History

History is a study of the past. It lives today in our experience of society and how society functions. History becomes complex in a pluralistic society when shaped by the conscious and unconscious biases of the dominant perspective. Those with collective power are often the ones who document what happened as well as how and why, in addition to what is omitted.

The significance of history is realized in understanding how the events of yesteryear influence the circumstances of today. On a collective scale, it is similar to learning about the past of one's family - the joys and the sorrows - to understand how it influences who the person is now. 

Any human with the gift of reason and any experience of the Divine should recognize racism born of white body supremacy as a grave sin created by individuals, and implemented and perpetuated by systems for five centuries. The sins of individuals for economic gain became the sins of a nation for economic gain and sanctioned by gross distortions of Christian Scripture. I am not speaking of the personal challenges of me or my ancestors in isolation, but the institutionalized oppression of a people because of the flawed construct of racial superiority, and the creation of the false god of the economy. 

This oppression is seen in the European colonization of states and redrawing of borders in other lands. In the Americas, this ideology first targeted the indigenous peoples and then the kidnapped African peoples. In some manner, it has subsequently attacked all peoples of color who call this land home - even those who may choose to now self-identify as white. Unfortunately, it festers because too many of the dominant group have been trained not to see or question it.

Growing up as a child in Alabama, we were taught a state-sanctioned curriculum of the history of the state, the nation, and western civilization with a primary attention given to Americans of European ancestry and, in particular, the countries of western Europe. People of color as well as the economically disadvantaged were referenced, if at all, as bystanders to the lives of others instead of for the contributions and sacrifices they made.

Some textbooks falsely and intentionally taught that my ancestors were happy with things as they were, and never addressed the rebellions of enslaved people. In this moment of the year 2020, I declare before God, in all of God's holy names, that my ancestors were never happy to have been kidnapped in Africa, chained and shackled, thrown into the bottom of a ship, and sold as property. They were never happy to have been robbed of their names, their lives, their families, their language, their culture and all that they knew in their African homeland. They were never happy to work for the exclusive economic gain of those serving at the altar of the god of the economy.