EASTER IN WHITE AND BLACK
"Whiteness" is a con game. It was invented by colonial British settlers in Virginia and Maryland in the 1600's to maintain financial control: of unimproved land, political power, and to deputize Europeans of every stripe and economic class, against Africans and Indians. It worked so well that "white" became a fixture of American politics, policy, culture.
It doled out "white" distinctions in law, business, education, religion, labor, crime, punishment, politics, culture, in short, in everything. It ranks with democracy, communism and any oligarchy or plutocracy in mankind's history for its efficacy.
Never mind, that the so-called "whites" of America were formerly enemies in Europe, or were actually at war in Europe, or upon the high seas anywhere, once they landed in the United States of America, they morphed into "whiteness'" privileges and status, from formerly being: French, English, Dutch, Irish, Scotch, German, Greek, Russian, Swede, Dane, Italian, or any European or Eurasian, to white!
"Blackness" was also an invented "con," almost by default, as a foil to nebulous "whiteness" in America. African tribes who saw themselves as discrete, unique, not "black," who knew nothing of Africa as a paradigm, nor as ancient historical vital force; but who looked locally, tribally, for their history and for verity. Finally, after centuries of raiding, enslaving, mis-educating after transportation across the seas as raw cargo, as chattel, in the holds of slave ships, a few of these Africans saw and sensed that some greater opportunity was enfolded inside seeming tragedy: that they had left all, like Abraham, who left Shinar, for a new land, a new world, by the will of God, for some greater glory to mankind, as yet unknown .
Many "blacks" and "whites" may not have known that the religion of the enslaved Africans' captors' was itself as African as were they. That its many martyrdoms in North Africa, its vast wealth of written scholarship was epic, as were its votaries, victims, virtuous and valorous ones. Their religion had been appropriated by Constantine, of Rome, as a new mode of power. Many still do not know that this theft is true historically, doctrinally.
As I write this précis on Easter Sunday morning, April 16, 2017, I write proudly, pensively, appreciably, as an African American Christian, as a descendant of the "blacks," primarily, and of the "whites," secondarily, described above. I am part of the ever-unfolding divine deliverance of God's glory to this once-largely, undeveloped, land of ours: fertilized by forebears' blood, tears, hopes, prayers, labors, love .
As con begets con, so too game begets game, and deep calls unto deep. "Whiteness" extended the fraud of Emperor Constantine, the "wolf" who laid down the law with the lambs, and with the woolly rams of Africa of and its nearby Christian lands, by the flip of his imperial-pagan Roman hand. Later, President Thomas Jefferson did, as Constantine had done, with his book NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "Query XIV," wherein he proclaims the inferiority of Africans, while begrudging them their utility .
Process has its place with product .
Who has sinned, the man who was born blind or his parents, Jesus was asked by his disciples? that "Neither has sinned," Jesus replied. "This happened so that the works of God may be displayed in him." (Jn 9:1-12) By reason of Jesus Christ's ministration of a paste of mud and spit to his eyes, that were later washed out in the Pool of Siloam, his sight unfolded.
There is a message of deliverance here for North-South-Central American and Caribbean "blacks"
and "whites" all of whom were born blind of truth, of understanding, of the universe, and their place in it.
May the love of the risen Christ enfold you, enlighten, enrich you and yours this Sublimation Sunday, this Resurrection Sunday, forever!
Amen.
Sunday, April 16, 2017
EASTER, WHITE AND BLACK
EASTER IN WHITE AND BLACK
"Whiteness" is a con game. It was invented by colonial British settlers in Virginia and Maryland in the 1600's to maintain financial control: of unimproved land, political power, and to deputize Europeans of every stripe and economic class, against Africans and Indians. It worked so well that "white" became a fixture of American politics, policy, culture.
It doled out "white" distinctions in law, business, education, religion, labor, crime, punishment, politics, culture, in short, in everything. It ranks with democracy, communism and any oligarchy or plutocracy in mankind's history for its efficacy.
Never mind, that the so-called "whites" of America were formerly enemies in Europe, or were actually at war in Europe, or upon the high seas anywhere, once they landed in the United States of America, they morphed into "whiteness'" privileges and status, from formerly being: French, English, Dutch, Irish, Scotch, German, Greek, Russian, Swede, Dane, Italian, or any European or Eurasian, to white!
"Blackness" was also an invented "con," almost by default, as a foil to nebulous "whiteness" in America. African tribes who saw themselves as discrete, unique, not "black," who knew nothing of Africa as a paradigm, nor as ancient historical vital force; but who looked locally, tribally, for their history and for verity. Finally, after centuries of raiding, enslaving, mis-educating after transportation across the seas as raw cargo, as chattel, in the holds of slave ships, a few of these Africans saw and sensed that some greater opportunity was enfolded inside seeming tragedy: that they had left all, like Abraham, who left Shinar, for a new land, a new world, by the will of God, for some greater glory to mankind, as yet unknown .
Many "blacks" and "whites" may not have known that the religion of the enslaved Africans' captors' was itself as African as were they. That its many martyrdoms in North Africa, its vast wealth of written scholarship was epic, as were its votaries, victims, virtuous and valorous ones. Their religion had been appropriated by Constantine, of Rome, as a new mode of power. Many still do not know that this theft is true historically, doctrinally.
As I write this précis on Easter Sunday morning, April 16, 2017, I write proudly, pensively, appreciably, as an African American Christian, as a descendant of the "blacks," primarily, and of the "whites," secondarily, described above. I am part of the ever-unfolding divine deliverance of God's glory to this once-largely, undeveloped, land of ours: fertilized by forebears' blood, tears, hopes, prayers, labors, love .
As con begets con, so too game begets game, and deep calls unto deep. "Whiteness" extended the fraud of Emperor Constantine, the "wolf" who laid down the law with the lambs, and with the woolly rams of Africa of and its nearby Christian lands, by the flip of his imperial-pagan Roman hand. Later, President Thomas Jefferson did, as Constantine had done, with his book NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "Query XIV," wherein he proclaims the inferiority of Africans, while begrudging them their utility .
Process has its place with product .
Who has sinned, the man who was born blind or his parents, Jesus was asked by his disciples? that "Neither has sinned," Jesus replied. "This happened so that the works of God may be displayed in him." (Jn 9:1-12) By reason of Jesus Christ's ministration of a paste of mud and spit to his eyes, that were later washed out in the Pool of Siloam, his sight unfolded.
There is a message of deliverance here for North-South-Central American and Caribbean "blacks"
and "whites" all of whom were born blind of truth, of understanding, of the universe, and their place in it.
May the love of the risen Christ enfold you, enlighten, enrich you and yours this Sublimation Sunday, this Resurrection Sunday, forever!
Amen.