Black Lives In The Bible: Dear Black People
I had planned to highlight the life of Asenath, the wife of Joseph in the Old Testament. If you recall, when Joseph was given the second most powerful role in Egypt- Governor of Egypt, Pharaoh gave him an Egyptian wife. The purpose of this month’s series is to highlight Black lives in the Bible and that God loves us and hates racism. But, the situation going on in the U.S. has me wanting to write a letter to Black people instead. What I will say of Asenath is that she was Black, she was Egyptian, not the North African Arab we see today. Egypt has gone through so many stages. But her significance is that her two sons: Ephraim and Manasseh, are a part of the 12 tribes of Israel. So, even in the Patriarchs, and their 12 sons, 2 of them are Black. So Black people are strongly represented in the Jewish people’s ancestral lines.
So, here’s my letter, which is more so geared towards African Americans, but there is something here for the all Blacks:
Dear Black People,
We are an ancient people. We come from a land and lineage of kings and rulers. We weren’t backwards people swinging from trees, living in caves. We had a thriving culture and civilizations of royalty before the European man showed up to rape the African continent and its people through colonialization, the transatlantic slave trade, and taking of valuable resources like diamonds, precious gem stones, rubber, sugar, gold, metals, and tropical fruits that are native to Africa.
In the film Salma, Amelia Boynton’s character said: “I know that we are descendants of a mighty people, who gave civilization to the world. People who survived the hulls of slave ships across vast oceans. People who innovate and create and love despite pressures and tortures unimaginable. They are in our bloodstream. Pumping our hearts every second. They’ve prepared you. You are already prepared.”
We have a legacy that we should be proud of, even if we don’t even know and understand what we come from and the richness of what we come from. Putting what Whites have historically done to us for centuries, I think the most important thing that Black Americans and Blacks all over the world should be doing is looking inwards, that we should be looking at our hearts of who we want to be and what we want to accomplish. We can continue to blame Whites and burn down Wendy’s restaurants [Rayshard Brooks’ killing reference], form mobs, demand for #DefundThePolice movements, and whatever else Blacks in America are doing to express their anger like this. The truth is: perhaps it is time to start pointing the finger at ourselves because we have some areas of improvement.
Last summer I was in the home of a White African and he asked me point blank: ‘why don’t Blacks support one another?’ And before you get all defensive on wanting to know, what does a White African have the right to ask such a question, think about it. Ask yourself, is there any weight to his question? He was born and raised in Africa. He has lived amongst Black Africans his whole life, as well as White Africans. He said to me: “if a White African has a child that is job searching, he will reach out to his White friends and someone will create a job for their friend’s child, they will do something.” But, he said a Black African friend of his noted to him one time: “we Blacks do that.” When he asked me this question I knew exactly what he was talking about. Truth be told, on average Blacks do not support other Blacks. We don’t typically shop at Black stores and we don’t help other Blacks in their ventures. We’re often killing one another [i.e. Black on Black crime] and we kill our own babies.
Since the passage of Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade, over 19 million Blacks have killed their babies. I’m not talking about babies that Whites, Asians, or other races have aborted of their own. I’m not talking about them, I’m talking about us. Imagine the doctors, lawyers, scientists, educators, innovators, and people of impact they could have been. Oh the potential that has been murdered. People have been marching in the streets for: #BlackLivesMatter, but what about our 19 million babies that we have killed? What about their lives?
What about Black on Black crime in America? We’re killing each other at rapid rates in inner cities like Chicago. It’s nothing to hear in a weekend that 50, 60 or 70 people were killed in a weekend in Chicago, mostly Blacks. And I can already hear some ready to throw rocks, with insults at me, wanting me not to confuse ‘Black on Black’ with systemic racism and killing of Black lives by Whites in America and around the world.
I hear you, but In order to move forward as a community, we must address our own flaws and shortcomings. White people always stick together, even if they don’t’ like each other, they take care of their own. But, I don’t’ see that same mindset in Blacks. If we had unity to take care of our own, Whites wouldn’t have succeeded against us for as long as they have.
When you look out through the Door of No Return on Gorée Island in Dakar, Senegal, the door that 15 million Africans were kidnapped and sent on ships in chains to the Americas, you have to ask, how was the European man able to pull off such a feat? They succeeded because Africans sold out their own people to the European man. They hunted, captured, forced and sold their own people to get on the ships as slaves to build up the White man’s dream for economic prosperity in the New World. And it’s this same mentality of selling out our own that has us killing our own in cities around America, that has us not supporting our own, that has us aborting our own babies.
By artist Rod Brown on the “The Door of No Return” and the Middle Passage on the ship of slaves in chains
I’m sorry but gathering together as mobs and painting some words on poster board, destroying our own neighborhoods, demanding #defundthepolice - police that we need, and partaking in movements that are unGodly won’t get us nearly as far if we would turn inwards.
By turning inwards, I mean: getting spiritually right with God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit are not the White man’s God, as many Blacks like to reiterate. God has created all races for his diverse purposes and to cast Him off as simply an uncaring Force on Earth, Who doesn’t care about us is just a plain lie from the pit fires of hell. If we got right with God (for those who aren’t right with Him), started loving each other and supporting each other, no one would be able to penetrate that wall of love, loyalty and alliance. If we started shopping at each other’s businesses, hiring each other’s children, speaking up and protesting in righteous ways and using our networks to bring policy changes, and, picked up our beautiful cross of darker skin and followed the One and only Savior we’d be stronger than ever. Call me an Uncle Tom, blind and sold out Black person, but I’d like to see how far you can get with your demands. The way the average mob Black is headed: we’ll see an increase of crime and lawlessness in America’s cities. Already crime in NYC has gone up 25% since January of this year. And we’ll continue to hear a dialogue of hate and bitterness, which won’t lead to getting wounds healed.
Until we start doing these things, we’ll always be filled with rage and ignorance of destroying our own communities. I’m saying we need to work on us. If the Whites don’t want to work on themselves before God and start treating us with respect and dignity, they’ll have to answer to God for hardened hateful hearts. In some ways they already will have to answer to God for the pain and injustice they have caused for hundreds of years non-Whites, as well as for their silence for not helping us and for holding us back. But, that’s between them and God. Let’s be better, focus on us, peacefully protests with righteous movements, and work to build our communities up in love and unity.
Best,
Ally