#TreasuresofDarkness, Day 10. Genesis 9:22-The Curse of Ham; The Damning of a Nation
This particular post is probably going to anger some and shock others but, prophetic language and testimony is not sanitized for any reason, but authentic for all the reasons.
When I first read through Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas’s work, “What’s Faith Got to Do with it: Black Bodies/Christian souls, I must confess that I was on the verge of questioning why as People of the African Diaspora here in the United States, that we had even adopted this faith tradition and religion as one of our spiritual expressions.
Slavery did not just happen out of the blue.
It was a calculated plan of pre-meditated assault, violence, hypersexualization and murder.
“Christianity,” she writes “made for an even more insidious bond with white culture. Plationized Christianity's concurrence with white supremacist ideology fostered a religious racism that continues to influence Black lives when it comes to the Black body, the bodies of others, and Black faith.”
Thomas Jefferson, whom this country holds up as a hero, wrote extensive papers and spoke about the inferiority of African Descent people. Hear these words from Jefferson: “Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior…They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration.” In his words, it was religion-white Christianity that Phyllis Wheatly came to being but she could never be a poet.
Jefferson further states that People of African descent were far too ruled by emotions instead of reason; that we were controlled by our Black Bodies instead of our minds. Therefore, the labels of these Black bodies were of animals, of sub par intelligence and of hyper/bestial sexuality; being an affront to Plationized Christianity which equals anything to do with the body, sexually was evil. That emotion and compassion was a sign of mental illness; that mind/reason was the only was in which a citizen was to act accordingly and with morality hand in hand.
Regardless of whether people wish to see the truth or not, because of what was indoctrinated both through legislation, church doctrine and popular thought gave rise to enslavement of my Ancestors, and that the only salvation for their Black Bodies was, death. That they must suffer for not being (or the assumption) of being, living and worshiping as rational human beings; for not being white.
This destruction of sacred Bodies, whether they are of the African Diaspora or otherwise is still happening.
Below, is my own poetry from three years ago.
Ache’
The institutionalization
of Christianity,
has destroyed
decimated
People of African Descent,
and has given rise,
to the birth
and the acceptance
of
Racism
by
a
dominant
White
America.
Edward Yamauchi in his work Africa and the Bible,
shines some light on the curse of Ham,
the stigma of both sin and shame-
The shame of BLACKNESS
passed throughout concurrent generations
and the effect upon an entire race of people,
based on the color of their skin.
“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.”
This scriptural affirmation is also found in Genesis 25:9
“Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
In the work edited by Dr Emilie Townes,
A Troubling in my Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering,
the groundwork for the marginalization and dehumanization
as humanity pitted itself against one another
lies in the concept of evil;
in other words,
“socially constructed evil
involves patterns of relationships
that are directed toward the denial of human dignity
and value of some human beings
for the benefit of other human beings.”
Or rather,
disconnect with viewing others as viable and equal.
As Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas
also affirms this in her work
What’s Faith Got to Do with It: Black Bodies/Christian Souls,
The Hamitic curse evolved further during the Enlightenment movement;
The rise of Platonized Christianity-
which as she argues
“the task for Platonized Christianity was to support white cultural
presupposition without contesting the “truth” of the biblical witness.
I was not aware of this curse, until I entered Seminary. It bothers me as I am out in the world, that there are those who see who I am, because of the color of my skin-
…as less than.
That because they were the colonizing force
The oppressive Empire
The evil that attempted
to poison susceptible minds
Racist White People…
I don’t think I have any words.
But,
My People
Are putting this racist world
On
Notice
THIS so-called CURSE
Will
Be
Broken.
ASE!
The curator of this blog, the Rev. Kwame Pitts wants you to know she takes this curse of Ham business seriously, that she doesn’t care who she pisses off, that she is tired of racist attitudes in the American context and through influences from Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas to Dr. Linda Thomas, Dr. JoAnne Marie Terrell and Dr. Tracey Hucks, she is embarking on a S.T.M degree on the subject of #decolonizingGodsName and the renewal of African Traditional Religions as resources for People of Color’s Liberation and Restoration.