Dr. Andre E. Key
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"God of our weary years, God of our silent tears" Black theodicy and the Zimmerman verdict

7/14/2013

3 Comments

 
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land. - Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing
    
So says the last stanza of the Negro National Anthem. It assumes that there is a sympathetic heavenly being actively watching out over black folk since our ancestors were first thrown into the tragic circumstances of enslavement and racial oppression.  It is at the root of theistic forms of Black religion.  Anthony Pinn in Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology discusses black folk's attempts to rationalize their circumstances in the language of redemptive suffering.  It posits a benevolent, loving, all-powerful deity who is offended at the mistreatment of black folks and will eventually end that suffering in an act(s) of divine justice.  The reasons for this ethnic suffering range from being the instrument of instruction to teach America to be more just society to the erroneous belief that black folk have merited this suffering by some act of divine disobedience.  But what all of this "God-talk" (as Pinn calls it) does is beg a critical question that was posed by William R. Jones at the height of the black liberation theology movement, "Is God a White Racist?"  Essentially, Jones ask Black Christians in particular and black theists more broadly to provide evidence that God is on the side of the oppressed.

Today all across America various versions of the redemptive suffering trope are being sermonized in Black churches especially the one that the parents of Trayvon Martin decided to attend this morning.  Black folks will be told that the justice of God in light the Zimmerman acquittal should not be questioned. That this tragedy is a part of God's greater plan.  Some might argue that it was necessary for Trayvon's death and Zimmerman's acquittal to solidify the push for a new authorization of the recently gutted Voting Rights Act or perhaps as President Obama has opined the need to pass new gun control legislation , or to move black people on a host of other social and political issues.  That seems like an unreasonable burden for a 17 year old child.  It almost reeks of human child sacrifice. In order to move God of our weary years and silent tears to act we must continue to offer our children up as unblemished offerings to gain (and keep) the basic civil rights of an American citizen and human rights in general.  Did somehow the lives of Emmett Till, Cythnia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair (and countless others) brutal deaths no longer satiate this deity and now required the lives of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Rekia Boyd, Marissa Alexander, and Aiyanna Stanley?  Crazy and insane logic you say? That's exactly what is being argued each time black people invoke that these deaths are a part of some divine plan of redemptive suffering for black freedom.

More importantly, what type of God is this that requires black folks to offer up their children to the cult of white supremacy to access a public bathroom or a voting booth?  I argue only a God that is a cruel unashamed, unsympathetic white racist; or more accurately African Americans have unconsciously constructed a deity that is a white racist and looks to it for their liberation from oppression.  Either way, this deity can never be the source of black folks struggle to lead more meaning lives as human beings. 
3 Comments
msq
7/14/2013 09:46:59 am

Yes.....and I feel like we've talked about this before but this entire narrative of sacrifice for equality fits into the whole myth of negronia that it (whatever that is) is not authentic unless it has been gained by struggle, sacrifice, pain and suffering and even then, we want to have a tenuous hold on it. As a people, we need something to worship and pray to. we need something to revere. we need to draw a moral line between us who have suffered and fought for justice and those who have not. we need to be able to say, "we appreciate what we have bc we fought so hard for it" and we need to do that both between and within groups. It's difficult to swallow that the world hates you, you will always be less than, there is no god to save you and no one to care......For the Black community, god has become their exoskeleton, but at the end of the day, the concept of god is a suite of clothes only we can see and the more the crowd shouts that we are naked, the more firmly we entrench ourselves to this belief....Black folks will never face the truth about their god either in his fiction of existence or love for them because Black people need god to help them limp through their suffering and suffering to provide reasons to praise their god. we can never be free, because the rumination and circular thinking has become it's own drug and Negronia refuses to live without the spice....

Reply
Shellie Clinkscales
7/16/2013 03:28:05 am


Are you implying that God made our sons and daughters martyrs to further His cause? To eliminate our race altogether? Or have us be inferior to others? A human man? Why? I guess these question can be answered best by someone that has brought into that particular ideology. I haven't!

Was it not this same "white racist God" that our enslaved ancestors prayed too during their times of struggles? Back in those days, God was more for strength, guidance, and wisdom. It was African-Americans that made God their "new massa" by becoming slaves to religion. We are the only race that has done so and will continue to do as such.

If we are going to have an honest conversation, lets have one. Race and religion should be at the top of the list. Now is the time we do so! But lets not blame God, as black we are very good at blaming others. Lets talk about the role we play as a people and what teachable material we can take from this case.

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Dr. Anthony Sean Neal
7/31/2013 10:17:58 pm

I think, which thought is a good place to begin any conversation of this nature, that the conversation about the Trayvon case, the Stand Your Ground Law, black oppression, white racism, and a white racist gOD is misdirected and bends our ability to place the conversation on the ground, removing it from the stratosphere and beyond. Continuously, metaphysical conversations ensue to explain or question experiences which seem to have their source in less complicated beginnings. However, because of certain conceptual frameworks with which we unwilling to break free, we continuously become ensnared in a language scheme given to us that focuses our minds on our condition with respect to slavery while deflecting the possibility of the real phenomenon of the longest undeclared war of one phenotypical human against another. If this type of misguided conversation could cease we could possibly began the real discussion of community or group self-defense. The language is important. Slaves want freedom and must receive this freedom from their master, but participants in war want to defend themselves and win the war. To the other comments of exoskeletons and how good blacks are with blame, I don't have enough information to confirm these possibilities.

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