Religion as we in the West know and practice it is an outgrowth of imperialism. Careful study of Marimba Ani‘s masterwork, “Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior,” makes it clear that the intention and proselytizing usage of European religion was for control and conquest of other peoples. The diasporic African’s attachment to the European’s religion is at best problematic.
Or is it?
How does our God-consciousness, filtered through an alien religion, shackle us?
Can our spiritual/religious beliefs flower within such a context? Can those beliefs and practices empower us?
What about the religious practices that some adopt/adapt from the Motherland, such as Candomble in Brazil, Haitian Voodoo? Do these provide a liberatory experience for the practitioner that counters the racist offerings of BIG religion?
Is the white man’s religion a positive or negative force, ultimately, in the lives of African peoples in the diaspora?
Is it possible to adopt/adapt the religions and religious practices of an oppresor who has used religion throughout history to conquer the minds and bodies of his targets/victims – to positive affect?
Writers, thinkers, believers and non-believers are invited to share their thoughts and feelings on this thorny topic.
“Please have your link submitted by Sunday 30 September at Afrospear@hotmail.com, and the carnival date will be Monday 01 October. We also welcome your suggestions on topics you would like to see discussed here in the future.”
afrospear.wordpress.com 
Excellent topic and questions! I’m down!
“…the intention and proselytizing usage of European religion was for control and conquest of other peoples. ”
– exactly! and nothing else.
“Is the white man’s religion a positive or negative force, ultimately, in the lives of African peoples in the diaspora?”
– what has OUR history shown you concerning this? the answer is there and it is barbaric, ugly, and bloody.
“Is it possible to adopt/adapt the religions and religious practices of an oppresor who has used religion throughout history to conquer the minds and bodies of his targets/victims – to positive affect?”
– though you must ask the question, I am always stunned when I hear it asked. the answer is no! you must understand the context in which someone else uses a religion in order to fight this “religious enslavement” issue. Until you do that, you will BLINDLY follow ANYTHING, meaning you will create a blond-haired , blue-eyed Jesus when he could not have looked that way. That image, as well as that of a WHITE GOD, will be ingrained in your psyche and it will be used by the oppressor and his sycophants among your own people to kill your spirit. I recently read where people in Nigeria where destroying ages old artifacts as they “converted” to Christianity. Any man who will WILLINGLY and VORACIOUSLY destroy his own religion and culture for an outsider is doomed to a slow, painful death of all that he worthwhile to him.
Peace.
One of my favorite topics I’m down. the same forces that mislead us about our TRUE herstory, are the same forces that mislead us about our TRUE forms of worship!
Each soul on this planet has to find peace and connection to the Creator of the world, of society, and of thought. A significant portion of the life cycle is devoted to identifying and prescribing to the worship of some THING or some deity. For the colonialized mind, perhaps a deity who physically represents the visage of the oppressor is the most desirable choice. For the revolutionary mind, the face of the worthy lord would gain its veneration if it shone the likeness of the freedom seeker’s mirror image. Man’s freedom lies in his choice; the ability to choose a god, to choose a god’s characteristics, and to ordain spiritual worth to that god’s existence is wholly a tribute to the strength of man’s ability to search self and to critique the condition of the world. I prescribe to the belief that the God of all will make his presence openly available to any soul who wishes to know Him–as that soul chooses. Freedom is choice; no being should be listed as “right” or “wrong” for choosing his god. To choose is to live.
This is quite a provocative discussion. When does the “White Man’s Religion” become something other than their’s? And can we cast a blanket over all people who aren’t White but who’s faith is deeply rooted in history and culture regardless of how that religion was introduced/forced? A great many folks of color certainly have a grasp on history and the role of religion being used as a tool to enslave not just Africans in America, but peoples throughout history in some fashion–including White folks enslaving other White folks. Has adopting so-called White man’s religion served us?–Us being Black/African-American/African. And if so, what do we say when those of us who have a long worship history and are rooted deeply in our faith. Not worshipping some blue-eyed Jesus, but Jesus in our image. And to that end, when does race/culture/ethnicity become pointless in worship/prayer/spirituality/religion?
As I said very provocative!
You have posed a pivotal question, but it cannot be answered in toto because it is too complex and each component should be dissected and examined on the critical questions. The questions, once established, must be held constant so that the analysis is consistent from one phenomenon to another, so that the comparison is to like matter. Thereafter, there are innumerable stratas or sub-texts to the discussion once you have identified its critical elements.
The question of religion of any nature is the question of what does it do, what does it offer, what does it transmit and transfer to the adherents. What does it do to and for the individual, for the mass?
Many comments will be just reactive. Jesus is white; Christianity is European and so forth. I will submit that religions all carry cultural barriers and restrictions. This is the primary role of the “professional” usually a priest or higher, a person in religious authority. Separating the personalities of the transmitters and the “facts” of the religion is an historical race with in perpetual antagonisms.
For me, my own reading of the basic book, the Bible, dissolves many of the stories that were transmitted in a “sterilized and Euro-centric” cultural context. My direct reading has also provided other prospectives on the characterization of Jesus — quite differnt than my earlier culturally charged images and information.
I don’t have the time to go on, but yokes on the human mind come from many quarters. Personally, I will not throw off one yoke to inherit another. I submit the following question in two parts: whatever your belief system, is it liberating? And, if so, how so? How does it positively impact on you, your family and your people? Is it transformative?
Wow. Very interesting carnival topic. Can’t wait to read what people have to say.
Muriel,
I look forward to a post from you delving more deeply into your ideas. That invitation is extended to all of you who have commented here.
I don’t know much about religion. I grew up Catholic and did my best to block out the dispiriting dogma that was religion. I don’t believe in yokes of any kind. If there is a God, it doesn’t seem necessary to have or use a mediating institution or person who interprets or contextualizes the relationship. I can have that relationship on my own. Certainly, I might be able to learn from other perspectives, but I’m aware that many institutions that present themselves as helpful or freeing, are in fact, forms of slavery.
I want to hear from YOU!
I question the pre-suppositions you’re making in defining this planned carnival around the issue of the racist use of religion to enslave and dominate black people.
Your assertion that “religion as we in the West know is an outgrowth of imperialism” is an opinion you’re entitled to have, but its not the framework for an intellectually honest consideration of the question of the role of religion in the status of black people in America or globally. Why is this critique restricted to the “white-man’s religion”? Why aren’t the practices of the other world religions and their contacts with the “Diapora” held up for similar scrutiny?
For example Hindu practitcioners and the caste system predates Christianity, the “white-man’s religion” by thousands of years. Someone has said that outside of Africa, India has the most black people on earth. I don’t know about those numbers, but I find it a curious thing how frequently my internet search turns up the color “black” and “dark-skinned” when I google key words such as: “Dalits, untouchables, Hindus,….”
Human Rights Watch characterizes the plight of Dalits in the Hindu caste system as ” India’s hidden apartheid”, and according to the website of the International Dalit Solidarity Network, there are 260 million people worldwide suffering as “untouchables” under the strictures of Hindu theology.
And of course there’s the question of Islam, another religion which has had significant contact with Africa and the diapora… Arab historic enslavement of black Africans has been largely ignored in the chronicles of “racism as we know it” by the history books. Likewise reports of Muslim governments in places like the Sudan and Mauritania sanctioning and/or acquiescing in modern-day slavery and discrimination against black Africans is also ignored and minimized by mainstream media, America’s black leadership class, and in academic circles– not excluding Darfur.
Exactly what standards do we use to determine a religion’s “alien character”? Who is entitled to ask this question and why? What goes into framing a people’s “God- consciousness”? Why? And where are the checks & balances on a position of this undoubted power? Who decides? By what authority?
“Education should enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom”. Thomas Jefferson
Recently I read the firsthand account of life lived as a member of India’s untouchable under-caste, by the Indain economist, Narendra Jadhav, a Dalit who grew up watching his parents pioneer the Dalit struggle for civil rights under India’s constitution. I’d say books such as his, and newpapers of the Hindu & Islamic worlds which are so freely accessible to us via the internet are must reading if we in the West would start to have a broader evidence-based perspective on addressing this human scourge we know as racism.
vvarnado
Vashti,
I invite you to submit a post that takes in to account your interesting perspective. I didn’t mean to limit the discussion to “only” the ideas that I expressed. I’m interested in other perspectives on religion where its been a positive or different kind of force in different cultures.
Whoa! I have been what i can only describe as a black pagan since I was about 18 years old while studying Christianity (I was raised Baptist) and now pursuing a Masters degree at private Catholic University.
I am down and will certainly take part in this!
I have written an article regarding this topic. This has been an issue that I have thought about for some time. Here is the link: http://djblackadam.typepad.com/
I hope there is a balanced look at this important topic.
DJ,
Thanks for the article. Its going to go up tomorrow. We will post what we receive, whether its “balanced” or not. We can’t control who posts what but we want to hear a diversity of our views on the subject.
Thanks.
The Second AfroSpear ( October, 2007) Carnival: Religion & Negritude
What accounts for the fact that only Christianity is scrutinized under the rubric of race-relations? In my opinion our fund of knowledge is critically anemic, if not deformed by this intellectual deficit, not just where we black people are concerned, but for people of all races. Whatever one believes about religion in general, it’s where people get their notions of meaning and reality.
I’m not looking for an opportunity to bash anyone’s religion, nor am I necessarily acting as an apologist for my Christian faith. (There’s no danger that Europeans and their societies will come out smelling like a rose if societies in the world of Hinduism and Islam are subjected to the same standards of racial justice we routinely demand of the West. The question is what does this tell us about the racial narrative, as we know it in the West? )
The intellectual mandate going forward in the great issue of race relations is for black consciousness energized around the point of “knowing what you believe and why you believe it”! In an intellectual climate that seems systematically devoid of scholastic scrutiny and political activism advocating standards of racial justice and accountability in Hinduism and Islam, how else are black people to arrive at a reasoned and intelligent understanding concerning the “European religion”, and it’s relevance to their experience?
What is truth? Since truth is a capital “t” word for me, I believe that the “negritude and religion” inquiry has to be expanded to the other world religions and their accountability to standards of justice and racial equality.
Thanks for this opportunity to think with you.
V. Varnado
Oak Park, IL
Vashti, you have hereby expanded the conversation! However, I must prod you to take your opinions from the commment area to the post on R&N itself. Many will likely not read your comments here that will go through our posts. The couple of comments that you have left are the seeds of a strong essay. Are you preparing something for us as we speak??????
Your voice needs to be heard so let’s hear it – and I’ll load it up today.
Peace
Thanks for an exciting challenge.
best
vashti