Sherman A Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195382068
- eISBN:
- 9780199852437
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382068.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
In his controversial 1973 book, Is God a White Racist?, William R. Jones sharply criticized black theologians for their agnostic approach to black suffering, noting that the doctrine of an ...
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In his controversial 1973 book, Is God a White Racist?, William R. Jones sharply criticized black theologians for their agnostic approach to black suffering, noting that the doctrine of an ominibenevolent God poses very significant problems for a perennially oppressed community. He proposed a “humanocentric theism” which denies God’s sovereignty over human history and imputes autonomous agency to humans. By rendering humans alone responsible for moral evil, Jones’s theology freed blacks to revolt against the evil of oppression without revolting against God. This book now places Jones’s argument in conversation with the classical schools of Islamic theology. The problem confronting the black community is not simply proving that God exists, states this book, but rather establishing that God cares. No religious expression that fails to tackle the problem of black suffering can hope to enjoy a durable tenure in the black community. For the Muslim, therefore, it is essential to find a Quranic/Islamic grounding for the protest-oriented agenda of black religion. That is the task the book undertakes here.Less
In his controversial 1973 book, Is God a White Racist?, William R. Jones sharply criticized black theologians for their agnostic approach to black suffering, noting that the doctrine of an ominibenevolent God poses very significant problems for a perennially oppressed community. He proposed a “humanocentric theism” which denies God’s sovereignty over human history and imputes autonomous agency to humans. By rendering humans alone responsible for moral evil, Jones’s theology freed blacks to revolt against the evil of oppression without revolting against God. This book now places Jones’s argument in conversation with the classical schools of Islamic theology. The problem confronting the black community is not simply proving that God exists, states this book, but rather establishing that God cares. No religious expression that fails to tackle the problem of black suffering can hope to enjoy a durable tenure in the black community. For the Muslim, therefore, it is essential to find a Quranic/Islamic grounding for the protest-oriented agenda of black religion. That is the task the book undertakes here.
Kymberly N. Pinder
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039928
- eISBN:
- 9780252098086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039928.003.0007
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
This conclusion reflects on the conflation of empathetic realism and tragic space inside and outside black churches in Chicago. It examines complex issues of ownership, displacement, and tragedy that ...
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This conclusion reflects on the conflation of empathetic realism and tragic space inside and outside black churches in Chicago. It examines complex issues of ownership, displacement, and tragedy that make the black church fulfill many needs regarding refuge and racial affirmation. It considers various sites of black tragedy in Chicago, citing as an example Pilgrim Baptist Church which burned to the ground on January 7, 2006, resulting in the loss of historically significant murals, a historic landmark, and many primary documents concerning the birth of gospel music. The author places this loss in the context of “tragic tourism,” arguing that it is part of a lineage of “tragic Black spaces” in Chicago that also connect to other such sites across the country and across history. She notes that many black churches have been set on fire due to racial intimidation. She ends the discussion by emphasizing the integral role of black suffering in the activation of empathy and the diverse and shifting publics for its imagery.Less
This conclusion reflects on the conflation of empathetic realism and tragic space inside and outside black churches in Chicago. It examines complex issues of ownership, displacement, and tragedy that make the black church fulfill many needs regarding refuge and racial affirmation. It considers various sites of black tragedy in Chicago, citing as an example Pilgrim Baptist Church which burned to the ground on January 7, 2006, resulting in the loss of historically significant murals, a historic landmark, and many primary documents concerning the birth of gospel music. The author places this loss in the context of “tragic tourism,” arguing that it is part of a lineage of “tragic Black spaces” in Chicago that also connect to other such sites across the country and across history. She notes that many black churches have been set on fire due to racial intimidation. She ends the discussion by emphasizing the integral role of black suffering in the activation of empathy and the diverse and shifting publics for its imagery.
Talitha L. LeFlouria
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469622477
- eISBN:
- 9781469623283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469622477.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter narrates the account of Carrie Massie, a sixteen-year-old black girl who was convicted of murdering a well-known owner of a general store in a town near Macon, Georgia, and was sentenced ...
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This chapter narrates the account of Carrie Massie, a sixteen-year-old black girl who was convicted of murdering a well-known owner of a general store in a town near Macon, Georgia, and was sentenced to forced labor. The girl's ordeal was part of a larger story of black women's sufferings in the post-Civil War South. Freedwomen and their daughters' lives were broadly circumscribed by racial hostility, violence, terror, poverty, and exclusion. The confluence of these menacing social and economic forces, combined with a predatory legal establishment, fostered a fertile environment for notions of black female crime to emerge. Thus, the body of “Negro crime”—a subcategory of race-based criminality—demonstrated racial and gendered prejudices and a desire to create causal links between the Negros' moral, mental, sexual, and biological “inferiorities,” and their “inherent” predisposition toward delinquency.Less
This chapter narrates the account of Carrie Massie, a sixteen-year-old black girl who was convicted of murdering a well-known owner of a general store in a town near Macon, Georgia, and was sentenced to forced labor. The girl's ordeal was part of a larger story of black women's sufferings in the post-Civil War South. Freedwomen and their daughters' lives were broadly circumscribed by racial hostility, violence, terror, poverty, and exclusion. The confluence of these menacing social and economic forces, combined with a predatory legal establishment, fostered a fertile environment for notions of black female crime to emerge. Thus, the body of “Negro crime”—a subcategory of race-based criminality—demonstrated racial and gendered prejudices and a desire to create causal links between the Negros' moral, mental, sexual, and biological “inferiorities,” and their “inherent” predisposition toward delinquency.
Christen A. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039935
- eISBN:
- 9780252098093
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039935.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Tourists exult in Bahia, Brazil, as a tropical paradise infused with the black population's one-of-a-kind vitality. But the alluring images of smiling black faces and dancing black bodies masks an ...
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Tourists exult in Bahia, Brazil, as a tropical paradise infused with the black population's one-of-a-kind vitality. But the alluring images of smiling black faces and dancing black bodies masks an ugly reality of anti-black authoritarian violence. This book argues that the dialectic of glorified representations of black bodies and subsequent state repression reinforces Brazil's racially hierarchal society. Interpreting the violence as both institutional and performative, the book follows a grassroots movement and social protest theater troupe in their campaigns against racial violence. As the book reveals, economies of black pain and suffering form the backdrop for the staged, scripted, and choreographed afro-paradise that dazzles visitors. The work of grassroots organizers exposes this relationship, exploding illusions and asking unwelcome questions about the impact of state violence performed against the still-marginalized mass of Afro-Brazilians.Less
Tourists exult in Bahia, Brazil, as a tropical paradise infused with the black population's one-of-a-kind vitality. But the alluring images of smiling black faces and dancing black bodies masks an ugly reality of anti-black authoritarian violence. This book argues that the dialectic of glorified representations of black bodies and subsequent state repression reinforces Brazil's racially hierarchal society. Interpreting the violence as both institutional and performative, the book follows a grassroots movement and social protest theater troupe in their campaigns against racial violence. As the book reveals, economies of black pain and suffering form the backdrop for the staged, scripted, and choreographed afro-paradise that dazzles visitors. The work of grassroots organizers exposes this relationship, exploding illusions and asking unwelcome questions about the impact of state violence performed against the still-marginalized mass of Afro-Brazilians.
