Remember the Goal of Black Dismemberment
The real aim of white supremacy was to separate all other people from the imago Dei. In the white mind, only white people are created in the image of God. Of course that’s evolved somewhat. Now, the belief is that all are created in the image of God but that whiteness has a greater share of that image. It represents their hierarchal and heretical understanding of the Holy Trinity. Yet, that’s a point for another time…
Suffice it to say, in its marring and distortion of the imago Dei, white supremacy did two things:
- it set whiteness as being greater than the image of God, and
- It set Blackness as subordinate to the image of God.
All others move up and down the spectrum between whiteness and blackness depending upon those others’ desire to cooperate with white power. If they fail to cooperate, white power will give them the “Nigger Treatment.” Once they cooperate, the knee will be taken off of their neck, and they’ll be allowed to breathe – so long as the cooperate.
We must understand the implications of whiteness in its heretical wielding of Gospel Authority. Their aim was not to strip Africans of their Africanness. The goal of white power was to strip Africans of their humanity. The goal was to dismember African people from the imago Dei, so as to make it easier for the white masses to agree to the social structures of oppression.
We understand the stripping of identity on the level of knowing our tribes, or original languages, our culture and beliefs untainted by contact with whiteness. And that is what was done.
Yet, if Blackness could be effectively separated from the image of God, Whiteness could justify its callus disregard for Black Life. If white power could effectively separate Black people from the imago Dei, then it would be possible to justify shooting a Black man in the back of the head because he tried to evade law enforcement.
How many of you really believe there would be no charges for the officers if Andrew Brown, Jr. were a white man?
While white privilege allows white people to travel the world, free to exploit everyone, and appeal to the Rule of Law for protection, Black people cannot travel their own neighborhoods and expect the Rule of Law to be anything but a bludgeon designed to put them down like a sick dog.
Kyle Rittenhouse and Dylann Roof had such confidence in the Rule of Law, they had absolutely zero concern about turning themselves into the police, while armed with deadly weapons that had just been use to kill people. Black people are afraid to pull over having rolled through a stop sign. So, certainly a Black man who may have been dealing drugs would be terrified to face police who have begin their encounter by demonstrating to him their abusiveness.
Yet, we are left at the mercy of White power…hoping in one white man or another, to ease their knee off our necks – even if just for a little while. But like that Nigger Stephen in Django, our Inner Nigger keeps us loyally at Massa’s side, thankful for his grace and mercy unto us.
That is the cherry on top of proclaiming one’s supremacy: to have domesticated a “human” and created a being that sees you as its master and benefactor despite your clear disdain for it. When you can domesticate a “free being” so effectively that the once-free being now looks to you as the source of its blessing and prosperity, you have definitely shown yourself to be the master.
Is that not our condition? Do we not look to whiteness as the source of our blessing and prosperity? Is it not white power to which we appeal for deliverance? Are we not directing our cries for justice toward White Democrats or White Republicans? Do we not appeal to white society for their grace and mercy? Do we not wait for our deliverance at the hands of white power?
Having been stripped of our humanity, we have come to accept that whites are superior to us. We look to them to make promises to improve our condition. Their promises are the promises we hope will be fulfilled. We literally pray to God that He would make them keep their promises to us! Yet the Biden Administration has already made it clear that – yet again – the promises made to Black people will be deferred. And Black leadership will make a compromise with white power – telling us why we must wait even longer.
That is why we are in a position where the mattering of Black life is dependent upon the actions of white power. And that’s what has to change if we, as Black people, are ever to experience freedom.
We must remember Blackness in the imago Dei, so that we might remember the promises of God unto our ancestors freed from bondage…
