Christianity Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Blacks In America
Christianity Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Blacks In America. It stole their will to fight for themselves against the forces that oppressed them; and that unwillingness still obtains because of it.
At the time of the introduction of Black slavery in America, slaves were not christians; they knew nothing about Christ, or for that matter what a church was. Their spirituality, such as it was, was limited to what witch doctors practiced back in the day. And they were fresh from a war that saw them lose and be sold by the victors into slavery. They were angry and required unbelievable cruelty in order to beat them into submission into slavery and to maintain that relationship.
Whites were almost exclusively christian: Church-going, ever evangelistic. However, they did not want to invite the slaves into the church. Slaves were unkempt, lacked church wear, and after all, even if they were shaped like humans, were not more human than cattle.[1] Good workers, but "not one of us". The solution, appoint one of the slaves' number to carry the word of Christ to the heathens.
They appointed slaves as ministers to the slaves, and taught them what to teach. The slave preacher's ministry was only to slaves. They did not then, nor do they now minister to white people. They were compensated and encouraged to do good work then by a greater allowance of food; less field work and a better shack to live in; just as it is now. A church was built for them. Slaves were taught that these ministers were special; different from the ordinary slave; akin to the witch doctor only better because he had the blessings of white slave owners. They were to be respected in what they taught the slave about Christianity and civility.
The slave preachers were taught what to teach, especially to look to God for salvation from their predicament and to leave the matter of revenge and retribution for the extreme cruelties they endured and indeed enslavement itself for God to deal with in the "Great getting' up mornin'". The word to be given was not to resist enslavement or cruelty, but to simply not sin.
Freedom from sin was to be taught to be more important than freedom from slavery. Obey the laws of Christianity; the 10 Commandments, etc. They were taught by these ministers, and are still are being taught by the descendents of these ministers to ignore the theological contradictions to their circumstance, like "love thy fellow man", "Thou shalt not kill", etc. There was and still is no biblical justification for slavery or the cruelties associated with slavery. But that did not matter and was not to be discussed; as it is not today. Nothing was to be done about slavery or cruelty by them; even now. They were to endure both and wait for everlasting respite in heaven, as now.
Christianity became a tool for control of slaves, as it is today for Blacks. It is the single most potent philosophy that kept the slaves from kicking the butt of the slave masters thus potentially ending slavery in 20 years instead of 300. Slavery would not have endured if there had been a free reign for violent resistance to slavery. It was those who counseled restraint in the name of god that stood in the way. Whenever slaves began to resist or became restless or angry about their enslavement or the cruelty inflicted by the slave owner's staff, the slave owner would roll out his Black ministers to quell the slaves' furrowed brows with "prayer"; like horse whisperers: they became "Slave whisperers". "Let us pray" became and still is water on what little fire remained in the hearts of slaves and Blacks even today.
Even on nonviolent matters like race discrimination in public accommodations in recent times, when Blacks were beaten by angry white crowds at lunch counters or beaten or hosed down in the street during civil rights marches, Black ministers did their "slave whispering" dirt and counseled non-violent submission to the beatings and became unwitting, if not volunteer instruments in relieving the pressure on the white establishment to the everlasting detriment of the Black predicament.
For instance, in the 60's Blacks began a peaceful civil rights march across a bridge in Aniston, Alabama and were cruelly beaten by police officers back across the bridge. Blacks later became determined to go back and cross that bridge at all costs and began to cross the bridge again. Half way across the minister leadership, led by King and Abernathy, stopped the march, started prayer, turned around and cancelled the crossing directing the marchers to return to the church and pray.
When Blacks became enraged by a senseless shooting of a Black man by a racist police officer in 1968 and rioted in Los Angeles, whitey roll out his "Slave whisperers" . Whenever Blacks were unmercifully beaten by police officers (can you say Rodney King) who were later exonerated by the courts, and Blacks rose up in anger, the Black ministers jumped to their stations to whisper, to lead prayer, and the Blacks crawled back into a state of quietude.
When police officers in New York rammed a broom handle up the rectum of a black arrestee who had never been to court for the crime he was arrested for, Sharpton and other Black preachers corralled as many Blacks as they could muster, and the white press, ever the protector of the white majority, supported his call for a "march" and it occurred. The officers were never convicted of any crime and neither they nor any of their supporters, the white majority of NY suffered any pain. All that happened was that Sharpton calmed the Blacks down, marched them down the street and prayed for the souls of the errant police officers. It happened again recently in Queens, NY where an unarmed bridegroom was shot 41 times on the eve of his wedding.
Things are as bad for Blacks now as it was for them 75 years ago in comparison to european-americans. Black families, as of October, 2008, earn just about half what white families earned in 2008. That translates into half the chance for Black families to enjoy the fruits of their labors to the fullness available in this country. It translates into half the political power of whites if you accept the proposition that money is the mother's milk of politics. It means that a Black child has half the chance to escape the educational rape of the public school system in the Black community and find a way to a private, meaningful education. It means that Blacks have half the chance of escaping the confines of the physical ghetto and moving to a neighborhood where you do not get shot at the dinner table by a rampaging gang.
King, who while on the wrong road to freedom for believing that moral embarrassment would change the evil ways of whites in this country, at least was willing to contest that establishment and to call blacks out for a fight. When he started his campaign, the established leadership of the Black religious community, the christians, were not impressed with him; in fact they were resistant to any change in the status quo that had them as the head "slave whisperers". This young upstart was not going to get them in trouble by standing up to the man who appointed them to the positions they held since slavery. As dynamic and forcefully correct as King was for resisting the continued oppression of Blacks, he was not given his due in the Baptist sect into which he was ordained. He had to form another group, the SCLC in order to gain organizational structure. The Black Baptist, Methodist and other sects, shunned his leadership because first, it did not originate from within their established ranks and second because it spelled trouble which they had been charged by the slave master from day one in this country to place themselves in the way of. They were the "slave-whisperers" of choice.
Elimination of racism in public accommodations as a first step was great, but did nothing for the greater predicament of Blacks in this country. It does not matter that you can take any seat you choose in a restaurant if you cannot afford the food. This is a capitalist country where only money counts in self-determination. As Black families we have half what our white counterparts have and nothing is being done about it by the Black christian leadership, anywhere in the country. Instead, the Black christian leadership, at least in Los Angeles is simply preserving their status, for instance, spending $75 million on a new Black church/auditorium on Crenshaw, while Blacks suffer the indignities of having to live in their ghetto even one more day. When King died, the effort for freedom that was in play died with him and the usual slave whisperers were again in charge and prayed the Blacks back into a state of conformity and prayer; thus relieving America from its greatest fear that Blacks would become socio-economically their peers. Europeans killed King when he turned his attention to money matters, like equal wages.
Despite all of this negativity going on in the lives of Black citizens, the people who have the ear of Black people, who have the education to see the light of the predicament of Black people, who have the moral responsibility to counsel and protect the lives and liberties of their flocks, and who offer the best hope for leadership out of this darkness, the Black, christian ministers, do little but pray and maintain the status quo. "Slave-whisperers" to the end. It is the version of christianity that the slave preachers were ordered to teach the slaves, principally to protect the slave-holders from physical retribution, that prevails today. It is their guiding light whenever Blacks appear to rise up against the injustices inflicted upon them with impunity. It is a version of christianity that only Blacks follow because the Black ministers preach that version only.
Whenever violent acts of war occur against the greater white, christian community, war occurs with christian chaplains praying American soldiers onto the battle field with Jesus' blessing. Witness Boston Massachusetts in 1776; Fort Sumpter in South Carolina in 1865; and Pearl Harbor in 1945. When socio-economic acts of war occur against white, christians they fight back with unrelenting ferocity with embargoes and sieges of entire countries. As far as white christians are concerned, the consequences that are heaped on the aggressors against them are deserving, the immorality of warfare biblically, be damned.
But in the Black community, the christian story is different. It has been so since christianity was introduced in the "quarter". Violent retribution against the most heinous of acts against committed against them is unchristian if you listen to the Black preachers. For them, they counsel prayer as being sufficient, and god will do the rest.
Even the option of socio-economic warfare against the forces that account for the fact that Black families earn half what white families do is out of the question for Black christian leadership because that contradicts their principal charge: to keep the Black calm. Christianity, as taught in the ghetto is the single most important tool in white America's arsenal for keeping Blacks where they are, and the soldiers who stand ready to give their all in that cause are the Black christian ministers who owe their all to THAT America. The sooner we set aside the rule of waiting for the great, getting' up morning before we can achieve our rightful place in this country for whom we have enlisted and died in all of the wars fought on our soil and elsewhere in America's name, and take the bull by the horns and insist that the Black christian leadership either lead or get out of the way, the sooner the overall predicament of the Blacks in America will achieve some measure of equality. WE NEED A PLAN THAT DOES NOT RELY ON CHRISTIANITY July, 2009 Henry William Sands, Esq. (Ret.) sandshs@sbcglobal.net For a plan see.
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