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practicelab · 8 years ago

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DNA

https://youtu.be/NLZRYQMLDW4 (Kendrick Lamar- DNA)

September 11, 2001 happened and I saw it with my own eyes. I watch their fear, their struggle, their pain and their constant efforts to convince the world, convince AmeriKKKa that they were NOT terrorists (oh what irony!); that what the world witnessed that day was NOT Islam. I empathized with my Muslim brothers and sisters and vowed that day to always speak up about the beauty which I had learned and known to be of their people and their religion. After all, who in the hell, as a Christian (pun intended) would dare to persecute and judge a group of people that come from the same triad of a religious family tree? Judaism, Christianity and Islam all sparks from the same fire of peace, love and being in one accord. But the answer is Christians of course. But hold up! That’s a DIFFERENT type of Christianity, and I want to explain.

While I was present and mindful, or at least I thought, of the Muslim community and its struggle across the globe to separate themselves from radicals that committed heinous crimes in the name of their religion I never once considered my privilege as a Christian woman in Western society. Epstein (1999), stated how, “mindfulness attending the ordinary, the obvious and the present” (p.839). Yet here I am in the present, reflective on the past and realizing even then, in 2001, I was not mindful of the obvious. No matter how I show my solidarity, my Christian faith represented the dominant, acceptable and safe belief system to those outside of it. So even when I proclaimed my faith and yet outright condemned the oppressive impositions of the faith, it did not matter because I was swept up in the cloak of Oppressor, Stealer, Killer, Controller, Manipulator, Conqueror, Chosen One, all in the name of Jesus Christ. It carried with it all the signs of a privileged group: normalcy, superiority, cultural and institutional power and domination (Goodman, D. 2011). It is hard to live with the reality that the world acknowledges only the err of your belief system and smears you with the darkness of blood over you just as the Israelites smeared lambs blood over their doorposts in the Book of Exodus. So for Black Americans I understood this schema of associating Black Christianity as a sort of treason against our heritage.

https://www.facebook.com/whatisjoedoing/videos/1175339139151079/ (Black Christian by Joseph Solomon)

I am a proud Christian and a proud Black woman in AmeriKKKA. This leaves me in quite a conundrum of acknowledging EVER BEING a part of a privileged religious group, as a Black American. But to the world and mostly to Black Americans I have chosen to identify with the oppressor and follow the All Mighty White American Jesus that enslaved my people for hundreds of years. Marsh (2009) noted, that these “schemas are mental ‘maps’ by which we process routine information with little to no conscious thought” (p.2). This process is what has created a generational divide between Black Americans. Many feel in order to embrace our culture we must abandon all things related to our history of oppression and others feel in order to fully embrace their Christian they must remove all pre-slavery historical context from their doctrine. I will not choose.

https://youtu.be/tgVZykEiB40 (Millennials of Faith: What do Young People Think of Religion)

I was stuck. I struggled. I spoke out. I found myself having to defend my religious choice. I explain to anyone who will listen because I guess the older I become, the more annoyed I am at the miseducation that even pro-Black doctrine and gurus can squawk of Christianity being a tool of enslavement for the Black Man of today; White Man’s Religion, they call it. You can’t be a Christian and Woke is what my community says. But religion is a choice, a birthright AND also a massive tool of manipulation I’d say. And yes, it was used to rid, scrap, peel, kill and burn away the religious identity of the Indigenous, specifically through Christianity and Islam. I would inform my Brothers and Sisters of Color that true Christianity, followed by Islam, was well, live and kicking well before the Trans-Atlantic & Trans-Saharan (Arab enslavement of Northern Africa and EUROPE - yes, white people). I would suggest they research Coptic Orthodox Christianity in East Africa. I make no excuses that Christianity was used BY the oppressor but it is NOT the true religion OF the oppressor. Just as Islam is not the religion of hate and martyrs.

How can a rich father teach humbleness to his seed? Just questions, the stubborn all get taught tough lessons I look at all I got like "What's missing?" God is my only guess, 'cause yes, faith relieve the stress I find peace again when I find Him and see I'm blessed Real blessed, life has always got me wondering (Wondering, wondering) Am I doing it right?

Joey Bada$$ featuring J. Cole- Legendary

Wait! The audacity of me. There it goes again. The privilege. Recently I had to take a step back and analyze my actions and need to explain myself even further. I used tactical self-awareness as a way to ground myself and seek humility, but was that enough? (Burghardt, S. 2011, p.2). I became confused by my actions. Here I am, a part of the dominant religion, safeguarded as people are being persecuted and yet I am feeling defensive??? I had to understand how, structural oppression, like that of religions, have shaped the context of my interpersonal identity in America (Almeida et al, 2004). How my identity now places me in a position of explicit privilege conflicts with the fact that I do not identify with the White radicalization of Christianity that has contributed to the historical trauma of the Indigenous and enslaves populations. According to Dombo & Gray (2013), “previous trauma experiences, systematic discrimination, oppression, and lack of familial and social supports can leave a person vulnerable to the sequlae of trauma” (p.90). Well I say the Black American slave experience has left an entire race of people, scarred, resentful and untrusting of what they find no relation to across the waters to the coasts of Africa. For us all, Christianity which was supposed to be a gateway to Heaven, became a pathway to hell. And like many of my ancestors of the Igbo Tribe of Nigeria who marched off into the singing shores of the Dunbar Creek, Georgia, they will rather die before accepting a faith used and abused by the oppressor.

But in this current climate, I understand the importance of what it is I am here to do and that is to stay true to who I am and my positionality. I want to continue to inform People of Color of the origins of this Christian religion we have been taught to hate while ensuring I do not steal the light away from my Muslim Brothers and Sisters who are too fighting to separate themselves from the depiction of hate.

https://youtu.be/le1kHp5lLmk (J. Ivy, Never Let Me Down)

What the Christian community and it's leaders need to realize is that whether we like it or not, the Kingdom is divided and always has been. Period. Just like any other religion, by power and oppression. It's legacy of love, peace and oneness have been scarred. Before Black Christians go off sipping the kool-aid & passing the collection plate to the white hood in the pew, they need to realize the TRICK language they are associating themselves with today, ALT RIGHT CHRISTIANITY. It is a dangerous & detrimental thing. It is extremism. The "Jesus back to the White House" mentality is the same Christianity the oppressor has used to kill, manipulate, degrade and enslave human beings. Is that really the God you serve?!

The one that oppresses people, controls bodies and condones the maltreatment of our Muslims brothers and Sisters while turning cheek to the surge in homegrown terrorism, the slaughter of armed forces and chemical genocide in communities with no clean water?! Last I checked our origins with Islam are ONE & the SAME so how can you as a Christian not be praying & standing in defense for those in need and we come from the same Book?!?! Like White People who have fought the Cause, I must learn to be an ally that stands behind, not on the side and not in the front, because the Christian story, whether right or wrong has already been told. It is up to us to internally chance the narrative of the Black Church.

O' son of man, O' son of man Who was the angel in Revelations with the foot on water and the foot on land Who was the angel that rode a Harley from the project to the house of Parliament And opened the book in the Devil's chamber and put the true name of the Lord in it Old Jerusalem, New Jerusalem Cuff lights these beats with a ball of fire They poisoned the scripture and gave us the pictures of false messiahs It was all a lie Mystery babylon, tumbling down Satan's establishment crumbling down This is the year that I come for the crown Bury my enemies under the ground

Chance The Rapper - How Great

It is VERY possible to forgive those that are in the wrong and doing evil, as we have all been commissioned to do. I pray to forgive any and all but I do not and refuse to be in support of ANYTHING/ONE that is against LOVE & PEACE. I stay prayed up; I'm good because the Jesus I know doesn't live in a White House and never did. He lives within ME, My House, this Temple, so there will never be anything "missing". Too many Believers out here are praising the so-called return of Jesus to the White House!!! Which is telling within itself, because if you had him living in the White House, was He then ever in "your House" in the first place....or did you kick Him out?

See the God I serve is of love, peace, tolerance for those who lived their lives as they pleased. Jesus provided hope, knowledge and taught those to seek the power that was already within, support and hold your community accountable. He traveled from lands to lands, walked within the coasts of my Mother Land preaching of liberations way before we thought Jesus was the one we needed to liberate ourselves from. He taught of mindfulness, agency, fellowship and network to build a stronger community. Jesus even suggested that we meditate! The Bible speaks to how he understood how powerful liberated oneself could be and even spoke of the human duty of operating in just manner towards one another. Because Jesus, himself, was a Social Worker!

Almeida, R., Hernandez-Wolfe, P. & Tubbs, C. (2011) Cultural equity: Bridging the complexity of social identities with therapeutic practices. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3, 43-45.

Burghardt, S. (2011). Macro practice in social work for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.

Dombo, E., & Gray, C. (2013). Engaging Spirituality in Addressing Vicarious Trauma in Clinical Social Workers: A Self-Care Model. Social Work and Christianity, 40(1), 89-104.

Epstein, R. (1999). Mindful Practice. JAMA, 282(9), 833-839.

Goodman, D. (2011). Promoting diversity and social justice : Educating people from privileged groups (2nd ed., Teaching/learning social justice). New York: Routledge.

Marsh, S. (Summer 2009). The Lens of Implicit Bias, Juvenile and Family Justice Today, NCJFCJ

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