“Beautiful mornin', you're the sun in my mornin'
You're the help I know”
The African Diaspora is widespread and diverse.
You can find our scattered hundreds of millions in communities across the globe, largely due to
the impact of Trans-Saharan, Trans-Atlantic, and Indian Ocean slave trades, as well as voluntary
migration. Many millions of stories could be told about our histories, but very few of those stories
have been told so far. Outside of academia, little discussion has been had on the ways that
those stories of the African Diaspora overlap, intertwine, diverge, and coexist with each
other and with stories of anti-colonialism, international feminism, international socialism,
Indigenous struggles, and environmental justice.
Due to the concealed nature of these
relationships, contemporary Diasporic African’s interaction with each other tend to occur only
in major cities, college campuses, or on the Internet, where we often both carry on together
and clash with each other.
The so-called “Diaspora Wars,” that obscure our real enemies—white
supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and the State—are fuelled by misconceptions, stereotypes,
miseducation, and internalized anti-Blackness, and are the natural result of both our
ignorance of our interconnectedness, but also of our unrecognized differences. These
are discourses I intend to unpack in the future. Look out for that.
Knowledge truly is power, as cliche as that phrase may be. Through education, we can come together
as a powerful force and uplift each other in solidarity. Let’s learn a little something today
about how spirituality, culture, and technology have woven together a true quilt of resistance
across the diaspora. This video was made in collaboration with Saber, so check out the video I
feature in on his channel on The Black God’s Drums and the Haitian Revolution.
Let’s begin.
Spirituality & Resistance
Saber discussed Haitian Vodou’s influence in the
Haitian revolution in his video, but Haiti isn’t the only place where spirituality has played
a role in resistance. Wherever Africans have settled, they have found a way to incorporate,
synthesize, and recreate the spiritualities of both their ancestors and their colonizers.
One of the most influential of these has been Christianity. While as much as 30% of enslaved
Africans were originally Muslim, many of them were violently coerced into Christianity by their
masters or prosletyzed by preachers, who may have been pro-slavery or anti-slavery.
At risk of
generalizing, in the US, Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers tended to be abolitionists, involved
in the Underground Railroad, though overtime, regional splits would lead to the establishment
of pro-slavery and anti-slavery subdenominations.
In the South, Methodist and Baptist preachers
would preach Bible stories that reinforced people's keeping to their places in society,
urging slaves to be obedient and loyal to their masters and emphasizing their role
as property. They cited a multitude of both Old and New Testament verses that they viewed as
promoting better treatment of slaves and arguing for a paternalistic approach. Meanwhile, other
Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches made abolitionism a condition for church
membership and sponsored Black congregations, who were developing their own thing.
Black congregations found their own interpretations of the Scriptures and found
inspiration in stories of deliverance, especially in the story of Exodus out of Egypt. Nat Turner,
Baptist preacher turned armed revolutionary, would spark an uprising that would change the
course of history in the US in 1831.
The aftermath of the revolt would lead to state legislatures
passing new laws prohibiting education of enslaved people and free Black people, restricting
rights of assembly and other civil liberties for free Black people, and requiring white
ministers’ presence at all worship services.
But the underground churches of enslaved people
would endure, with nighttime meetings of one or several plantation populations occurring without
the supervision of white masters or ministers. Usually led by a single preacher, these
meetings would blend Christianity with traditional African beliefs and rhythms,
creating the spirituals that would come to shape the past five centuries of music history.
These churches provided psychological refuge from the hell world that enslaved people had to
endure, and became a place for communication and a catalyst for rebellion. The churches
of free Black folks, especially in the North, would provide refuge and support for escaped
slaves. The Free African Society, founded in 1787, established some of the first independent Black
churches in US history and were centers of mutual aid. After emancipation, Northern churches founded
by free Black folks would send missions to the South in order to minister and teach.
As more and
more Black churches and organizations sprung up, they would continue to exercise their
autonomy from white supervision. These churches established and/or maintained the first
Black schools, funded by their community members.
However, tensions would sometimes arise between
Black churches in the North and Black churches in the South, who wanted to do things their own
way. There was also the issue of classic Biblical patriarchy, as women were barred from ordination
and had to find other ways to assert themselves, such as through missionary societies, which
sought to address various social issues organizing politically and providing food banks, education,
daycare, and job training in the Black community. Black Muslim temples would also provide support
and centers of activism to the comparatively smaller but enduring Black Muslim community. As
writer Cord Jefferson put it, “For a long time, black houses of worship doubled as war rooms
to plan protest actions and galvanize people made weary by centuries of racist violence and
legislation.” Black liberation theology and womanist theology were also born out of the Black
church, and particularly the African-American Episcopal Church, emboldening Black communities
in their fight against racism and Black women in their struggle against church patriarchy.
Black
churches also place a lot of their focus on addressing poverty, gang violence, drug abuse,
incarceration, and crumbling infrastructure.
Today, as in history, the Black church isn’t a
monolith. As Dr Julia M Speller would describe in her 1996 PhD dissertation, Unashamedly
Black and unapologetically Christian, there are several interpretive models of Black
churches. Some are Assimilationist, largely made up of middle-class Black folks who are willing to
disassociate themselves from their ethnic identity in order to integrate with white society. Some
are Isolationist, made up of lower-class Black folks who emphasize "other worldliness" and
deemphasize social action within "this world."
Some fall under the Compensatory Model,
where congregants find acceptance, appreciation, empowerment, and applause which is
often denied them within dominant society. Others fall under the Ethnic Community-prophetic Model,
which categorizes the Black churches who spoke out and undertook activism against economic and
political injustices from a heightened awareness of Black pride and power.
The final model is the
Dialectical Model, describing a tension in some churches between the priestly and the prophetic;
other-worldly and this-worldly; universalism and particularism; communalism and privatism; the
charismatic and the bureaucratic; and resistance versus accommodation. In essence, a form of
double consciousness, core to Black Existentialist thought, which I already have a video on.
The Black Church and Haitian Vodou, however, aren’t the only religions involved
in Afro-Diasporic resilience. Across the Diaspora, distinct yet
similar syncretic faiths have emerged, with varying levels of Christian influence.
In the US, Hoodoo, also called Lowcountry Vodou, incorporated various traditional West and
Central African religions and practices, Haitian Vodou, and various elements of
Indigenous botanical knowledge. Historically, hooodoo was developed by rootworkers as a form of
spiritual survival and resistance against slavery. Conjure, the practice of spiritual invocation,
united the various African ethnic groups, particularly in the form of ring shout, where
counterclockwise circle dancing was vital for ancestral communication and spirit possession.
Many rootworkers served as healers, counselors and pharmacists to enslaved people, and despite
the suppression of Hoodoo by white authorities, practitioners still gathered and
maintained their practices.
Rootworkers even helped lead slave
uprisings across the continental US. For example, in 1712, an uprising in New York was
empowered by a rootworker named Peter the Doctor who made a magical powder for the slaves to
be rubbed on the body and clothes for their protection and empowerment. Goofer dust was used
to hex slave masters and mojo bags were used as protection against the brutality of slaveholders.
The extensive botanical knowledge of rootworkers also assisted with the poisoning of their
masters. Today, Hoodoo practitioners are still active and still involved in resistance.
Black spiritual churches have incorporated Hoodoo in their practices while lending food and other
services to the Black community and rootworkers, like other religious folks, have played a role
in the Black Lives Matter movement, lending spiritual protection against police brutality.
In Trinidad & Tobago, Shango and Spiritual Baptist faiths have been traditionally linked
together, though they are distinct belief systems. Shango, also called Trinidad Orisha, is
complex and multilayered, reflecting the diverse origins of Trinidad’s citizenry.
It brings
together elements of Orisha, Christianity—both Catholic and Protestant—Hinduism, Sufi
Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Baháʼí, Kabbalah, and other traditional African religions.
In the early 19th century, West Africans in Trinidad were baptized into Catholicism en masse.
Orisha worshippers, devotees to the spirits of the Yoruba pantheon, used the paraphernalia of the
Catholic church to hide their African beliefs and practices. Saints were used as substitutes
for African deities on the altars while the real emblems of the divinities were hidden away.
Outward identification of African deities with saints served the purpose of protecting adherents
from persecution, but not all deities have a place in the Catholic pantheon and not all the
saints are identified with African divinities.
The Spiritual Baptist faith, though small, is a
distinct practice that syncretizes many different elements of traditional African religions in the
Anglophone Caribbean.
While developing organically on the plantations of various islands, a distinct
form of the Spiritual Baptist religion is believed to have been introduced to Trinidad & Tobago in
the 19th century by a group of formerly enslaved Baptist African-Americans who had been given land
for supporting Britain during the War of 1812. Most of these settlers were Gullah, an African
ethnic group settled in the states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
More on the Spiritual Baptists later.
In Cuba, the Afro-Cuban religions of Santeria,
Palo, and Abakuá have been a source of empowerment in the face of brutality, from the
Catholic church, the governments of Cuba, and white supremacist society at large. Similarly to
Trinidad Orisha, Santeria also syncretized Yoruba beliefs with Catholicism and Espiritismo, while
Palo syncretized Kongo beliefs with the latter. Since the late 20th century, Santeria has
undergone Yorubization in order to remove Roman Catholic influences from the religion.
In Brazil, the distinct yet related practices of Candomblé, Umbanda, and Quimbanda are spread
across the Afro-Brazilian population.
In North East Brazil, through enslaved people, Candomblé
emerged, the first of the three, syncretizing Catholicism with Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu
religions and, like Santeria and Trinidad Orisha, using the cult of saints to hide their practices.
Like Santeria, it is currently undergoing a process of re-Africanization. Umbanda, born at
the beginning of the 20th century in South Brazil, syncretizes various African traditional religions
with Catholicism, Espiritismo, and Indigenous American beliefs. Umbanda and Quimbanda, which
syncretizes various African traditional religions with Indigenous American beliefs, both originate
in the earlier system of Macumba. However, they split as Umbanda is perceived as representing
the “whitened” aspects of Macumba, while Quimbanda rejects those aspects.
In the 20th century, legal
protections combined with the Movimento Negro, would bring Umbanda, Quimbanda, and especially
Candomblé into the public limelight as Afro-Brazilians began embracing previously
stigmatized aspects of their identity.
For Maroons, African people who escaped slavery
and formed their own settlements across the Americas, religious practices were thoroughly
liberated from the watchful eye of slave masters, though few records are available about these
practices. I’ve spoken about the maroons before, but I plan on discussing what we can learn
from the strategy of the Maroons even more in the future, so stay tuned.
As you can probably tell, suppression is a common theme in the history
of Afro-Diasporic religious practices. The Shouter Prohibition Ordinance banned the
Spiritual Baptist faith in Trinidad from 1917 to 1951, supposedly cuz they “disturbed the peace,”
though the real reason is due to traditionalist, conservative elements of society who
saw their practices as heathen and barbaric because of their African origin.
The police had already been persecuting them for several years and the traditional religious
boards worried about the large number of people who were leaving their churches to join the
Spiritual Baptist faith. So the government responded to their complaints and the prohibition
was put into effect. Worshipers were arrested, beaten and jailed if they were caught practising
their religion, so they had to flee to the hills and forests of the island, where they would
still be pursued and brutalized by the police. Nevertheless, they survived and fought many
court battles in defense of their faith. Finally, the prohibition was lifted and these
days, though still somewhat marginalized, Trinis got a national holiday from them:
Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day on March 30, marking the prohibition’s repeal.
Mainstream society, including many Africans in the Diaspora, continues to ignorantly
perceive marginalized African religions as evil demon worship, with little interrogation of the
mainstream religions’ deep ties to conquest, murder, slavery, patriarchy, and other forms of
violence.
Across the Diaspora, different forms of spirituality, whether condoned by the mainstream
or not, have been, and continue to be, a source of support and resilience in the midst of repression,
a force for social and cultural connection, and an avenue for resistance. Unrestricted by
orthodoxy or orthopraxis, our ancestors refused to allow European slave masters to dictate their full
humanity, giving them a strong sense of identity, inspiration, and spiritual grounding that
liberated their minds to think differently and understand themselves differently.
Even if you’re fine with where you’re at right now, religion- or non religion-wise,
and you don’t feel the need for the strength, identity, or heritage that African
Diasporic religions may provide, I still think it’s important to at least do your
own research, apart from the dominant narratives and misconceptions, to decolonize your mind.
For some Afro-Diasporic people, spirituality isn’t an avenue that they are willing or
able to lean on.
Religion has been very closely tied to Black history and culture, but it
definitely isn’t for everyone. The Black church, while active in coordinating a lot of community
organizing, isn’t without its flaws.
People in the Black community, and especially
Black women, who speak out against the church risk estrangement from their families and
support networks and risk loss of social status. Patriarchal ideas continue to harm predominantly
female congregations, while respectability politics plagues many Black churches’ approach to
social issues. In the socially conservative space of many Black churches, queer Black folks are
often openly opposed, while issues like HIV/AIDS are stigmatized and ignored. Fear of damnation
is weaponized to keep the congregation in check, while prayer is used as a substitute for
much needed mental or physical healthcare. And some preachers have gotten absurdly
wealthy off of their poor congregations. So many Black folks have left the church over
the years.
Still Black atheists and agnostics are made invisible by popular perceptions
of atheism as a “white thing.”
Black atheists and secular humanists know all
too well the social consequences of their lack of belief. But they too have been involved in the
struggle against white supremacy and capitalism, despite the widespread ignorance of their
involvement, and they aren’t going anywhere. So where do they fit in?
A humanist current has been present in the Black struggle for a long time now, and I plan
on delving into Black Humanism in a future video, but for now, all you need to know is that
humanists are concerned with life here and now, and what we can do as human beings to solve
our problems and take control of our destiny. For Black humanists and atheists like
Chandler Owen, A.
Phillip Randolph, James Farmer, James Foreman, and Tai Solarin,
this meant getting involved in civil rights, workers rights, and socialist struggles. Though
many of them had to conceal their lack of faith, their influence on the movement was great
nevertheless. As our intersectional struggle builds its momentum, if we wish to
live in a truly liberated society, we will need to make space for a plurality
of voices and perspectives unlike our own. A world of many worlds.
The cultural communication between enslaved people and between free Black
people was and is central to the development and proliferation of Afro-Diasporic religions and
philosophies.
As we continue to intermingle today, developing more resilient and effective forms
of communication will be vital for our continued struggle for freedom.
Culture & Resistance
Our cultures have been cultures of
expressive communication. Carnival, which I’ve covered before on this channel, has
its roots in flamboyant acts of resistance. Reggae, calypso, hip hop, and more have
been vehicles for political thought and emotional expression. We’ve managed to find
solace in the spirituals of our cultures and found power in the precision of a well-worded
chant. We’ve incorporated our bodies in our forms of resistance, whether through the
hidden messages in the canerows of our hair or through the fighting force hidden in the
apparent dance and acrobatics of capoeira.
Today, the covert and overt communicative power
of art plays a pivotal role in our resistance, from street art to protest music to poems to
e-pamphlets. But I think we can take things much further. We need secure, private, and communally
controlled social media that can connect us, confederate us, and coordinate our efforts towards
building an alternative to capitalist society.
The Black Socialists in America are working to
build a Dual Power app to assist with this. For those curious, the concept behind dual power
describes a situation of coexistence, where two powers, one working class and one capitalist,
compete for legitimacy in the transition away from capitalism. According to the Dual Power
App website, it’ll be a platform that “provides a framework for building direct democracy in
every sphere of society, including the economy, with tools for founding, funding, governance,
and internal + external communications.” The design so far looks amazing.
But I’ll let
Saber take it from here, as he delves into the role of technology in diasporic resistance.
Technology & Resistance
We have used technology throughout
history to extend our capabilities; bringing into being tools that otherwise
would have only existed in the realm of the imagination. Considering the scale of the
issues we face this century, it is imperative that we awaken the creative, innovative energy
that resides within each of us to come together as a global community to solve these problems.
– In the past 500 years, colonizers have used technology to control and restrain our bodies.
In order to maintain their system of enslavement, it required massive investments
in developing weapons of war, chains, branding devices, ships and whips.
– Since the early 20th century, the technologies that are being developed are becoming increasingly
digitized.
Yes, the innovations in the tech industry can be impressive, but we can't let these
flickering screens distract us from looking at those who own and control these devices. In his
Book, Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine explains how the development of the internet has been tied
to US military interests since the very beginning, and in the 21st century, evermore sophisticated
tools are being developed and maintained with the help of some big tech companies.
– In spite of this, it is possible to use these tools to our own ends, just as our ancestors
have used tools of the oppressors to liberate themselves, namely the Haitians who seized any
tool they could find, whether it was a gun or a canon or a sword, or a pen.
I made a video on
the Haitian revolution, so feel free to check that out after this. Today, our analysis must factor
in the ever dissolving boundary between space and cyberspace. For instance, we must look at how
our data is being used to generate obscene wealth for a handful of companies, while we don't
see a penny of the value that's generated. Controlling our data is one way to combat this. The Matrix communication protocol aims to help
in this regard. Despite its dystopian name, it seems rather promising. Matrix allows us
to run servers that can be used for direct, peer to peer communication.
The protocol
can be used with multiple interfaces that resemble the applications that are all used
to, such as WhatsApp, Discord or Telegram, but there are also interfaces that resemble the
terminal, and even interfaces that run on devices like the 3DS. All of which can be configured
to connect together in a decentralized way; it's even possible to create interfaces of our
own based on our needs, for example, we could create an interfaces that are oriented towards the
African diaspora which could help us connect as a global community while maintaining our privacy.
– Another promising platform being developed is the dual power app, which is a platform that
provides a framework for organizing toward a worker-owned economy. The app is being produced
by the Black Socialists in America which is a coalition of New Afrikans who believe that the
workers should control the means of production in a directly democratic and decentralized
fashion.
Leveraging platforms like Matrix or the Dual Power App may only be one step
in the long road towards our liberation, but they can help us build more democratic global
networks and stronger communities, which is especially important for the African diaspora.
Thanks Saber. All that’s needed now is diasporic solidarity. I’ve already spoken extensively about
building international solidarity in the past, so I won’t repeat myself here.
The connections are there. We just need to transform our dialogue into
something more meaningful. Mutual aid already forms the backbone of many of our communities and
I believe we can put prefiguration into practice. All power to the people. All
power to all the people.
Peace.
Outro
Thank you for watching. Thanks once again
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