Hi Dojo readers,
At this moment in our nation’s history we are seeing major cultural upheaval. Discussions of systemic racial injustice are happening…and many of them quickly devolve into generalized slogans (“Black Lives Matter!” “ALL Lives Matter!” “Defund the Police!” “Back the Blue!” “Tear Down Statues!” “Heritage Not Hate!” etc. etc. etc.) with the result that people end up talking—or shouting—past one another.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been having some honest dialogues with a number of my black brothers in Christ about these things. In a recent thread on Facebook, one of my closest friends Olatunde Howard shared some comments with myself and our mutual friend Rev. Cyril Simmons which I thought were so profound that I asked him if he would let me share them as a guest post here on the Dojo blog.
I have known Olatunde for over 20 years now and he is one of my most trusted voices of depth and insight in all things. He was a former law enforcement officer in Florida and is now a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist here in North Carolina. He shared a video on his Facebook feed where he discussed the concept of the American Revolution and what a comparable event might be for black Americans, wondering aloud if we were in such a moment now. I asked him what specifically such a revolution might look like, and whether it would need to result in a new country/entity in order to be truly comparable. Here is an excerpt from our discussion that I found so deeply profound, and that I want to offer to Disciple Dojo readers for consideration…
I want to define our terms, specifically the term “revolution,” using the fundamental ideologies of Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. (I am thinking through these ideologies to ultimately answer the question JM asked, and to expound on the [Malcolm X] video Cyril shared…The ideologies about revolution in the Malcom X excerpt reflect his earlier thoughts about race relations in America; he later changed his views when he left the Nation of Islam, no longer viewing all whites as “white devils” and welcoming their limited participation in the “revolution” of black people, viewing blacks as those who would ultimately take back their own liberty. Malcolm came to respect and unite with King towards the end of both of their lives, with Malcom coming closer to the ideology of King, and King coming somewhat closer to Malcom’s ideology. How so? By their ideas of what the black revolution would look like; by realizing that they were never really at odds with each other fundamentally, though they were at odds in terms of methodology. Yet even their methodologies didn’t totally disagree.
For example, King agreed with Malcom X about the right blacks had to physically defend their families if their own families were attacked. Where King disagreed with X was only in the context of blacks taking up arms in a kind of civil war/ violent revolution...not because King didn’t agree that revolutions tended to require violent resistance, but because violent resistance would have been futile for black Americans, who were grossly disadvantaged in terms of taking up arms.
And King agreed that bloodshed is necessary for revolutions...but this is where Malcom didn’t understand the power of nonviolent resistance, and where King ironically started to question whether non-violent resistance could be sustained and result in a black revolution. Here is where I want to define the term “revolution.”
When I speak of revolution, I’m saying a revolution is the overthrowing or overturning of an unjust/unrighteous government or governmental system in order to replace it with a just/righteous government or system. This does typically require bloodshed, and this does typically focus on land, like Malcom X said. Where X and King differed is on WHOSE blood is shed. In other words, a “revolutionary” can be one who is willing to shed blood to overthrow an evil system (Malcom X’s view), or one who is willing to bleed to overthrow the system (King’s view.)
This is where I begin to answer your question JM. This is where I begin to show what a black revolution would look like today, and how it could be as decisive as the American Revolution celebrated on July 4th.
If I take the essential ideologies of King and X, taking the truths of where they both were coming from, I see the truest revolution having already taken place by the cross of Christ, who shed his blood to overturn and overthrow Satan’s oppression of men and women by sin; Satan is the slavemaster, this world his plantation, sin his shackles, sinners his slaves.
Jesus shed his own blood when he came. (THE Revolution.)
But Jesus WILL shed blood when he comes again. (THE culmination of THE revolution.)
Yet what did Jesus accomplish in the revolution?
I would say he accomplished what I said in our first interaction, JM: a new identity, and thus a new humanity--as the last Adam and the second Man. Before there is land or territory, there is identity--usually demarcated by some kind of flag or banner. Identity is the key to a revolution, or the change of identity. And yes, shedding blood, or blood being shed is typically what’s necessary. But what IS blood shed, or shedding blood, ultimately?
It’s being willing to die rather than bow to a false god, or to a false godless system.
It’s being true to a God given identity uncompromisingly. This results in a paradigm shift, a worldview overturned. Taking no part of the fruitless deeds of darkness, but instead exposing them. Think about it.
Why would a plantation with over a hundred slaves not overthrow one slave master and one overseer on a plantation? Their worldview! Their paradigm. They believed a lie:
The master’s power. The master as superior. Slavery and oppression are founded on deception. This country is founded on a lie, on a deception. Systemic racism is a lie hiding in plain sight. So what would a revolution look like James-Michael? I’ll give illustrations leading to a conclusion.
Illustration 1.
Remember what I shared when Barak Obama became president, how I said that when I went outside after he was elected, I LITERALLY and PHYSICALLY felt like I was in a new world. It felt exactly like I felt when I went to Israel. I pointed out how going to London did not result in a physical paradigm shift for me because I could see a connection between London and Baltimore, or Maine. I knew that the people who built neighborhoods in London thought about houses the same way as those who now lived in Maine. They had the same view of the physical world, of houses, of neighborhoods. This was NOT the case in Israel. I knew that Israeli architects thought differently than European architects. They viewed the world, the physical world, the world of architecture, differently.
Obama becoming president made me feel like I was literally in a new America. And those who espoused MAGA seemed to feel the same way I did...but they didn’t like it! Their world was being overturned by a new identity. By Barak simply being who he is. His very presence tore down an image of America. Which shows that the tearing down of images is one of the keys to the revolution I’m speaking of.
Illustration 2.
I spoke about the tearing down of statues honoring racists as fundamental to revolution, fundamental to overturning the lie of the Judeo-Christian Nation. Tearing down these statues, changing the names of buildings that honor racists, or even writing a musical where the founding of this country is depicted by a primarily non-British/European cast...each of these lead me to what a true revolution is...one that of course requires blood, but the blood required has already been shed by Christ--as it is written, “They overcame Satan by the blood of the lamb AND THE WORD OF THEIR TESTIMONY.” [Revelation 12:11]
As it is also written about Paul and Silas (disciples of Christ): "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too…” [Acts 17:6]
How did they turn the world upside down? The truth! Truth for which they were willing to shed their blood. Truth based on the shed blood of Jesus.
What does this look like JM? We who know and are sanctified by the truth literally rewrite American history and live accordingly.
That to me is what IS happening when monuments are being torn down. We are simply telling the truth: These men were white supremacists--and we renounce them. And in renouncing them, in erasing their names from our buildings, we become true Americans in a true America--a nation that was supposedly established to renounce oppression.
Think about this. Think about how revolutions are really based on declarations--
on words. For example
My identity changed from being an unmarried man to being a married man by me and Lucy simply saying words--vows. And by the words of our vows and the words of the marriage license we became husband and wife. Our new identity resulted in a new authority over territory. Without a change in identity, there is no authority over territory.
What does this look like?
I think it will look like us rewriting everything! The Declaration of “Independance,” in which the natives are passively referred to as “savages.” It looks like us literally telling the truth about them and their place in their country--and living accordingly--no longer resigning to reservations as if they are prisoners of war in their own land. It looks like the truth about the immigrants who came here, and the hidden European contract in which all Europeans can blend in and become new people, the real “melting pot” of the Irish, English, Scottish, French, Italian, and Spanish--the light complexion of Europeans being their unspoken distinction. It looks like the truth that this nation is not and never was Christian. It looks like American Christians telling the truth about about the natives of this country, and the descendants of slavery: that both are made in the image and likeness of God, and that neither had to renounce their identities to join a false humanity: white humanity. To show that unity does not mean uniformity or conformity.
But before the implementation of the new “America,” there has to be a renouncing of the old...and I believe this is what’s happening decisively. That’s what I meant in my video. I don’t know of another time in history where America has been called out to renounce the lie like today.
How does systemic racism exist? By the systemic racists “suppressing the truth,” and “exchanging the truth for the lie--worshipping the creature” (themselves) “rather than the Creator” (of every ethnicity.)
The revolution is the blessing of Abraham carried out in race relations: that through Abraham’s seed (Christ Jesus, the Lord), all nations and families on earth ARE BLESSED by God through faith in Jesus. Not cursed. Not despised by simply being born with a dark complexion. Not required to become white, in the same way that Gentiles were not required to become Jews. The Gentiles didn’t have to take a “Jewish name” or “Christian name,” as if their very ethnicity was iniquity.
The lie has to be exposed: whiteness exists. It has been made the standard by which humanity is measured in America and in the world. It has become an idol, a false god that non-whites must conform to or bow to. It must be renounced.
-Olatunde Howard
July 5th, 2020