Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley

Author:Esau McCaulley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new testament;black church;black biblical interpretation;african american biblical interpretation;black theology;african american hermeneutics;black hermeneutics;biblical interpretation;hermeneutics;policing;racial justice;black rage;black identity;black anger;black church tradition;slavery;history of the black church;black church theology;bible reading in black church tradition;black biblical interpretation
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2020-07-24T11:39:35+00:00

SIX

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THIS RAGE?

THE BIBLE AND BLACK ANGER

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

JAMES BALDWIN

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18 NIV

I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD the first time someone called me a nigger. It all began around midmorning when I started to feel sick at Rolling Hills Elementary School. I was not a kid prone to escape the classroom. My mother worked during the day, and there was no one to take care of me if I fell ill. On this particular day I was in bad enough shape to call my mother at her factory job at Chrysler. I dutifully went to the school office, where they dialed the number that was on the emergency contact card and handed me the phone. I asked to speak to Laurie McCaulley, but the speaker said that I had the wrong number and abruptly hung up the phone. I told the office manager to try again in case she dialed the wrong number. Again she dialed the number and gave me the phone. Again, I nervously asked for Laurie McCaulley. The man on the other line angrily said something along the lines of “I told you that you have the wrong number. . . . Can’t you niggers even use the phone?” before again hanging up.

I was aware of my blackness before that phone call. But prior to that conversation, my blackness was wrapped up in the soothing warmth of normalcy. My church was Black; my school was Black, and my sports teams were Black. When we cleaned our home, Black soul music shouting that “I am Black and I am proud” played in the background. At the time, I had no idea that James Brown was sounding a note of protest against the dehumanization of Black persons. His defiance went unheard. On the phone that morning, I experienced my blackness as the object of derision. I remember wondering how he could tell that I was Black without seeing me. Was it my diction or the register of my voice? Did my blackness seep through the phone and offend his sensibilities? I also recall the rage building alongside my awareness of my powerlessness. I had been emotionally assaulted, but there was no way to respond. I was helpless before this white man who didn’t know me. The sickness that led me to the office that day morphed into a sense of dread. I think that I knew that this was the beginning, not the end of my indignities.1

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