Ahmad Greene-Hayes
| @BrothaG | with thanks to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Image Credit: Funeral Procession by T. Coleman
Saturday, June 27, 2015.
Published
in 1992, Derrick Bell’s The Space Traders tells the story of munificent and
powerful extra-terrestrials offering the United States gold, advanced
technology, clean nuclear power and a host of other benefits in exchange for
all Black people living in the United States. In many ways Bell’s narrative
depicts a long-standing truism in the history of Black life in the American
nation-state: the dollar over Black humanity.
One of Bell’s characters, a pro-trade
citizen, offered these words: “All Americans are expected to
make sacrifices for the good of their country. Black people are no exceptions
to this basic obligation of citizenship. Their role may be special, but so is
that of many of those who serve. The role that blacks may be called on to play
in response to the Space Traders’ offer is, however regrettable, neither
immoral nor unconstitutional.” In true sadistic form, Black death, Black
suffering, Black grief and Black mourning are the sacrifices that keep the god
of white supremacy throned and unbothered. Forgoing commitments to justice or
constitutionality, the U.S. government sacrificed Black people for capitalistic
gain.
“The inductees looked fearfully behind them. But,
on the dunes above the beaches, guns at the ready, stood U.S. guards. There was
no escape, no alternative. Heads bowed, arms now linked by slender chains,
black people left the New World as their forebears had arrived.”
The imagery of a spaceship taking
away all Black people to a far away place likens to “the rapture,” or what some
millenarian theologians posit as the snatching of “born-again Christians” off
the earth at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Rapture theology is informed by
popular readings of the Book of Revelation in the Bible, and in many Christian
traditions across the globe, it informs believers’ life practices through a
psychology of fear. Notions of “Be ye also ready” or “Don’t let [Jesus] catch
you with your work undone” permeate the hearts of many. Believers are
often led to live out strict spiritual lives in order to be sinless at the
point of Christ’s supposed return.
In fact, as a teenager, I remember
being shown “Are
you ready?” a Youtube.com video of what
the rapture may look like. I also remember being shown “Rapture cartoons,”
which made rapture theology clear to young children. I also recall being told
to read the book of Revelation when I had questions about sex in my teenage
Sunday school class.
Today, as a follower of Christ, I’m
no longer convinced by rapture theology or the scare tactics that Evangelicals
have used to not only manipulate thousands (including myself) but to also make
thousands off of “Left Behind” books, sermons, films and lectures (see Barbara
R. Rossing’s The Rapture Exposed).
More importantly, as a Black person
living in an anti-Black racist society, the safety of rapture is undeniably
reserved solely for white Christians. In fact, under white supremacist
Christianity, only white people can be saved and safe, because Black people are
seen as inherently criminal, diabolical, and monstrous as former Ferguson
police officer Darren Wilson opined last year.
In the aftermath of the Charleston
Massacre, where nine innocent Black lives were ruthlessly taken, I am left
wondering whether the god of white supremacy orchestrates Black people’s
rapture from the perilous conditions of an anti-Black world. Note, however,
that the rapture that Black people experience is not a peaceful one. In fact,
our Savior does not meet us, but instead our rapture is only obtained through
bloodshed. This rapture is also directed at Black people—not because we are so
“good” as rapture theologians would posit, but rather, because white
supremacists do not see us as human.
Our rapture is genocide, and like all
genocides, we are snatched away from our communities never to return again.
This god feeds off of Black death, and accordingly, Black people are in a
perpetual state of rapture. The god of white supremacy must live, even if that
means that Black people must perpetually die—socially, psychically, physically,
or communally.
To be raptured away in a church
during a Wednesday night Bible study would seem logical to many rapture
theologians, however, how does one reconcile the grotesque and vicious
“snatching away” of Black life—not as spiritual comfort, religious reward or
even as a consensual act—but rather, as a sacrifice on the altar of white
supremacy? How does one make sense of the multiplicity of ways that Black
people are raptured away from their families every single day?
Dylann Roof chose to massacre those
nine innocent lives as rapture, but his ancestors and even his comrades today,
use a variety of tactics—everything from lynching, rape, bombings, redlining,
gentrification and poverty to police brutality, hyperincarceration, and
inaccessibility to healthcare.
The god of white supremacy has taken
one bite too many from the table of Black communal suffering. Its gluttonous
ways render Black life a delicacy to be eaten over and over again. However, in
the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, and as the families of the slain
lay their loved ones to rest this week, we unapologetically proclaim, “We fired
up! Can’t take it no more!”
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Ahmad Greene-Hayes is a writer and organizer from New Jersey, discerning
a call to ministry and theological study. He is also the creator of #BlackChurchSex and can be followed on Twitter @_BrothaG.