The Day God Saw Me as Black by Danyelle Thomas

Author:Danyelle Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Row House Publishing
Published: 2024-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been married. I’ve had three miscarriages. I couldn’t hold a child. I was told that I would never be nothing. I had a nervous breakdown behind my marriage; I was in an institution. The doctors said I would never be right. I almost died from anorexia. I was six months from being dead.3

She recalls a moment of despair where she tells God, “I can’t take no more” and, in suffering Christian resolve, she claims, “The Lord said it’s the process”3 required for deliverance and restoration. This is an executive-level summary of the lived experience of Black women in relationship to their churches and faith. Our faithful devotion helps us make sense of our suffering, and our deliverance is predicated on our internal adjustments rather than dismantling systemic structures. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The rarity of the carte blanche authority and power loaned to Juanita Bynum (JB) that night cannot be understated. She comes from a denomination that denies women the call and ordination to preach or pastor churches. Even in more liberal church spaces where women are affirmed in ministry, we are still subject to gender performance. A woman must be high femme to work the pew, but she must also neutralize that femininity in the pulpit to eliminate any perception of threat. In the legacy of many before her, JB’s visage that evening balances just enough feminine expression and repression to avoid alarm. Her hair reads as masculine in its shortly cropped style but is softened by skin-like makeup and delicate pearl earrings. Her two-piece suit is pussy pink but shows neither skin nor silhouette. The neckline is essentially up to her chin, and the matching skirt nearly sweeps the floor. The ensemble is formless and void, hiding any potential seduction from her grown woman body. JB solemnly observes in her opening lines of speech that “every time you mount a platform, there is a responsibility. And that responsibility is to make sure there is NO FLESH!”3 Though this statement is not exclusively addressing her appearance in context, the multiple meanings are easily understood. The moment is a masterclass in charismatic ministry. Make no mistake: Juanita is as brilliant as she is controversial. She is culturally astute in all the ways necessary to navigate the treacherous pathways of Black preachin’ women. It also makes her both a target and master guardian of church patriarchy.

On this night, Juanita takes her place on the platform and begins her exhortation saying, “The will of the Lord is in this place today. His will is here; His divine purpose is here.” No central scriptures will anchor her message; instead, No More Sheets will be preached from the sacred text of JB’s lived testimony and, as she describes, direct prophetic messages from God to birth “deliverance” within the audience. And for the next ninety minutes, she’ll assail the flesh of 52,000 mostly Black women attendees as an unholy site needing excruciating sacrifice.

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