Juxtaposition: A response to Ryan Coogler's "Sinners"

Religion has long been used to justify oppression of enslaved and oppressed peoples in America and in the Western world. The legacy of Christian faith in America runs deep in the Bible belt South, yet it cannot go unsaid that some who practice Christianity most ardently do so in pursuit of physical safety, not spirituality, even if they are unaware of that truth themselves.

I am an African-American woman, who has come to be able to articulate that my ancestors were subjected to unspeakable trauma, pain and inherent suffering, which words cannot surmise. Yet... I am a writer, and so it is somewhat therapeutic for me to write the shit down.

I think of my own mother's story, and hers one of what our society would deem as success, yet is still ripe with the trauma which comes with living in a society founded on racism---the pillaging and decimation of the peoples native to this land, and enslavement of an entire people group brought to this nation against their will, in chains.

My mother once shared that she would have loved to have studied interior design or perhaps been a private investigator, careers which her keen mind and creative eye would have been well suited for. But when it came time for her to select her field of study in college [the first year she would attend classes which were integrated, and not segregated] her mother, my grandmother, an educator, would instruct her: "We have enough teachers in the family; study nursing."

So my mother made it work. She began her career in Erath, a small town in rural Louisiana, dealing with medical emergencies and blatant racism. Her intuition and caring, her wit and spirituality, allowed her to build a life and get the hell out of the racist Jim Crow south, when she met my father in the early 80's and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet. Racism, and its effects, would persist, despite her social and economic success.

When my mom relayed this story to me and my brothers as young adults, my free-spirited, artistic personality, which was reared in the Bay Area in the 1980's and 90's, thought, "How oppressive!" Now, as I grapple with the fact that half of the United States would rather vote a white supremacist, rapist, demented old man into office just because he is WHITE, over a Black female public servant who navigates complexity and has spent her life fighting for justice, I understand, more so, what my grandmother was trying to do. She was trying to provide her children with a way OUT.

And yet, I wonder: Is there anyway OUT of a racist society that refuses to acknowledge its foundations were built on racism, oppression, slavery and rape? Is there any healing permitted in a land which refuses to acknowledge its own sin, before God and others? Is there any way out other than OUT?

Christianity has been used to justify the treatment of enslaved Africans stolen from their homeland and forced into captivity, rape, and oppression, using scripture. One prime example is the verse in Ephesians 6:5: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ." [NRSV]

Heinous, demonic things have been done in the name of Christianity. Justifying slavery being one of them.

I was raised in the church, and went on to study theology in seminary, because I had REAL questions about the experience of suffering and the reality of the Holy Spirit, whom I had met as a young adult, in nature, sitting on a boulder in the forest, under the morning dew.

As I near middle age, what I find is this: I am a follower of Jesus, the man of color, born Jewish, in Bethlehem, to an unmarried young woman of color, who was dependent on the generosity of women like Joanna to support his ministry, as he lived a nomadic life in tents [we would call his lifestyle homeless, today]. I believe in that kind man who died for the sins of those whom society would deem unholy, inconsiderable, or expendable. I believe in his kindness and his sacrifice, for the sins of mankind.

I DO NOT believe in his life being exploited to suit the greed of entitlement or racism or empire or any type of supremacy of one people group over another. I have not considered myself a Christian for several years because of the realities which I have named previously. Yet I am a follower of Jesus, the Christ, a conduit of the Holy Spirit. A child of God.

The shit is complicated, but I know one thing: this society will NOT heal until those who have perpetuated racism and personal gain at the expense of their brothers and sisters in the human race have repented and acknowledged the pain, suffering, and oppression their allegiance to the demonic has caused. Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" is the truest depiction I have seen of the demonic oppression and suffering which racism and those allied to it have caused to those of African ancestry in North America. Coogler's film depicts Black beauty, our God-like-ness, and our resilience, as people of African ancestry. Go see it, if you have not.

And I know something else: 2027 will find me living on either a tropical island or in a different country, because 40 years of putting up with this shit is enough.