Whenever a racial incident occurs it has become commonplace now that the two biggest disappointments, at least to me personally besides all the "sellouts" and traitors "cooning" among us in the Black Community, are the spiritual leaders (primarily Christian ministers) and White Christians. They are both used against us to keep us in check or from getting out of line, and from effectively challenging the oppressive system of "White Supremacy" against us in our defense. Other religious leaders of different faiths tend to be more demonstrative and polarizing, but make Christianity the enemy while not offering real comprehensive solutions to solving these issues we are facing short of having a "Race War". Their other offering is often in emotionally galvanizing others to take ill thought out actions to seek revenge which will only lead to a cycle of gang like retaliation that causes more innocent lives lost.
Intellectuals or the "Conscious Community" tend to be existential or atheistic in their beliefs and disregard faith in God while often accepting scholarly theory as fact, but primarily only believing in what can be proven by science and history. Sometimes they also practice some type of primitive ancestor or nature dogma to be "one with the universe" which becomes their defacto god and religion; even though they don't acknowledge it as "god" or religion. People who believe this way tend to be quite pompous in their own right by reason of what they feel is a greater enlightenment or superior knowledge in comparison to others. They argue against religion or religious people because they don't understand that people of faith don't disregard science or history but acknowledge them as confirming their faith while recognizing and submitting to a higher power beyond them. In the intellectuals pursuit to be devoid of or above religion they become just as religious as the religious in proclaiming their own beliefs.
You rarely, if ever, see the Conscious crowd, Muslims, or the Hebrew Israelites truly stepping up in a united defense of Black people because they seem to spend more time criticizing Black Christians who they say "believe masta's lies and religion" while incessantly calling other Black people "coons" or "agents", and accusing them of "working for the white man"; which they themselves don't do a thing about other than talk. Most of their vitriol and condemnation often seems to be focused at their own people, and not the system of White Supremacy or racists who put racism to brutal practice against Black people on what has become a regular basis now. More "true" Christian leaders and people have given their lives for Black people than any other group, and those who have didn't do it because they were deceived but because they believed and loved people more than their own lives. Their faith gave them strength to do good.
We aren't being killed, abused, and mistreated because we're religious, but because we are Black people with a common ancestral heritage. Our ancestors were taken in chains across the Atlantic Ocean while some followed Islam and others were worshipping the ancestors, so it doesn't make a difference what you believe, pick up, or go back to if we don't go forward united as one people. Until Black folks stop making our mistreatment a religious issue or an intellectual one we will continue to be victims of systemic abuse and exploitation. Bullets and other means of our harm aren't religious or intellectual, and we've been praying under every religious heading for nearly 400-years along with getting more educated with little change. It means either we don't know God, don't really know what God said, or there is no God except maybe only for White people. While we're trying to figure it out let's deal with our situation as one instead of arguing about it and remaining divided over an issue we're not suffering injustice for.
You're not more "pro-black" because of your religious belief or your intellectual philosophy in opposition to religion. I'm fed up and will not be checked nor walk a line drawn by those who have historically benefited from our oppression and suppression regardless if we're the same religious persuasion, nor by those who seek to dominate and mislead me in anyway just because we're both Black. Why give the murderer the gun, strip naked for the rapist, tie yourself up for the abuser, or voluntarily feed yourself to wolves? This is what is being asked of us by telling us to do nothing but pray, or react emotionally without a unified plan.
While we've been marching and singing songs like "We Shall Overcome" believed to have been written by Rev. Charles Tindley, White folks have been singing "Praise the Lord and Pass The Ammunition" by Kay Kyser. Why don't our songs match theirs? Our songs don't match and neither do our results. The spirit of our music seems to reflect the differences in philosophies by which we live. Black People, you need to get legally armed as is your Constitutional right, take some self defense training, or do both along with praying. If you're not religious or a praying person you have the other two options available for protection in this hostile racial climate.
I'm an uncompromising proud Christian believer, and not an atheist in any way shape or form. I don't believe the original intent of religion was meant to ever be oppressive or divisive. I believe the intent of religion was to teach mankind how to have a genuine relationship with his Creator and also know how to better govern himself as well as treat his fellow man. Mankind has turned it into a system of control and rules to dominate others for more dastardly means. Knowing the evil hearts of humanity it is easy to surmise how faith and religion can be as a sword that divides between the believer and non-believing as well as those who believe differently. At this point we will never get back to the original intent of any religious philosophy meant to bring peace unless and until God Almighty himself comes and establishes it. God is God and you are you; just wait until you die and then you will find out if you were right. In the meanwhile, let's get what is right while we are alive.
White people "today" (unlike the 60s) who do not live among us or are married into our families are not going to approve and some who are won't either, but neither will those on the outside come to your aid or defense when you are brutalized, or they would have by now after the nearly 400-years we've been in the Americas suffering injustice before the world. It costs them too much of what they've gained in privilege to give us that which we so rightly deserve. That being the case, we are going to have to fight for it socially, economically, academically, politically, and even physically as needed. Do not lay down until you can rise up without someone else's foot on your neck or that of your children. We matter, and deserve the equal right to exist safely in the pursuit of peace and happiness anywhere in the world.
As long as men rule on the Earth, religion and the idea of intellectual superiority will be a divider, not because of God but because of ourselves. If we continue to use religion as a point of divisive debate we will continue to suffer under the rule of White Supremacy, and only have ourselves to blame. My faith governs my personal life as well as public behavior. If many of us are as religious or "conscious" as we say then it should be seen in how we conduct ourselves without saying it, and also in how we respect the rights of others to believe differently without trying to force them to believe otherwise or offend them because they do. That is counterproductive to our goals as one people and is a self defeating zealot, fanatic attitude. If we're going to continue doing that then we may as well go back to calling White folks "boss", "masta", and saying "yassir" while dancing a jig as someone else plays the jug and slaps their ham-bone. It's unity or death! ~ I.J. West
You rarely, if ever, see the Conscious crowd, Muslims, or the Hebrew Israelites truly stepping up in a united defense of Black people because they seem to spend more time criticizing Black Christians who they say "believe masta's lies and religion" while incessantly calling other Black people "coons" or "agents", and accusing them of "working for the white man"; which they themselves don't do a thing about other than talk. Most of their vitriol and condemnation often seems to be focused at their own people, and not the system of White Supremacy or racists who put racism to brutal practice against Black people on what has become a regular basis now. More "true" Christian leaders and people have given their lives for Black people than any other group, and those who have didn't do it because they were deceived but because they believed and loved people more than their own lives. Their faith gave them strength to do good.
We aren't being killed, abused, and mistreated because we're religious, but because we are Black people with a common ancestral heritage. Our ancestors were taken in chains across the Atlantic Ocean while some followed Islam and others were worshipping the ancestors, so it doesn't make a difference what you believe, pick up, or go back to if we don't go forward united as one people. Until Black folks stop making our mistreatment a religious issue or an intellectual one we will continue to be victims of systemic abuse and exploitation. Bullets and other means of our harm aren't religious or intellectual, and we've been praying under every religious heading for nearly 400-years along with getting more educated with little change. It means either we don't know God, don't really know what God said, or there is no God except maybe only for White people. While we're trying to figure it out let's deal with our situation as one instead of arguing about it and remaining divided over an issue we're not suffering injustice for.
You're not more "pro-black" because of your religious belief or your intellectual philosophy in opposition to religion. I'm fed up and will not be checked nor walk a line drawn by those who have historically benefited from our oppression and suppression regardless if we're the same religious persuasion, nor by those who seek to dominate and mislead me in anyway just because we're both Black. Why give the murderer the gun, strip naked for the rapist, tie yourself up for the abuser, or voluntarily feed yourself to wolves? This is what is being asked of us by telling us to do nothing but pray, or react emotionally without a unified plan.
While we've been marching and singing songs like "We Shall Overcome" believed to have been written by Rev. Charles Tindley, White folks have been singing "Praise the Lord and Pass The Ammunition" by Kay Kyser. Why don't our songs match theirs? Our songs don't match and neither do our results. The spirit of our music seems to reflect the differences in philosophies by which we live. Black People, you need to get legally armed as is your Constitutional right, take some self defense training, or do both along with praying. If you're not religious or a praying person you have the other two options available for protection in this hostile racial climate.
I'm an uncompromising proud Christian believer, and not an atheist in any way shape or form. I don't believe the original intent of religion was meant to ever be oppressive or divisive. I believe the intent of religion was to teach mankind how to have a genuine relationship with his Creator and also know how to better govern himself as well as treat his fellow man. Mankind has turned it into a system of control and rules to dominate others for more dastardly means. Knowing the evil hearts of humanity it is easy to surmise how faith and religion can be as a sword that divides between the believer and non-believing as well as those who believe differently. At this point we will never get back to the original intent of any religious philosophy meant to bring peace unless and until God Almighty himself comes and establishes it. God is God and you are you; just wait until you die and then you will find out if you were right. In the meanwhile, let's get what is right while we are alive.
White people "today" (unlike the 60s) who do not live among us or are married into our families are not going to approve and some who are won't either, but neither will those on the outside come to your aid or defense when you are brutalized, or they would have by now after the nearly 400-years we've been in the Americas suffering injustice before the world. It costs them too much of what they've gained in privilege to give us that which we so rightly deserve. That being the case, we are going to have to fight for it socially, economically, academically, politically, and even physically as needed. Do not lay down until you can rise up without someone else's foot on your neck or that of your children. We matter, and deserve the equal right to exist safely in the pursuit of peace and happiness anywhere in the world.
As long as men rule on the Earth, religion and the idea of intellectual superiority will be a divider, not because of God but because of ourselves. If we continue to use religion as a point of divisive debate we will continue to suffer under the rule of White Supremacy, and only have ourselves to blame. My faith governs my personal life as well as public behavior. If many of us are as religious or "conscious" as we say then it should be seen in how we conduct ourselves without saying it, and also in how we respect the rights of others to believe differently without trying to force them to believe otherwise or offend them because they do. That is counterproductive to our goals as one people and is a self defeating zealot, fanatic attitude. If we're going to continue doing that then we may as well go back to calling White folks "boss", "masta", and saying "yassir" while dancing a jig as someone else plays the jug and slaps their ham-bone. It's unity or death! ~ I.J. West
Most Eliquently stated..as Always!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Syndi.
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