of fragmentation in this acclaimed land of freedom, justice and equality. The Black woman’s literary tradition delineates many ways that ordinary Black women have fashioned value patterns and ethical procedures in their own terms, as well as mastering, transcending, radicalizing and sometimes destroying pervasive, negative orientations imposed by the mores of the larger society[3].

A Black woman must have a canon of her own that will instruct and inspire her with permission to be a part of a world that loves, values, and cherishes her body, soul, and mind even though everything surrounding her tells her that her worth is menial at best.

The triple standard that Black women face has staggering implications with notable footprints left in the last several years (on top of hundreds of years of inhumane treatment). For instance, in 2007 Don Imus nationally declared the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team, comprised of mostly Black women, as “nappy headed hoes.” He goes on to say that the team they played against, University of Tennessee, were all cute – but the Rutgers girls were just ugly[4]. To make matters far worse, a very popular Black comedian D. L. Hughley appeared on Jay Leno’s show weeks later and sides WITH Don Imus saying that though the women may not have been hoes, they were still “nappy headed” and some of “ugliest women [he’s] ever seen in [his] whole life[5].” In the recent and highly publicized Trayvon Martin case, the media, America, and the Black community had a rouse blaspheming the name of Rachel Jeantel. While she was not on trial, the judgment of her character was nothing short of the blatantly critical ridicule that Anita Hill faced back in the 1990s when she testified against Clarence Thomas in a sexual harassment case. In August of 2013, buzzworthy rapper Juicy J went on the record as publicly offering (and later revoking) a $50,000 scholarship to the “best chick who can twerk[6].” These examples are more publicized because of the nature in which they surfaced – via mass media. However, these examples are mere minutia in comparison to what lies beneath the media frenzy. Black women are still suffering in substandard conditions, where nearly 26% are living at the poverty rate. In addition, Black women continue to make only 64 cents to the White man’s dollar according to the National Women’s Law Center[7]. According to research conducted by the Sentencing Project in 2005, Black women are 3 times more likely to go to jail or prison than White women[8]. This is compared to data found in the National Survey of Family Growth completed in 2012 in which 51% of White women were married versus only 26% of Black women[9]. There is no need for the burden of proof in the plight of Black women because the writing is on the wall. One in four Black women are living in poverty. Out of four Black women, only one is getting married. Black women are three times more likely to be incarcerated than their White counterparts. And Black women are earning two-thirds the salary that White men make. Black women are the diminished because of appearance. Black women are the butt of jokes. Black women are smeared in a national campaign of defamation.

Reflecting retrospectively, it occurs to me now that I never played by the rules as a little girl, teenager, or young adult. I consistently broke them all the time. Not in a rebellious way, rather it was very subversive. For instance, the way my Mother loathed the fact that I always played blacktop basketball with the boys. I played with girls too, but Mama wanted me to be dainty and delicate. I wanted to be dangerous on the court (a skill which I still have), so I played with boys anyway. Or the way that my 3^rd grade teacher, Mrs. Greene, told me that I would never be able to spell the word ‘tomorrow’ because I missed it on a spelling test. She was the same teacher that never gave me any excellent marks on my report card and continually complained that I was over-talkative and non-engaged in learning. She tried to give me a death sentence and steal my God given joy. Yet, I ended up doing exceptionally well the next year of elementary school anyway and earning advanced placement standing. Or when people tried to tell me to enter into college with an open mind about my major (my grandparents and parents were both educators) because they thought engineering would be very rigorous, I majored in engineering anyway. Or when my undergraduate engineering advisor adamantly told me that graduate school would not be a feasible option for me, seeing that I had a below stellar GPA – I received full funding and a fellowship/stipend and WENT TO GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR ROBOTICS ANYWAY. My whole life as a Black woman had and has always been a series of ‘anyway’s’.

But, what about when there is no anyway? Anyway amounts to DNE in your world because there is nobody to show you the way to anyway? Maybe your mother is MTV jams. Maybe your teacher is Real Housewives of Atlanta. Or maybe you don’t have a place to even lay your head, let alone watch a television series. How does an anyway mentality become a lifestyle when the learning curve is invisible? In my home, my Mother raised my Brother and me as a single parent for quite some time. She worked two jobs, kept a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, and educated us like nobody’s business. She managed to have us in church every Wednesday and Sunday and involved us into her non-profit work in providing resources for high-risk and impoverished youth. Those kids that I would see – when we went to deliver them Christmas presents (some of which were our own hand-me-downs) – I could see the look in their eye of malnourishment. It wasn’t that they weren’t eating, even though they probably only ate once at school. It was more that they lacked fulfillment in their little souls. I never noticed it then, but I know now why Mama tried so hard to affirm us, to affirm me.  She never wanted us to be a statistic when society said we were doomed to fail. And, she never wanted me, as her only daughter, to feel empty because she was a struggling single mother. Instead, she wanted me to feel empowered because she was a struggling single mother. So, she acknowledged the bold and brilliant woman in me every day. Whether it was her coming in my room to kiss me, say I love you, and put me to bed every night. Or how she never missed a game – never, not one. Even to this very day, she still calls to tell me she’s very proud of me and encourage me to keep going when school or work gets heavy. She mothered me and raised me with continual words of affirmation. That is the key to my anyway.

As I alluded to this fact earlier, I know every little girl does not grow up with a caring mother, or motherly figure, that can call out the womanist in her. A few years ago, I read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. He outlines five different ways to give and receive love. For me, the best way of understanding love is with Words of Affirmation which can be attributed to my upbringing. I would be interested to perform a case study on the effects of love languages in young adolescent females to see how they cope with or without them in their environment. When Celie finally finds her voice after reading the letters from Nettie that Mister hid away for so many years, she talks about how vastly painful life was without the one person who truly loved her. There are so many young Black girls out there who are lost simply because they have no contact with anyone who truly loves them. They are treasure in jars of clay. They are unconquerable souls. They can make a world where limits do not exist. But someone has to tell them that. And that someone is she who has already learned it for herself.

I’m poor. Black. I may even be ugly. But, dear God – I’m here. I’m here.

---

[1] Katie G. Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 47.

[2] 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version).

[3] Katie G. Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 76.

[4] “Don Imus and Nappy Headed Hos,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9BjB7Bzr0

[5] “DL Hughley ATTACKS Rutgers Women,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIqD1GCvedw

[6] “Rapper Juicy J offers, then revokes, 50k twerk scholarship,” August 22, 2013 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/juicy-j-offers-then-revokes-50-000-twerk-scholarship-20130822

[7] “Women’s poverty rate stabilizes, remains historically high,” September 12, 2012 http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/women%E2%80%99s-poverty-rate-stabilizes-remains-historically-high

[8] “Women in the Criminal Justice System, “ May 2007 http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/womenincj_total.pdf

[9] “Marriage Statistics,” September 2012, http://www.statisticbrain.com/marriage-statistics/

Black Liberation Theology: Response and Responsibility

Who is the judge?

The judge is God.

Why is He God?

Because He decides who wins or loses. Not my opponent.

And who is your opponent?

He doesn’t exist.

Why doesn’t he exist?

He is a mere dissenting voice to the truth that I speak.

Speak the truth.

I watched the Great Debaters again (repeatedly) in the past few weeks. And my mind keeps replaying the scene when character James Farmer, Jr. lodges his closing arguments against the Harvard debaters. He opens with the grim statement: “In Texas, they lynch Negroes.”

Following the dramatized version of history, I open this essay with the thought – in Mississippi, they lynch Negroes. I spoke with my Father earlier today, and he recounted the story of his discovery of a dead man in 1966 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Daddy would’ve been eight years-old then. He was in the woods along with his stepfather, when he looked up – there he was hanging helplessly. A young man. His age was uncertain. But his fate was clear. He had been lynched. Left there lifeless. Waiting on someone to discover him and restore a semblance of dignity that his life ever mattered. And so, it was that my Daddy – as a little child – was tarnished with morbid image of the punishment for simply being Black.

He has never shared intimate details with me. Only the bare necessity of factual information so that I could understand the truth. Having blocked out the memory until he was 28 years-old, he tried desperately to erase it from his psyche for the early part of his young adult years. But it never could be erased nor washed anew. It was there. Not gone, and not hardly forgotten. And, it occurs to me, that this is where Black Liberation Theology finds itself – smack dab in the middle of ugliness of lived experience of oppression and the freedom found in the love of God.

In God of the Oppressed by James Cone, he outlines the basic truth of Black Liberation Theology. He says:

Jesus Christ is not a proposition, not a theological concept which exists merely in our heads. He is an event of liberation, a happening in the lives of oppressed people struggling for political freedom. Therefore, to know him is to encounter him in the history of the weak and the helpless. That is why it can be rightly said that there can be no knowledge of Jesus independent of the history and culture of the oppressed. It is impossible to interpret the Scripture correctly and thus understand Jesus aright unless the interpretation is done in the light of the consciousness of the oppressed in their struggle for liberation (Cone, 32).

Cone asks a very provocative question that he says Black theologians must face head-on: “To what extent is the God in Black Theology limited to the biological origin of its advocates (Cone, 77)?”  It is to this question that I gather in my mind and spirit an insight that I do not readily know the answer to. My Daddy told me that his Father, my Granddaddy, taught him this one very important thing as a Black man: dying is better than bowing down to any White man. My paternal Grandfather was a reverend who was the product of a slave owner and slave – and he vehemently rejected every part of the White in him. Similarly, my maternal Granddaddy – an austere deacon and Civil Rights activist – lived to his dying age of 93 still calling White people peckerwoods (which is a derogatory name for Whites). There is a liberty that I think my Grandparents never got to experience for themselves. Regardless of the good of Black Liberation Theology, I do not think that it was able to help my Grandparents (and people with similar experiences) see a God past the limits of biological origin.

Maybe Black Theology was never supposed to help them get past this vision of Jesus. Maybe it was only supposed to help them achieve liberation from racism. Yet, I often times wonder about if my both my Granddads, along with the other great cloud of witnesses to Black Jesus, ever got to see just Jesus. It is not as though I am trying to negate the prime necessity for Black Theology. Nor am I trying to overturn its credence. But I struggle with knowing if Black Theology really gave our people, my people, an applicable knowledge of how to overcome oppression and how to rightly identify with Jesus by treating others with love and grace. If so, then why are there so many oppressions that presently exist within the Black Church. We preach liberation, yet are we really free? I believe that we like to think that freedom is the absence of oppression. But this is not so. Taking from the laws of physics, it is darkness that is the absence of light. Therefore, it is oppression that is the absence of freedom. Anywhere there is injustice, there is no freedom. And if my foremothers and forefathers felt that the proper response, in light of Black Theology, to their own oppression was to secretly (or publicly) disdain, mistreat, or look down upon White people, women, gays, or any other group of people – then we have failed.

Black Theology must distinguish its origin and its action. It has equipped us with a response to hatred and bigotry. But has it showed us our responsibility? Yes? No? Maybe? Those are all valid responses – yet it would be irresponsible of us to simply say ‘I don’t know.’ We need to know what kinds of implications a Black Liberation Theology has had on those who have reared us. Did Black Jesus help wash my Dad's memory as white as snow? Did He liberate him from the understanding of race or just the reality of racism? We must ask our parents and grandparents the tough questions about their understanding Christ and Church. For it is their experiences that taught them. And without engaging them on those experiences, we miss out on some of the directives of Black Theology.

Who is the judge?

The judge is God.

Why is He God?

Because He decides who wins or loses. Not my opponent.

And who is your opponent?

He doesn’t exist.

Why doesn’t he exist?

He is a mere dissenting voice to the truth that I speak.

Speak the truth.

Who's the Judge?

The Great Debaters at MOVIECLIPS.com

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