God is Still White, the Devil is Still Black

Sympathy for the Devil: Fear and Truth in the Imagery of Christianity

29 March 2013

“Where is the black-man’s paradise…?” – song by Morgan Heritage

I have just watched with very little surprise how a new series called The Bible, currently airing in the United States of Amerikkka is making waves at the Box-Office. The journalists were attempting to ascertain how such a laborious and classical theme is still gaining so many fans while there has been a steep decrease of church goers in western society. What made me sit down to write this however, was not the matter of whether the west is losing its religious zeal, but how religion is still an instrument of power and intolerance.

What outrages me is how the character of the Devil is portrayed by a menacing Black person while the Saviour of mankind still remains lily white, blue eyed and victimised. While this is not a surprise, it is disappointing to find that in this new century, when every serious historian acknowledges that ancient Israel or the areas around Jerusalem were populated by people of mixed ethnicity, we still find black evil incarnate and white innocence incarnated. There is so much that one can lament about this type of imagery, but suffice to say that in a world revolving around the supremacy of whiteness, black people have no say, the more Christian they are the more pious and unobtrusive: proper sheep following their hypocritical shepherds.

In most places around the world, religion is at the heart of many national conflicts. The paradox of this is glaring. For example, the very word Islam means Peace, but even a superficial look at the countries wherein Islam is the state religion there is massive amounts of corruption, violence and censorship. Religious freedom does not equal religious tolerance at all.

Christianity prides itself on the ‘Love thy neighbour’ rhetoric and it is supposed to be the epitome of charity and  compassion, yet history shows us that so much human suffering has been ‘blessed’ by apologetics, Popes, Bishops and even lay preachers have been at the heart of hideous crimes against humanity. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the chemical warfare perpetuated by Fascists in Afrika are just one example. 

Perhaps one should find a balanced view, to discover the goodness among the various or at least the most populous religions. Surely there must be a whole lot of positive attributes to Christianity, but for me, I do not see how it helps Afrikan people to determine their own destinies and see the divine within themselves.

 I would really love to simply ignore the whole business of religion since there are so many contradictions, especially since it is a subject teeming with the intangible; what the faithful call ‘the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for.”

But how can one ignore the continued demonization of the black human being. In fact this character casting works as part of the whole white supremacist project, which Black people support willingly and without any pang of embarrassment.

Most of them are still subconsciously convinced of the godliness and intellectual superiority of the white master, the silky hair of the Barbie doll and the divinely ordained whiteness of his God. Black is emptiness and devoid of any virtues until it is touched by the enlightening light of white civilization. This is a well-planned reality.

It is the year 2013, a time wherein so much has happened to prove to people globally that there should be equality of opportunity and respect for all human rights. Yet women are under severe attack from all fronts, black women are the most long-suffering victims of human (read: white male) recklessness.

Blackness today is not synonymous to humanity despite our forever claiming to be the possessors of Ubuntu/Humaneness. The reality of most black peoples lives is a bleak and hellish one. Our stories are still being told by our conquerors. Many European and Eurocentric researchers, academics and even scientists still view Afrikans as nothing more than an intriguing subject, a spectacle and a charity case.

Even one of the researchers I have quoted, who proves step by step and using Biblical evidence that Jesus and his ancestors were of Horite (worshippers of the sun god Horus)/North and West Afrikan origin is a European woman, still sounds like she is speaking about a scientific project instead of groups of humans. She does tremendous anthropological work on the Afrikanness of many if not all Old Testament figures, the founders of the kingdom of Judah and Israel. The only issue I hold against her is that her narrative has an apologetic Christian bias. But who listens to such stuff?

According to the modern and faithful believer, racial identity does not matter, because as the apostle Paul writes, your race does not matter as long as you have been ‘bought by the blood of Christ’. But then Jesus himself is known to have held his own ancestors in reverence. Yet we are supposed to treat them like demons?

How-long must we endure such insults and for what nefarious reasons have we been subjected to this fraud? As far as I know, our earlier ancestors were coerced into accepting this religion by the missionaries and evangelists who did not spare the rod on them. There is a well-known saying that when the white man came the native had the land and the European had the bible and the gun, today the white man has the land and the black native has the book, yet no significant gun-power. This is painfully true and it is something that most devoted Christians of colour do not want to acknowledge as they deem it simplistic and the talk of hard-hearted trouble-makers.

Many scholars have wrestled with this problem, but the reality is that most Christians, especially the ones who claim to be born again, do not read much of Afrikan literature and those who do, choose only the books that condone or pat them on the back as civilised. Anything that questions the status quo is seen as ‘of the devil.’ And since the devil is depicted as a Black person, it goes without saying that blackness is synonymous with temptation, opposition and evil.

How then shall we redeem the image of the earth’s most wretched group of people? There is a need to do this and sweeping identity politics away will not help anyone. We must act now and decisively since we are the ones we have been waiting for. Yet many battles and revolutions organised and executed by some of the most outstanding intellectuals and writers whose aim was to depict black Afrikans in a positive light. The proliferation of the Christian doctrine along white supremacists lines and negative depictions of Black people continued and as this popular film indicates, it is still being perpetuated.

Many of those who would lay the foundation of the first and second aspects of the

Tradition, (the tradition of speaking and writing as independent minded Afrikans) pan-Africanism and the antiquity of African civilization and thought, were simultaneously influenced by the revolution in Haiti and European/American thought,

particularly as it was propagated through Christianity.

 According to Rosalind Cobb Wiggins, prior to the 1730s most Africans in America were not Christians. It was not until the “Great Awakening” of the 1740s that not only European Americans but Africans held in various forms of bondage (certainly so-called “free” Africans during these times were in such a state of precariousness that such a term would hardly apply) came fully into the church.16

 In fact, after 1776 the unified states began passing legislation that used taxation as a means to enforce the teaching of Christianity.17 (Still Speaking: An Intellectual History of Dr John Henrik Clarke)

So how can an enforced religion become the salvation of humanity? How can it give people the tools to liberate themselves from various forms of mental chains? I say that it cannot. This is the reason why I would rather be persecuted as ‘confused’, heathen or heretic rather than join in on the festivities of Easter holidays and Christmas cheer. All these are imposed upon me by the dominant and predominantly white male institution called the church and its God is a blue eyed white male who does not resemble any of my ancestors nor my father of mother. Yet my mother is totally devoted to this super-elevated human being, all based on the unquestionable ‘rightness’ of what they call the Word of God, which to them means The Bible.

We need a resolution,a new heavens and a new earth, or else a new humanity devoid of religion. Let is tell our own stories before our real identity forever perishes in the narratives of others.

 

Menzi Maseko (c)