There’s this huge elephant in the black america room: religion.
I grew up non-religious in my foster family and then my Catholic dad adopted me, tried to get me into it but gave up when I just didn’t believe. As a kid it was easy for me to dismiss religion: God is good? Then why don’t have I my parents? He ain’t good with me so fuck him, I didn’t start the beef. Pretty sure a black church –through the power of music- would have converted me to a bigger extent but you know, white Catholicism in Europe is probably the best way to not make you religious, ever.
But it was deeper than that. Religion just didn’t fit the 80s, technology, rockets etc. Like, not at all. Go home religion, you’re drunk.
I think that’s why Ta-Nehisi Coates is more feared than appreciated for his glacial and fear-inducing vision of a world where there’s no god.
That’s where I connect with his writing, when he’s not pushing anything but as pure as possible reasoning and simple facts. Chirurgical, devoid of emotions, precise. He demonstrates that sorry to be blunt, your prayers didn’t do shit and won’t, that black person will still get killed within systems –street, police, employment- that are all, all of them, human made.
This, is all there is. As Ta-Nehisi writes it down so well, it is scary to acknowledge that but oddly comforting to know that we humans made this. Because it means we can unmake this too. It’s not hope, a vague notion, it’s a fact like rocks in the desert: we can change what we made. It’s not hopelessness nor a focus on struggle, it’s a focus on the real, big work/tiny chance we have. That’s all we have. People always seem to prefer fantasy and we’re paying with flesh for that. So much inaction or action that doesn’t change anything.
I know, around 80% of black people in the US are into religion and go to church. I also know how messed up the relationship has been between black people, Christianity and History.
You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice
Christianity to me growing up in Europe and studying there, is kind of a cancer that screwed an entire world up. Imagine a bunch of dudes going down Africa like “hey lil nigga, you heard about that book?”, tricking people into something. The church as a powerful institution is a failure of the state, supposed to provide. So I never had a great, positive view of religion besides watching black people dancing and harmonizing here in the US. We don’t need religion to sing and dance though.
In the end what frightens me the most is the future and how religion isn’t helping black people, like making them averse to science for example. It’s still true in 2015 and knowing how the world is shaping up I really don’t like seeing that. It makes me feel I will have to wait more and I don’t want that.