African Americans are still disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic. And the epidemic is heavily concentrated in urban enclaves like Boston, Detroit, New York, Newark, Washington, D.C., and the Deep South.
Race is a social construct and not a biological fact. However, the deleterious effects of America’s dominant black/white racial paradigm excludes other racial groups whose skin color and phenotype complicate the racist model.
In the spirit of our connected struggles for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this Thanksgiving, we should not solely focus on the story of Plymouth Rock. Instead, as Americans, we should focus on creating this nation as a solid rock that rests on a multicultural and democratic foundation.
I was recently asked: “What should be the mandate for today’s Black Churches? ” I believe one of the mandates for today’s Black Churches is to address its ongoing struggle with the spectrum of human sexuality.
Entertaining Long’s sexual addiction as a believable explanation for the killings diverts attention from his acts of intentional xenophobia and racialized misogyny. The fetishization of Asian American and Pacific Island women has constantly made their lives expendable to sex traffickers and men’s violent fantasies.
The year 2020 has been a stressful one. With George Floyd’s death as an inflection point about race and racism in America, an unprecedented presidential election, and social unrest during an ongoing pandemic with a rising death toll, something is deeply broken in America’s body politic.
John Lewis, the ‘conscience of Congress’, preached a lived theology and activism of “good trouble.” Good trouble was the work of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and it was an expression of Lewis’s faith. The immediacy of his “good trouble” was heard in his jeremiads, inviting all to action. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Lewis repeatedly said throughout his lifetime.
In a responsible response to the coronavirus outbreak, also known as COVID-19, church and worship services across the globe are canceled. Traditional Bible study has gone online. Sermons are watched on Zoom, and old videos of singing church choirs have popped up in my inbox. Our global engagement with one another right now is social distancing while staying connected, revealing our acts of spiritual communion.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” in Luke 23:34 has always troubled me, because it is the first of the seven utterances by Jesus on the cross. I’ve been taught that the act of forgiveness is a sign of spiritual mettle and grace under fire. And, as an African American, the act of forgiveness appears to be our immediate go-to place in the face of unimaginable racial horror done to us.
Both the virgin birth and physical resurrection are the pillars of the Christian faith, and many Christians struggle with both concepts.